The week before last, we shared with our readers and listeners an invitation to join me, along with Rabbi Meir Azari of Tel Aviv, in a far-reaching conversation about Israel, Israeli society, American Jews and Israel, and much more. Several hundred of our readers did sign up, but of course there were many for whom the time wasn’t good.
So later this week, we’ll be sharing the recording of that video, and then affording all our readers a chance to ask questions based on the conversation. We’ll answer those, we hope, in a separate video conversation, to which we’ll once again invite our listeners.
As we often do on Sundays, we begin the week with a quick glimpse at some telling pages from this weekend’s Israeli Hebrew press. Todays, the covers of two of the Magazine Sections of Yedi’ot Ahronot, Israel’s centrist, best-selling Israeli daily.
We begin with the cover of the “Musaf” section, the design of which is rather striking (and clever) and sports the main (white) headline
“Another Week at the Office”
Below that white headline, a litany of issues Netanyahu will have to address this week (and the list is far from complete)—a list that serves as a telling reminder of how virtually everything here is in flux.
Everything is on Netanyahu’s head: The resignation of the Haredi parties. The morass in Syria. The ongoing war and the bloodletting in Gaza. The killing of Gazans at the aid distribution points. Obstacles in the hostage deal. A new front against the Attorney General. The battles surrounding his court case. ◼️ But then the [Knesset’s] summer recess is just around the corner, and after the Holidays, God knows …
And then, the cover of the Real Estate Magazine.
How many real estate sections have you seen that have as their cover photograph a building that’s been destroyed by a ballistic missile?
Only in Israel.
The main point of the front page is a fact that Israelis may not have known before the recent Iran war, but that we now know all too well—about 70% of Israeli homes have no safe room and no shelter in their buildings.
In this new era, in which the threats we face are not 1950’s Fedayeen sneaking across the border, terrorist bombs on buses, Saddam’s poison gas, Hamas’ rockets, Hezbollah’s missiles or drive by shootings in major cities—but rather, ballistic missiles from Iran and Yemen (that’s so far—could there be more to follow?), something about the protection of Israelis’ homes simply has to change. Now.
White and Blue Headline:
“The greater the destruction, the greater the opportunity.”
Smaller headline on the white banner, below the blue:
Tens of thousands of properties across Israel were damaged in the war with Iran, and the results are both worrisome and dangerous. Repairing this extensive damage, which will require massive reconstruction projects, is now dependent on a construction industry that has not yet recovered from October 7.
But from here, there’s nowhere to go but up.
The cooperation of the local authorities, private investment and governmental offices, alongside a national pride that ought not be dismissed, are cause for measured optimism. Now, everyone needs to heed the lessons and to strengthen and protect buildings everywhere—and fast.
Though things can always change as things on the ground unfold, our tentative plans for this week include:
Monday: The video podcast mentioned above (a very brief clip is posted at the top of this page) between Rabbi Meir Azari and me. We’ll be crowdsourcing some questions and responses for us to respond to in due course.
Tuesday: What happens when a teacher in a secular kindergarten in the Tel Aviv area tells the kids that it was God who created reptiles without legs? A bit of a WhatsApp theological and political conversation, that offers a humorous but also interesting insight into the priorities and concerns of secular Israeli parents in their 30’s.
Wednesday: Izhar Armoni, an Israeli venture capitalist, had a unique idea about how to repopulate the south (Gaza envelope) and the north, with the populations that were thinking seriously about not returning. What would it take? Making education and communal life better there than they ever had been before, indeed better than they are in much of the rest of Israel. In this week’s podcast, we hear from Izhar about his project, Habaita/Homeward.
Thursday: The Druze and the Jews. In the tragic story about Syria’s Druze community last week and the response of Israel’s Druze population, there’s an important lesson for Diaspora Jews to learn, as well. This week’s essay will address that often unspoken—and admittedly not terribly politically correct—message.
