[00:00:00] Speaker A: The questions, the big questions, I think they are religious and cultural. The big questions, or interesting questions are regarding halacha, regarding Judaism, regarding how do you practice, how do you design your yeshiva, your rabbis, your synagogue, how you look, how you. What's your relation to, I don't know, to women's role in religious life, LGBT? Are they okay within you, in your community? And all these are the big questions that are dividing Tiono Datit right now.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Hello and welcome back to another episode.
[00:00:57] Speaker C: Of the Corinthians Podcast.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Thank you so much for joining us again. We have a wonderful episode lined up.
[00:01:03] Speaker C: For you this week.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: We are going to be joined by Yair Ettinger, journalist and author lecturer, who has a focus on religious life in Israel, specifically the interaction between the Haredi and the religious zionist communities, both with each other, but also with the state itself. Yair is the author of the disputes unravelling religious Zionists, which is his first book in English. It was translated by a friend of the podcast, Elon Levy. And fraid was a runner up for this year's national Jewish Book award. We're incredibly excited to hear Yair's Torah al Raghalachat. So without further ado, let's get to it.
[00:01:41] Speaker D: We are delighted to be joined by Yair Etinga here in the Corinth offices. Yair, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Are you?
[00:01:48] Speaker D: And to get us started, can you teach us your Torah al Raghallahat?
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Okay, so I didn't have one, but I looked at the parashat shavua, so I can get any Torah like I had from every parasha, right? And so there is a saying for the Dayanim, for shuftim Shamoh Benachem. So I'm not a judge. I'm not a Dayan. I'm only a journalist. But this is something that I sort of, my idea of, of being a journalist in israeli society is hearing all sides. What I'm trying to say is that journalists are, by definition, we are critics.
We have criticism about things that we see, that we how understand things that happen around us. But I think that it's really important to talk to everyone and to understand. And Ben Chachem, this is also very important because I think I'm critic, I'm criticizing, I'm asking questions, but I think that I'm trying to be a loving critic. This is something that happens between brothers. And I always recall one of my first conversations with my editor, editors David Landau Zikonal, that he was the chief editor of Areitz. He was a very interesting personality. He was also very firm and very critic of israeli society. And he said to me that he asked me to go to cover when he sent me to cover the Haredi bit. So he said, what do they do? Because people in journalists that covered Haredi society, orthodox society, usually go after the power, the money, and questions of see things very cynically. And he said, okay, what do haradim do? And this is, this is your mission to go to listen, shamoah. And he didn't use that Pasuk, but I think that he would identify with this idea. So Shamo ibn Hachem, this is something. But if we are in Parshat Varim now, but if you, if we were to meet next week, so maybe we'll be something similar.
[00:04:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's a huge amount to unpack there.
A good jumping off point would be to look at your book. Frayed, the disputes unraveling richer Zionist. So before we dive into, what do the haredim do? Or what's our role as Datilo Ami? As religious Zionists in society, it's probably good to have some definitions. So al Raghadakhat, still, what to you is religious Zionist? What is Datil Umi?
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Okay, so Datil Umi is, uh, it's a movement. It's a very important movement. First of all, it's kind of orthodoxy. It's modern orthodoxy. People who are obeying halacha rabbis, they have authority, but at the same time, they are, they're the open to what happens in, in the, in the west, in secular world. And sometimes this is an explosion. Sometimes there is tension between the two lines, and there is always the national side. Nationality, national identity. This is very, very important in the team Lumim. And what I see is that all the team Lumim are national, are orthodox.
Most of them would wave one of three flags, Eret Israel, Tawat Israel am Israel.
And at the same time, they would see it very differently. Some people from or different communities within the team Lumim would view these flags in different way, would interpret things differently. And there are so many ways of being the team Lumin today. There is no one way. And what I'm interested in is the disputes that the ideological, also sociological, but ideological, political, religious, different religious identities within the teleum community.
[00:06:44] Speaker D: So you mentioned before kind of your first mission when David Land Al Sanyom was looking at the Haredi community. So what was it that then led you to at the time, write the hebrew edition promim. That then became frayed? What made you kind of refocus on the Datilomi world.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: I am still focused on haredim as well. So all religious, orthodox, non orthodox field in Israel, also politics, religion and state. So this is a very wide topic. But the team namim took my attention because I saw so many disputes, so many disputes regarding religious and state, for instance, that you see the team Lumin from different ends of the dispute, fighting about Rabbanuth. The most, the people who support Rabbanut as an institute would be Datim Lumi. But at the other end, there are no reform Jews or secular Jews. People from that same camp, maybe people from the same ideology, they're fighting or challenging the Rabbanut. Rashid and this is something that I saw gradually during the years that you see the team Lumin are the players in different issues and disputes.
So at the end, I saw that there is a lot to dig there, a lot to see what's happening there, because and also, I think, not so many.
The team really love to write about themselves and to talk about themselves and to to ask, where are we going? What is our identity? And there is a lot in there because I think that mainly in the last two decades, you see so many dramatic changes because the team Lumim, that were always somewhere in the fringe of israeli politics, israeli society, now they are coming to the center. They are having. They are really the new elite of Israel. They are really, you can see them everywhere, but you cannot say, who are they really? Are they Bennett? Are they a smotridge?
What are they? So they are becoming very central and very much afraid.
[00:09:27] Speaker C: So you talk about how certainly in the last five or so years, maybe a bit more, that religious Zionism has become much more mainstream.
And whether it's you have Smotrich and Ben Gurion sitting in the government or you have Bennett as the prime minister, this mainstream, not resurgence, but this surge of mainstream visibility of the religious zionist movement, and yet there's this undercurrent of, I think, the title of the book gives away. It's not like fracture. There's no, like, big rift between the communities, but this sort of fraying at the edges where people are disagreeing about fundamental issues.
Where do you think is the most critical thing, where the Dar Luomi community is sort of where it is coming away at the edges despite the sudden success of the community, and yet there's all these different things. What are those central core disagreements?
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Okay, so I think if you're looking at the team Lou meme, from the beginning, the national identity was really central, but the national questions were different in different phases of history.
I grew up in the eighties where I remember there was a really big dispute regarding Eret Israel Ashlemma versus shtachim tumourat Shalom. And it wasn't really, I mean, Mafdal, maybe half a generation before I grew up, there were really tensions within the gushimunim versus like the old, old guard of Varhaftig and Shapira and Bug. So they didn't like so much settlements and the settlement movement. But I still, when I grew up, I saw there were like really disputes regarding those issues of Eretis redes tema. I think those days are over. I think most of the team Lumin today are really somewhere, maybe not settlers, but they are pro right wing. There are. I mean, and also things happen, right? All Israel moved to the right. And I think the option of peace agreement is really not really on the table, to say the least.
But I think. And then there were so many dramas. There were the assassination of Rabin, Oslo, and then this engagement. What I'm saying that I think that after this engagement, all the small disputes or tensions or nuance that you had between the team Luomim, regarding the question of right wing, left wing are over. So what happened? What is still really the question? The questions, the big questions, I think they are religious and cultural. Religious and cultural. These big questions or interesting questions are regarding halacha, regarding Judaism, regarding how do you practice, how do you. How do you design your Judaism, how do you. What is. How is your school look like, your yeshiva, your rabbis, your synagogue, how you. How you look, how you.
What's your relation to, I don't know, to women's role in religious life, LGBT? Are they okay within you, in your community?
And all these are the big questions that are dividing tuna datit right now it's about Shamut, about being conservative, small c, and being more with, I don't know, western values of egalitarian values. These are the main, I think the main questions that you see, you would.
[00:13:50] Speaker D: Think that almost, it would correlate the other way. That kind of at a time when religious Zionism is focused on the big national kind of diplomatic, political questions, then there would be this surge of, like, the focus of religious Zionists in the political and. But what you're saying is actually, while the forefront or the core discussions in the religious zionist world are religious and cultural, then we've seen at the same time this big surge in the political world. So how does that fit together?
[00:14:22] Speaker A: Okay, come again? I'm not sure I get that, as.
[00:14:26] Speaker D: They were saying, kind of pre 2005 until the hidden occurrence, until disengagement, the big core discussions or debates in the religious island worlds were all political. The big diplomatic, national policy questions, that's where the disputes were at. And then after the 2005, it became a lot more about the kind of internal religious, cultural questions that you mentioned. But now we've seen in the background of those religious and cultural debates, actually, as we said before, kind of the presence of datilu Mi figures in the political world is more than it's ever been. So how's that? Because it doesn't really fit together. You would think it would be the other way.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Okay, first of all, it's really big. It's really why there are many representatives of the team. Luim, just to say Knesset. If we're talking about the Knesset, there are seven different political parties with the team. Liu mem, not only the party, that is the team.
And I would say that there are still disputes regarding policies, regarding politics.
Benvir is not Matankahana, though both of them would identify themselves in the right wing. Both of them are for settlements. It's not. But the debate is regarding the question of Mamlaktiyut. How are you? Are you clashing with the system, with the mamlakha, the government? The government. So these are really big questions, political. But, and at the same time, I think that those questions or disputes are not new. It was also before 2005, before in the seventies as well.
You see the different, I would say different attitudes towards religion, towards Shamganut, conservative and religious. You can see that even before. But I think this now, when political powers, when Tsinudatit is in power, and you don't see questions of, as I said, no peace agreement on the table. You'll see different debates are coming to the table, by the way, also. But, you know, Arya, you can see also policy disputes all the time. All the time, even now, just the question of deal with Hamas, about the kidnapped, about the release of kidnapped Israelis. You see different angles, different attitudes also within the tsuna de thitization. So it's not over. But I think the most interesting, most identity questions are in the cultural religious field, right?
[00:17:34] Speaker C: I think before we dive into some of the really big social issues facing Israel right now and sort of how those are viewed or the disputes there in the religious zionist world, obviously, the book's written from the perspective of an Israeli in Israel talking about israeli society. And this idea of, like, religion and state for the american listener might be something definitely on the outside of it as in there is, or they should definitely be within the american constitution, separation of church and state and no official religion, etcetera, etcetera. And I think in the US especially, you know, your religious life is a private enterprise and you have private schooling and all these different things, but it's for me, whereas I think Ari and I grew up in a place where, you know, the UK has an official religion and all the religions are recognized.
Tolerance is a different question, especially at the moment. But the, you know, there was that little bit more of a blurring of the lines between your religious life and youre national identity or your national life. And you have religious. Rabbi Sacks, of course, and his predecessor, Rabbi Shakobovitz, sat in the House of Lords, part of the british parliament.
Whereas here, especially the dusty, luminous communities we're talking about, there is no difference. There's no blurring, there's not even a blurring of the lines. It's the same thing. Your religious identity and your national identity and your communal identity and all these different things all fall under that one umbrella of, you know, Dutiluumi, a religious Zionist, modern orthodox. So as an israeli writing in Israel who spent time in America for the american listener, what are the things that they either can, like, learn for themselves? What lessons can be learned from looking at the religious islands community here in Israel in terms of their engagement with society or government or education or whatever it is? What are the things that can be learnt from the religious eye community here? And what are the things that are sort of perhaps most unexpected from it, for a lack of s phrase, a foreign reader? What are the things that, like, you think, or as you were writing or researching or as you've since writing and gone through, what are the things that have like, really stood out as this is something specifically israeli versus one of the things that are, you know, they start here, but they definitely look outwards.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Right? So first of all, there is no separation of religious, religion and state. Church and state in Israel, as you know, as you mentioned, it means lots of things. It means that politics, political power and religion and identity is really running all the time together.
In many ways, politics and the state is trying or even succeeding in forming or designing the religion in Israel.
It could be like in major things like Rabbanut, Rashid. Rashid. This is, by the way, this is an institution made by the British in Israel 103 years ago.
And this is something that says that the rabbinate, the chief rabbinate of Israel, is in charge of registering you as married and religion dayanim and stuff. Like that. So. And like. And rabbanut Rashid is really in dispute today in Israel. In recent many years it was always, by the way, but in the past it was really a dispute between the team and hirony, religious and non religious. And whereas today it's really inside the Haredi versus the team Lumin. The team Lumin versus other. The team. Luminous. So this is really major institution that is in the center of the israeli government, the israeli kingdom. I don't know, it's really in the center. It's big, but there are also small things that if you're going to, I don't know, to mikveh in the UK, you have to pay, and here you have to pay really small money because it's funded by the government or small things, big things.
Israel is really different in that way. And also religious education, all these stuff is really religion and state is going all the time together in Israel. If you are jewish, you have to.
To get married through the rabbinate, you have to do that. There is no other way. Or in theory, there is no other way. So this is something that is in the state of Israel since he was born, since actually 40 719 47. Since the status quo letter that Ben Gurion wrote to Agudat Israel, this is forever like this. You were asking about something that surprised me. So I think that something that is surprising for me, following these tracks of power or fact, is the fact that not all religious people understand or want the idea of central rabbinate, central authority designing their religion. And I see that mostly in the team Lumim community or people, because one of the things that I point in the book is that there is privatization.
In the past there were some institute like big institutions like rabbinate or yeshivot in the Tim Lumim community, like Mercazarav or people were listening. What do they have to think? Or what do they have to. How do they have to practice their religion or their ideology? And in the recent years, you see the really big trends are going not really in the same lines of the monopolies. I call them monopolies like Ybn Kazarov used to be monopoly. This was the yeshiva that at least officially was the most important yeshiva until today. You see in Yom Yerushalayim, like it's the holiday of the Tim Lumim, right? It's like the holy day of the tirmluim.
What happened marking the 67 war, reuniting Jerusalem? This is something that the team Lumin really, we see it as really important day. And until today, you see, the main event is in Yeshivat mel Khazarav. It's like really something important for Latium Rumim, and everyone should listen or come to this place at the same time. But it's really out of date. It's really not really as it used to be before, because Merkazarav is not really a monopoly anymore. And there are other yeshivot, other ways of thinking, other ways of and other ways of practicing also religion and ideology. And those trends are challenging, I think those monopolies like rabbinate, like Yeshivot, like Neakiva.
[00:26:04] Speaker D: So going to kind of focusing on the book. So there was this, we had this challenge, as I'm sure you'll recall, when we were working on the book and in the english edition, that every time we were sort of like, okay, we're done. Then another big event happened, like, I think Bennett became prime minister while we were working on the english edition. And we're like, well, how can we not include something on that? Like, this is huge. And then obviously huge significant events have happened since the book came out.
What?
And at one point we even thought, kind of putting a disclaimer to say, you know, as soon as this book went to print, it's already out of date. So what do you think? I mean, how do you kind of explain or how can we kind of pitch to our listeners the value of reading this book, even though this is a book that was ultimately, this is a book that doesn't know that October 7 was going to happen?
What do you think is the value of reading a book like this even now, kind of when already a lot of the things it talks about or the big events talks about are maybe not out of date, but in the past or things have developed a lot since then.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Sure. So I think that the value is marking the tracks that Siru, that it is running on. It's like there are few tracks, maybe two main tracks. One of them is more, I would say, conservative and the other one is more liberal. And these tracks are going running through all the events that we see today and through the events that we witnessed, maybe, I don't know, in the beginning of the 20th century, if you're looking at on one side, and if you're looking at Harav Reines, he was the rabbi who formed the mizrahi as a zionist orthodox movement within the zionist movement. So maybe those two attitudes are of valid, I think until today. These are, this is really the tension between the team Lumin then four years ago, five years ago, and also today, you also. We have to mention also the judicial reform. It was really a big, big event that. It's not in the book. Yeah, it's really big event because the team Lumim moved really into power. It's like, really they could. We are talking about the current government, which is the most religious government of all of ever. And. And there was like, really an explosion there. What was the explosion? I think the explosion also had to do with those tracks, those different tracks. And also with questions of.
Of the more the nearer past, like what happened in the disengagement, the Supreme Court.
What are we? Are we in fight? Are we in conflict with the court or not? All these questions, I think, are really relevant. And you could see those tracks also in the book and also another, I would say, maintained main issue that is always there is really the questions of the cultural questions of woman's right, woman's role, LGBTQ and the army. It's really important. It's in the book that I believe in the army. That woman in the tiot, Nashim da Tiot, religious woman in the army. All these questions or all these disputes are in the book. And Temple Mount, it's also. So it's all relevant, and I wish we could update the book. And you can also. You can write, I think, a new, frayed book every year. Yeah. And this is. This is something that you have to know because it's a challenge to write about things that happened today. It's much easier to be an historian of the Roman.
Right. The Romans. And I think that it's a challenge because you see all the time really important things that happen.
So hopefully, Bezrat Hashem will write every answer.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: Sure. I mean, before we started recording, our conversation was quite heavily focused on something that you've just hinted towards. I'm going to jump on it, which is that one of, like, the major things been bubbling under the surface for years and years and years, but it's, you know, really sort of boiled over in the last couple of weeks at the time of recording, which is the Haredi Geus, the haredim being drafted into the army, and they're perhaps avoiding, definitely avoiding and refusing to do so.
But sort of looking at the trajectory of the religious zionist army service, whether it goes back 50, 60, 70 years and through the Shiva Hezda movement, where you balance your army service with yeshiva learning. And, as you mentioned, is in the book, and people should definitely go out and read that chapter. It's fantastic. Of religious women serving in the army.
I guess yours personally but also an overview of the religious zionist attitudes towards Haredim serving in the army. We were talking before, so I was recording about how in that conversation in the media here, possibly even in the political discourse, that the religious zionist community seems to be overlooked, that it's possible to live a fulfilling, meaningful religious life and also serve in the army. If that's your argument, it's possible to do so, but we sort of get overlooked in that conversation. So both as you, Yair, what is your opinion? What's your viewpoint? And then also just generally, what is the religious zionist attitude? Or just, I guess, even again, standing on one leg, the two sides, three sides, ten sides of the argument of what we're seeing at the moment of the Haridim who have for a long time had that opportunity to exclude themselves, and everyone begrudgingly allowed that to happen to now, where it's been said Harid has to serve the army, and now they're outright refusing.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: So it's a big question, and we can talk all day about, okay, how do haredim view the team nominee? How do the Tim Lum view Haradim? Regarding that question, how do the team view themselves?
Because there were always some, you know, the team room in, many in yeshivot looked up to Haradim like it was like nobody said so, but it was yeshivot. The Haredi yeshivot are really the real thing. But on the other hand, people do not know really what is yeshivot, Khagadiot in the Tlumi community.
And we can talk about politics. So let's start with politics. Okay. A little bit. Because first of all. No, no. Okay, before politics, before politics, let's talk about the team Lumin and the army. Okay, first of all, what we witness, what we is revealed during that war is like the really the deep involvement of the team Lumin in the army, in security in Israel. And you see, you see it every day. You see every. Everywhere you go, every front you go, every footage you see in tv, or if you go, if you go to millenium yourself, you see that team Liam are everywhere in the army, first of all. And sadly, you see the, the huge price that the team dominion pay in that war.
And unfortunately, people get killed. And this is huge. This is something I think for the first time, you see the IDF is different, okay? And the involvement of the team Lumim is really out there. It's really, you can't imagine IDF without the team Lumin today. First thing now let's talk a little bit about politics.
October 7 took place where Israel was divided in the judicial reform, the revolution, the coup, whatever you like to call it.
And the Team Lumim, in many ways, or the official politics of the team Lumim was in that was that the team Luim are going with the Likud, with the. With the coalition Likud on one hand, and Khagadim on the other hand. The partners, they're really the tribes. As president Rivlin said, the tribes that are walking together are Haradim Masotiim of the Likud Masodim, traditional. And the team Lumim, the official, the Tlu Umi party, with which is Betale Smotz Bennett, is out. Bennett, who tried to go with the center left, is out. And Bennett tried to form a coalition of the zionist tribes, right, the Team Lumim, and secular. What happened in the last year or the year before the war was that if you're looking at the map, the israeli map, the team nomim are with the Haradim. And then what happened was that the war brought the question of the exemption of Khagadim from the army is like really existential moral question. You cannot avoid. You cannot look at the other hand, the other side. This is something that you have to solve. This is a really big issue. But Salis Motric, Amikhaili, our ministers within the government are saying, okay, there is this process.
Let's not go into conflict. We have to see it's a slow trend. Some things are happening. We cannot go and clash with Haradim because they are also our partners in many ways, political partners. But I think it's deeper than political. It's not cynical. It's really. Betzar Smotrich is really. He feels very close to Haradim in many, many ways. So many people are asking, is this covenant between the team Lumim and Haradim? Is it really.
You can't ask anything about it. Is it really valid? Are we going with them or are we. We have still something to do with Jeronim, right? Because when we are walking, when we're going to the army, to reserves or everywhere, we are, the brothers in arms are hilonim. These are the people that we felt that they are the other side during 2000, 320 23. So what's happening now? I think this is. These are major questions that are on the table right now. Many people think that the official voices, politicians, rabbis, are not really representing their sentiment right now because their sentiment is, okay, maybe we went too far. Maybe we are. We are still in this zionist covenant. And also secular people are also part of it.
[00:38:24] Speaker C: And that definitely plays into what you were talking about earlier about sort of, again, in the book about the Datilo Amir religious zionist attitude towards rabbinic leadership in general versus the haredi attitude towards Da'atara and that kind of thing.
It ties into the fact that, as you said, you refer to it as, like, the three flags that we wave, that there's, like, the Dasil Umi world, are sort of perhaps thinking, you know, maybe, maybe our attitude towards arabic leadership, not that it should live within the realm of halakha, but that when it comes to national identity, political identity, whatever.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: Right? It's not that there are no, no rabbinical voices speaking that sentiment.
You see, you see rabbis, you see people who are also. They lost their, their children, and that they are part of the same discourse. They're saying, okay, that haradim, they cannot. You cannot. They have to. They have to serve.
People are saying that from all kinds of the team Lumim communities. But, but if you're looking. If you're looking at that voice, you're searching that voice in smottish texts, you won't find it so much. So this is. I think this is really interesting. It's an interesting point that we are facing right now, because the team are asking themselves nothing for the first time, but they're asking theirselves, who are we really?
Who are our allies? Who are they?
And I think the war is bringing new answers for that.
[00:40:18] Speaker D: I mean, perhaps it's kind of utopian, idealistic vision, but do you think there's any possibility that the datilumi world, like it could in this moment, are best placed to kind of bring both sides of that together? As in the same way that we have that covenant of Zionism of Tsionu, or Zionism with the Chiloni. With Chilonim. And on the other hand, we have that bridge of Torah with the Haredi world.
What could the Datilumi world be doing to actually say, you know what? This is the moment where we need to kind of bring these two together.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: Okay? So, you know what, Arje? I think the moment is always the moment, because the team, if there is anything that identifies the TM Liu meme, is that they view themselves as the breach. Right? We are. We are in the.
Our stand is we can bring everyone together. You saw that also during 2023, in the big debate regarding judicial reform, many people said, we are. We can be. We can be the bridge. You saw that in the disengagement. You saw it in rabbin assassination. People said, okay, this is the time where the team Lumim, our role is to bring everyone together.
This is ethos, ideal legend.
Choose your. This is. This is something. And I think. I think it's real, because they are. We are also. We see. We see both sides. Right? So, but it's not. It's not always working.
It's. It's much more difficult than it seems. And also, I think something.
Something was broken in few points of. In several points of history.
Robin assassination was one of them. And I, and of course, disengagement. And I think also what happened with the judicial reform, that many people from the team Lumin camp thought, and think still, that the solution is not talking softly with everyone. The solution is to combat, to fight for something that you value.
And really, if you follow texts, you can see that this is something that really, I think this is new, that people who follow, people who are really identify as Talmudim of. They said, okay, now is the time to clash with the left. This is the time to do that. Rav Kook didn't see that that way. Ravkook went to Massam or Shavot. He admired Khalutzim. He admired the left in many ways. He said, they are wrong. One day they will join with us. But he admired them. And I think this is a little bit, in some parts of the camp, it's, this is over, or at least it was over temporarily.
[00:43:41] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: From.
[00:43:44] Speaker D: I guess, from the perspective of, like you said, kind of the critical brother, rather, as an.
Taking a step out of kind of our place in the community to kind of look at externally, to kind of give that critique. Do you think that the.
Do you think there's a solution for this current issue of the Geass hare doom?
I've heard different sides to it. Some people say the only way to solve it is kind of through politics and law. We need to put the things in place to say that.
And if they're fighting against it, we'll take away funding for the Tyrone and all these things. Or do you think, actually the way to achieve it is nothing? It's kind of like you said before, kind of not shouting it, not fighting it, but actually more of a grassroots communication speaking and that actually, maybe the halls of government are not the way to solve this.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Okay, so maybe this is a good point of saying something about freight. Okay, freight. I think what really is interesting for me to follow is that don't listen to, you don't have to listen to rabbis or to the official speakers in order to understand what's going on in the Tilumi look at the grassroots, because so many trends are starting bottom up, starting grassroots. Even Temple Mount is not. It's not rabbis leading people to pray in the temple Mount. These are activists, which are not rabbis from the ti. Lumi and rabbis are coming few years later. Also, on the other hand, the other end, woman in the army, or, I don't know, partnership minions, things are happening, not from really, people are not waiting for rabbis to say things, they're just acting, but they're acting within some kind of frame, which is still religious, halachic or. Okay, so that's why this is something really in the DNA of the Tim Lumin. And there was, you know, there's a notion of Hamereda Kadosh. This is something really old from the team Lumi. This is Arav Shachal. It was called Rav Lando. He was from Hapoela Mizrachi. He said that the DNA of the team Lumimi, he's Ameri, there is a holy rebellion. This is something that is really the DNA, I think, of the team Lumim. It's different in the Haredi world. Haredi world is, of course, every world. Everything that happens today in the world, in. In the 21st century, is interesting. It's complex, it's. It's not really. You don't say, okay, a rabbi doesn't say something and, you know, operates a whole thing. But it's. But in the Haredi world, it's still much. I think it's much different than, than in the tsionodet.
The rabbis are really still authority, the politicians are really still representing what happens, and the mechanism is really different in the team Lumim and kharadim. That's why. For your question, for your question, I think that the process in the hare world regarding everything and also army service, is really happening really slowly. Really slowly. I'm following the question of the Haradim and the army for, I think, 20 years, and it's really slow. It's really, if you look at what happened in there was a Choctaw, it was a draft law back in 2002, and everyone were expecting that the process will take place. And everyone were disappointed because it was really slow. And it is still very, very, very slow. So the stand or the point of view of rabbis and politicians is really heavy. It's important. It's very, very, very much important.
Having said that, I think that there are very quiet, very slow things that happened under the radar.
People, I think many people in the Haredi, when I say many, I'm careful, okay? So we need to be. It's not, it's not. We're not going to face a revolution in the next year. It's really flow. It's really slow.
But I think that people are asking themselves, actually, just yesterday I went to see, like, a course for people who are interested in going to the army, for people who are 1819, Karadi, really, people who came out from yeshivot, and it's small, 15 people.
15 people. But they're really the real thing. They said, we're not learning. Right.
We're not good at what we do in the yeshiva. Maybe let's go to the. To Giveati. Maybe this is something that we have to do. But it's very, it's very. It's tiny. It's tiny. But I think this is something that will take place. Will, will, will grow.
It will take time.
[00:49:41] Speaker D: And the argument that, I guess from the other, the other side of the perspective that the army isn't ready. The army isn't ready for Haredim anyway. And if they were more ready, then they would come. Do you think there's a validity? Like a validity that should the army be doing more?
[00:49:56] Speaker A: You know, the army is. They should do more. But this is not the reason why Haredim did not go. You know, the team Lumim were asking that question 50 years ago, because the army. The army is a secular organization.
It's, it's secular. There is no svadavida menach. The King David army is not, does not exist. Nobody remembers what was, what were the regulations between, I don't know, Kashrut and I don't know, women's as instructors of, I don't know, flight instructions. But I think that the team lumimous came out, came, came with, came up with the solution of Yeshivot is there, because the team Lumin educators were really worried that the Sava people go to the tzavah, to the army, and they remove their kippah, because the army is a secular organization. And also a small, tiny fact that people at the age of 18, they ask themselves questions, and you cannot. There is, you cannot guarantee anything. So Sava, the army also cannot guarantee Haradim anything. It's luck. It's not that it's gonna be like 100% success. I know people. People. Everyone knows people, right? If you know people who are 1819, you know that there are, there are questions. So 100%, no one can promise. I think the army can do still I can. I think the army can do more.
The deep question is the question that Haradim have to ask themselves. It's about the taboo, which is going to the army. It's not even about Torah, because if you ask, if you, if you see the team Lumim and you see people who unfortunately lose their pay with their lives now, people who are really talmudic, Hamim from the tele, um, community. So you see, there is no contradiction. I think many haredim also view that. You see that, but it's, it's quiet. You don't see Gaffney or Knesset members saying, oh, wow, we didn't know that they are the team Lumim, which are also, you could be Talmid Chacham and also combat fighters. So, but it's happening very slowly.
[00:52:30] Speaker D: So I think, I mean, just wrapping up for now. I mean, there's lots of, we could continue to unpack here, but just for now, we're recording this in Khodesh Av.
And obviously, there's big questions at this time of, I guess, reflecting on the past, almost a year now, how to kind of continue that spirit of unity that was there right after, when the war first started, right after October 7, what are your thoughts? What are your hopes?
Or do you think could happen in terms of the jewish people or people here in Israel continuing that unity and what role kind of the Datilomi world could play in uniting and the different parts of israeli society?
[00:53:20] Speaker A: I see that in so many places. The discourse of 2023 is back, and this makes me a little bit pessimistic.
I think what happens in the social media, Twitter and stuff like this is. And all the discourse of last year, which was really traumatic for me, actually, personally, I was, I got really depressed and pessimistic.
So one of the things that happened last year was that it was so dichotomic, something that you have to be, you're jewish or Israeli. You are, I don't know, educated, or you're with the people or with, you're against us or with us. It was really, it's really deep. It became really everywhere.
Maybe, maybe, maybe this war could open our eyes to understand that you could be really Talmid Racham and also, and to sacrifice yourself to your lives and to be part of what's happening here, which is really, really big. And I really appreciate that. It's really amazing. The state of Israel is amazing. And so maybe this year will open a little bit our eyes to see that it's wrong to divide everything to. With us, against us, israeli, jewish, good, bad.
[00:54:59] Speaker C: So I think that's a great place to end. Yari, I think I thank you so much for joining us. Stay on the Quorum podcast sharing your Torah. Al Raghala, as you said, there's potentially a book every year to be written on what we've been discussing. So failing that, perhaps a podcast every year.
[00:55:15] Speaker D: Instead, just ask, obviously, if people have enjoyed or appreciated your words today. How can people hear more or see, read more or watch more of your journalism, your Torah, and that you're sharing with the world? How can they find it?
[00:55:28] Speaker A: Okay, they're invited to my, first of all, I work in, I'm a journalist at the Khan eleven digital radio. So every outlet of Khan, I'm trying to be. I'm there covering religious, religion, religious trends and society and haredim and the Tum Lumayim, sometimes also Judaism outside of Israel.
That's what I tried to do. And also on Twitter. And you're invited to talk to me and also argue with me. Everyone is invited.
[00:56:13] Speaker C: That's the most israeli thing you've said. So yeah, we'll definitely, we'll link to everything in the show notes as well. So just thank you again, yair, for joining us.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
[00:56:21] Speaker B: That's all we have time for this week. Thank you so much again to Yair for joining us. If you'd like to be in touch with your ear, as he said, you can find him on Twitter. We'll link to his handle down in the show notes. You can contact us at CryinPublishers, that's on all social media or via email, podcastriampub.com. if you want to get yourself a copy of frayed by Yairettinger, you can do
[email protected]. and you can get 10% off your entire order, not just on his book with the promo code podcast at checkout.
That's everything for this week. We'll be back in a couple of weeks time with another fantastic episode of the current podcast, Al Raghlechat. So until next time, goodbye.
