Why Do Two Of My Three Favorite Countries Disappoint Me?
By: Rabbi Paul Plotkin
Tags: Netanyahu, Israel, Trump, Canada

Why do two of my three favorite countries disappoint me?

Two women were comparing notes. The first said, “my husband bought a world map, gave me a dart and said, ‘throw this and wherever it lands- that’s where I’m taking you when this pandemic ends. Turns out that we will be spending two weeks behind the fridge.”

There are times in life that I feel like I would like to go hide behind the fridge with no newspapers no television and no media input at all.

There are three countries that I deeply love; United States of America, Israel, and Canada. In two of the countries, I have homes that I reside in. I have family in all three countries and in two I have children and grandchildren but in only two of the countries would I like to hide behind the fridge. In Canada I would sit on my deck, look out on the world and smile.

What has happened in the United States and in Israel that makes me want to hide and even more so, how is it that the reasons are so eerily similar?

This past shabbat I happened to read two different articles in two different publications. One was the New York Times, and one was Moment magazine. Both were datelined Jerusalem, and both talked about Israel and yet I could hear overwhelming parallels to the United States. In fact, The New York Times headline for its article was, “Explaining Right Wing Politics in America, Via the Middle East.”

The second article by the well-known author Naomi Ragan was titled, “Covid Is Ripping Israel Apart”. I want to summarize and share each of these articles and where necessary point out the American similarities. It may not be pretty to either country, but I hope it may explain the ugliness of division that is overwhelming both countries. If we have any chance at creating a better situation it will have to start with first recognizing what is going on in both countries.

The New York Times article begins with the following.

“Liberals were confounded. The right- wing incumbent’s blue-collar base was sticking by him, cheering as he weaponized identity politics, attacked Democratic institutions and appeared to place his own interests ahead of the nation’s”.

As they say on law and order, “ripped from the headlines”. Except this was not an American headline, it was talking about Israel and Bibi Netanyahu. The liberals were primarily Ashkenazic Israelis and the working class were primarily Jews whose roots were North Africa and the Middle East. The article features a Tel Aviv University sociologist Professor Nissim Mizrachi, and his attempt to explain why Mizrahi Jews in Israel vote overwhelmingly in favor of the right wing. He points out that it is not because they are confused, as some liberals contend, or they are suffering from some form of Stockholm Syndrome. It is that liberals fail to see that working class Israelis consciously spurn liberalism.

“What they see as the end game of a liberal worldview is not a world they wish to inhabit. It’s really hard for liberals to imagine that their message, their vision itself, poses a threat to the core identity of other people.”

The similarity between Mizrahi voters in Israel and Trump voters in the United States is overwhelming.

Both groups, Professor Mizrachi says, see themselves as the most patriotic citizens of their country and they demonize the left and its allies in the news media, and academia as, “traitorous enemies”. Both groups feel they are dismissed by the elites, as racist, ignorant, or self-defeating. They feel ridiculed as being undemocratic or dangerous, yet they see themselves as the “we” in “we the people”.

Liberals imagine that their views should be attractive to Mizrahim who have long been treated as second class citizens, and do not understand why the Mizrahim do not flock to the Liberal parties.

This is the same question Democrats are asking themselves right now in analyzing why they did so poorly in rural America and amongst non-college educated whites?

The answers are strikingly similar. It is all about how they understand their self-identities. Professor Mizrachi recalls seeing a demonstration by Liberals calling for coexistence with Palestinians and they proposed jailing Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters for war crimes. For Liberals this was, “an expression of shared humanity that liberals found ‘morally sublime’, but which had onlooking Mizrahi taxi drivers boiling over in rage”.

He says that the reaction to the Liberal calls were like a physical assault, like trying to steal your property, or rape your daughter. For Mizrahi Jews who came from Arab controlled countries, the Liberal view is like an assault on their being Jewish in a Jewish state. This is who they are, and it is not negotiable. It is existential, and the Liberals are threatening that existence.

It is the MAGA cry all over again. “We are real Americans and black and brown people are trying to take it away from us, or they want to make us Socialists and we who came from Socialist countries like Cuba or Venezuela will never let that happen to this country. We define ourselves as not being socialists. We do not want unlimited immigrants illegally coming into our country and taking our jobs away. Charity begins at home so forget the trade deals we want American jobs.”

For Mizrahi Israelis, the last thing they want is a hostile country right next door that wants to kick them out of their country and would not mind killing all of them in the process.

Their self-perceived identity attracts them to the strong man who says laws and empathy and sharing are for suckers who would naively sell us out. Forget rules and laws and democracy, we need to save our country above all else.

I give you Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.

Naomi Ragan’s approach is less about the foreign affairs side and more about the internal strains, but again it is all about identity politics.

When Covid first hit Israel, they were superstars in controlling it. People looked at Israelis and said all those years of fighting existential wars for survival developed a society that could sacrifice for the common good even at the cost of work, the economy and freedom of behavioral choice. That did not last. The death toll has been climbing and Israelis are, in the words of Ragen, “rebelling in infantile ways against the simplest, most basic rules of public hygiene..”

A country that always held police and the IDF in great respect is losing faith in their institutions and leadership. (Sound familiar?)

Initially it was the Haredim who responded the worst to public health calls. One Haredi Rabbi publicly said that students going 6 months without Torah study and the influence of their Rabbis would be a spiritual death and the students would be better off with Covid.

By the second lockdown 51% of all kids with Covid were Haredim. This has echoes to me of some of President Trump’s advisors and sycophants who wanted herd immunity even if meant a few million deaths.

The religious right are not the only ones to put their personal, religious, or political needs first. There is a group called Black Flag protestors. They gather in the street to demonstrate by the thousands against Bibi and his corruption and demand his resignation. (They clearly don’t know Bibi who in a snail race to resign would come in 5 miles behind Trump). They are congested in the streets with masks at a very ineffective below the chin position, screaming and yelling and occasionally attacking the police. Watching this group protest regularly (think Black Lives Matter protests) took the public eye off the Haredim and weakened the public resolve to abide by restrictions.

Haredim returned to big weddings and even bigger funerals for great Rabbis some of whom died of Covid. ( Who said irony is dead?) One B’nai Brak shule hung a banner declaring their worship services to be a “protest”.

In another similarity to our experience with government leaders, after the first lockdown, Bibi told the public to “go out and have a beer”. The Israelis finally followed their leadership leading to a second wave that had Israel in first place per capita of infections. (I guess it could have been worse, he might have recommended they try a bleach cocktail.) After imploring the public to not gather for yom tov celebration both the Prime Minister and the President of the country celebrated the holidays with people from outside their households. (Shades of Dr Birx, Governor Newsom, and countless other politicians) It is enough to make you want to hide behind your fridge, except in Canada where people listen and respect others and their worst outbreaks that have caused shutdowns are at levels we hope to be at after mitigation.

What will it take to get us out from the back of the fridge?

We need to start listening to each other with respect and tolerance. No one owns all the truth. It is a shared commodity. We are all different but with more perspective we can see that our similarities and our desires are closer to each other than are our differences. We should not have to wait for an external enemy to bring us together and if we continue the road we are on, even that may not be enough.

We need to insist on truth being told especially by our leaders. Fake news is not news, it is a lie. Opinion is not only allowed it is encouraged but instead of just arguing the opinions we need to add an extra layer of dialogue which is to try to understand not just the what but the why of the opinion. What can you share with me about how and why you got to this opinion so I can understand who you are, not just the argument you are making. Justice Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg could not have been more divergent in approach to issues but had a fantastic relationship. I may not agree one iota with you, but I will never demonize you or treat you as the “wacko other”.

This is not pollyannish, it may be the only way we can come back together as a nation and leave the back of the fridge for a day in the sunlight.

I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy new year. No one will miss 2020 and better days are around the corner, so take no chances get your vaccine and start planning the next hug with a loved one.

Please share with family and friends and all are invited to join the list by emailing me (ravpp1@gmail.com) your full name and email.