Event Recording: Young Zionist Voices — Global Digital Launch
Watch now to meet some of the faces behind Young Zionist Voices, the best-selling new essay collection that Israeli President Isaac Herzog lists as his #1 recommendation for books on Judaism! Meet the next Gen-Zionist leaders shaping a future where young Jews feel empowered and proud worldwide.
About Our Panelists
Shabbos Kestenbaum, student activist and plaintiff against Harvard alleging pervasive and systemic antisemitism
Adela Cojab, attorney and plaintiff against NYU for neglecting Jewish student safety
Alissa Bernstein, Assistant Director of the American Jewish Committee Los Angeles
Shanie Reichman, Director of IPF Atid at Israel Policy Forum
Oz Bin Nun, Hebrew University Student and current IDF commander in the Egoz Commando Unit
Video Transcript
Amitai Fraiman: So welcome everybody again. My name is Amitai Fraiman. I'm the founding director of the Z3 Project and this is our global digital launch of Young Zionist Voices, our newest book of the Z3 Institute. I'll talk about the Institute in a second. I just want to give a big picture overview of what we do at the Z3 Project before I bring up Dr.
David Hazony, who's the head of our Institute and the editor of this wonderful book for the conversation with our panelists. The Z3 project started about 10 years ago at the Palo Alto JCC. And with the idea that we need to figure out how to build a public square, a robust public square that creates space for conversations about Israel, Judaism, Jewish peoplehood, and Zionism as a way to strengthen the relationship between Diaspora Jewry and Israel.
And over the course of the past 10 years, this project evolved from a one day conference to a multifaceted project, which is what we're up to today. We have three areas of our work. One is, of course, our annual conference, and that happens in Palo Alto, and we just had one, our 10th one in November, and our next one is next year.
Alongside that, we also have a leadership development track where we work with community professionals from across the country to learn how to bring Z3 It back into their own community, and we're seeing great growth there. We are having a a Z3 conference in Austin at the end of February, another Z3 conference in Miami, all led by our partners in the field in these local communities.
So that's the second kind of branch of our work. And then on the other side the newest addition is the Z3 Institute. Which we were very fortunate to have David join our team about a year ago at this point. And the idea really there is to create and generate and the ideas and the thought leadership that is necessary for our community and propel the conversation in the direction that we want to see it go.
And so that we're creating this ecosystem we have our partners on the ground these other JCCs, other youth movements and camps who understand and internalize the Z3 approach and are ready to be a conduit to that. And on the other side now we have this institute which identifies The up and coming thought leaders and incentivizes the authorship of books and these ideas so they can be pushed out.
What is this Z3 idea that we're so excited about, that kind of stands at the base of all our work? It was developed by our by our CEO and our president, Zack Bodner early on. Basically recognizing that the Jewish people are in a unique moment in our history. For the first time, we have both a strong homeland in Israel.
Yes, it has its issues, of course, the ongoing war, the hostages that we are slowly seeing coming back. Of course, there's a lot going on. But still, for the first time, we've had this incredible state at this level. And at the same time, we have a thriving diaspora, which, of course, also has its challenges and areas of growth.
But we've never had such a moment where we had both of these kind of centers coexisting. And that we believe that this conversation that is necessary between these two centers can really elevate who we are as a people and propels us to the next stage. That's the Z3 moment we are in, as compared to Z2, which was from the founding of the state until about ten years ago, and Z1, which is the earlier side of the Zionist movement when this idea became a reality.
So that's on, very briefly what we stand for and what we believe and what we're trying to promote. And we are here to create a conversation. We have three operating principles that inform every program that we do. We engage as equal partners Jews from Israel and from the Diaspora.
We include diversity of voices. We're not looking to pr promote one approach to the conversation. And we work towards unity but not uniformity. And those three ideals really are what drive us in our work. So that's the Z3 project. And I'm excited about this event because this new institute it's really been already starting to pump out.
It's been now a year in the making. We have three books that came out. The first one is David's 65 Priorities for the Jewish People. The next one is Young Zionist Voices. And I have my, oop, my copy here, if you can see it with this background, you can also see it on the digital background.
And the next one is that came out just recently, is a case for dual loyalty, but today we're here to talk about young Zionist voices. So I'm really excited to have this conversation with David, I'll bring him up, let him introduce himself a little bit. And the flow of events is as follows.
David and I will have a short conversation about the book a little bit about the background of it, what it how it came to be, and then I will turn it over to David, and David will call up the panelists and have a conversation with them about the pieces that they wrote, and we'll take it from there, and in the end we'll have time for questions if you want to add them in the chat, and throughout we'll collect them, and we'll ask them at the end of the conversation.
So without further ado, I'm really honored. It's my pleasure really to introduce, he's seen here, his face on the screen Dr. David Hazony, he is the Senior Fellow Standard Fellow, and the Director of the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities. And David, it's it's great, I'm calling from New York, you're in Jerusalem, This is, a true global peoplehood moment with our audience from all over, of course.
And I'm excited to get this kicked off, this conversation kicked off and started.
David Hazony: Thank you so much, Amitai. Thank you for organizing this and and the whole project and for bringing me on board. I want to thank all the, everyone who's joining us from far and wide. I believe we have people who got up super early in the morning as far as Australia.
A little bit. So they're the real heroes of today's event. A little bit of my background. I've been in the think tank world for decades, I was involved in the creation of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. Did my academic studies in Jewish, modern Jewish philosophy, but I was also the editor of public affairs journals of different kinds as well as books, and I wrote a book, and so I've been in that planet for a long time.
I've been very deeply concerned about the Jewish people. As a whole it felt to me like, like we, we, as a people were spending all of our energies, either on sub divisions of our people, Israelis, Americans, Orthodox reform, all these different subcategories, or more universally fighting for political goals, fighting for causes that are universal in nature, and that we kept missing the actual Jewish peoplehood part.
So in 2023, I published a book called Jewish Priorities, which had 65 essays from all across our entire people from ultra Orthodox to ultra secular, from left and right politically, Israelis, Americans, and other diasporas influencers, and Scholars and you name it. That book was set to publish in October on October 23rd of 2023, which ended up being two weeks after October 7th.
But despite that, or maybe because of it, the nature of the book, there was really a tremendous interest in the book and in hosting events across America. I went to America right after October 7th. And it gave me a really interesting opportunity to see what American Jews were experiencing in the wake of October 7th, to see how it was similar, but also how in some ways it was very different from what we Israelis had experienced.
During the first two weeks of the of the war there was a lot among American Jews. There was a big sense of loneliness and fear of going through a personal trauma that the rest of the world around them didn't necessarily experience or see and of looking for community with other Jews, which is why Jewish priorities.
Was such a a draw. But I noticed that there was also at the same time, there were two kinds of mobilization. I identified one was philanthropic mobilization for Israel. And the other was this sort of spontaneous grassroots mobilization taking place on campuses and in communities around America, where, by and large, it was being undertaken by young people.
And I, we started talking about. Potentially, what would the next, what would the follow up to Jewish Priorities be? What would the next book be? And and we thought, wouldn't it be really an important thing to do to bring together these really spirited, proud, Jews, young Jews from across America and beyond into a single volume.
It would, part of the purpose is to plant a flag in the sand and let everybody know that this is not just isolated. Individuals or small groups who are fighting back against the sudden waves of anti semitism that engulfed many of the campuses and many urban centers, but also to send a signal to the older generations that a new organic leadership is emerging for the Jewish community.
And so we reached out. We did all the networking and identified a total what ended up being 31. And so we reached out. We did all the networking and identified a total what ended up being 31. Contributors. Some you may have heard of. Some you may not have. Some of them are undergraduates at elite campuses in America.
Some are young professionals. We also have a bunch who live in Israel. Some of them are Israeli Israelis, as we call them. Others are Olim. We have representatives from the United Kingdom and from Australia as well. And it was really just a remarkable, for me, it was a very powerful experience because when I started asking them to start.
writing their ideas and each essay covers a different kind of thesis, a different idea for the collective Jewish future. I realized that there's a lot of thinking going on, very profound. A lot of the vocabulary is not the vocabulary I grew up with in when I was in young Judea in New Jersey and then in New England as a kid.
It's a development. It's a new vocabulary, a new set of ideas that are, I have no doubt, are going to come to dominate the American Jewish conversation for years to come.
Amitai Fraiman: Thank you, David. I'm, I have a couple of questions, about the book, just to get us started. You started to address it a little bit, but I want to ask you to dig a little bit deeper. You mentioned that the book was born, after in the heels of the 65 Priorities and your your tour in the U.S. Post 10 7 and understanding it. But, anthologies of this sense are not the typical kind of approach for books. So I'm curious if you can elaborate a little bit more about, when did you realize that's the way to go as opposed to, maybe an interview approach or something else to raise that
David Hazony: I think that books in general can have a very powerful impact on our ideas.
Start with that, bare bones, that if you think of a lot of the expressions we use, a lot of the terms that we use to discuss things are important to us. Very often we don't know, but that they actually are traced back to a bestselling book. So when we talk about the tipping point, or we talk about influencers, that's a Malcolm Gladwell book that we're quoting without even necessarily knowing it.
When we talk about the Startup Nation, that's a best selling book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, and we wouldn't, even if we never read the book, never bought the book, we wouldn't be talking about Israel in this way had they not written the book. Anthologies have an additional kind of power to them, which is that they can essentially shape the consciousness of what is happening, what new movements are arising.
They can create a kind of snapshot in time of an awful lot going on of thinking and writing about a particular issue or among a certain community. And And that's what I was hoping to achieve with Young Zionist Voices, to give voice in the form of a book to many of these young activists who are, understandably very focused on the fight that they're fighting right now.
And so I was very grateful to them for being willing to take the time out because I think that it really does achieve that. Excellent. When you, for those of us who haven't read the, who haven't read it yet, the book you list a bunch of or several themes that kind of emerged as you were editing these pieces and also selecting them because there are 31, but there were more that, that you had to go through.
Amitai Fraiman: It wasn't just, the first 31 that came in and we have a book, it was a little bit more of a process behind it. I'm curious if you want to share with us a little bit about the themes and
David Hazony: yeah,
Amitai Fraiman: I
David Hazony: think. I think there are basically three crucial themes that that I took away from my experience reading these and editing these.
One is just the concept of fighting back. That among, these are writers who feel that it's not an obvious thing that if someone attacks you, you fight back. And this is a Jewish instinct that's been ingrained for centuries that, that what do we do? Do we think about leaving? Do we think about keeping our heads down?
Oh, maybe we should fight back. It's not intuitive. And so the argument needs to be made for why we should be fighting back at all. Which I, which is also an argument that I tried to make in a essay in Sapir Journal a month after October 7th called The War Against the Jews because I felt that among the older generations, they didn't, had internalized that they were the ones who were under attack.
They saw it as a, as an Israel activism issue to go help Israel. The second theme is that, is there's a lot of exploration to what the word Zionism actually means. That it's not. just about being pro Israel. There's something much deeper going on. And this reminded me a lot of Einat Wilf's essay from Jewish Priorities called Zionism as Therapy, in which she explores how teaching a course on early Zionist thought triggered something in many of the students.
Minds because the problematic nature of the Jewish spirit after centuries of what they then called exile saw in Zionism, a kind of therapeutic response to building your own. your own character, your own soul, your own, and that Zionism initially wasn't just about a political movement to build the state.
It was about almost a reinvention of the Jewish character. So there's a lot of that going on in this book. And finally, there, there seems to be a bit of a rebellion against kind of the boilerplate Since the Jewish identity is focused is the education for Jewish identity focuses on basically two things the Holocaust and the state of Israel and Zionism in its political sense.
This is a lot of the people in this book are rebelling against that they're saying no, you can't build Jewish identity on our having been slaughtered or having been redeemed. It basically boils all of being Jewish down to a, a 10 year period in the middle of the 20th century when we have 3000 years of history behind us.
And so you have essays that are exploring their relationship with the land of Israel. You've got essays that are connecting their learning of Judaism to what. To building their own confidence and their own knowledge base from which to then take on anti Semitism and anti Zionism. Those three I think were the biggest kind of surprises and most interesting.
To me, I'm sure there are others that other people will find.
Amitai Fraiman: So I conscious of time. I always enjoy our conversations, but people are here actually to hear the panelists. So I'm going to let you take it from here and bring up the panelists as you introduce them. I'm going to recede into the background for the rest of those who are going to miss me.
And I will take questions as the event unfolds and we will ask at the end. Have a conversation with our panelists. So David, thank you. And to the rest of you, thank you for joining us to this global digital launch of Young Zionist Voices, and enjoy the conversation.
David Hazony: Thank you, Amitai. So I'm going to ask Grace, if you can to just toss the link up onto into the chat, just if anybody wishes to get their own copy of Young Zionist Voices during the call.
Thank you. I'm going to call up each panelist and when I do just ask the panelists to turn on their cameras when I call your name and I'll also just introduce them. So Shabbos Kestenbaum. He is a student activist and the lead plaintiff against Harvard University, alleging pervasive and systemic anti Semitism.
He is a regular contributor on national media, has testified in front of the U.S. Congress multiple times, and lectures internationally on Jewish communal issues. Adela Kojab. is a lawyer, activist, and media contributor. In 2019, she filed the first ever Title VI complaint against NYU for failing to protect Jewish students from harassment during her time as an undergraduate.
Her work from political advocacy to interfaith peace rallies has been recognized internationally. Earning her designations as one of Hadassah's 18 Zionist American Women of 2024, Jewish Week's 36 Under 36, and JNS's Top 40 Latin American Pro Israel Advocates. She co hosts the interfaith podcast Americanish, Daughters of Diaspora, and as of 2024 hosts the Open Door Media Show Today Unpacked on YouTube.
She holds a JD from the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School of Law and a BA from NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study with a concentration in Middle East Diaspora Structures. Alissa Bernstein is the Assistant Director of the American Jewish Committee in Los Angeles, where she manages the region's Political Outreach Legislative Advocacy and Interfaith and Intergroup Coalition building.
Originally from Palo Alto, California, Where Z3 is based. She graduated cum laude from Occidental College with a degree in psychology and Spanish, where she spent her time advocating for Jewish issues and creating educational opportunities with the administration about campus anti Semitism. Shanie Reichman is the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Director of IPF ATTIDE.
At Israel Policy Forum, based in New York City, where she works to elevate the discourse around the Israeli Palestinian conflict and is a frequent host of the Israel Policy Pod. Shanie serves as the founding co chair of the Forum Dvorak. U.S. Committee as a Wexner Field Fellow, a Schusterman ROI er, on the board of Queens College Hillel, on the Advisory Council for the Center for Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Understanding, and as a mentor with Girl Security.
Her work has been published in The Ford, The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Hay Alma, Jewish Unpacked, E Jewish Philanthropy, and International Policy Digest. Oz Bin Nun is studying psychology and philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has served as an emissary of the Jewish Agency at the University of Wisconsin and is a graduate of the Bronfen Fellowships.
A writer, content creator, and social activist. He served as commander in the Egoz Commando Unit in the 2023 24 Gaza War. I will also point out that my son, Amichai, is also from the Egoz Commando Unit. I know what they went through very well both in their training and on October 7th and in the months after.
He's a real fighter and a real and, these are This is if you haven't heard of it goes it's because they they don't make it into the news as much. They don't go do a lot of major fundraising in North America, but they are one of the top top elite units in the IDF. So thank you very much Oz for being with us as well and thank you all.
I want to start with a quote from one from your essay, Shabbos he writes, ultimately. While October 7th unleashed unparalleled anti Semitism in the United States, it has awakened a new spirit within young Jewish Americans. This next generation is full of impassioned Zionists who recognize Israel's promise and the necessity of keeping it strong.
I can confidently assure those who are worried about college encampments and hostility towards Israel, those who are worried that the golden age is ending, and those worried that support for Zionism and our ideals is eroding, to merely look at the Jewish students speaking out. The future is in good hands.
Shabbos, all of you guys wrote your essays months ago, right? Books take time to produce and they take time to, to come out. And I want, first thing I want to ask you, Shabbos, is do you still stand by this? Do you think that the young generation? Is full of impassioned Zionists who recognize Israel's promise and the necessity of keeping it strong.
Shabbos Kestenbaum: I am shocked I was able to articulate it that well, because I'm not a very good writer. So yes, I stand by it, and I will use my day today as evidence. I'm actually in Israel. I'm actually meant to be having a meeting with quote unquote Israeli influencers. But I said, no, I had the Z3 zoom tonight.
We're part of the delegation with the Israel foreign minister. We had a meeting with the with Gideon Sa'ar this morning, the foreign minister. We were at the Kerem Shalom border crossing today, then at near Oz, we're meeting freed hostages tomorrow. And the delegation is American Jews who are, since October 7th, vocal on social media, content creators.
These are people, myself included, who are not particularly passionate or public or open about their affection and affinity of the land of Israel and their Jewish values. And since October 7th, they have really taken charge of the future of the Jewish people. So just by virtue of the 30 people who are at the front lines.
These are people who had woken up post October 7th, and I'll say one other thing. I'm in a group chat that I helped organize of roughly a hundred students from across the country. These are students who've testified in front of Congress, who appear on national media, who are suing their university.
That's one of the three things we have in common. These are individuals who, as I said, just like this delegation trip, were not particularly active, myself included, as it pertains to Israel and Judaism and campus life, and something within us awoke. And it is incredibly inspiring to be part of that movement.
And yes, I travel across the country. I guess I Travel across the world now, and I can tell you the amount of people who have come up after me, come up to me after I finish the speech, or have come up to me after a rally, or whatever it happens to be, and said, I bought a keep after October 7th, I wear my Star of David necklace, I have put the Israeli flag on my bio, whatever fighting back or resistance looks to them, then 100%, we are in a much, much stronger and better place.
And I know the media likes to talk about the anti Zionist left within the Jewish community, but rest assured they are a deeply intellectually challenged minority. They do not represent even a 10th of American Jewry, but they just make a lot of noise. So let's not focus on them.
David Hazony: So you mentioned this and I, I recall that back in the spring of last year.
There were two studies that came out one by the Jewish federations of North America and the other by the American Jewish committee, which pointed to what they called a surge in Jewish and Israel engagement that had That had happened half in the wake of October 7th. And of course, since we're Jews we look for the, we look for the cloud rather than the silver lining.
And a lot of people said, okay, but let's see if it keeps up, if this is just a a sudden thing that'll just go back down again, or whether this is a permanent change. Adela you, like Shabbos have really been focused. On campuses to a large degree, like Shabbos, you also sued your own university.
You were the pioneer in the lawsuits under title six. Do you see a fundamental permanent shift? Among students and I am talking about Jewish students or pro Israel students, but particularly I'm interested in Jewish students. Do you see that this is that there's been a lot of people waking up and participating and and figuring out ways to fight back?
Adela Cojab: Yeah. From what I've seen. Students are definitely awake, and they're a lot braver than when I was on campus. When I was in school, which was 2015 to 2019 as an undergraduate, we had, a small board, and we had our events, and our events had maybe, 30 to 50 people on a good day, and our massive events had maybe 200 to 300 people.
Right? Which was a lot of fun, but at the end of the day, we were a board of, maybe 10 students that got together and planned these events every week. When I decided to sue NYU, at that point, we had grown tremendously. Why? Because, unfortunately, whether or not we want to accept it, we come together during crisis.
And sometimes you need that little wake up to realize that you have to do much more. When I speak to students today, it's not one student against one school after one flag burning, which was me. It's a group of four or five, six plaintiffs, right? Columbia has a class action with over 140 plaintiffs.
Suddenly every single Jewish student is feeling that they have the responsibility to stand up, even if they're not taking legal action. I've spoken to so many students that decided not to file a case, but end of the day, every single student just saying I'm having this issue. How can I stand up?
I think that's a really good shift. I think again, they're much braver. I hear the way they testified before Congress when I see Shabbos and the new wave of students like Eden. It really is something that I say, wow, 20 year old me would have been so scared to do what they're doing. And that was me the one who sued.
At the same time, I also think that the Jewish institutional world has woken up, and I can't even tell you the amount of schools I've spoken to not just Colleges anymore and high schools, but I'm speaking to middle schools and elementary schools about the importance of Jewish identity and standing up for who you are.
So I think institutionally, we've made that shift where we're training these students from elementary, middle, high school into college. So when they show up. The college students don't have to wake up. They're already trained. So I have a sense of peace for what's to come. I'm very excited for the students and I think these are the students that we're leaving the Jewish future hands in, then I think we're going to have a really bright Jewish future.
David Hazony: Shanie. I'd like to maybe just shift a little bit from campuses to the sort of slightly older cohort, the world of young professionals, because this is an area where we don't, it's not in our faces. We don't hear about what goes on, what the, what they experience once they're in the workforce, once they're in Jewish communal.
Professions. But these are, for in many ways, the same group, you graduate college, you go into the to the workforce. And you wrote an essay that called include our clinic, our critics, or we lose our soul, which was published today on the Jewish priorities substack. I will mention that all of the essays, all the writers today, their essays appear on the Jewish priority substack.
So you're, you essentially Yeah. Issued a kind of a warning. Yes, we need to all come together and be Zionists, whatever that precisely might mean, but but you already are beginning to see signs, perhaps that, that that if we really want to be effective, both for the undergraduates and for young people in the workforce, we need to find ways to be inclusive within that space.
Inclusive within that tent. So can you elaborate a little bit on that? What are you worried about?
Shanie Reichman: Sure, I'll just start by saying I completely agree with Adele's assessment that there are so many communities that try to stay far away from Israel. And I had been, I've been doing this work for eight years.
I was begging them, please do any kind of program on the conflict. We'll bring in Palestinians. We'll be very balanced. And they really tried to shy away. And I've been nonstop getting calls from them the past year, speaking in communities that have, frankly, have a lot of anti Zionist. And the men were.
Always really afraid to delve in that have been realizing it's too late to be silent and it's impossible to be silenced. So it's time to actually engage with this. So I've been really thrilled to see that. That said, I am concerned by a few things. Boundless Israel, which many of you are familiar with, had an amazing survey that also had some some pretty unfortunate data from it back in August, right?
It was entirely around 18 to 40 year olds in the American Jewish community. Now Shabbos is right. The vast majority of them, 85%, support the state of Israel and support the right of Israel to exist. Only 5 percent are anti Zionist, but only 31 percent call themselves a Zionist, right? That's a massive problem.
Once you define it for them, it jumps to about 50%. Still not breaking any records here. As far as I'm concerned, that full 85 percent should call themselves Zionists. And to me, that speaks to something in our definition, something about how our community is functioning, and that's why I push for a much more inclusive and nuanced perspective in how we're going to talk about Zionism to make sure we're not alienating people.
The 70 percent of people who for some in our in American Jewish community, who apparently don't identify with Zionism, and I can speak more later about how I lay out those pieces, but I do think a lot of it's on the left, because as this poll lists 55 percent of American Jews who are 18 to 40 identifies progressive or liberal, only 19 percent call themselves conservative right and so it's Safe to assume that this enormous demographic that I'm trying to capture.
I'm now I work across the political spectrum, but I'm deeply invested in capturing the left because I think that's where we're most at risk of losing people from the Zionist camp. And so I try to think about ways to keep engaging them. But these numbers. Do concern me despite the surge, which I mean, every one of us who works at definitely listen knows that all of our Jewish institutions have seen an amazing influx of people, but we need to make sure we're capturing them and that they're continuing to engage with Israel in a thoughtful way.
David Hazony: So I do want to ask you, Alissa. If you could respond to that, you work in the AJC, you encounter Jewish communities of a broad spectrum of political and and religious outlooks. What do you think is necessary to, to shift that 31 percent more towards the 85 percent because I also noticed that gap.
And I think it's wild. It suggests that the anti Zionist rhetoric for years has had a very big impact on the Jewish community.
Alissa Bernstein: I could speak to this topic for years, but I'll keep it to a couple of minutes for everyone's sake. You're absolutely right to me that we've seen a huge influx, especially in young people getting more engaged when it comes to fighting anti semitism, protecting the Jewish community, standing up for Israel and becoming more empowered in their Zionist identities.
It's been particularly after October 7th. And I'm seeing more and more young people. Below the age of 25 just out of college saying, okay, put us to work. We're ready, send us to Sacramento, send us to D. C. Put us in the room where it happens. We want to speak to the people that matter and let them know what our priorities are.
Every single year we're seeing more people and it's been incredible. And I think that one of the most impactful tools, and I spoke about this in November at the Z3 conference, has been that more, I'm finding that young Jews are becoming more reconnected with their Jewish identity, not just as this sort of broad, vague culture of eating matzah and, gefilte fish or whatever, whatever your go to Jewish food may be.
I'm not personally a fan of gefilte fish, but for the sake of the argument, they're not just saying, I'm a cultural Jew. More and more I'm saying, I'm seeing that people understand Jewish indigeneity. They're understanding our deep rooted genetic tie to Israel and the land of Israel. Those, there's a reason why all of a sudden after October 7th.
People it's this springing into action to support Israel didn't come out of nowhere. This connection Israel lies, whether you choose to make it active or not lies within us and for many it was just a connection that lay dormant, because they didn't have the permission they didn't have the opportunity to speak up.
And as they're learning more and more, whether that be through a JC programs like leaders for tomorrow, which is a leadership training program for high school students. Or, young professionals networks like IPF, a theater access at it allows the opportunity to understand where they come from. If you don't know where you're come from, where you come from, you're not going to know where you're going.
And if you don't know who you are, you'll never be able to advocate for yourself for your community. These are things that I. a million percent believed to be true. And I'm seeing more and more young people get more involved in USY and BBYO and NIFTY and Diller and, all of these incredible programs starting from a young age, programs I wish I had.
I had USY, but these advocacy programs that help train young professionals and educate them and young students on their history. Not just as you mentioned Holocaust and on because To say that Jewish history starts with the Holocaust starts with that tragedy is not only inaccurate.
It's a huge disservice to the Jewish people. And more and more young folks are waking up to that fact and starting to really educate themselves and sit down. And learn about where they come from. And I think that is the most effective and most important tool to being a strong advocate and to reawakening that.
And I say reawakening because we have this inherent connection to Israel, whether or not you want to accept it, whether or not you want to talk about it. It allows us to reawaken that connection to Israel and really wear it on our sleeve. So I want to take the conversation to a deeper place. That's okay.
David Hazony: Oz, you're a warrior. You are a you are a, an emissary on American Jewish campuses, you're familiar with American Jewish life as well as the Israeli experience, but your essay doesn't talk about that. Your essay, or maybe it does, your essay goes to talk about Mordechai Kaplan. who was one of American the most important American Jewish philosophers of the 20th century.
He has the JCC movement and the Reconstructionist movement under his belt as inspirations. And you brought an obscure, what was, I think, an obscure essay of his short book of his called A New Zionism, which he wrote in the 1950s, as a response to this what you call Ben Gurionite view of Zionism, which is, it's about statehood, it's about politics, which is something that the word Zionism has come to mean for American Jews supporting Israel, but Kaplan takes in a very different direction.
I'm wondering whether this can offer. One answer to the question of how do we bridge that 31 percent to 85 percent gap? Why was it important for you to write about Kaplan and what was he saying? And why is it crucial? The name of your essay was why mortified Kaplan matters after October 7th. So maybe share with us a little bit about that.
And then I'm going to do a quick rapid fire round on a, on another question before we turn it over to the audience. Sure.
Oz Bin Nun: So I know. I know it's it seems like an intellectual thing, which it is, but for me, I came back for, from two years as a Israeli emissary and medicine, Wisconsin on campus with students there.
And two months after we got back to Israel, October 7th happened. I went and I fought in a kibbutz again during October 7th. And since then I served for four months. And more after, but in the north with my team and because I need to read stuff. So during the war, I read a lot. Very try to look around, see on Twitter, on Facebook, what thing what people are writing or thinking.
And I got a sense, a really strong sense of. Things doesn't fit like the way Israelis are talking about Zionism and the way Zionism as a thing is affecting the world or behaving even in the world doesn't fit. And for me the need for rethinking about Zionism is not just an intellectual thing or kind of like I want to play with the definition to feed for American Jewish people, to identify a Zionist, but it's an existential state of mind.
Because right now, the way that I see it. We're facing a huge challenge in so many fronts front lines and. It's true about Israel. It's very like clear in Israel, right? I need, in March, I have Miluim. I need to be in reserve for a whole month. It's very clear that I need to take a gun and the gear and to do what I need to do.
But I think that it's also an illusion. And it's very, it's a comfort zone for Israelis. And because I'm the Israeli here, I can be critical against Israelis. It's a comfort zone for Israelis to feel that, okay, we are the protagonist. of the story. We are the main character and everyone else is the sidekick.
And I think that it's not just that it's not true, but also it's very unaffected and even destructive. Because I think that right now the Jewish people as a whole are facing a lot of challenges. And the only way to face that as the panelists before me said so beautifully, is to feel that it's on me, is the internal sense of control that I think Mordecai Kaplan explained so in an amazing way of, I don't trust anyone else to protect the Jewish people.
I don't even, I don't even trust God. to protect the Jewish people. I need to protect, I need to save Jewish people, and I need to make sure that they are safe, that they can flourish, that they're in a good situation. And this is why I think that the rethink or redefine Zionism, the way that I try to do, in the article is so crucial.
And for me, it's part of being outside of the character of, okay, I'm, we are the Israelis, we are fighting, we are the only story. It's not true. It's part, it's a huge part of the Jewish story, but it's still part of
David Hazony: the story. Yeah I'm reminded of Amitai Fraiman, who you guys. and we'll see again.
Speaks often about the concept of islands of sovereignty. That we to rethink. Diaspora life in a In a sort of a sovereign mindset. vis a vis our own communities, that these are our responsibility, and that when and that when Jews are in trouble in one community, the other communities come to support them.
I want to do a real fast round. I have two questions, two burning questions that I want to ask each of you. And I would like you each to answer as short as you possibly can, because we still want to give people a chance. In the meantime, I would love to ask the audience to put your questions in the chat.
As we're In a few minutes, we will hand it over to back to Amitai, who will lead the Q& A portion. Question number one, and I want you each to address both questions quickly. Number one, I want to know what has been the hardest thing that you've had to deal with since October 7th. Question number two.
And I think that we all are very much aware that there is a new president in the White House and a new administration, and without going into politics and your general feelings about about the election or about the president, I would like to know whether you, how you feel the anti Semitism issue is likely to be affected, whether this is how it will benefit and how it may not benefit you.
You're the communities that you see and are interacting with on a regular basis that I want your answers to be shorter than the question was, if possible, because the question is too long. So number one, what was the hardest thing? And number two, how do you see things moving forward in this new reality?
And I'll go in reverse order from we went before starting with us.
Oz Bin Nun: I think I'll answer just the first one. I think October 7th will be the easiest. But I think that I came back after the, my four, four months of serving to talk in my university in Madison, Wisconsin on February 2024 and to see my students. And specifically students who define themselves as liberals and had a lot of friends from like studying gender study or stuff like that, the way that they look and the way that they shared the story that they shared with me about the way their friends talk to them.
Trust me, it was so hard.
David Hazony: Okay, Alissa, hardest part and what's happening going forward.
Alissa Bernstein: I'd say the hardest part as much as I encourage and urge all Jews to wear their advocacy on their sleeve and wear their Zionism on their sleeve, making sure that I don't make my entire Jewish identity centered around tragedy and hardship.
and pain. As advocates, we're all inclined to constantly be in this world, constantly use our voices. And I've had to remind myself to step back. I stopped looking at the news on the weekend where I can practice, Shabbat and experience Jewish joy outside of The pain. I think that's separating yourself from that, and especially being a professional Jew.
I like to call myself that making sure that I'm a Jewish person outside of that and enjoying all the joy that comes with it going forward. I think there are challenges across the political spectrum, when it comes to the Jewish community in Israel, no matter how you see it all. I work for a nonpartisan Jewish advocacy organization.
We work with people across political spectrum with vastly different views on Israel and other issues. And whereas on the left we've seen and continue to see a huge level of anti Zionism and how that, the antisemitism that comes out of that camp. We also see on the right in this country far right extremism and anti semitism.
This isn't new. It's more obvious and a little bit easier. And they're very self proclaimed Jew haters. So it makes sense. But I think going forward in my role, especially trying to urge as much bipartisan cooperation when it comes to the topic of Israel is incredibly important bridging that gap on in the political across a political aisle I think it's going to be one of the hardest things that we have to do, but one of the most important not only for Israel's sake in the Jewish community, but for our country.
David Hazony: Shanie, hardest part, and moving forward.
Shanie Reichman: Sure. The week of October, obviously October 7th itself, waking up to that news was horrible. That, the following two weeks, IPF Atid hosted community check ins, so like support groups around the country in every chapter city, which is a little bit outside of our wheelhouse, or it was outside our wheelhouse because we're policy briefings usually.
And seeing the influx of people who are typically in more progressive and liberal circles showing up and saying, I haven't thought about Israel for 10 years, and I didn't think I had to but I felt completely abandoned this morning, right? My friends are celebrating what happened on social media. So that was really painful, similar to what Oz said really painful to see, and I'm glad we're able to be there for a lot of those folks.
In terms of on the government side, I'm always an optimist. So I'm trying to be optimistic. Just like I would have been optimistic if there was a Harris administration for different reasons. But I think some of the isolationism on the right worries me from foreign policy perspective, but generally, I think there's a lot of obvious things to, to call out like Alissa named, but I'm still generally hopeful that there are some some good allies in the White House as well.
David Hazony: Great. Adela.
Adela Cojab: So I think there's two quick difficulties that I've been having since October 7th. One is speaking to parents. As much as I think that students are strong, I think their parents are much weaker. And it's very difficult after I give a talk or a speech to sit down with parents who are genuinely concerned for their children's safety, rightfully and for me to tell them, believe me, your kids have this, it's going to be okay.
Or parents say something like, my, my kids will never go to Stanford. My child got into Yale. I'm not sending him in a billion years. And that divide between the old generation of Jews and the new generation of Jews has been very difficult to navigate. And similarly being a non Israeli. Jew living in the United States.
Difficulty with competing messages. I think that having a platform, as we all know, Jews have two, two Jews, three opinions. You get approached by multiple groups, some that say it's time to bring them home by any cost. And then groups that say a ceasefire releasing prisoners is jeopardizing our safety.
And when you're approached and asked to amplify two different messages, both of which you believe in. It becomes very difficult, and I know that a lot of people have been struggling with that too. In terms of where I see everything in terms of the new administration, I have to say I'm extremely optimistic in terms of the anti Semitism because of the new administration.
I think that when I sued NYU, it was 2019, and I was one student against one school after one flag burning, and that led to a call from the White House and an executive order expanding the definition of Judaism to protect Jewish students on campus. And then after October 7th, when we saw every campus explode in anti Semitism, we heard nothing.
We heard nothing. And we always say, if they wanted to, they would. And clearly I saw they didn't want to what I've seen from this administration over the last two weeks is an administration that if they wanted to, they would and they're doing it. So I think in terms of institutional anti semitism, we're going to see a crackdown, and it's going to have to be a top down change because bottom up, it simply would not happen.
Shabbos Kestenbaum: Sure. So the hardest part since the hardest person since seven has obviously been the anti semitism. But outside of that, it's working with Jewish nonprofits. It is impossible to say anything publicly that is constructive criticism without being relentlessly attacked for trying to sow division.
It is remarkable. I was at the Knesset three weeks ago, I was giving a talk and Jonathan Greenblatt, who's a very good guy, he's a nice man, was upstairs and he was saying publicly that we at the ADL have been unable to turn the tide against the inferno of anti semitism. And he said that at Didn't really elicit any outrage in the U.S. Meanwhile, the legacy Jewish nonprofits, ADL, AJC, Hale International, they raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually. And meanwhile, our college campuses are a disaster. We couldn't pass the Anti Semitism Awareness Act. We couldn't pass the Deterrent Act. We couldn't pass the No Foreign Gifts Act, which again, really solidifies why I'm so optimistic about young American Jews, because they're not really willing to wait for Jewish nonprofits to get their act together.
We're just going to do it ourselves. In terms of the second part of the question, Exactly what Adela just said. I'm incredibly optimistic. This is someone who's going to deport foreign students who violate American law, which is not bigoted or Islamophobic or controversial. That has literally been American law for 50 years.
It just never enforced. He's someone who's gonna crack down on D. E. I. He is someone who is going to tax university endowments. He's someone who's going to withhold federal funds. And again, Adela just said this. It's a pretty damn shame that the Biden administration could have literally done Any of these things, literally anytime he wanted and refused.
It's a shame that Kamala Harris refused to meet with a single Jewish student since October 7th. I'm a Democrat, I've only voted for Democrats, but of course I made a relatively public break with this last election. And, I will say this very publicly, and I have said this to Democratic political operatives, I will continue to vote for the Republican nominee so long as my party, the Democratic party, does Don't take issues of anti semitism seriously.
In the same way that the African American community should vote for their best interests and there are concessions made to the NAACP, in the same way that the LGBTQ plus community should vote for their national interests and there are concessions made to the human rights campaign, there should be concessions made to the Jewish camp, to the Jewish community.
And if the democratic party does not want to make those concessions, fine, that's their prerogative. But then don't come begging for us for votes.
David Hazony: Okay great. I appreciate all of you coming. This has been fantastic. I want to turn it over back to keep your cameras on because I would like you to be available to answer questions.
I'll turn it back over to Amitai who is going to turn his camera on and I'll ask Grace if you could once again put the link in for purchasing your own copy of Young Zionist Voices. And and Amitai is going to Field the questions.
Amitai Fraiman: Yeah, thank you for this this is just a peak into what this book with these essays includes.
I reread the essays of the panelists of course, before this call. And it's it was, it was very educational, exciting the second time around. And I really encourage you to purchase the book to get an even broader sense of what's going on and what this generation has to say about the state of Zionism and Jewish people in our future.
Thank you for that very rich conversation. We got a few questions. And none of the questions really were addressed to anybody in particular, so we'll ask them generally. I have my own questions. If we need, but we'll start with some questions from the audience. Early on when we talked about the shift of Or the change in what we're seeing in the in, in this generation, we got a question that wants to add another layer, right?
It, there seems to be a group of young adults, this is a question who are realizing that what it means to be Jewish because they are singled out by others. And the question is, what is the opportunity that lies in this moment?
Adela Cojab: I can have, go ahead. So I always talk about salient identities, right? And your salient identity, which is the identity that comes out the most is usually the one that's under attack. When it's under attack, you can either mute it so you could fit in or you own it because it's what makes you different.
For example, when I went to a Syrian Jewish day school where everyone was a Syrian Jew like me my salient identities were being female and being Mexican. I was born in Mexico. So I leaned into being a Mexican Jew and be leaned into being a female Jew with the female Jewish experience, experiencing Syrian Judaism as a woman.
Then suddenly I show up to campus. No one really cares that I was born in Mexico. No one really cares that I'm a woman. I feel very comfortable. And suddenly my Judaism and Zionism were things that were under attack. And again, you have the moment of fight or flight and I chose to fight. So what opportunity exists?
here. I think that we had that moment where everyone woke up. And I think speaking to a lot of Jewish influencers, some realized that their engagement was low, things like that. And it's because, like I said, people come together over crisis. And the question is how do we keep them from falling apart? And I think that it's the consistent engagement of building community.
Why would someone keep coming back after a BDS vote? If you have a BDS vote, all the Jewish students come because they want to stand up against BDS three weeks after BDS, how do you get those students back? When they want to see the students they met in that first meeting. So I think that right now is the moment for not necessarily the activists.
The activists had our moment. We're still gonna keep fighting, but now it's time for the community builders. It's time to create that moment where students wanna keep coming back to it to say, I awoke my Jewish identity, now let me anchor myself in it. And the only way to do it is through others.
Amitai Fraiman: Thank you. Oz, you want to take a, oh, Shanie was also going. Yeah, Shanie can. All right, Shanie and then Oz.
Shanie Reichman: I was going to say that the survey data that I was speaking about earlier did ask explicitly what Young American Jews, 18 to 41 to see more of. And so we do have a pretty good sense that they are really looking for greater confidence speaking about Israel and particularly about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and they're looking to be more knowledgeable beyond sort of slogans and traditional talking points, which is precisely my job, luckily.
And the other piece of it, which I think is really important is that 80 percent of them wanted to be connected with Israelis and understand their experience better. 78 percent said the same thing about Palestinians. So I think we have a clear opportunity there to be connecting them to people on the ground, which is a really high priority for me, particularly those who share their values and also those who don't, right?
Israelis and Palestinians, very different opinions than American Jews in their 20s. And that's okay. I think we shouldn't shy away from either of those groups for that reason.
Oz Bin Nun: Yeah, so I think we have a kind of a parallel situation in Israel, even though there are some differences. So I think the young, the younger or the young generation in Israel right now, the main difference between the older generation and the younger is the ability to prioritize. I think it's also true for the U.
S. Or North America, but right now in Israel, a lot of young people, and I'm involved in different, several different projects, are like looking up to the older generation and saying you need to rethink about your priorities. And in the young generation, because we experienced firsthand the huge tragedy of October 7th and we had the to pay the price, unfortunately.
And to some extent, I think that a lot of young people in Israel are feeling that we are actually also the adults, because the adults are still fighting between themselves, even now. And to some extent, I think that the the Besorah, right? Like the new message to the world, the gospel yeah, of the young generation.
It's true also in the U.S., but for sure here in Israel, I feel that every day is that fellas, we have to stop all the, sorry for my French, bullshit, and we need to focus on how we are keeping our people safe. And I think it's true for the U.S. And it's true for Israel, for sure.
Amitai Fraiman: Thank you. So I we got a question here that I I want to start Dafqa with Oz and with Adela, but of course it's open to everybody, and in particular based on your, what you've written and what you've spoken about. So there's a question about the role of Aliyah. in traditional, in, in this, in, in Zionist education.
Adela, you talk about we're here to stay, and that's something, don't leave the universities, don't leave the diasporas if we're here to stay. And Oz, you talk about an expansion of the idea of Zionism a la moda chai kaplan, and I'm curious to hear your, everybody's perspective, but I'll start with you two, because it really cuts to the core of what you've been talking about.
Oz Bin Nun: So I think that Aliyah is extremely complicated issue as a former Israeli emissary on campus. It's things that like all the Israelis are telling you like you need to convince people to make Aliyah. And I never agreed with that. I think that being Jewish, being Jew and being Zionist is something that need to be deeply rooted in your identity, in your story.
And the idea of anyone, everywhere should make Haliyah, for me, makes zero sense. This is why the whole idea of my essay is it doesn't really matter where are you right now, physically. It's the, what matters is that you need to take responsibility right now for the people around you. And I think this is something that a lot of people who are talking about Aliyah, they're missing something.
They still trying to hold the idea of my story is the only story and you should join my story. But I think it's way more important that everyone from the Jewish community around the world will decide that doesn't really what story they are holding. It matters how they are acting in their narrative, in their story.
And I think this would make a huge difference. We can see it right now in front of us. People from different places are doing different stuff, but everything is so impactful and meaningful because they are taking responsibility. And this is why I think Aliyah, it's not, I don't say it's not important. But I don't think it's like the in the priorities.
I don't think it's the main or the first priority here.
Adela Cojab: So I love that question because it's controversial and I hope that this stirs up, something in the comments and conversations in your own homes. I always say that campuses are the microcosm for the world. So when we saw things get dangerous on campus, everyone said, let me pull my Jewish child out of the school and let me send them to a Jewish school like Yeshiva University.
And that's great. Except it creates a problem that I call self ghettoization. And when you self ghettoize, you take Jewish students out of the institutions that they, number one, deserve and want to be part of, and number two, you're taking out any Jew that other people might interact with. When you let other people decide where a Jew can and cannot feel comfortable, you are allowing anti Semitism to win.
Now, if you look at that on a larger scale, when things got dangerous in the diaspora, we have so many Jews spring up and say, it's time to move to Israel. That is a fear response. If you want to go to Yeshiva University, that's wonderful. If you want to make Aliyah, that's wonderful. As long as it's coming from inside of your Jewish soul, and it's not a decision that's based on fear.
Because when you take the Jew out based on fear, number one, the community that you're going to be building isn't going to be a strong, empowered community. It's going to be a community that's going to feel shunned within themselves and never interact with the outside world. And number two, you're leaving the outside world without a Jewish voice.
Whether or not you send your child to a If you have a child that doesn't go to school like Harvard, guess what, there's a wait list and their seat will be filled by someone else. Number one. And number two, whether or not your child becomes the leader of tomorrow, which he should rightfully if you look at the Supreme Court bench, we have what, Harvard, Yale?
If your child doesn't go to Harvard and Yale, whoever did will become the leader of tomorrow. And I would rather that leader have a Jewish friend. As much as I don't think Jews in the diaspora can exist without Israel, Israel cannot exist without Jews in the diaspora. I really do think that we're a community that goes hand in hand One cannot exist without the other.
And we, as Diaspora Jews, it's our responsibility to the Jews in Israel to stand strong here and make sure we're holding down the fort.
Amitai Fraiman: Thank you. Alissa or Shanie or Shabbos, you want to take any of that question or I can move to the next one.
Alissa Bernstein: Adela really took every single word right out of my mouth.
I think you said it so perfectly. It's an amazing opportunity for those who feel intrinsically that they want to return to the homeland and express their Judaism. And there's Zionism in that way. But we have to work hand in hand. Israel needs a voice in the diaspora. We need to be able to work together to speak to one another's priorities.
And we have to be able to stand up in the face of hate and not allow ourselves to create a vacuum for hate. As Adela said, there's so many people who go to college and have never met a Jew. And if you remove yourself from that campus, you may be the Jewish person that they will never meet. And as such never have a positive association with the Jewish community, and that is a huge loss.
Stand in the discomfort and try to make it a little bit more comfortable for everybody around you.
Shabbos Kestenbaum: As it pertains to Aliyah and an affinity towards the state of Israel, I agree, broadly speaking, that we should run to something, not run from something. So you should move to Israel because it is our ancestral homeland, because you can be an authentically Practicing Jew in any way that looks like to you because that is the place of our forefathers.
That's why you should go to Israel. Not because, some idiots are drawing swastikas on the subway. So in general run to something, not run from something having said that. And I say this with enormous respect and gratitude to Adela because Adela, I was going to say, you're the grandmother of this, but you're like two years older than me, so I don't want to age you, but Adela paved the way for all of us.
To file our lawsuits. But I would say this the premise or the assumption of the argument that we need to be in these spaces now more than ever, is that these places are worthy of these places are institutions of power and of meaning. And I just don't think that's true anymore. And I think the American people see that as well.
I think it's a very good thing that Harvard has had a 15 percent drop in early applications. They've had a 5 percent drop in early in applications overall. They've had hundreds of millions of dollars in donations being rescinded. They're going to have their federal funds withheld. They are on the cold open of Saturday night live.
I have a list in my phone of billionaires of hedge fund C of hedge fund managers of CEOs who've told me to my face, Shabbos, unless they explicitly state that they support American values, we are not going to hire Harvard graduates or Columbia graduates or Yale graduates anymore. So while it's true, Supreme court justices have come from Harvard and Yale in the past.
Amy Coney Barrett did not go to Harvard or Yale. I think she went to Duke, but someone can fact check me on that. So The future of higher education is one about one where education is the primary concern, which is why I look at what Barry Weiss is doing in Texas. The University of Austin. I look at Georgia Tech.
I look at University of Florida, the University of Miami, Vanderbilt, University of Chicago. There are really good institutions of higher learning out there, and they're not called Yale, Columbia, Harvard. In fact, Forbes magazine had an article a couple of months ago called the New Ivy Leagues, and it really demonstrated that the American people are moving away.
From this sense of moral hypocrisy and intellectual bankruptcy and love Trump or hate Trump. The reaction of Harvard University the day after Trump was reelected was a significant amount of professors canceled classes. They had DEI hired sunshine the puppet to console students. There was story time with Marty, there was basket weaving, there was free massages.
So this is just not an institution worthy, forget about Jews for the American people. It's just a silly institution that has been hijacked by wokeism and political indoctrination. I, I. I, as I said, I speak a lot and I've never once had a parent ever come up to me and say we need to send our kids to Rockland Community College because Rockland Community College had an encampment and they have tons of anti Semitic professors.
Quantitatively, it's probably more than Harvard and Columbia, but no one's made that argument to me ever because why? No offense to any RCC alumni who may be watching, but no one cares about Rockland Community College. No one cares. And I simply want. to create that narrative around Harvard and Columbia and Yale.
People should not care about those institutions. They should not care about the impressive sounding degrees. And again, the business world, the corporate world and the American people, they're slowly beginning to turn the tide and love Donald Trump, hate Donald Trump. The election was a clear repudiation of Ivy league values.
It was a clear repudiation from the American people, not just the Jewish community, but the American people saying that they are tired of institutions of higher learning that clearly are teaching their students to hate capitalism, to hate the West and to hate the United States. And I'm very grateful that so many Americans are waking up to that reality.
Amitai Fraiman: Okay. Thank you for that. All of you one last question touched upon it a little bit. It'll be a two part. And this is really the last one for those of you want to chime in. There's a lot of conversation about fear driven decisions. Shanie, if it's talking about the fear of losing people Alissa, you write about, yeah, doubling down, being proud of who we are and this kind of response to fear, generally speaking, this fight or flight is something that's very very strong in this discourse. So I want to, maybe if we can end this call or this part of this panel with a little bit more of a hopeful message.
What are things that comfort you all? When you feel that fear, where do you turn to for those sources of inspiration, and maybe share with our audiences some tips on how to deal with that, because there are some scary things out there as well.
Shanie Reichman: Sure I'm happy to start. Obviously, you're drawing a lot of hope, like. All of us who work in the Jewish communal space from the people who show up at the organizations who never stepped a foot in the door and never touched Israel or Jewish life until October 7th, very inspired to see a lot of those people.
But more than that, I think that people are thinking very critically in a way that they didn't before. I think that even those in the pro Israel community, or in some ways maybe especially them, were very comfortable to not think that hard about the conflict, not think that hard about a lot of the on the ground issues, including and especially those that weren't, different from them.
All the issues that challenged them day to day was a lot easier to ignore and now it's become a little bit impossible to ignore. And I think that's a good thing. I think that it's good that American Jews are starting to, regardless of their opinions, have an opinion beyond, I really love to eat hummus.
That's great. And I'm an Israeli. I care a lot about Israeli culture and connecting to Israelis on the ground. And also, you're allowed to have nuanced policy views and substantive discussions. That's important. And Israelis are waking up to that kind of at the same time, which I think is a special moment.
Yes, the demographics on the, of the young Israelis and young American Jews are vastly different. I don't need to tell you guys the numbers of young American Jews and where they identify politically versus Israelis, but that's okay. It's a very unique opportunity where we can bring them together to have really thoughtful debates, discussions, talk about the most challenging issues.
That's, as some of that's my job is to not shy away from that. And I'm thrilled to see more and more people in the American Jewish community welcoming that, moving away from slogans and talking points and delving much more into the actual substance, thinking about long term strategy, thinking about foreign policy.
That's really inspiring to me. I would love to answer with short story. So during October 7th, me and my team, we ran to the fire and to the kibbutzim near the Otef, and I don't need to, I think that we Israelis tend to talk a lot, even in too much of graphics and stuff, and I think we all got our trauma from October 7th, but one, one memory that I have, and I still have all the time, is that the morning after October 7th, like October 8th, a really good friend of mine, a teammate, Who's grew up in the kibbutz Katserim.
Oz Bin Nun: He's like the kibbutznik, right? Like the classic kibbutznik that you can imagine. The first thing he did after we finished our, we did like patrols searching for terrorists. The first thing he did after he got off the patrol is to go and watering the everything. Basically, he started watering everything, went and fed the dog because it was a ghost town.
And this, that instinct of, It doesn't matter that we got through hell, but right now we are watering everything that we can. I think this is a state of mind that make me I can't be not optimistic after that. I think this is our only hope. And I think we have that hope.
David Hazony: With amazing note to end on. I just wanted to thank you Amitai and thank everyone for coming. This has been an amazing conversation. I also want to remind the panelists, please to stay on the line. But really, wow. Amitai, do you want to wrap up?
Amitai Fraiman: Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Thank you all for joining us.
Thank you, Oz and Alissa Adela and Shanie. David, it's good to see you. Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to get your copy of the book. Follow us on the Z3 Project. We have more events like this in person. The country and even in Israel. And so thank you for joining us again for the digital and thank you to the
David Hazony: team to the three team to Maya and grace and yes, of course, who are and Joelle and a lot and Sophie really thank everybody.
Thank you all for making this event possible.
Amitai Fraiman: Absolutely. And I will see you in our next event.
