"Come eat with me," commands the name of the program.
And we, the Israelis, who live and die for food, come in our droves, our beards, our tap and our cracks.
Sit down in front of the big screen, and soon the playdate will begin.
We are delighted that it is "them" and not us, but at the same time we are quietly finding out where we are signing up for the next season.
And who are these dancing in front of us on the screen?
Five amateur chefs, who host for a home-style dinner and at the end of the night, give each other marks for the food and the hospitality.
This is the official definition.
In practice these are the mirrors of our lives, the new cultural heroes.
People just like us and the opposite, torn rips from the striped shirt, and especially those who won the grand prize of the new Israeliness - a valuable life thanks to the camera in front of them.
The format, which was imported from several countries, seems to deal with cooking, but in Israel, as in the nation of start-up corner Khaltura, every Borax or Brick is an invitation to a personal "twist" full of craziness, indulgences and attacks.
Because what are we if not tireless subversives of renewed tradition and innovations that seek to establish themselves immediately, as tradition?
Reality swallowers
The devil's best trick is to make people believe he doesn't really exist.
This is exactly how "Let's Eat With Me" disguises itself as a program that deals with food, when in fact it is a particularly successful docu-drama about the homey and the mo-mo Israeli soul.
Step by step, the program reveals the layers of depth of Israeliness, the truths we hide and the lies we believe, and above all the wandering and fading layers of Israeliness.
Layers in the absence of which the swallowers of reality fall apart.
Hani at "Let's eat with me", photo: here 11
Let's start from the end: the participants give marks to each other.
The very idea that the cats give a score to the cream, while competing with each other, turns the program into a honey and soy trap that the participants jump into headfirst.
"It's just a sport" is a song from the eighties.
But since then we've all paid enough money to coaches, therapists, or some kind of empowering lie, and therefore want to "fly for life", "devour the world" and generally win at any cost.
The line, the traffic, and especially all the others.
Because Israeli to Israeli - endless competition, since resources are limited and the day is short, and if you don't hurry, how will you get there?
And if you don't get high, how will you go up?
And if you don't stab (the ceviche) who will you step on?
Even in the explanations of the competitors, it is possible to understand how we as Israelis rank nicely from the bottom, because "it's not pleasant", but we will not cheer wholeheartedly because "why did someone die", and most importantly - no matter what ethnic group you are from, don't forget to say "soul" in the vernacular before we take out another the soul
And now let's talk about the food, the reason why we gathered.
20 years of food programs, and still no Israeli food.
All ethnic food.
And woe betide those who dare to cross the borders of the confiscation.
If you are cooking Italian, you should prepare your passport in advance to show a significant period, if you are cooking couscous, please include the genealogy book.
The more we mix and connect to one people, the greater the purity for authenticity, and the greater the clinging to what is "mine".
20 years of food programs, and still no Israeli food.
"Come eat with me", photo: here 11
But the most important thing that "Let's eat with me" reveals is how deep and essential is the phenomenon of the splitting of the Israeli tribes into shebatons and fragmentary fragments.
Time after time, the participants are surprised by the other's life and opinions to the point of astonishment - what, are there people like that?
When you take into account that sometimes these are participants who live not far from each other, the mutual gaps and lack of familiarity turn from impressive to terrifying.
Whether it is the settler who meets high-tech Arabs at table level and is moved to tears to discover that there are people with a different story, or the vegan who eats fish "once in a while" but has difficulty with the Mizrachi who is not Mizrachi according to the book, the devout LGBT who is amazed by people of religious faith and "divine" meatballs, Or the "Russian" who refuses to submit to the dictates of the tribe's menu and dares to cook food she has not tried.
More tribes than bonfires
It wasn't always like that.
I didn't need any food program to know Indian, Persian, Romanian, Bedouin or Georgian foods.
Everything was around me at the entrance, in the block and in the neighborhood.
Precisely when we were a country of one channel we had an abundance of present and absent Israeliness about which we argued passionately.
But the current multiplicity of channels and the abundance of diversity have become what belittles Israeliness as a connecting concept.
Less than a decade ago, President Rivlin spoke about the four Israeli tribes, and look what a miracle - today even 12 tribes will not be enough to define the era of diversity and expansion across the continuum.
I didn't need any food program to know Indian, Persian, Romanian, Bedouin or Georgian foods.
"Come eat with me", photo: here 11
Variety is not a problem in itself.
The answer to the question why we stopped knowing each other should be sought on the dark side of the multiplicity.
Israeli culture today is exploding with activity, but is in a very serious lack of audience.
Never have so many been broadcast to so few ears.
Israeli culture has become one-way.
If everyone is broadcasting out all the time, who has time to receive?
When every gender, sector, tribe and society finds itself the broadcasting station that echoes only their thoughts, it may feel like pluralism and diversity - but multiple voices at the same time is the practical definition of noise.
cacophony.
Countless frequencies resonate, without one of them standing out as the center in relation to the others.
As the cultural bridge that connects Israeli communities crumbles, we may find that we have become a nation of individuals who cannot tolerate anything but themselves.
Therefore, in the New Year's spread, let us wish for us and for the whole House of Israel that we will be an ear and not just a mouth, that our rights and opinions will multiply and that we will multiply and multiply like fish, but that we will also learn to be silent and listen like fish to others.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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