The Hostage of the Kidnapped campaign Ta'anit Esther/The Hostage of the Kidnapped
Towards the end of last week, the headquarters of the families of the abductees launched a new campaign, very different from the line it has taken so far: encouraging the chanting of "Shema Israel" to rescue the abductees.
This reading sparked a polemic, which as usual in our places quickly degenerated into a debate about what each of us thinks about one man, the one who has been at the center of every civil-political quarrel for something like 30 years.
We will immediately try to address the campaign itself, but first of all something personal: I don't usually pray (unless we consider penalties), but at the same time and despite my malicious heresy, I try to remember that a mitzvah between a person and his friend is greater than a mitzvah between a person and a place.
I want to say: "Hear Israel" as something between a person and his God, a non-believer stranger like me, but "Hear Israel" in public, as part of the cry of the kidnapped families, is in my view a great mitzvah.
Because when they require me to pray, it is a matter of religious compulsion, but when they ask me to "complete a minyan" for prayer in public, I stand up - and even try to say "Amen" in the right places.
All the more so when the source of the request is the headquarters of families to whom the State of Israel owes a great moral debt.
That is - even if I were asked by them to stand on one leg for 5 minutes every day, I would probably cooperate (within the limit of my excess weight).
Yoga practice to raise awareness about the abductees, Knesset Square.
In Israel 2024 a custom of one camp is idolatry in the eyes of the other/official website, no
Pray, believe, dance
One of the great disasters of Israeliness is that too many of us perceive it as a zero sum game.
An account where one Jew's gain is another's loss
This is perhaps the place to mention that not long ago some yoga practice was held for the abductees - an act that was scorned by quite a few commentators, mainly from the traditional right side, an apparent testimony to the progressive troll, the other, the one who was "known" to have been murdered because he danced around a statue of Buddha. ..
and here we begin to touch the root of the problem: one of the great disasters of Israeliness is that too many of us perceive it as a zero sum game.
An account where one Jew's gain is another's loss.
We will move a little further from the border of the Gaza Strip to examine a less emotional struggle, certainly less important, than the one waged by the families of the abductees - such as public transportation on Shabbat.
In a normal place economic feasibility was the only test for its existence.
Of course, they would avoid driving (for example) near synagogues or in the heart of ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, but beyond considering the needs of one on the one hand and the faith of the other on the other, there is no reason for such an almost technical issue to become a reason for a quarrel.
In the complex and emotional Israeli reality, he dismantles governments.
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An equation with one disappeared: 1,438 murdered + 253 kidnapped + 5 months - how many times did Netanyahu appear on the cover of Globes?
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Shimon Peres during his days as president.
You won't believe what his favorite minister was in the 1980s!/Spec 500, Ariel Tzur, Ein Gev Tourism
Memories of Shimon Peres
Let's go back to the abductees and their unfortunate families - like the rest of us, they hear the rumors that many of them are no longer alive and do not know their souls due to rage, frustration and helplessness.
With my own ears, I have heard how this campaign ("Hear Israel") is described as more correct, more popular, as an attempt to bring all sections of the people - including the more traditional ones - closer to the issue that was allegedly "kidnapped" by those who discovered that they had stopped their music from the regular Motzash party In Kaplan.
I'll admit that at first I nodded in agreement, but immediately after that came the questioning: how long will this flattery of a camp that exists only in the imagination of campaign managers continue?
In one of the election campaigns of the 1980s, Shimon Peres was asked what his favorite Hebrew song of all time was and he answered without hesitation: "Zingerla ".
For those who are not old enough to remember one of the most embarrassing moments in the Israeli public, we will find out that it was a popular hit that was much more popular that year than the eternal loser of Israeli politics, who of course lost in that campaign as well (today the answer would probably be "Harbo Darbo").
That is, The hidden assumption that there is some traditional and right-leaning popular moron, who will be quick to be convinced if they only address him with his language and shake some psalm book in front of his stupid gaze, is much more outrageous to me than open condescension.
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The Oscar was the promo for Eurovision, and the stage was deserted.
If this is what Israel's propaganda looks like, we have already lost
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The families of the abductees protest in front of the war cabinet.
With all the sympathy with them, it is hard to believe that the cabinet is scuttling a deal because their struggle was allegedly hijacked by some "Kaplanists"/Niv Aharonson
Because if that is indeed the case - and all that is needed to get a deal is to paint the struggle in colors that are convenient for the regime - then you can really start to fold everything here - we are not a nation that deserves its own state
And another assumption is implicit in this losing strategy: To Tomi I thought there was no abductee deal because of Hamas's refusal to negotiate until Israel commits to ending the fighting against it - and now we are being told that it is because their families' struggle is not painted the right color?
Let's repeat this claim in other words: people sit in their homes and leaders in their offices, know what happens to the abductees, hear what happens to the abductees - and oppose the deal only for political reasons.
Call me naive, but I refuse to make such accusations against even the most cynical politician.
Because if that is indeed the case - and all that is needed to achieve a deal is just to paint the struggle in colors that are convenient for the regime - then you can really start to fold everything here - we are not a nation that deserves its own country.
If the effort to endear oneself to the majority of the people is still somehow understandable - if only because of the plight of the applicants, then the ideological opposition to it expresses an even worse way of thinking.
I can understand a secular liberal feeling uncomfortable whenever he feels he has to pander to the consensus.
It is the same feeling of frustration that arises every time a secular leader wears a large kippa on his head and makes a pilgrimage to the home of an influential rabbi.
Demonstration on the stage square.
If they asked those who oppose the "Shema Israel" prayer to sing a Dylan song instead of praying, it would already be full/Reuters, Roni Levinson
And if they asked you to sing Dylan?
The problem is that this frustration made part of the secular-liberal public change their minds.
Suddenly Hanukkah becomes in his eyes the festival of the fanatics, Purim symbolizes the feeling of constant persecution, on Passover he is ready to die for the kiddush of the pita in the hospital wards, Shavuot is a holiday invented by farmers, a stand that encourages people to put on tefillin like it as a call to repentance - and only someone will try to teach their child at home The book how do you read a page of Gemara - and they will shout "religion" and demand that the director be fired.
What did they ask you, my enlightened brothers, to read "Shema Yisrael" for one minute?
After all, if they asked you to read a song by Dylan, you would already fill the square with the song "Kidnaps Agreement is Flying in the Wing", right?
So why not join something about which my 95-year-old mother used to say: "If it won't help, it certainly won't hurt either" - or maybe the Jewish tradition already seems so obscene to you that you are ready to justify Benjamin Netanyahu's horrible whispering in the ear of the accepted The deceased is spherical?
Perhaps the day will come when all of this will be the subject of academic research, which will touch on what today is too sensitive, such as the question of how those to whom the State of Israel owes such a great moral debt became almost-enemies in the eyes of some of its citizens (possible answer: they mention the moments of surprise, The loss and humiliation, which no military victory or the corpse of a terrorist, no matter how senior, will ever be able to protest).
In the meantime - be good and join in the chanting of "Shema Israel" for the abductees. You also don't miss the point, because there seems to be no debate about one thing: with each passing day, the chances increase that in the next campaign we will already have to replace Shema Israel with Kaddish.
More on the same topic:
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Shema Israel