One Saturday night not long ago, I went to dinner at a restaurant with a dear friend. He brought along a black leather satchel, his Havdalah kit. When we sat down, he poured wine, lit the braided candle and sang the Hebrew prayers in his sonorous voice. Then he surprised me by drawing an envelope from the depths of the Havdalah bag and laying on the table an original January 13, 1898 edition of the Parisian newspaper L’Aurore, featuring Émile Zola’s exposé accusing the French government of antisemitism and the French military of unjustly convicting Alfred Dreyfus of treason.
As my friend, a collector of first editions, pulled out other items, I understood I was witnessing a show-and-tell of Jewish history. Amid wine glasses and a platter of steaming roasted eggplant, he set down an original letter written by David Ben-Gurion, and then both the German and Hebrew first editions of Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State. These were fascinating, but it was the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan booklet printed in Hebrew on the brown paper of a past era that captured my attention. My eyes kept returning to the page with the map that illustrated how British Mandatory Palestine was to be divided between the river and the sea.
I hadn’t looked at it for years. There they were, three chunks of territory designated for the Palestinians, connected by thin lines depicting land bridges, and three inverse sections of land representing the Jewish state. The Palestinian areas were Gaza; a wedge in the north that included the Mediterranean coast between Akko and Lebanon; and a huge swath of land encompassing the West Bank and the international city of Jerusalem.
Many thoughts marched through my mind as I gazed at this map—in addition to worries that food or drink might drip on it and the other valuable documents scattered about the table. Thinking of the UN today, I marveled at how two-thirds of the countries participating in that young international institution, including the Soviet Union, had come together to solve a problem. I thought of the Jewish leaders of the time who were very divided about accepting the Partition Plan but ultimately did. I also thought of the very divided Arab leaders, who ultimately chose war instead.
It struck me that I was holding in my hands the origin document of the two-state solution. This 78-year-old map resembling a six-piece puzzle is the foundation of the idea that in the long run there must be a Jewish homeland and a Palestinian homeland in the Middle East—two separate nations, side by side and, by necessity, geographically intertwined. My inner history nerd was tickled, but mostly I just felt sad. I still believe that ultimately two states are the way to go. Yet it now seems more likely that the modern strongmen of the Middle East, working with the one now running the United States, will create a different geopolitical and economic configuration. Any way you look at it, the path forward seems to have irrevocably changed. Tragically, the all-too-human tension between rational and irrational wants, between compromise—the main ingredient of wise problem-solving—and the warrior way, may have sabotaged it. From all sides.
In this issue we revisit a question we first asked in 2012 but that has been weighing on many hearts and minds since October 7, 2023: What does it mean to be pro-Israel today? Evoking fear and fury, this question is tearing the American Jewish community apart. One of my friends is so angry at what Israel has done in Gaza that not only has she washed her hands of Israel, she is ready to walk away from Judaism. Another friend insists that just about every single Palestinian would choose to destroy Israel given the opportunity. This same person believes that without Israel, diaspora Jews are lost. Yet another friend doesn’t care what havoc President Donald Trump wreaks on American democracy, as long as he helps Israel and fights antisemitism at home. The fractures run deep, and I can’t help but observe how people often draw, with real certainty, very different lessons from the same events. Even worse is their belief that they know what others think. That’s why posing this question to people with varied opinions is so important. Despite the chasms, I hold out hope that reading their perspectives will help spark new ideas and build bridges in our divided world.
A new darkness is falling on civilization. But there are ways to stave off darkness. One subtle strategy that works is to resist the pull of polarization. To combat this, we must steer clear of the extreme language and simple narratives (the kinds our brains like!) that are tearing us apart, and instead, boldly explore the complexities of the issues dividing us to discover what holds us together.
That’s what we do at Moment. We speak and curate conversations in a non-hysterical way that allows nuance, trust and agreement to grow. We do this even though we know full well that expressing certainty and anger feels good and excites people. We do this because empathy is not an either-or choice: We can hold more than one thought—and more than one people—in our hearts and minds at one time. We do this as a counterweight to the know-it-all snark that often masquerades as reporting these days. This is what wise journalism looks like in a deeply polarized era.
I hope Moment speaks to you in a deep way and that you’ll join us in pushing back against the polarization that feeds antisemitism, conspiracy theories in general and many other societal ills. Please support our important work and reach out to me at editor@momentmag.com to let me know how you are navigating these tumultuous times. I really want to hear from you. We’re all in this together.