The Conversation

Fall 2024

By Moment | Oct 08, 2024

ISRAEL VISION PROJECT

PARALLELS: 1934, 2024

In “Searching for Our Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky” and “Six Days Without Waze” (part of the “Israel Vision Project,” Summer 2024), Nadine Epstein introduces Evyatar Lipkin and Nadav Salzberger, two moderate Israelis with opposing ideologies who stand for a promising bipartisan political future in Israel. However, it is a false optimism. These two men do not oppose each other but rather have a common adversary in a reactionary Israeli government.

Epstein draws a parallel to the story of the militant liberal Jabotinsky and the socialist organizer Ben-Gurion, which is apt. Jabotinsky’s peace with Ben-Gurion failed in part because it was opposed by a radical group of Zionist conservative revolutionaries within his own Revisionist Party. It emerged as a fringe group called Brit Habiryonim (Covenant of the Sicarii) and propagated militant Zionism, anti-liberalism, Western declinism and Orthodox messianism. To better understand Israel’s current trajectory, one must take a closer look at this legacy.

Jabotinsky’s successors, Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, continued on his path and worked to make Israel a Jewish-majority, liberal democratic state. Likud-led governments introduced groundbreaking changes, such as the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt and the liberal constitutional reforms of the early 1990s. Unfortunately, the rise of a new generation of Jewish conservative revolutionaries and the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin effectively ended this Israeli spring.

The 1996 election of Benjamin Netanyahu was the death knell for Ben-Gurion’s and Jabotinsky’s hopes for Israel. For 30 years, Netanyahu and a cohort of Israeli conservatives have rejected and undermined decades of liberal and social democratic progress and led Israel down the path to an antidemocratic, religious, expansionist and supremacist Jewish minority state.

Jabotinsky once said that Jewish Americans prefer to hear nothing but good news from Eretz Yisrael, and Epstein endeavors to show a light at the end of a dark tunnel. Moderate Israelis, like Lipkin and Salzberger, can see eye to eye but only because they recognize Jewish political extremism as their common enemy, just as Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky did in 1934.
Uri Appenzeller Yardeni
Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

VOICES & VISIONS

Nadine Epstein’s “Israel: Voices & Visions” (Summer 2024) fully captured the complexities, challenges and concerns of the past year in a refreshingly open-minded way. I especially appreciated the feature on Sally Abed, a true hero in today’s challenging times. I recently spent a few weeks in Israel speaking with many of my friends and relatives about the post-October 7 realities, and these essays and interviews elevated the conversation in ways that deeply resonated with my own experiences. Well done!
Frederick Hertz
Oakland, CA

HIGHEST HOPES

I read the profile of doctor and AI innovator Isaac Bentwich (“Israel: Voices & Visions,” Summer 2024), with a great measure of pride and admiration. The Bentwich family has a long and distinguished history as pioneering Zionists and builders of the State of Israel. Isaac’s achievements as a trailblazer in business and technology have only enhanced this legacy. He represents the highest hopes for the future of Israel and the Jewish people.
Uri D. Herscher
Los Angeles, CA

Editor’s note: Visit momentmag.com/israel-vision-project to read the interview with Isaac Bentwich in the expanded digital Israel Vision Project.

CHABAD GROWS UP

THE REBBE’S VISION

It was powerful to read about Chabad’s institutional growth (“From the Margins to the Mainstream,” Summer 2024). However, this article misses an important point: The Rebbe’s vision was not to create the largest Jewish organization. It was to care for and empower every Jew and ensure that every Jew has a home and opportunities for education and connection. We have still got lots of work to do.
Nosson Potash, via X

REVISITING TAMIMENT

THE BOYS NEXT DOOR

Thank you for the wonderful story “Live From Tamiment” (Summer 2024). Tamiment was an envied neighbor when I spent teenage years at Unity House (the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union resort next door) as a nanny to a two- and three-year-old during the summers of 1944 and 1945. Some of the waiters and busboys—too young to have been in the Army—would sneak into Tamiment to see the shows. I never did but loved my years at Unity House, where I met my husband, the love of my life.
Eleanor Rubin
Tinton Falls, NJ

CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE

AMERICAN JEWS’ GOOD FORTUNE

Gershom Gorenberg is spot on in arguing that all people who were born American citizens have “won the lottery” and need to remember that when dealing with the rest of the world (“Jewish Anti-Zionists, Check Your Privilege,” Summer 2024).

More specifically, regardless of how we feel about what is going on in Israel, all Jewish Americans can agree that we should thank our stars that we do not live in Israel, or that if we choose to, we can leave if we want.
Debby Prigal
Washington, DC

AMERICAN JEWISH HUBRIS

I just spent the past ten days traveling through Europe and was once again struck by the complete hubris and ignorance of American Jews who don’t think they will ever need an Israel.
Sara Yael Hirschhorn, via X

SAFETY WITHOUT OPPRESSION

American Jews all have family members who were murdered by antisemitism. We are evidence that there are other options for (relative) safety than ethno-nationalistic states. We want safety for all Jews that isn’t built on oppression of others. That’s not privilege.
Mia Brett, via X

FRANK TALK

CHICAGO STYLE

Regarding Molly Foster’s “Talk of the Table” column (“Hot Diggity Dog!” Summer 2024): How much mail did you get from Chicagoans who said, “NEVER put ketchup on a hot dog!” It’s a long-standing mantra hereabouts!
Bindy Bitterman
Chicago, IL

AN OUTPOURING OF LOVE FOR LETTY COTTIN POGREBIN AND HER HUSBAND BERT

Letty Cottin Pogrebin’s “A ‘Mixed’ Marriage, a Lifelong Journey” (Summer 2024), on what she and her husband Bert z”l, who died in March, taught each other about Judaism over their six-decade-long partnership, received an outpouring of loving appreciation from readers. “I smiled the entire time I read this,” said TV writer and humorist Sybil Sage, “embracing the love, warmth, honesty and humor of two people who found the right partner.” Journalist Debra Nussbaum Cohen thanked Pogrebin for “sharing a bit of your dear husband with me and your legion of fans,” adding, “There is such grace in your writing.” “The last line made me cry,” author and theater director Toby Klein Greenwald shared. “What a wonderfully humane piece,” said Vanity Fair’s David Margolick, calling it “a great tribute to a man and to a marriage.”

Some remembrances came from friends of the couple. “Letty, I love all of your writing but I think this is the most tender and touching piece—with some Bert stories that I never heard before,” wrote the Orthodox feminist writer Blu Greenberg. “Bert was a love and a mensch, and despite your differences in religious background and theological beliefs, it was those shared qualities that bound you together and that made your marriage a model for all the world.” Author and autism advocate Liane Kupferberg Carter agreed: “Letty, I’m so sorry for your loss. What a mensch your husband was.”

Others said that the piece reminded them of their own unions. “My husband is not Jewish and I am, but no two people are closer or share the same values as we do,” said novelist and screenwriter Helen Schulman. “You sound like very lucky people, in family and in love and in purpose…It is a mitzvah to share this with all of us,” Schulman commented, adding, “I am so impressed by your exuberance for life and life-long activism.” “A beautiful story, Letty—and a knockout of a bathing suit too!” another reader commented, referring to the mod 1960s-era black suit she’s wearing in one of the photos of the couple featured in the piece. “My own family narrative parallels yours in many ways. Thanks for sharing.” The actress Jane Alexander wrote, “My late ‘red diaper baby’ husband Ed Sherin sounds so much like Bert. Ed said the Christian prayers at my holidays and graced my mother by marrying me in her Episcopal church. Bert and Ed were big-hearted, generous men, and I know we both miss their presence on this great earth.”