The Voice of the Next Generation: Young Reform Jews on Israel and Zionism

really struggled with feeling like I could find spaces that held empathy for both sides. It was the first time maybe I really appreciated like the size and diversity of the American Jewish population. I found one other American Jewish girl who I really like could talk to. But other than that, I didn't feel like there was anyone else I could really relate to. Because on one side, there were people who just didn't care. And on the other side, when I tried to go to Jewish spaces, they also weren't saying the things that resonate with me. I'm Orly Erlikovsky. I'm the director of the Israel Religious Action Center. And I'm joined by Rabbi Josh Weinberg, vice president for Israel and Reform Zionism for the Union for Reform Judaism and director of ALSA. Together, we engage thinkers, leaders, educators, activists, and community builders who aren't afraid to wrestle with the tough questions of Jewish life, Israeli society, Zionism, politics, and the unfolding events that are redefining our moment. Through this podcast, we are deepening the dialogues that shape our shared future, asking what we can learn from each other's experiences in Israel and the diaspora, and what we should rightfully expect from one another. From Israel to North America, we explore how difference can strengthen community, make an impact, and how shared values can bridge even the widest gaps. Josh. In this episode of the Pluralist podcast, we turn our attention to a generation whose voices are shaping the Jewish future in real time. Two years after October 7th, a moment that altered the landscape of Jewish life, Israeli life, and global justice movements, we sit down with three young Reformed Jewish social justice leaders who are currently serving in our movement, working through the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, Tamara Uffel, Daniel Block, and Blake Ziegler. These organizers are working on the ground with peers, campuses, and communities struggling to find clarity, courage, and connection in a complicated world. And we are so thrilled to have them with us. So shalom, welcome. Thank you so much for being with us. And we want to start with a little bit that each of you will tell about their personal journey and identity. And we would like each of you to share with us a moment on a trip, in a class, during a conversation, or even just online when your relationship with Israel shifted in a meaningful way and what made that moment transformative for you. We'll start with you, Tamara. Hello. So I'm Tamara Apfal. I grew up in Rhode Island. I have a very deeply secular leftist Israeli father and a Brazilian mother. And so that was the context in which I grew up. I didn't grow up affiliated to any type of movement. I think sometimes Israelis who are secular in Israel, they come to the U.S. and they don't quite know where they belong in that landscape. But I think in some ways I was the victim of that. And I have had to find my own Jewish identity and spaces in my own way. And in terms of a moment that. That's an idea for a different podcast, too. That's a. Shaped me. I mean, I think I grew up in a very open minded household, I would say. Like I remember, I think sometimes people talk about, you know, like I was lied to or I didn't know. I never, I felt like I really got all the information. Like I remember being really young. We were flying to Israel to visit our Israeli family. And I was asking my mom, like, why is there so much extra security? She said, oh, there's a piece of land. It belongs to some people. It belongs to other people. You know, she like, nothing was a mystery. I remember being in middle school and my dad took me to see the documentary The Gatekeepers, which was like interviewing you know different leaders of the shin bed and it was talking about the occupation and how the occupation has created a security issue for israeli you know so all to say i've always felt like a very i had a very open-minded um upbringing in terms of everything and a transformative moment was um in college i was at my hillel and i was like the vice president for community groups which meant that i oversaw all the israel groups and this new israel group came and they were affiliated with Zohrot and they wanted to hold a like just stay worried about what Zohrot is it's like it means like to remember um in the feminine right yeah yeah yeah um and they thank you they wanted to hold an event honoring the Nakba around Yom Hatzmoth um around the same time like there was going to be a Hillel event and they wanted to offer an alternative event and i was like okay you know and it when that was the term that yes phalusinians use to yeah it translates to like the catastrophe and you know it's like two experiences that happened in that time um and i thought okay yeah and that's not what happened it was like an emergency at the hillel there were don't you know there was like a complete uprising from everyone everyone was very upset everyone was very stressed out like they canceled the event and then it was secretly held like it was balagan and i think in that moment i was like why are we like why are we so afraid to like engage with this thing that we know happened that is another side of the story another side of this day that we're remembering and i think that like hiding of it to me showed like a fear to engage with like a reality of something else that was happening and i think For me, that was in some ways like my entry point to how messy it can be in American Jewish communities where we avoid or we don't talk about. Yeah. Wow. Super interesting. Thank you so much for sharing. Daniel. Yeah. So my name is Daniel Block. I am a recent college grad. I went to Brandeis University in Wafan, Massachusetts. It's a historically Jewish university. Before that, I was growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas. and I'm very much a product of the Reform Jewish movement in North America. And in fact, you know, you asked this question about what was a transformative movement for us in relation to Israel. I have family in Shorashim in Israel. I grew up going there. I think the first time I went, I was probably five. And, you know, for me, Israel was always, you know, just a place we went because I had family there. There was no other reason, you know. It was just, you know, we spent three weeks there, like hanging out with aunt, uncle, cousins, et cetera, when I was a child. But I didn't really, and there were always conversations in the background about what was going on in Israel, you know, whether with family or friends or congregation, et cetera. Like those conversations were always in the background, but never really that obvious to me. I didn't really grasp it in the same way. I was just like, that's where the family lives, you know? And then I think in 2018, I was on what was then called Nifty in Israel, which now Yala Israel, which is the URJ summer programming. and I was there with my friends and it was the same summer that the nation state law came into being. And that was happening, you know, that same summer was when Netanyahu was meeting with Victor Orban. And I started to realize that Israel is not just the place where my family lives. It's true. And I have friends who live there, you know, from growing up at summer camp. It's also a place where I need to be concerned for the sake of Jewish peoplehood and also for democracy. You know, that when in 2018, that was in the U.S., that was Trump 1.0. And, you know, we've just for the past, my entire like cognizant life, like I've just been seeing the parallels between what's been going on in the U.S. and Israel. And that's only so that I would say was the first transformative moment. And then when I went to Brandeis, you know, I was involved in J Street. I was the president of J Street. at Brandeis. And it was a very polarized campus on the issue of Israel. And it was so interesting and something that I don't think you would see at many other college campuses, because the majority of the people who were on either side, if not pretty much all of them, were Jewish. And it was a very hard time to be in that leadership position. And, you know, I think I have a very unique experience in the October 7th, post-October 7th landscape as it relates to campus culture, which we can get into more later, but that's kind of the short of it all, Blake. It's amazing, Dana, that you had that sort of sense to connect the dots as a high school student between the nations they build, the league in which Netanyahu plays in terms of other despotic leaders around the world, and then thinking about that in the broader sense. I remember the summer, too, because we've worked so hard on the nation-state law, and we were so frustrated. I think we were. And we actually were one of the single voices who worked in the Knesset against it. I mean, I remembered me and Rabbi Gilad Kariv there in every hearing at the Knesset. And there were not a lot of civil society organizations then, because it was sort of, we see in the last few years, like a completely different picture from, you know, on the side of civil society. Back then, like, people, I think, didn't understand the magnitude of the law and how, you know, damaging it is. So it's like, yeah, it's sort of stuck with me to this memory. So Blake, tell us about yourself. Yeah, thank you so much for having us. A little bit about me. I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. I am the son of a woman who was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, but moved our family over to the reform movement because of the shifting demographics where we were living. all the young people were going to the Lord of the Longstreet synagogue. And my father is a convert. He grew up Catholic, and I spent my entire life in Catholic education. So for me, a lot of my Jewish identity is about navigating, literally being most of the time the only Jew in the room, particularly in interfaith spaces. I went to the University of Notre Dame where I studied political science and philosophy, focusing particularly on questions like that on religion and politics. Which is a Catholic university, right? Yeah, yeah. Why not call it the Catholicism? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, of course. And this is a tough question for me to answer in one particular episode because three parts of my life come to mind And it funny that Daniel mentioned the nation state law because when I was a senior in high school that was when the law was being debated And I was a huge competitor in high school debate. It was very much my identity as a high schooler. And we were debating topics that year pertaining to what are the qualities of a democratic country? And at what point does a democracy become an authoritarian regime? and you know they're in addition to the strategic benefit did you have a concrete answer was it like yeah you know uh studying political science it's always a never-ending question um or answer and you know being in that situation and there's also the strategic components of when you're thinking of the arguments you want to make and for me i decided let's start to argue that nadine yahoo's government is an authoritarian regime and getting into the literature and after growing up where, to be honest, Israel was not a huge part of my life. We would sing Hatikvah at school. We'd learn about it in religious school, like, oh, this is the Jewish homeland. The Holocaust happened. Now it's a state. That's where we go. You'll go there for this thing called birthright when you get older. I ended up never going on birthright. And so it never really became an important part of my life up until that moment when I actually started paying attention to the politics in Israel and learning about the nation-state law. And that was when I started having this reckoning in my mind about this place that is supposed to be my homeland and that I have a spiritual connection to is not matching with my democratic values or the values that I'm told are also Jewish values. And how can that be true? How can I hold those two things in place? Then I get into college. I start getting deep into Jewish advocacy and organizing on campus. We invite a prominent Jewish organization to come speak on the topic of anti-Zionism and its relationship to anti-Semitism. It was an awful event. It got protested and the protesters were right to protest it because the speaker was now prepared for the tough questions. And it resulted in a lot of questions of how do you reconcile the project of Zionism under somebody like Nadine Yahoo or Kahanism and the Jewish supremacist aspects of it? How do you reconcile that with this project of Jewish peoplehood and democracy? Like really core questions. And the best response the speaker could give was, well, you know, we also criticize Israel because we say the West Bank should be open to to the egalitarian section. And sorry, it's been a long bit. We'd like the West Bank to be more egalitarian as well. That episode really opened up a lot of things for me about engaging people from the other side and starting to have conversations. And I think that's when I really started getting deeper into not necessarily being more critical of Israel, but trying to engage the other side more and build empathy and understanding and really start to question, like, what is it that I know and don't know about this place that I've been told about my entire life? And then the last thing just to wrap up is this summer, I went to the south of Israel, kind of like right on the border with Gaza to visit some of the sites from October 7th. And it was very harrowing and jarring that in the same breath of us remembering like the lives lost and being told about the stories of the people who died on October 7th, the Israelis, and then the people who were still being held hostage in Gaza. and then at the same time literally just seeing across the sky Israel like the military dropping bombs onto what looked like apartment buildings or hotels or whatever it may be and seeing that happen and the tour guide saying oh I guess they decided to drop some bombs today and just nonchalantly talking about how yeah that's something that happens knowing that people have died right before our eyes. That was a really jarring instance for me that I think created the most significant turning point in my journey regarding Israel, that this is something that if I care so deeply about it as like the homeland of the Jewish people, as an American Jew, I have to voice my concerns about it towards those things. Well, thank you for sharing all your stories. I definitely resonated with many of them, But, you know, you mentioned, Blake, October 7th, and I really want to ask you, because obviously it was sort of a watershed moment for all of us, you know, really for Jews all over the world. And I wanted to ask what is, you know, how did you experience it and how this affected you and specifically your relationship with Israel? And how does it feel today, you know, two years after October 7th? I mean, I can tell you that, you know, we in Israel have gone through a very deep and long process of, you know, mourning and trauma, which we're still recovering from. But it did, you know, sort of put into question a lot of a lot of things for us. And I'm wondering, how is it from sort of your side? So shall we start now, maybe, Daniel? October 7th, 2023. So that week, it was Sukkot, John Sukkot. And at Brandeis, I was part of the Brandeis Reform Chavron. We had invited Rabbi Mike Moskowitz from Congregation Bates in Chaturah, a great thinker on all things like LGBT, Israel, America, Judaism. And it was just such a beautiful moment where the entire— It might be worth mentioning that he comes from the ultra-Orthodox world and is working at an LGBTQ Senate congregation. And he has a fascinating character, right? So he came to visit as a scholar, as a speaker? As a scholar, as a speaker. Yeah, yeah. It was just this beautiful moment. And, you know, we had, you know, it wasn't just the reform group who came, you know, in full force, but the conservative group, the Orthodox group, everyone was there. And it was a really lovely community event. And then several days later, it was, I believe, a Saturday, and I started getting, like, text messages and news alerts about an attack in Israel. And, you know, my first reaction is, okay, you know, that's not so crazy. Like, I remember growing up worrying about, like, there always being an attack or, you know, some bombings for a week or two. And so I wasn't anticipating when I started hearing the news of just the incredible horror of October 7th. And I think at Brandeis specifically, because it is such a historically Jewish university with a namesake as father of American Zionism, Louis Brandeis, first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court. And immediately within the next week or two, it felt like the entire Jewish community, it was very tense. Like you could cut the tension with a knife and it just felt like the slightest thing could set someone off. And there were, you know, I mentioned I was involved in Jewish community at Brandeis and J Street, and it was incredibly difficult to operate in those spaces, especially for those of us in the reform group, but also other groups who kind of wanted to do something about the attack on October 7th and remember the lives lost and, you know, like kind of process the trauma. And at the same time, as the war was really starting to ramp up and when the invasion of Gaza started, like also mourning those lives at the same time. And we had such incredible difficulty getting the entire Jewish community at Brandeis around that. There were people who were saying, oh, you're Israeli apologists. You know, you're excusing what is, you know, this is still November, December 2023. But, you know, she still had saying, you know, you're excusing a genocide, you know, or ethnic cleansing. And then you had people on the other side, you know, saying, why are you doing this? You know, like, why should we care about Palestinians? There's not a good one in the lot, you know. And it was incredibly difficult. And we have no room for empathy. Exactly. You know, just this drive for revenge, it felt like. And it was incredibly difficult to navigate that and try and maintain community, even outside of the Israel conversation, in the wake of October 7th. I think eventually, you know, I went abroad in 2024, so I wasn't on campus for that. But I think when I returned in the fall of 2024, things had calmed down a bit, I think, a lot. And I think the university did a pretty good job of facilitating conversations. Like, right after October 7th, they'd canceled classes for the day to do, like, teach-ins about how to have these difficult conversations. And I do think that's part of the reason why compared to other universities, I mean, also Brandeis demographically is different, but like we didn't have the same trauma, we'll say. But I think by the time I returned from study of your body, it was much calmer and still tense at times. But that's kind of my initial reaction to a memory of Dr. Rousseff. Yeah. You know, thank you for that. I completely understand. So you got caught in the middle sort of between those two, you know, extreme sides. And, you know, I can tell you that, like, for me and for, like, many Israelis right after October 7th, I think we were so engulfed in, you know, pain that it, like, even for me, it was really hard to see the pain of the other side. Like, I'm ashamed to say that. But, like, for a few weeks, like, I was, like, in a complete shock. And then, like, for me, it took a few weeks. But unfortunately, for many Israelis, it took months and months until they could actually see the other side and see, you know, that the pain, if at all. And yeah, like to understand that one pain does not negate the other and they should really acknowledge both of them. And some have not up until now. Tamara, how about you? Yeah. So I want to say, so what percent Jewish with Brandeis would you say? I believe the official number is 33 percent. Like that's what Hillel says. I would guess that it is actually much higher because I don't really I don't really know how they collect that data. It might just be Hillel attendance, but it is, you know, you throw a stone, you hit five Jewish kids from New Jersey. So, yeah. Probably don't throw a stone. Don't. Try to avoid that. Yeah. Yes. Well when October 7th happened I was on campus but like a very different campus I was at Oxford in the UK which is like two to five maybe percent Jewish like just as an American to be in a space with so few Jews was on its own crazy and I think I'd never considered what that actually felt like and I remember when October 7th happened right our our time you know like the time zone we're in is closer to Israel. So it was happening like more in real time. And I remember people kept saying like, are you okay? And I was like, no, like there's a war, like there's going to be a war. And people were like, what, where, you know, like there was such a disconnect. And I felt, I think it was like a full few days where I felt like disconnected from everyone around me because I was just watching what was happening, like in shock. And it seemed like no one else knew it was something they had to follow yet. This feeling of loneliness, right? Yeah. And I very much to what you were saying, really struggled with feeling like I could find spaces that held empathy for both sides. And I think it was the first time maybe I really appreciated like the size and diversity of the American Jewish population because I couldn't find like, I found one other American Jewish girl who I really like could talk to. But other than that, I didn't feel like there was anyone else I could really relate to. Because on one side, there were people who just didn't care. And on the other side, when I tried to go to Jewish spaces, they also weren't saying the things that resonate with me. Like, I didn't feel like wrapping an Israeli flag around me and singing Hatifa. I wanted to mourn what was happening. And I even remember like one day I was crying and I went to my thesis advisor and she was like, what happened? And I was like, I'm feeling a lot of pain for both sides right now. because I think something else that was interesting was I was one of very few Jews. And I was also one of the, I think the only person in my program who like actually knew Palestinians who were impacted or who had died, either like through a friend or I'd Zoomed with them before and like coexistence work. And so I actually like knew people and I knew people who were taken hostage. And I was so in the middle of it. I remember I came to her crying and she said, there are no two sides. there's the Palestinian people and Israel is a terrorist state. And I didn't know what to do with that. And that was right after October 7th? Yeah. Maybe like a month or so after. Do you want to share what you were studying there? What program? I was studying refugee studies. Okay. It's everything. I mean, you can't talk about Israel without talking about the notion of refugees and the history of the Jewish people and the Palestinian people. And I mean, there's so much there. And so also it was like I was processing this like shocking event in my lifetime and going to class every day and learning about it and learning theories about it. You know, we were reading like Frantz Fanon who says, I think it's like justice only comes from the rotting corpse of the settler. Like really intense language. It's based on the Algerian story, right? Exactly with the French. So, yeah, you know, I think what we really hear is, and I think what is lacking often from the discourse about Israel is a lack of nuance and lack of complexities. And the reality is super complex. And it's not as simple as people try to, you know, present. And I think that's really what stands at the root of the matter since October 7th and up until now. Right. And I think this is what we're struggling to show. Right. There are a lot of complexities. There are a lot of opinions. There are a lot of, you know, points of view. And we should really think about all of those and not try to show it in a simplistic way. Yeah. And I think also that, you know, what I hear from each of you is that when we're faced with a time of crisis, people tend to, you know, flock to what they perceive to be a safe space. Sorry. I just want to say in that time of struggling with the nuance, I think what really helped me was I found groups like Standing Together. And finally, I felt like I was hearing like the voices and the nuance that I needed. First of all, this is really impressive how each of you are reflecting on this and also expressing these feelings that are not easy. And I want to press on that, actually. And I want to get into it more a little bit. So how's the conversation among your peers? How among, you know, people you grew up with or people you went to high school or college with, and now you're working as professionals and, you know, obviously very publicly associated with like a mainstream Jewish organization. You know, some might say establishment. OK, we know we've been called worse. And, you know, and we have a very wide ideological or political spectrum within the reform movement. where does this sit with you right now? I'm thinking both like the intra-Jewish conversation that you're having either with your peers or with others. And then also, you know, as part of your work, how do you show up with partner organizations? So I'll just say, you know, for many of us, there was a sort of like a double whammy actually, in that, you know, one, the actual attack and massacre that occurred on October 7th. And then in the days and weeks after, when some people we thought were our friends and allies and partners, it turns out we're not at all. And that was also really hard. And with my rabbinical colleagues, we talk about that a lot in terms of where. So how is this playing out for you in your own sort of personal and professional lives, if you're willing to share? Yeah. Do you mean Jewish peers, non-Jewish peers? Those. Those. Yes. Because I have many. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, of course. I think for me, and what I found when I've talked to other Jews is mine is kind of like an exception to the rule. And I didn't have the experience that many Jews had. It's like, oh, my non-Jewish friends, they're not friends with me anymore. Like they're posting on Instagram, like Israel is a genocidal state. or like even like within the Jewish community, like the tension and everything. I didn't really experience that as much. And I think part of it was because at the time that October 7th happened, I had taken a step away from the Jewish advocacy organizing space. And I had been pursuing like teaching high school and being a debate director and enjoying that life. And so I just wasn't plugged into those spaces as much. But with my college friends, because October 7th for me was just a few months after I graduated college. so a lot of them did post things like that but what i found was they were much more willing to be open to conversation than the stories that i was hearing from and that was something i really appreciated was the opportunity to have deep dialogue with people that either deeply disagreed with or i felt like we agreed but perhaps we were using the wrong language and the learning that i took from most of those conversations was it's not necessarily a difference of opinion, but a difference of definition. So, for example, a lot of my college friends that I would have conversations with, and they would be posting about Israel as a terrorist state. There's an ethnic cleansing happening in Palestine and like a very black and white picture of it and not recognizing that there's also a terrorist group in Gaza that has killed a bunch of Israelis and wants to annihilate the Jewish people and that there is a legitimate threat. And to an extent, there is a justified response or need to take out that threat, of course, in a humanitarian way. And so when I would talk to them, many of them would ask me, do you still identify as a Zionist? And I would say yes. And they would ask me, how could you do that? And they would point to all of these liberal democratic things that I said that I aspire to live out or that I did in college or that I affiliated myself with. And it was often a conversation about what do you mean by the term Zionism? And I found that for many people, especially in the non-Jewish world, when they think Zionism, they're really thinking Kahanism, Jewish self-supremacy, that we need to consolidate the Jewish state, like the Jewish nation state law is an example of that. And so that's the immediate reaction. Yeah, what you're saying is sort of reminding me that, you know, during the 2023 democracy protest, we sort of reclaimed, you know, the Israeli flag. And we are now talking about reclaiming Jewish values as, you know, further away than what the government is presenting. So essentially you're talking about, you know, reclaiming Zionism, right? It's not the Zionism that the Israeli government is presenting, but rather the version that we believe in, right? Liberal Zionism that is aligned with, you know, reformed Jewish values. So it's really the same. Yeah, and even I hear that a lot, that people sort of conflate the current administration or the current coalition with the concept of Zionism or, you know, as a movement. And, you know, I often compare it to the United States in which, you know, one can be a proud American, even if they don't necessarily ally with the current administration, as it were, which I'm, you know, most of the people in my circle do not. But it sounds fascinating, like that people were. First of all, I think that's the most important question you can ask is, well, what do you mean by that? You know, help me. And that you found people who are curious and interested in engaging. and did you find like that people were looking to you because you were jewish as like hey can you break this down can you explain it to us for for the most part yes but i think it was because for most people i was either the only jew that they knew or for like the ones that i was in college with i was the jew on campus yeah as in like i was the one pushing for all of the interfaith kind of stuff um but i think and is that the same feeling now that you live in new york yeah i'm very glad to blend into the crowd yeah but i i think a similar thing can be said about uh i want to say like our side of the aisle but also recognizing people might disagree with me in the sense that, you know, it's very easy for us on the side that is critical of the Israeli government or critical of kind of this like Kahanism that's been emerging over the last few decades and hide behind it by saying, oh, we defend a liberal conception of Zionism, like belief in democracy and like even support for the two state solution and all of these things, equality and everything. But I find that there's not enough nuance on that side about what actually that looks like and what work is necessary to accomplish that, which is why groups like Standing Together also resonate with me, like Tamara said. And I just wanted to point that out, that it's not just on the other side that's having this issue of nuance, but also on our own side. Danielle, do you want to share too? Yeah, I think when I have these conversations, I think I want to speak more to the inter- or the intrad conversations, you know, with other Jewish people my age. I think a lot of people are kind of what Blake was alluding to, uncomfortable with the term Zionism. and identifying as a Zionist. And I think part of that is because of the conflation with Kahanism and Netanyahu's government. I think something to really remember here is like, people our age do not know an Israel separate from Netanyahu. We do not know the Israel of the 90s or what could have been the Israel post the 90s, you know? He was prime minister for three years in the 90s also. Remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it makes your point even more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Netanyahu and the rise of right-wing authoritarianism in Israel. That is all we know. And so I think that is how people in my generation, I think, you know, if you're not, you know, really entrenched in this work, like the three of us are, it is hard not to view Zionism as, you know, being inherently intertwined with the Netanyahu agenda. And what I push back on and what I say is Zionism base level is a belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in the land of Israel. And, you know, when someone says, OK, well, what about Palestinians? I say, well, you know, I believe like Zionism is a liberal cause. It is a cause to it is liberal in the sense that it liberated us from oppression in Europe and across the world. Israel is a place where we can go and be a majority and have influence over our own lives. But to accept that and not to accept, you know, that same self-determination for Palestinians, I think that's where I, you know, we run into trouble. And I think it's important that we say we are Zionism and our Zionism does not only allow but demands self-determination for people, for groups of people. And so it's not logically consistent to me. And this is what I always point out to people. If you are for one side and not for the other, it doesn't make any sense to me. And I feel like by pointing that out, especially with my non-Jewish friends, it opens some doors of imagining and new conceptions of Israel. So that's what I would like to add there. So I spend a lot of time in rooms where, let's say I'm 47, and I spend a lot of time in places where I'm the youngest person in the room. And the conversation more often than not goes to the place of, well, what about the young people? And, you know, are they all going to be, are they going to abandon Israel and they don't have the, you know, sort of inherent memory of the Holocaust, of the establishment of the state of Israel, of even the Six-Day War? And as I think you really, you know, really put very well in terms of, you know, the reality that you know of Israel has been Netanyahu as prime minister with an increase. I mean, you know, Netanyahu for many years brought someone to his left to be part of the coalition, whether it was Barak or Ehud Omer or Benny Gantz or whatever. And in the last three years, we know he's taken a sharp turn to the right in terms of the ultra-Orthodox and the ultra-nationalist camp in Israel and has entrenched that. And that is glaring, you know, from across the pond here. But talk to me a little bit about the generational gap. How has this conversation gone for you, whether it's with people in your life who are educational role models or professors or even parents, grandparents, you know, family members, you know, people in your workspace? you know I think this is the big question the question I get most when I visit congregations is parents anywhere from age 50 on up saying I don't know how to talk to my kids about this about Israel about these you know big questions how has that played out for you and what advice might you give them how to talk to their kids about it if we can put you on the spot for that. Yeah. I mean, I think a big part of it is acknowledging, right, what Daniel said, that for the majority of our lives, we have seen a Netanyahu Israel. We have watched a government continue to do more and more things to make Israel farther and farther away from a democratic state, less and less equal in so many ways as, you know, as a woman, as someone who works in the reform movement, like none of these identities are at all respected or valued in Israel under the Israeli, under the government. And so I think a lot has to do with like acknowledging the reality, you know, like I think as much as we avoid it and shun people for speaking out based on what they've seen, like that's where I think a lot of the resentment comes from. Like I've had. It's I'm going to make a comparison. I think oftentimes as someone who comes from someone with, you know, an Israeli family and like a more secular leftist Israeli family, my cousins have left Israel and they've moved to the U.S. My aunt and uncle are seeking, they're seeking citizenship in Portugal. Like they are actively choosing to leave Israel because they don't want their kids to fight in wars that they see as unjustified. They don't see a future for themselves there anymore. And so these are like real facts that I see. And I've witnessed sometimes that when I present my lived experience to other people, they become very defensive or they try to negate it. It was such a pleasure to host Tamara, Daniel, and Blake for this eye-opening conversation about what young Reform Jews think about Israel, how they can relate to Israel at a very, very difficult and challenging time. We are now recording after the last hostage has been returned this week, Ranikvili. And finally, there are no hostages in Gaza. It means that we are about to move to a different stage, which is sort of a closure of sorts, but also so many challenges ahead. We know how much work we have on our hands to fix Israeli society and to heal so many wounds and pains that have endured. And I think in this process, the voice of the next generation is super important. And we were so lucky to be able to talk with these thoughtful and engaging young leaders. Yeah, absolutely. At this pivotal moment, I think, in our lives and really the history of the state of Israel and the Jewish people, you know, sometimes it's important to step back and realize that some people even struggle to have a conversation like this. And, you know, Orly, I was thinking about this a lot, that you and I spend a lot of our time and a lot of our, you know, our job is to talk and to explain and to give lectures and to present Israel. And this, I think, was an opportunity for us just to sit and really listen and internalize. And my hope is that we can model this for so many people. And by the way, it's not that we're that much older than... Of course. We're young in spirit. But we are in a different generation and we see things differently in terms of, you know, the fact that, you know, they really only have known one prime minister in Israel. and that really makes an impact in how they see the world and their perspective. So I'm deeply grateful for this opportunity. And of course, this is not the last time that we'll engage this demographic and hear from their perspectives. And it's important to remember that theirs are their perspectives and their own perspectives, that we're not asking them to speak for, you know, entire population or an entire demographic, but really for themselves. For sure. And I think really the connection between young Reformed Jews in North America and young Reformed Jews in Israel is a bridge that could really help strengthen the relationship between Israel and diaspora. So I think it's really just the beginning of an important discussion that we should continue. if you who listened or watched this episode care about thoughtful honest conversations like the one that we just had please subscribe to our podcast to the Pluralist podcast please share this episode and invite others to listen with you because we believe in the importance of these conversations absolutely see you in our next episode