“When I go back to Israel, I feel as though I am seeing ghosts everywhere”

Question

And your book, who is it for?

I would like to say it is for “my own people”, but I now always put that phrase in quotation marks. Who are “our own” in a time of war? Our ethnic kin? Our comrades in struggle? Those who share our fears, or those who share our hopes? I want to speak to people who are not necessarily able to hear me, out of anger or out of fear. I am aware that some will read my words to turn them to their own ends, or to sharpen their weapons on them. And yet I know this book has to exist. For now, but also for later. For the day someone asks: how did a religious leader speak in years this dark?

Question

Do you think too great a responsibility is placed on the Jews of the diaspora?

Absolutely. A kind of permanent collective accusation is placed on a great many diaspora Jews, one that, as far as I know, is imposed on no one else. Are children from Arab backgrounds, in school playgrounds, asked to dissociate themselves from what certain Muslim countries inflict on women or on homosexuals? Anti-Muslim racism is very much present in our society, but it does not take that form.

Throughout history, this kind of collective accusation has always been placed on Jews. A famous Jewish joke puts it like this: “If someone does something stupid, people will say he’s a dirty bastard. But if a Jew does something stupid, they’ll say he’s a dirty Jew.”

Of course, some Jews do feel deeply involved in what is happening in Israel and in Palestine. But it is one thing to “feel” co-responsible, and quite another to be “held” responsible, or even guilty. That is what is unbearable.

Question

Does Israel’s future frighten you?

I have the sense that what is at stake today is the future of that State. Not its existence, because Israel exists, and those who deny its legitimacy are the true enemies of peace. But this election is as critical as an election can be. It will determine not only the country’s future but also its bond with the diaspora. You cannot understand Israeli politics without understanding the psyche of extreme vulnerability that haunts the country’s creation. This country was born of an awareness that the world had not been able, nor even willing, to save the Jews… That is also why it so often bets on force, and refuses to face its own vulnerabilities.

Question

Do the coming French elections frighten you?

This election year will no doubt be very difficult. The language of exclusion will harden, and so will hateful polarisation… And social media will amplify those extremes. That is how it works: the algorithm hates nuance and complexity. If you do not howl with the pack, and if you refuse inflammatory language, you are very quickly made invisible. And yet, more than ever, we have to speak, and invite the world to a humanist way of thinking. It is the only way for us to rise together out of all this rubble.