Hasbara – Inside and Out

My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish text or tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite podcast platform and now on YouTube and Substack. We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria and a link is included in the show Notes. This week in the US we read Parashat Sh’lach through Contemporary Eyes with Pamela Pelled. Welcome Pam, Yesterday there were bombs falling in Israel and had we scheduled yesterday we would not be here. So it really is great to see you.

Pamela Peled [00:02:03]:
Thank you. It’s nearly midnight in Israel at the moment and last night as you say, we spent dodging missiles. So I might be a little bit bleary eyed, but I apologize.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:02:18]:
Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

Geoffrey Stern [00:02:21]:
Absolutely. So the book that you wrote is actually was published I believe in 2011 and so from a certain perspective I felt like nothing had changed. It had kidnappings, it had press and media that were distorting the story. So I think the good news and the bad news is that your book could have been published today and maybe we’ll see. We would have to tweak it for TikTok and Instagram, but otherwise just like the Bible and the Torah portion, things never change.

Pamela Peled [00:02:55]:
I’m very happy to be connected to the Bible like that, but it’s true. It’s sad how the situation is possibly even worse today than it was during the Intifada.

Geoffrey Stern [00:03:07]:
Well, we’ll get into that, but let’s just because we are a parasha podcast, let’s start with the sources in numbers. And talking of the spies or the scouts, it says, thus they spread columnies among the Israelites. It’s really about spreading information. Literally. We always think it’s the content of the information, but from the get go, it’s this activity of disseminating and maybe repackaging information about the land they had scouted, saying, the country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. Clearly they were commentating as much as they were observing. All the people that we saw in it are of astonishing great size. Eretz Ochelet, Yoshevar. It is a place that eats its settlers, and they are Anshei Midot. We saw Nephilim there. I guess that’s some sort of giant. The Anakites are part of the Nephilim. And here’s the punchline. We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them. So really we’re talking about perception. What. What do those verses mean to you? Pam?

Pamela Peled [00:04:29]:
It’s very difficult to talk about this at this point in time because we’re living through such a difficult time in Israel and we feel sometimes that it is a land that eats its inhabitants. Unfortunately, after three years of war and so many people we know dead and wounded, and, you know, I’m not sure how political we should become, but what feels to us like a government that’s just out to destroy us. And so these words are very resonate very deeply. But putting that aside for the moment, you know, this parasha starts when, when the spies come back and they say, and they told him, we came to the land to which you sent us. And indeed it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. And Rashi says that when you spread a falsehood, you have to start with something true and something positive, and then it becomes easier to disseminate the falsehood. But it’s very interesting, this parasha. I was looking at it again today, because the spies are actually telling their truth. They saying what they say saw, and they were frightened. And they weren’t actually cursed because they told their truth. They were cursed because of the implications that they gave to their truth. In other words, because they didn’t trust 100% that God could get them out of any mess. And that’s something that we could argue about for the rest of time, I think. You know, and it’s not really what I discuss in my book. I don’t put any. I don’t I don’t show the country through the divine lens of prophecy for the future. And I have to say that I think in my very humble opinion, but I have worked with this a lot. I think that one of the very big problems in Israel today is this messianic fervor and people thinking that if you say something wrong about the government or the country, you’re a traitor or the future of the country. You don’t accept the narrative. And it’s very, very frightening to me. I don’t know if you want me to get into that. The laws now being passed about to try and curtail the freedom of the press here and to put people into positions of power that toe the government line. But that’s a really a huge subject that I’m sure we can talk about at another time. I dealt with in my book, and I’m very conflicted this, I can say it. In the beginning, When I was 10 years old, the Six Day War broke out. So you can easily work out how old I am today. And I went to a Jewish day school in South Africa, in a very apartheid South Africa, I should add. And they broadcast the Six Day War, the news about the war, every day, which was broadcast in the corridors and in the classrooms. And I came home to my parents and I said, I want to go and live in Israel. And my parents were tremendously shocked. They were big Zionists, but, you know, they taught Zionism but hoped somebody else’s children would actually go and live there. But I never changed my mind from the age of 10. And when I was 16, my parents brought me to Israel to have a look at this country. And I said, that’s it. And I really, I was one of those crazy Zionists who said, how can we not be part of the biggest miracle of the millennium? So what if we don’t make the same amount? And my husband was the same, I must say, he was from London. And we used to go overseas to our friends and see that they were all much richer than us and they had better cars and their children were studying at prestigious universities. And we used to say, should we be there? And we always said, no, we are so happy and proud and privileged and lucky to be part of Israel. And I still really do believe that. But at the same time, we feel at the moment that the country has been hijacked, the country we know and love, by a government just wanting to stay in power and by the leader of the government not wanting to go to jail and not wanting to let

Geoffrey Stern [00:09:13]:
me Let me jump in here because what you’re saying is so fascinating to me. Number one, you started by saying we all, in a knee jerk type of way, look at the 10 spies who come back with a bad, a quote unquote bad report as the bad guys here. And I think I was going to quote a midrash that comes out because the other sin was that they cried during that night. And the Talmud says they cried bechi Shel chinam. And they did it on tish of night. So it puts this whole calamity in this same lens at level of institutional problem as the destruction of the Temple. But what I’m getting at is they cried for no reason. What you’re saying is by both focusing on them saying they said that the country eats up its people. Well, what happens if a time comes where the country actually is eating up its people, number one. And number two, what happens, And I’m going to coin a word here, if it’s not a Bechi shel Chinam, but a Bechi SHel M’chir, maybe it’s not pointless whining, but maybe it is a legitimate despair. And that is the moment that we’re in that makes us read this story in a totally new fashion, but also looks at us. I mean, I love the fact that you brought your strong Zionist background in because you were the Joshua. You and your husband were the Joshua and the Calebs, and you came and you raised a family. You’re living in the country and now you’re looking at it and maybe legitimately you’re saying this is a land that right now seems to be eating up its, its people.

Pamela Peled [00:11:11]:
That’s exactly. And we, we did, we did come here very young and we sent all our children not only to the army, but also for a year of service that they didn’t get paid for before the army. And I won’t get into the game of how many people we know have been hurt or killed in the army. And we’re living in a time, you know what’s going on now with the Haredim. You know what’s going on with, with how they refusing to go to the army. And Netanyahu and his government are completely bowing down before them because they need their votes so desperately. The Likud knows that the Haredim have to go to the army and work and pay taxes, otherwise the country will implode. They know Netanyahu himself has been saying it for many, many years, but suddenly, just today, they’re passing another huge budget for the Haridim. It’s crazy. But more crazy than that is that they’re calling people like me leftists. They sneer leftists and traitors. First of all, I’m not sure that I’m a leftist. What is a leftist? I think I’m a very sane center person. But you just have to open your mouth to disagree. And you called a traitor.

Geoffrey Stern [00:12:34]:
I mean, Rabbi, it is interesting how clearly this is contextual. There was a time when what they saw maybe didn’t merit their lack of faith. But there have to be times where you have to call a spade a spade.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:12:47]:
So I have a difference. So first of all, Pam, thank you so much for your insights and for your, you know, for your genuine. You got a very authentic view of what you know, what led you to move to Israel and you know, and how you feel. Now I’ll just say that several weeks ago we interviewed Adam Furziger.

Pamela Pellet [00:13:10]:
He was once my rabbi.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:13:13]:
Oh, you’re rabbi. So I’ll tell you a story about your rabbi, Rabbi Furziger.

Pamela Pellet [00:13:16]:
Just for a very short time, he was my Rabbi.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:13:18]:
Rabbi Professor Adam Furziger. So he tells he, he highlights Americans who moved to Israel, who made a difference. And one of the people who he highlights is Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein, who was a rabbi at Yeshiva University, who moved to Israel and started in Yeshivat Har Etzion and became extremely important in Israel. And the story he tells is as follows. He says that during the Six Day War, there was a bus that went from New York to a rally in Washington, which I guess was asking the government for funds or for arms during the war, literally to save the state of Israel. And the story he tells in the book is that when Rabbi Lichtenstein got off the bus back in New York, he came home and he said to his wife, I don’t want to be a spectator anymore. We’re moving to Israel. So it’s interesting that in that generation there were, you know, that people, you know, it’s exactly the same story as you are telling. What I have a different question based on our story of the Maraglim. When you went to Israel at 16 years old, having decided at 10 that you were going to move to Israel, were you like the maraglim? Did you see giants there who you weren’t going to be able to conquer, or was everything rose colored for you?

Pamela Peled [00:14:45]:
I wouldn’t say everything was rose colored, but I loved living in Israel and I always felt it was a great privilege and I was very happy to be part of the national journey. But it feels today that that is no longer the case because this particular government, for reasons of its own, like for example, today there was a photo being sent of Netanyahu’s face and saying, a rocket a day keeps prison away. So we don’t know anymore why are these wars being fought now. There’s lots of issues here at the same time as really, really fearing this government and fearing for the future of Israel as a democratic state. Really, really, really fearing. At the same time, we do have implacable enemies, there’s no doubt about it, who want us all dead. So we’ve always had, and we’ve always managed to fight them without losing faith in our own government. And there’s definitely, definitely an unfair, anti Semitic, anti Israel flood of feeling in the world today. I’m not so sure it’s wonderful to be a Jew in London or in New York at the moment, or in Toronto. I think it’s not. And I think I still would prefer to be here than anywhere else. But it’s not nice to be here and to be a part of the working, contributing, paying taxes side of the population and to send our kids to the army and to do all this. Where the money that should go to my daughter on the northern border. She lives right on the Lebanon border. They’ve had the most ghastly three years. Ghastly, ghastly. They’ve moved about 15 times and been whatever. So the money that’s supposed to go to her is, Is conditioned on a tax break for the settlers on the West Bank. And then so much money goes to the Haredim that there’s nothing over for them. That’s just ridiculous. You know, that’s what’s happening. So there’s all these intersecting whirlwind of things going on. I was just reading today, there’s a book by doctors, Doctors of Human Rights or whatever that organization is. They’ve just written a book and one of the. I can tell you who it was, if you like, one of the Norwegian physicians. His name is Dr. Mads Gilbert. He says the suffering and destruction that he saw in Gaza made Dante’s Inferno look like a tea party. What about mentioning the suffering in Kfar Aza where they came and shot women up their bodies and took their babies and cut off their… Really, you know, there’s definitely, definitely that side of Israel where people are happy and rejoice in Israel’s destruction. I would very much highly, highly, highly recommend to your viewers on this point to read Howard Jacobson’s searing new novel called Howl H O W L. A Howl of anguish of what it feels to be a Jew in London after the 7th of October. And I’ll skip Geoffrey if I may, to your next point, that you asked about Hasbara and you said what about internal Hasbara? To our own people. And for me, you know, this is the most terrifying thing. I don’t know how I would cope if I was living in America, a pro Israel, Zionist, proud Jew, and my children would go to “From the River to the Sea” demonstrations. It happened to someone we know, a very dear friend’s daughter, after 7 October, went to her from the river to the Sea demonstration in the States. And I called her and I said, you know, darling, you calling for my death when you say that. And she said, it’s metaphorical. It’s metaphorical. I’m not. So what does that mean? So everything is so crazy at the moment, don’t you think?

Geoffrey Stern [00:19:08]:
Yeah, it’s. It’s really a perfect storm. And we’re talking about two separate issues, but there actually is a connection between them. I mean, you are clearly someone who, who loves Israel to your core. On the other hand, you’re not rosy eyed. You see the reality, you’re living the reality. There is in your eyes, and I think I happen to agree with you, a very corrupt government. There’s a population that votes in that government over and over again. Let’s not forget about that. And then there’s the whole other question of, in other words, do we keep this to ourselves or can we talk about it? That’s more of an American Jew problem where we struggle. Can we critique the government from the outside?

Pamela Peled [00:19:58]:
And having said that, there still is a real, true problem, that whatever Israel does, no matter how justified the war is, we will get blamed and we will be called genocidal. It beggars belief that they talk about Israel’s genocide after the 7th of October. Beggars belief.

Geoffrey Stern [00:20:20]:
You know, I mean, I think sometimes I think about, I’d love to know what you guys think is that if you’re raising a child and everything that child does you say is bad at a certain point of time, the child doesn’t feel at all controlled by outside morality, outside rights, because the whole world judged them with a crooked measuring stick. And I think what it really emphasizes, our need to find our core. And that’s where you’re fighting the internal battle, Pam, because there are those, you can call them messianists, you can call them nationalists, people who feel we don’t have to answer to the world morality because there is no morality because we are criticized for whatever we do. And I think that’s the quagmire here. And you know, we love to have neat, clean answers, but it’s very hard to tell the difference between the Joshua and the Calebs and the 10 spies in a situation where we’re all trying to understand and process and explain and show the facts. And now a word from our sponsor. If there’s one thing we value at Madlik podcast, it’s reading texts and talking about them. That’s why I’m excited to share something I created called Voice Gift PLAY. It fits in the palm of your hand like a remote control and clips onto any book. It’s inspired by those old school museum audio guides, but this is personal. VoiceGift PLAY stores up to 10 hours of audio across 999 numbered recordings. You simply enter a number to record a comment, memory or explanation and enter the same number to play it back. It’s perfect for B’ nai Mitzvah, practicing their layning, capturing grandpa’s favorite tune, or recording Chad Gad ya in a voice that matters. Go to voice.gift, that’s http://www.voice.gift and use code MADLIK for 15% off. Thanks. And now back to our podcast.

Pamela Peled [00:22:37]:
So for many years I’ve been teaching students to go out into the world and advocate for Israel. And one of the things that I’ve been teaching because having grown up in Apartheid South Africa, I can teach very reliably I think why Israel is not an apartheid state. Definitely not. And I. We don’t have to go into that Israel, I’m talking about Israel proper. Obviously it’s not. There were separate hospital, you know what Apartheid was. There were separate buses and separate hospitals and separate where you could live and Israel’s not in Apartheid state. But I have to say that in latter years with Ben G’vir and the, people going wild on the West Bank, it’s become very difficult to explain that you know and the provocation and the violence, the terrible violence that this, that the so called settlers perpetrate on a daily basis. So it, it actually, it’s a terrible thing to do. But it also really affects and does it, it does terrible things for Israel’s image and it seems so sad. So people like me and there are lots of people like me, I’d say half the country thinks like me. We just wonder if this government gets in again and keeps pouring money into a population that’s growing exponentially. The Haredin. Can the country actually survive never mind anything else can it survive economically? It’s a big question. So we’re just praying, you know.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:24:17]:
Thank you again for, you know, from. From an insider’s view. That’s what Geoffrey. That’s the title today, you know, is that this is an insider discussion. We all know how to read the New York Times, but this is an insider discussion. I want to go back to something that Geoffrey mentioned before, and that’s the source that we have from the Talmud. In Ta’ nit: atem bechitem bechi shel chinam, you cried needlessly that night. V’ani koveia alechem bechi ldorot, and I’m going to force you to weep in future generations. Which, of course, was the establishment of Tisha B’Av. So you talk about, you know, you talk about the problem of the Haridim, the problem of settler violence. And I just wonder, you know, bechi shel chhinam. Needless weeping. How do you define. What’s the distinction? When is it weeping? That has a value. And when is it weeping? That is needless.

Pamela Peled [00:25:20]:
I think it probably has a value if it can be changed. I think if there’s something that you can do to change it, then there’s a value to weeping. I mean, look, I think this is a discussion that’s beyond me, because why would God want his people? It’s too much for our brains. Why would God want his people to suffer for the rest of time? We think immediately of the Holocaust. Is that God? Is that because of the spies? Too crazy for me to. I would prefer to stick to what’s going on now. Those questions are questions of faith and questions of, you know, religion. And I don’t think anyone can answer them. Can you?

Geoffrey Stern [00:26:20]:
My read on Bechi shel chinim is inauthentic crying. There’s no question. A mother loses a son and cries. That’s authentic. No one would ever call that inauthentic or. I love the fact that it used chinam. Because we talk about Sinat Chinam is the source of Tisha B’Av.

Pamela Peled [00:26:44]:
Av.

Geoffrey Stern [00:26:44]:
Normally we say the reason why there was a Tisha B’ av is because people hated each other for no reason. And in a very fascinating sense, these two midrashim are connected. Because the crying over things needlessly, I think, speaks to both when people posture, when people use. Whether it’s the situation like what happened in Gaza and like what happened in Iran. The world is not looking at the West Bank. Let’s do what we want there. When people use the fact that no matter what we do, we’re disenfranchised from the world. So that gives us free reign. I think that there’s an inauthenticity here, and that is the source, I think, for future generations, meaning to say that’s our curse. And I don’t take it, Pam, as much as a curse that we have to carry that cross. I think it’s what we, Jews in particular, have to be concerned about. And when we see ourselves divided, we know we’ve lost too many Temples, too many times have we had a chance to make a go at it, and we’ve lost it. And I think that’s the challenge here, with no easy answers. I mean, I think just to give you a little insight, in some of the thinking that’s going on in the United States, where antisemitism is growing, there are people like Dan Sinor, who wrote Startup Nation, and Bret Stephens, who said the biggest answer to antisemitism is that we have to dive and invest more in ourselves and our own pride, whether it’s pride or whatever. I think the idea is, and this is what was so fascinating to me, is that we can’t solve the problem of hasbara. But clearly one of the sources, if this is in fact an issue of they went around re explaining facts. Hasbara begins at home. Hasbara begins inside of our own heart.

Pamela Peled [00:28:56]:
I agree with you 100%. And that’s the main thing that I would like to give to the listeners is our feeling of deep conflict at the moment. Because on the one hand, really, I love Israel. I’ve lived here my whole life. We’ve brought our children up here. My husband spent his whole life dedicated to working for Israel too. And we love it. But we feel that we are now branded as traitors to the country because we don’t like the government. And so we still see the unfairness of the way the world views Israel. We still feel that it’s the only place for Jews to be safe. And why wouldn’t anybody want to? I feel that we’re still so proud of our startup nation, but the startup nation people are leaving. People, doctors are leaving and the leaving for the first time ever, I think, I think double the people are leaving to who are coming. It’s never been before in the history of Israel. I don’t think. And you know, when your prime minister stands up and sneers at you that you’re a leftist because you want a commission of inquiry, as to why the 7th of October happened and sneers that you traitors that you want. It’s very hard to keep a balance especially when you’re under attack from Iran and on seven fronts at once and terrorism and it’s, it’s been dramatic and all we can say is that we actually holding our breath till the elections. And there’s this feeling that if it sane. If I told you what the government was busy with today on the day that we were being bombed, do you know they were busy discussing whether Tali Gottlieb’s immunity should be taken away. Tali Gottlieb is a member of Knesset who can only be described as. She screams, she pulls her hair, she’s peculiar, she screams, she doesn’t talk and she, at the beginning of the war wanted to get back at somebody who was protesting the war. So she revealed this woman’s husband’s details and he works for the security of Israel. She said his name, where he lived, she revealed it all and she’s up for treason or for threatening the security of Israel. So today that is what the Israeli government was dealing with. How to not get rid of her immunity so she won’t be tried for endangering the security of Israel because can you, can you believe it? Can you, can you actually believe that we turn on the TVs to see if our kids are going to go to school tomorrow. How many people have been killed? What’s happening? Are we at war again? And we see t got lip screaming and not one person from the Likud says a word about it.

Geoffrey Stern [00:32:02]:
So we’re getting to the end. I want to tell you and share with you what my takeaway is. My takeaway is that we read this story of the scouts coming back as if they’re tourists giving their travelogue. And yes, we see that there’s a Talmud that says this is on par with the destruction of the Temple. And it’s sometimes hard for us to understand the angst that was going on at that moment. But I think what you’ve done is to literally bring it into today’s moment. And it’s too easy for us, especially living here in the States, who read about this in a scroll or a newspaper to not understand that Israel in your eyes, and I personally share your view, is going through such a moment, such a do or die moment, such as is this generation going to make it or not moment. And I think you’ve really through just speaking your heart have put us into a little bit better mind frame to understand what this is all about. And we have to. If we’re talking about, you know, we all blatantly say, what’s new in Israel? This is literally a moment.

Pamela Peled [00:33:26]:
Well, I would like to believe, because I’ve been so. It’s been terrible here. It’s really with the bombs and the running to shelters and knowing people dying all over the place and our kids in Lebanon and in Gaza and just terrible, terrible stuff. It’s really been terrible. But I would like to end on a optimistic note because I do believe, I really do, that if the government changes and we get a sane and decent government moment, we are going to have such a restart in Israel. That’s what I’m praying for. And when they say that we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, we’ll learn to be grasshoppers that stand on our back legs. And Israel, there’s. We’ve got our energy and we’ve got our. We know how to jump as grasshoppers. Whatever. We’ll be okay. We just need to be gifted with not even great leaders, just leaders like we’ve always had, like Rabin, all our leaders until this time. Leaders who really put the good of the country in front of their own good. That’s all we need. You know, we didn’t always agree. I didn’t adore Begin, but I never believed that he put his own good in front of the good of the country. He obviously cared about the country. So that’s what we need. And I would like to be the Zionist that I once was and say that. Come along and join us. Normal people, come and vote. We need every vote. Just people who aren’t, you know, just crazy messianics and who live in the real world. Come and join us. Come and vote. Come and change our government and come and rebuild our beautiful, tiny, beleaguered, fabulous little country. That’s my takeaway.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:35:32]:
Thank you so, so much. This was really. Geoffrey this was really fascinating. Really an insider’s view. And please, God, again, we should be the grasshoppers standing on our back legs, proud of who we are and what we stand for. Shabbat Shalom, everybod, everybody in Israel, actually, they read Parashat Sh’lach this past week. This week they read Korah.

Geoffrey Stern [00:35:52]:
But, Pam, we will.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:35:53]:
We’ll leave the. We’ll leave the. The image of the grasshoppers for everybody. Grasshoppers on their back legs. Thank you so, so much.

Geoffrey Stern [00:36:01]:
Thank you so much, Pam. Great seeing you, Adam.