Gen Z & the Israel Conversation—The Z3 Podcast
In this episode of the Z3 Podcast, host Rabbi Amitai Fraiman is joined by Rebecca Guzman and Shanie Reichman, contributing authors to the book Young Zionist Voices, for a candid conversation about how the younger generations experiences Israel, Zionism, and Jewish identity. What does it take to build understanding between generations, and how can we stay in relationship even when we don’t see eye to eye? Don’t miss this thoughtful episode that speaks directly to the challenges and possibilities of being young, Jewish, and politically engaged today.
Want to hear more from Gen Z voices like Rebecca and Shanie? Get your copy of Young Zionist Voices now at z3project.org/books.
About Our Guests
Rebecca Guzman is a Straus Scholar and Tablet Fellow at Stern College for Women, where she is currently studying creative writing. Her work has appeared in Jewish Journal and The Jewish Press, and she has received recognition from the National Council of Teachers of English and The New York Times. She lives in New York City.
Shanie Reichman is the director of strategic initiatives and director of IPF Atid at Israel Policy Forum, based in New York City, where she works to elevate the discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She serves as the founding chair for the Forum Dvorah U.S. committee, an NGO that champions women’s participation in national security and foreign policy decision-making spheres in Israel. She is a Wexner Field Fellow, a Schusterman ROIer, and serves on the boards of Queens College Hillel and the Center for Ethnic, Racial and Religious Understanding. Her work has been published in the Forward, the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Hey Alma, Jewish Unpacked, and International Policy Digest. She is a participating author in the book “Young Zionist Voices” and is pursuing her MA in Middle Eastern Studies at CUNY Graduate Center.
Video Transcript
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (02:33)
Hi, Shanie. Hi, Rebecca. Welcome to the Z3 podcast. I am so excited to have the both of you here to have this conversation. You both are contributing authors to our most recent book as recording this Young Zionist Voices. I actually do have a copy here on my desk. So why not hold up the prop if I can? And you can get you should, know, people listening to this should get a copy. There's, you know, it's a collection of 31 essays of authors, 30 and younger.
It's very, very interesting. It's written post October 7th, a lot of insight from leaders, rising leaders from across the Jewish world. And we're really blessed to have you here in this conversation. So thank you very much for joining us today on this lovely Friday.
Rebecca Guzman (03:15)
Thank you for having us.
Shanie Reichman (03:15)
Pleasure to be here.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (03:16)
So
yeah, so we'll dive right into it. I mean, we're in the midst of quite a dramatic moment for our people. It's been intense for a while since towards the end of 2023, but in the past week when we're recording this, we've seen an increase. We've seen the direct kinetic confrontation between Iran and Israel in a way that we've seen only moments of it in the past two years prior.
But this is a whole new level of escalation and that's ways heavy and it's in the back of our mind. But I think in this conversation, we're going to, probably reach that at some point. But we're here to drill down and really talk about Zionism and the word, the meaning, what it means to us, what it means to our community in this moment and moving forward. And, you know, I think that's what we'll start. Start with maybe a brief definition from each of you. What does it mean to you? So start with Rebecca, because she,
was on time today. I wasn't on time. Rebecca was. So you get to go first. so what does the word you know, what does the word Zionism, what does it mean to you personally?
Rebecca Guzman (04:26)
For me, it's always been about the right to self-determination in our homeland, where a bunch of Jews get this space to figure out...
what this relationship to this land means to us. And that doesn't mean that everybody is always going to have the same opinion and the same relationship. But I think especially for my family and where I come from, it's about safety and a place where Jews are not going to be persecuted for being Jews, hence the Jewish state.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (05:00)
Thank you. Shanie
Shanie Reichman (05:03)
So certainly everything Rebecca said resonates with me. I try to keep my definition of Zionism as broad as possible so that we can be as inclusive and encompassing of as many potential Zionists and certainly as many Jews as possible, support for secure Jewish democratic state. But I try to keep that very broad so I wouldn't define the precise borders of that state. I wouldn't prescribe any particular ⁓ brand of Jewishness. I believe in big massive tent Zionism, which.
hopefully holds all the ideals of Israel's declaration of independence.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (05:35)
Thank you. So I mean, that's a great start already. And what I'm hearing ⁓ between the two of you, and I'm curious if this is just me mishearing, but I would say that maybe a slight variation between the two of you in this specific moment is that it sounds like Shanie's definition of Zionism is a little bit more, there's an element that's a little bit more conceptual, right? Like, you know, because once you get into the actualization parts of it,
There's going be borders. There's going to be real life implications. And Rebecca wasn't so, didn't feel the need to make it end ⁓ with a conceptual definition, but saying there is a ⁓ and a land and a border, and that's a place for us to kind of express our collective identity. Did I hear that correctly? Is that a fair?
Shanie Reichman (06:26)
You caught my part correctly. I view Zionism as a philosophy, maybe a political philosophy, honestly. Sometimes a theology, but the way I relate to it is as a philosophy, so that's why it's so conceptualized for me. we'll talk about this later, but I believe that you can support Israel and not call yourself a Zionist, and in fact, many do. Not me, obviously, because I'm on this podcast, but I like to maintain that distinction and view it more as a philosophical belief system.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (06:52)
Rebecca, how does that?
Rebecca Guzman (06:54)
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with that. And I will admit that my personal relationship with Zionism is incredibly informed by my lived experience. Not everything that I've learned in school or all the political science classes or all the trips I've taken there, but kind of honestly more of my life in America, growing up Jewish in America, as opposed to experiences I've had there.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (07:17)
So more, so more. So would you say, so I mean, there is, there is a question. There are those who would say today, Israelis say today, someone said it earlier that, ⁓ you know, I'll bring two names and then I want to move to the next thing, but just to make this real to our listeners, what do we mean when we say conceptual or aspirational or theoretical? Anshul Pheffer, a while back, I'm curious to hear these days, but said that Zionism is a platform that has lived its run its course and we're done, we don't need it anymore.
And not from a place of, you know, being against it, of course, as well, there's a state we've fulfilled the goals of the program. And now there's a conversation of what it can become. That was kind of one one one element of it. And I think that there's another one. I think it was Eitan Livni in the 50s wrote a piece called Is Israel Still Zionist? Right. And basically saying it was very easy to say that there was an aspirational component of Zionism, as long as it wasn't a reality. But now that there is a state and he wrote this in the 50s, right.
I believe. you know, it's like, are we living up to the ideals of a promise? Are we living up to where we're supposed to be? And that's what kind of how we, know, where he located the definition of Zionism. But from, know, in this conversation, and we were sitting, I'm already hearing a little bit, you know, at least in how Shanie said it, both of you actually, how you said it, you know, there's Judaism and there's Zionism. And I'm wondering how those two fit together for each one of you. So we'll start now with Shanie, I guess, because we start with Rebecca and gotta be fair here.
Shanie Reichman (08:44)
Zionism is very, very central to my Jewish identity, mostly because I don't connect as much religiously and not particularly spiritual. So I connect mainly through peoplehood. And for me, Israel is the primary manifestation of the Jewish peoplehood today. And so that's why it is kind of at the core for me. That said, I'm working hard on being more more open-minded to those who don't connect to their Zionism as a means of connecting to their Jewish identity and who don't center their Jewish identity.
around Israel, but it's been a journey for me towards understanding that the way that I connect to Israel and Judaism is far from how many others do.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (09:22)
Can you say a bit more about when you say the manifestation of the Jewish peoplehood? some of our listeners might immediately pick up on that and others might need a little bit more unpacking.
Shanie Reichman (09:26)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that ⁓ Judaism as a religion is an idea that originates in the United States and was something that Americans attempted to bring here ⁓ pretty early on when the first American Jews arrived. They realized that it behooved them to treat Judaism more as a religion similar to Christianity. ⁓ And they were pretty successful in that endeavor. And now their descendants are very upset about that. Right. Because I think most Jews at this point would say no Jews.
are an ethno-religion, we are a people, we are a nation, but we already spread the rumor across the United States, you know, over 100 years ago that Jews are not a people, that Jews are not distinct, we are like everyone else, we simply have a different religion. And that's, we'll get into this further down the line, but that's part of the misunderstanding of what Zionism and Israel are and what they mean to us as well.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (10:22)
So just to push you on that is to say, and therefore, because it's not limited to just a religion, and it's much more inclusive or expansive, that necessitates a relationship to Israel. And therefore, that's where the two kind of intersect. Is that a fair kind of following? OK, thank you. I just want to make sure I'm following. Rebecca, how does it meet you? Because your essays is you make some bold statements in there, I'd say.
Shanie Reichman (10:36)
Yeah. Yes, exactly.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (10:48)
that resonate. not saying they don't. It's sometimes depending on when you ask me, but I'm curious if you want to a stab at that question.
Rebecca Guzman (10:57)
Yeah, sure. So as I've said before, and I'm sure I'll repeat many, many times, ⁓ that my Zionism, and the reason I say my is because I think everyone has their own approach to it and their own relationship that I kind of think it's like fingerprints and snowflakes, like no two people's Zionism are alike. ⁓
And for me, it's more about I am a Zionist because I'm Jewish. especially having a family that grew up in the former Soviet Union, ⁓ the idea of, like Shanie said, the manifestation of Jewish peoplehood. And I think the safety associated with that automatically means ⁓ that I am a Zionist because I'm Jewish.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (11:42)
All right, absolutely. Yeah. Yes.
Shanie Reichman (11:42)
I just want to touch on the snowflake point, because I really love
what you said, the idea that everyone has their own version of Zionism and their own understanding. ⁓ Because I actually can't remember anymore if I wrote about this, ⁓ how we had many forms of Zionism originally. Obviously, I'm sure you've spoken about it on this podcast, so I won't go into it. But forms of political Zionism, religious Zionism, cultural Zionism, et cetera, labor Zionism, revisionist.
And they were all some type of Zionism. And somehow we've now tried to make Zionism whatever Israel, contemporary Israel is, instead of recognizing that it's a philosophy and people hold different versions of this philosophy, different streams of it.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (12:24)
Yeah, I like that. It certainly resonates in the sense that there's different variations. think part of what we think about is, speaking, about the differences maybe sometimes between a Chadaam and Herzl in their sense of what is going to... Chadaam articulated as there's two questions, and Herzl also addressed this, and I know this question was then co-opted later and used in a very, very negative way, but nonetheless they used the question, the Jewish question.
the way that Adam articulates it, he look, there's a problem of the Jews and there's a problem of Judaism. And the problem of the Jews being like, how do we secure our future? And how do we physically survive what's to come wherever it is? And he had his own opinions versus hurt souls. And it's not meant to be a course. This is just ⁓ tying into both of these and how they inform the rest of this episode. And the problem of Judaism is really like, OK, but then what? Right? Like after we...
after we're able to create that baseline of natural, of survivability, like who do we want to be when we grow up? Right, and how do we kind of ⁓ remove, you know, what we might think as negative influences on our Jewish spirit because we've been in diaspora for so long, and what does that look like? And we're attached to land, not attached to land, and I think this is where some of the ⁓ differences can really play out, and I think it's a wonderful kind of exploration to do, but I'm curious because, you know, there still is a distinction between Zionism and Judaism, right? We have...
people who are not Jewish were Zionists, and we have Jews who are very Jewish and not Zionist, right? And there's this kind of sometimes ⁓ a confusion, the litmus test is sometimes placed in all different areas. And I'm curious to hear if, how do you relate to it personally? Rebecca, you said for you, you're a Zionist because you're Jewish, so how do you think about either one of those groups? And Shanie, we'll start there, we'll just give you a minute to sit with that.
And Shinni, from your perspective also, and feel free to answer any of these questions, is like, OK, so what do we do? Are we focused on, is the end game Zionism, or is the end game Judaism? And how do we kind of think about those in different spaces? So we can start with either one of you. give it a second to kind of, I know it's a lot.
Shanie Reichman (14:42)
don't feel comfortable choosing between Judaism and Zionism as an end game. ⁓ If I had to choose, I would have to choose Judaism, but I want to be clear that Zionism and Israel are not the same thing. ⁓ actually, the data emerged after I wrote my chapter, which is unfortunate, but we now have the data that the percentage of young American Jews who call themselves Zionist, ⁓ which is 32%, and the percentage of young American Jews who believe in a Jewish state.
which is like 85 to 90%. That's young American Jews, ages 18 to 40 as of August. So those are really different numbers. I would imagine that if you polled most Americans, which I don't think there's data on this, how many call themselves a Zionist? Actually, there is, call themselves a Zionist, it's like 9%. But how many of them believe in a concept of a Jewish state or a state for the Jewish people? Probably many more than that. So those aren't really the same thing at all. I'm someone who clings to the word Zionism. I don't believe that we are a post-Zionist society and I don't believe in abandoning the word.
But a lot of people who care about Israel do. ⁓ And I think it's important to recognize those shouldn't be viewed as the same thing, recognizing Israel, supporting Israel, and Zionism. very different, partially because they're a philosophy, right? So some people will say Israel exists already, like you mentioned, Demetai. ⁓ Israel exists already. Therefore, we don't need it, or other versions of that. Although I would argue that much of it is not understanding what Zionism is.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (15:52)
Sup.
So
just to, and I want to go back in a second, just to, when you say conflating Zionism in Israel, you mean the state, the government of Israel? Just to, okay.
Shanie Reichman (16:14)
More than that, I
think.
People define Zionism far beyond what I'm referring to it. So on the one hand, yes, they're, as Rebecca and I both said, I guess, there are so many legitimate versions of Zionism. There are also, I think, less legitimate versions of Zionism, which is probably what most people who aren't deeply intertwined in these issues see it as, right? So belief in a very, very narrow vision of Zionism that doesn't really align with the majority of Americans or even Israelis.
So an example of that would be thinking that Zionism requires you to support everything the Jewish state does. I actually don't think anyone who calls themselves a Zionist would say that. I think you'd have a very, very small portion of Zionists who would define Zionism that way. So when it's being defined, redefined by people who are not in the Zionist community, I think those are illegitimate ⁓ definitions of the word. And that's why I feel like we need to separate the connected to and care about Israel with the Zionism, because a lot of people are seeing it that way.
Now some would say it doesn't matter what other people think because we know the real definition. But I think it's important to recognize that. So I don't want to shame people or judge them based on how they're self-defining because I know the data which is like most people who support the state of Israel also do not call themselves Zionist.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (17:40)
Okay, all right, so I'm gonna sit with that for a second, because I need to, I wanna work through that, but I wanna get back to Rebecca for a second, and then ask from, you know, from that kind of, you know, Judaism versus Zionism, and the two of them, especially because for you, it was such a crisp kind of articulation in that sense. I'm just curious how you're thinking about it.
Rebecca Guzman (18:01)
Sure. I think that something that I've noticed over the past about 20 months is that even if somebody doesn't walk around holding up an Israeli flag and they make absolutely no claim of being Zionist or having a connection to Israel, that the rest of the world, most of the world has begun to make that connection for people who are in Jewish spaces or who are just walking down the street visibly observant.
⁓ or whatever manifestation somebody interprets to be that this person is a Jew and people act on that, you know, and the slur has not become dirty Jews, it's become Zionists. So I think that it's incumbent upon us to say, well, if so much of the world is making this connection, then, and this is for Jews who are evaluating the relationship to Zionism and who are trying to figure out ⁓
why everything has been going the way that it is with simply Jewish people walking around and not ⁓ open, proclaimed Zionists being harassed and called antisemitic slurs. Why does being a Jew or visibly being Jewish mean I'm a Zionist? From the negative point of view. if that makes sense.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (19:21)
Yeah. You
Shanie Reichman (19:21)
Mm-hmm.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (19:23)
know, it makes sense. And I think that there's two, they're actually beautifully emerged here, like maybe two sides of the coin that would should be very interesting to kind of, you know, continue to investigate. On the one hand, have, you know, Rebecca, what you're, you're describing is like, the world is collapsing the two. And so why are we, why are we spending so much time parsing? And like, we might as well lean into it. And Shanie is saying, look, well, the data saying otherwise, like the word Zionism internally, right? And this is like, there's an external questionnaire and internal ones like
If internally there's no use to it because we're supportive of Israel anyway, call them a Zionist, call them whatever they want to call it. It doesn't matter at end of the day. And there's particular, by the way, there's particular examples like Chabad is a wonderful example, right? They're not, they're not Zionist by any stretch of the imagination from a, from a classical perspective, right? Of, ⁓ know, the Zionist movement. But I don't think anybody would question are they pro-Israel or not, right? As an example. So if there's no utility for the, for the label ⁓ Zionists, why are we investing so much in it? Right? Do you see what I'm saying here? Like there's the outside of like it's collapsed externally.
So we should use it because why not? And internally, should he saying, well, data is telling us that people, it doesn't matter if they say they are or not, they're still supportive of Israel. So I'm curious, how do we navigate those two kind of perspectives?
Shanie Reichman (20:28)
Mm.
I should clarify that I do still think it's helpful within the Jewish community. So for example, I work in an organization that has Zionism as its first organizational value. I think that's helpful. It's helpful for people to understand who we are, what we're about, where we align ourselves. So for institutions, I still think using the word Zionism is a good idea. I just don't know if it's helpful for defining, for creating red lines for who should be outside of the tent.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (20:56)
Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, and to be clear, wasn't saying like you were saying, saying from your emergence from the data that you shared is that like there may not be serious saying it's helpful for our for our own sake to do a better job articulating it. Is it because externally what Rebecca is describing is that we're it's we might as well own it and have in like take ownership of the world and reclaim it.
Shanie Reichman (21:08)
Mm-hmm.
Well, I don't believe in letting the haters win, so yes.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (21:23)
Okay. How do you see those two kind of angles?
Rebecca Guzman (21:28)
Yeah,
I think this is such an interesting point because especially now we live in a time where words and terms and names have such fixed narrow definitions that it's kind of inconceivable for people to realize that you you might meet one Jew who says they're a Zionist and then you'll meet another one.
and they will have completely different definitions of Zionism. And I think it's something that shows how narrow-minded we've become as a society where if we don't accept one definition of the word, we're even considering throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But I think that if it's going to mean something broad and there's room for flexibility for everyone to form a different relationship to what it...
what Israel means to them and what being a Zionist means for them, then I think we need to regain some of that flexibility and open-mindedness that we've lost as a society.
Shanie Reichman (22:29)
Mm-hmm.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (22:32)
So, so, thank you. So, Shanie you introduce this idea of boundaries to the community, and we'll get there in a second but before we get into that conversation I am interested in, in thinking about, you know, the demographics of this right the age, the age cohorts. and, you know what we're how we're addressing this from a generational perspective.
And I am the wise old man on this podcast and this specific thing, which makes me chuckle because I'm neither wise or old. But, you know, there is there is a conversation to be had, I think about how do we how does this what is the generational divide here and what you're seeing both from actual support or identification as Zionists and the use of it. And I'm curious, you know, from both of your experiences, what are you seeing in this area?
Shanie Reichman (23:24)
Mm-hmm. In terms of the generational gap on Zionism Israel. Yeah, I think that it feels obvious that people who came of age during the Yom Kippur War and the Six-Day War would feel differently than people who came of age during the Netanyahu era, right? Those are very different experiences. And we have this idea, many of us have this idea, that if only you knew what I knew, you would believe what I believe. But that's not true.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (23:27)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shanie Reichman (23:52)
The real truth is that if you felt what I felt, you would believe what I believe. And even if we know the same information that people 30 or 40 or 50 years older than us know, we're not going to feel what they felt during the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War and all of the other moments that we are not and have not lived through. And they're not going to know what we feel. They're not going to understand the types of what it's like to be on college campus today. They're not going to understand what it's like to have the types of conversations, political debates
that we are engaged in and see what we're seeing on social media. I think recognizing we're coming from different places, super different places, and that's a reasonable thing. There's nothing wrong with that. ⁓ That acceptance to me is the first step. ⁓ Not assuming that the other group, and this goes for what I'll broadly call the younger generation and the older generation, not assuming that they don't know what you know. So a lot of young people assume like,
My grandparents just don't know about Palestinians. They don't know they exist. They don't know about their suffering. They have no concept of that. And the old generation assumes younger people never heard of the Intifada and never heard of all of the wars and don't understand anything about the history and foundations of Israel. Both of those assumptions could be true and also could not be true. And holding them is damaging generational relationships, even within people's own families. As you know, I receive a lot of phone calls from rabbis and...
They're congregants who are very distraught that they can't have a single conversation with their kids or grandkids about Israel. Some of them are not talking over it. And that's an enormous challenge. And I think coming from a place of humility, recognizing that the issue isn't that they don't know anything. The issue is that we feel differently. And that's a totally different approach to the conversation.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (25:37)
Rebecca, how do you?
Rebecca Guzman (25:39)
Yeah.
⁓ I mean, speaking from an Orthodox perspective, I think that most people I know, myself and my peers, we don't really have such big divides within families. Of course, I'm not speaking for everyone at all. I just think because it's a religious Zionist perspective that is one of the more narrow boxes and therefore it's more of a homogenous community. Of course, within that, there's still space for people to have all of those disagreements and rifts and simply because of different feelings,
experienced
by different generations, like Shanie was explaining. And I think ⁓ that those, gaps between people...
It's kind of like you're fighting about the same thing and you want the same thing, which is that both of you have the best interests of the Jewish people and the Israeli people at heart, and you're negotiating that in different ways because of, again, what you've experienced. So the Israel that our parents grew up with is a different Israel than the one that we are growing up with now. So, but it's the same feeling underneath, I think.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (26:49)
Yeah, yeah, that tends to be, you know, I was in a, I participated in a conference for rabbis. And I think that was something that was actually very interesting to see this emergence of, you know, how the...
you know, rabbinic students and how like the depending on the denomination that the student represented on the stage, the different way they describe the intergenerational kind of conversation in terms of, know, this, you know, a more sense, you know, a more unified approach. And it could be also just the size of the denomination. can be, you know, a variety of elements that then form a, you know, a more orthodox and more, you know, conservative kind of like limited.
set of practices and beliefs is it's to be expected and also at the same time as we're saying, it's a different world, it's a different reality. So I would say that as someone who does come from within the Orthodox community as well, you know, there is also difference in practice and kind of, you know, roles of different genders within the community and things are being pushed in relation to the reality. And so this is a question to both of you, guess, Cheney, you know, to you as well, because what's what is maybe might happen is just as you know,
our generation, I'll include myself in this moment, like we grew up in a specific moment in Israel's history, but also kids now are gonna grow up and have core memories of an entirely different reality, right? And so we might find ourselves on the flip side of this, saying in 20, 30 years from now, it's like, you guys only criticized Israel because it was safe and secure when you were growing up, but we grew up under a war and you're taking it for granted and we don't, we can have this kind of reversal. So the question really is, I think, is,
What is our intended, what's our desired outcome from an educational perspective, an emotional perspective that we want our communities, our learners to be part of, and how do we reach that? And I'm specifically thinking about, this is coming back to the boundaries question, like who's in the conversation? What are we trying to say? I think Rebecca beautifully said the end game is the same, like the secure, we all want a prospering country for the Jewish people and their safety, right?
So like, do we reach that in a moment where there is so much diversity and so much difference in these understandings?
Rebecca Guzman (29:08)
kind of hard to prescribe, I think.
I will say that I think Israel education in this country needs a massive overhaul and it needs immense improvement because I feelings and emotional connections formed through family history or someone's relationship to biblical narratives, all of that is incredibly important. But Israel is a real country and countries have problems and they have systems that sometimes need fixing.
life on the ground might not be
the way it was described in whatever someone heard at home or whatever they learned in school. And I think something that I'm studying now is Israel education in this country. And the fact that children, when they turn around nine, 10 years old towards the end of elementary school, they start learning about problems in Israel's civic life and government and the organization of all of that. And they're kind of shocked because it's never been a real country for them.
they don't understand it in the way that they understand the United States. I American children, and not all American children, of course, but on the whole, you grow up knowing so much about US politics and the government, and this is our history, and it's very concrete, but they don't feel that for Israel.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (30:35)
Interesting. Yeah, shiny.
Shanie Reichman (30:38)
That sounds right. ⁓
The emotional piece, I'm supportive of, right? I'm supportive of connecting people on emotional level to Israel because it'll be hard to manufacture those feelings. So I think that component is very important. ⁓ And I myself realized ⁓ in college that I also didn't have a very complex understanding of Israel. And Amitai obviously knows this, that I spend every summer of my life in Jerusalem. My family speaks Hebrew. ⁓
I went to Orthodox day schools my whole life. So I identified as someone who knew Israel pretty well. I would imagine was felt closer to and more connected to Israel than 95 % of American Jews or so. And yet, I didn't really know anything. And I sometimes tell the story that when I was 19, I was going to Israel on winter break and I wanted to visit my friends and she vote over the green line. And I told my mom who was like,
kind of an anxious person, like nervous about security stuff. And she was like, what? hmm. Jewish mom, yeah. And she was like, yeah, yeah. She was like, what? You're going to take a bus? You could end up in some Palestinian town. What are you talking about? And I was like, what? What are you talking about? She's like, Shanie, that's in the West Bank. You're not going there on a bus by yourself. I was like, Ima, what are you talking about? There's no Jews in the West Bank. You don't know anything. What are you saying? And she basically called me an idiot and was like,
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (31:43)
Jewish mom. Jewish mom. Typical. My mom. I grew up in Israel. Also, sorry.
Shanie Reichman (32:10)
I thought I was successfully outsourcing your Israel education to many different institutions, but apparently you don't know anything. And she was kinder about it, but that was the gist of what she said. And I went on to study Middle Eastern studies and now back in school pursuing my master's in it. But needless to say, I realized that I could be as connected to Israel as I wanted and talk to as many Israelis as I wanted, but I didn't understand the geopolitical realities in part because a lot of Israelis perhaps don't either. mean, you don't need to, not everybody studies
political and security situation of the country there, and even if there's turmoil going on. And so it was important for me to have a better understanding that if I wanted to be educating other people around it, of course.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (32:51)
Yeah. So you're both touching upon a very important piece and that we think about very seriously here at Z3 is a question of like, what are we sharing with people and to what end in terms of kind of their ⁓ level of, you know, knowledge and emotional connection. And you're both pointing out that there's a sense that perhaps ⁓ by not sharing enough early enough about what's going on, the realities of real place, that can create ⁓ issues down the line.
for people to feel connected and motivated and proudly identify as Zionists because they feel like they've been, know, elements of the story have been excluded from their narrative. And so there's a, I'd say a shattering, a realization, whatever, you know, you want to use to describe that moment of like, oh, that's not exactly what went on. So I have two questions about that. And I'm half, I don't know what I, yet where I fall, you know.
One of it is like, I'm not sure I buy into this kind of like, didn't tell me the whole truth narrative, even though this is not to, God forbid, undermine or question both of your experiences. But I just don't think that there's any other realm in our life where we're told the whole truth from day one. And I think that as we mature, we kind of evolve our thinking. It's true about money, it's true about relationships, it's true about ideas and knowledge in the world. You know, even our capability of understanding.
concepts such as people, countries, nations only evolves throughout age. Rebecca, if you're studying this now, I'm sure you've come across this. So that's part one. I'm not sure. I think we're holding ourselves on a very, very high standard about like, you have to know everything at a certain age. But I think what makes it worse, and this is where I'm mainly seeing issues where we need much more work, is that somehow activism and advocacy became the only legitimate way to measure someone's affinity and relationship with the place.
In other words, if you're not out there, let's take the campus for example, if you're not out there arguing with everybody and waving an Israeli flag and yelling, I'm a Zionist everywhere, then you're not doing it right. Or if you're not calling your representatives, you're not doing it right and you're a bad Jew or whatever it is. And I think a part of the issue is that we have to find other outlets to express ourselves and our connection, our relationship that isn't only politically limited in this advocacy space. this is a thought that I'm having and I'm just curious how that sits with you.
Shanie Reichman (35:13)
Not to bring this back to the Zionism question, but I think one of the ways we ended up with only 30-ish percent of American Jews in this young demographic calling themselves Zionist is that we would colloquially, we being institutions, I'll put myself in that category even though I've never done this, ⁓ Jewish institutions would be pretty dismissive of those bringing up criticisms of Israel, right? And they would colloquially say they're an anti-Zionist to refer to people who are what you might describe as anti-occupation. ⁓
⁓ as deeply critical of the Israeli government, as pro-Palestinian, who were probably not actually anti-Zionists by our actual definition. They were colloquially referred to as that for decades. And I think that's part of the problem that we're seeing today with people wanting to disengage and not be part of this movement because they don't see there being any room for ⁓ dissent. And I do think our community has now made a huge shift. I hope it's not too little too late because I think in the past 10 years there's been a massive shift.
I think that if you're in Orthodox institutions, it's a little bit different. But if you're growing up as 90 % of American Jews are in the reform conservative reconstructionist movements, you're being taught about Palestinians. You're being taught about the conflict. are, I mean, you're being taught a pretty like center right, a center left, like lefty Zionist ⁓ worldview that I don't think really shies away from the complexity at all. So I'm curious to see how that's going to play out. And if in 10 or 20 years, we're going to have another
You Never Told Me campaign of young people who feel disenchanted with their institutions in Israel, or if they'll actually be smarter and more educated and understand the complexity and thus want to stay in the conversation. But I do think our community has made a massive shift in the past 10 years.
Rebecca Guzman (37:00)
Yeah, I do think for me, what I was trying to express was that the dissonance between a relationship to Israel that is primarily informed by heritage, tradition, an ancestral connection, whatever that might mean for someone, ⁓ is there's a big gap between that and then turning on the news and having to continue and maintain that relationship to a country that is experiencing real events and real problems.
because tradition and emotions and passion are all ephemeral. ⁓
the connection has to endure outside of that. And if it doesn't, then it has to be constantly worked at, like any relationship, I think. So I didn't, I wasn't coming at this from a perspective of you never told me personally, because I was lucky to have a pretty comprehensive education and experiences that allowed me to learn much more than many people in this country. But other than that, I think there is a disconnect in so much of the religious Zionist world.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (38:05)
Yeah,
yeah. So that's, know, that to me, that's thank you both for that. I think, you know, what I'm what I'm left with, and this is, you know, goes back, of course, to some of the beginning of our conversation. And it's fine to move back and forth in the conversation. There are no rules. We make them up as we go. But but and it made me think about, well,
Part of this, you know, in like moving the education.
It's like a new thought that I'm forming. So don't have quite the words. So you'll help me out here. But I think that it's in moving the conversation more towards like the realities in a way. We're doing several things. Everyone making it concrete for our learners and our community. It's this is, it's a real country. It's not just like, you know, in our texts and our fantasy imagination world, right? Of, know, one day we might return to a place that's magical and wonderful. And by the way, we know that like there were, were Mamash.
people who made Aliya from different countries who also upon arrival were like, what a sec, we were promised land of milk and honey and golden, you know, yeah. It's like, yeah, what are we doing here? And we've seen people leave, right? Like this is throughout the Zionist movement, even from the Biloim people left, you know, but, and from the early Zionists, one of the early Zionist groups. But the point being like, yes, there's a reality and then there's the idea and it's kind of feels to me a little bit.
Shanie Reichman (39:15)
Can we go home?
Rebecca Guzman (39:17)
I'm
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (39:33)
Like in order to sustain Zionism as an ideology or philosophy that relates to a real world, outside of Israel, we need to think much more about still, how do we work towards a perfect image of it? Not idealize like it's amazing already, but like it can be amazing. We got to work towards this, right? And kind of like make it real in that sense. And I'm not sure I'm saying it correctly, but what I'm curious to see what happens maybe is, you know, because Israelis are going in a different direction entirely.
Right? Like if the education in the US is like, look, Israel isn't perfect, but we can make it perfect. And therefore we're to take a more kind of universal progressive kind of approach to it because this is it can be to live up its promise. Israelis are like, I'm in a bomb shelter every day and can't shy away from the fact that Israelis, Israelis are moving to the right, you know, for a variety of reasons. And so like, while we might develop a better connection to the concept conceptual Israel once again.
going to miss the mark with the real Israel because Israel will be moving in a different direction entirely. And that's a worry that I have. don't know. I'm just kind of like free-forming here a little bit just because that. Like I'm like, what do do next? You know, it's like we're responding to the problems of the past, but how do we kind of not perpetuate them moving forward as things are unfolding?
Shanie Reichman (40:52)
This keeps me up at night.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (40:54)
Yeah.
Shanie Reichman (40:56)
⁓ A project that I started with ⁓ my colleague, Moore, about three years ago is called the Shared Values Project Fellowship. It's to get at exactly this. It almost felt like the missing piece of the work that we were already doing to shape the discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The missing piece was not connecting a liberal young American Jews with their counterparts in Israel because there are some still left. There are those who actually share the same values.
It's hard because, as you said, Israelis are moving more to the right, and about 80-something percent of young American Jews identify them, call themselves liberal, which often translates into liberal around how they perceive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For Israelis, even the ones who call themselves liberal might not perceive it as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But you do have people who share enough in common in terms of values that they can have a conversation. They're going to see the conflict different. They're going to see this war differently. ⁓
they can still get on the same page enough to communicate and to understand each other and to try to better each other's societies and better the relationship between the two societies. so thinking about more ways that we can deepen that engagement is sort of core to this work. But it is troubling. The trends are obviously heading in opposite directions. I think that it's going to be very hard to get American Jews to, broadly speaking, to rally behind ⁓
Israel's behavior vis-a-vis Palestinians, particularly in the West Bank. But it's much easier to get American Jews on board with how Israel behaves vis-a-vis Iran's proxies and Iran itself, right? So we have to look at it as multifaceted. There are a lot of things Israel does that I think the majority of American Jews can understand and resonates with them and they can empathize with. And then there are certain things Israel does that American users never going to get on board with, vast majority of them, and perhaps that's OK.
as long as it's sort of a two-way conversation. And again, recognizing the issue is not ignorance necessarily. Israelis assume American Jews just don't know, therefore they don't agree. The reality is they don't feel what you feel. That's part of why they don't agree. And they're never going to feel what you feel unless they're in a bomb shelter. And you're never going to feel what they feel unless you have the privilege of distance, which sometimes also provides a level of clarity that Israelis do not have the luxury of receiving.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (43:21)
Yeah, so it cuts both ways really is what you're saying like this. Yeah. Rebecca, what do think? What's your?
Shanie Reichman (43:24)
Absolutely.
Rebecca Guzman (43:27)
Yeah,
I think that there are limits to...
how far we can push here. Because of course, think Shanie just put it beautifully with the fact that it's the feelings that are different, where we have the distance and the clarity, which is wonderfully said, that Israelis might not always have, but again, we don't have their lived experiences of being in bomb shelters. And so I was in Israel on October 7th at my brother's apartment, in my brother's apartment, and with my brother's family, he lives in French Hill in East Jerusalem.
And then coming back to America, and I live in New York City, and being around a lot of, not at school because I go to Yeshiva University, so again, pretty religious Zionist narrow box, homogenous community for the most part, but even in New York, being around people who, Jews who are anti-Israel and anti-Zionists. And I think that the limit is that if you want to say you are a Jewish anti-Zionist,
but you do not have the best interests of the Jewish people at heart, and by best interests I mean survival and safety, then we kind of fall into a Jonathan Glazer refuting his Jewishness at the Oscars scenario where what does the word Jewish even mean there? Put in the phrase of Jewish anti-Zionist, or I'm Jewish but I'm anti-Israel.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (44:55)
So you're both raising very interesting points here about the prospects of a relationship and kind of what the meaning of Zionism is. And I'm curious, just to follow down that, ⁓ pull on that thread a little bit in terms of the boundaries of conversation. So Shanie, you're saying, from your perspective, it's got to be as expansive as possible. ⁓ And Rebecca, you're saying, similarly, ⁓ it has to mean something at some point. So maybe we can kind of maybe spend a minute or two on exactly this. like, what?
What are things that we, I don't know if it's actions, we don't have to name, we can, we don't have to name organizations specifically. I'm less interested in that, generally speaking, because I think it becomes a distraction of kind of clarifying the questions at hand of who we want to be. And yeah, so I'm curious, how do we think about those boundaries and those questions? Rebecca started off in that path a little bit, the well-being, but maybe there's a little bit more we can say about that.
Rebecca Guzman (45:56)
Sure, so I think this is something that I devoted a big chunk of my essay to because it was just something that was troubling me at the time and continues to trouble me today, where as someone for whom being Jewish meant absolutely nothing until I was about 10 years old, my parents are from Belarus, from the former Soviet Union, being Jewish was just an unlucky mark in your passport. That was absolutely it. I had zero memories of any type of...
talk about Israel. thought the Israeli flag was the Jewish flag. I don't even know how I made that connection as a child, but for some reason I thought that. And I think that now ⁓ what happens is that the distance that Shanie was talking about that is so crucial and productive at certain points also is a little bit dangerous. Where, and I think that this is informed by the comfort and the privileges American Jews experience here. And I know I might sound now like a little bit of the older generations who are
at ⁓ Thanksgiving or Shabbat tables who are saying that you have it so easy, you don't know how Jews have struggled, but I think that there is a fraction of truth in that statement where we don't know how Jews have struggled. We don't know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night and run to a bomb shelter because that is how Jews, certain Jews are struggling right now. ⁓
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (47:15)
So for you, just to complete that thought, so therefore, you know, you're, when you're looking at the conversation, the people who, you know, who have at least empathy to that position would be an important component.
Shanie Reichman (47:30)
I suspect it's possible that Rebecca and I disagree on the details of what it means, but I agree with the sentiment that those who I would perceive as lacking empathy for Israelis, what I'll describe as not seeing the humanity in other Jews, not seeing the humanity in Israelis, not seeing the humanity in other people as a whole, those are the people who are outside the tent. But I believe in clarifying as much as possible to really see if those are the people we think they are, because there's a lot of sloganeering.
There's a lot of name calling. There's a lot of self-identifying with words and phrases and movements. But I don't know if we can, that always captures the truth or the reality of what those people genuinely believe. And so when people initially say they believe Israel is doing XYZ or they call themselves an XYZ, I try to get to the bottom of what do they really mean by that because I found that people can often not say exactly what they mean or maybe, you know, I'm misunderstanding them.
But really to get to the bottom of, you actually not see the humanity in another group of people, in our own group of people? That's what matters to me, and those are the people who are outside the tent. But I'm really careful about who I define that way.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (48:41)
Do you do either of you think that that's like where does that responsibility lie? know, I think there's a lot of you know from the institutional perspective a lot of this like fear of losing people Right and it's it's incumbent on us to kind of like clarify and clarify what we mean And and also, know, but maybe maybe another day is saying like look, you know this this may have been true 50 years ago when Israel wasn't you know, as secure as it is today with all the problems, right? not saying this everything's obviously right now. We're in a very
the past two years and now with Iran, obviously I'm saying, and also we've never had the ability to do what we're doing now. So with that kind of ⁓ significant threats, we have the capability of at least responding, if not more. ⁓ And we had more, I'd say, eggs in one basket, right? And like, we had to make sure that we're, you this neurosis around our disappearance. But maybe we're in a moment where we're saying, you know what, like, increasing percentage of the Jewish people lives in that region.
And look, you can either be part of like the majority, you know, and kind of not, not, you know, we all know the level of dissent within Israel, right? I'm not, like, I'm not, I'm not proposing that being part of that thrust of the story means agreeing with everything, but there will be a threshold where you're saying, look, you're, you don't want, you know, it's kind of like the joke about what Herzl said was like, if you will, it'll be a dream. If you don't want it, then whatever, you know, like at some point, where, does our responsibility as an institution, as individuals,
of being like, not to define for other people, but saying, look, this is what we stand for. And if you want to come into, know, the tents open, but these are kind of the things that we believe in, right? And if you want to be part of that conversation, you're welcome. We love you. If you don't want to be part of the conversation, we still love you. Still, the door is always open, but we're not going to shift what our core belief is around this to fit, you know, an ever moving target of what's the right way of believing something.
Shanie Reichman (50:36)
I'm definitely aligned that the onus is not on us to define our core beliefs differently. Like I said, as much as I believe that people misunderstand Zionism, it's still on my website. It's still on Israel Policy Forum's website right up there. So we're not changing our core beliefs. I'm not changing my core beliefs. And I have a lot of conversations, one-on-one meetings with people with whom I agree on a lot, a lot of things vis-a-vis Israel. And at the end, I mention Zionism, and they're like, you're a Zionist?
What wasn't that clear by the everything that I just said? And they're like, no, that's not what Zionism is. I'm confused, right? That happens to me more often than you would think. And I do think the burden is on me to have those conversations and to say Zionism is not necessarily what you think it is. Being pro-Israel is not necessarily what you think it is. Why? Because I am someone who believes and is invested in a long-term strong, connected to Israel, committed, ⁓
pluralistic, somewhat pluralistic Jewish community. And that doesn't happen if you don't have those conversations. If we say, you have to call yourself a Zionist, or we won't meet with you, you're not welcome, then we're going to be talking about 30 % of American Jews. That's not enough of them, as far as I'm concerned. Like, then we are losing people. And I'm not OK with losing that many people. I'm OK with losing some. Not OK with losing 70 % of American Jews. So the burden is on us, as I'll speak for.
for myself and for you Amitai, like we are people who work in the community and it is our job to bring people in. It's also our job to have strong values, but we need to communicate them effectively.
Rebecca Guzman (52:14)
Yeah, I think what you're saying, Shenny, especially the story that you brought with the person that you were speaking to shows how much we've allowed others' perceptions of Zionism to color ours. And we've allowed them to charge the word for us into something negative and unsavory and something that we don't want to be attached to, whether that's out of fear or misunderstanding. But we've allowed the outside perception in.
And I think that's where things become a little bit worrisome because again, this is something that is supposed to come from inside out in my personal belief.
Shanie Reichman (52:54)
I think you're absolutely right, and I also blame our own Jewish community for doing that. We've contributed to this mess by telling people who are critical of Israel that they're not Zionists and calling them anti-Zionists. We use it colloquially, right? I see someone with a Palestinian flag and I say, they like support Hamas. Is that necessarily true? I have no idea. Some of them might. Some of them do. But the fact that I'm making those assumptions about Jews is a problem. I can make those assumptions about other people. But as a Jewish community, the burden's on us.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (52:54)
Good.
Shanie Reichman (53:24)
I think that we're continuing that cycle in some ways, and it's not helping. But of course, yeah.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (53:30)
Isn't that a lot to ask?
I mean, I probably agree with you and this is not, just telling you, I want to make sure, like I want to push myself and you a little bit in this. But isn't that a lot to ask from a community that has been a perpetual minority and victim? Like I am the first that we have to like kind of get rid of the part of Zionism for me and whatever is breaking out of that mold. And I'm sure this is like Herzl, Adam, the rest of classics. Like this is part of the work that we need to do.
and it's clearly not done, but like, yes, I want to hold ourselves accountable. And also, is it really is it realistic? You know, like we're like constantly under attack. I'll say one more. This is like half a joke. But we don't talk about like, you know, I said unfairly the anxious Jewish mom and how like we're all anxious, anxious, anxious. ⁓ But but there's a joke side that which is like, yeah, when you're persecuted for 2000 years, those who survive are those who were anxious, right? Like those who weren't anxious didn't make it those who think so. Like now we just have like.
You know, we're like the most anxious version of us has survived. so like maybe in a little gray store just off 2000 years of persecution, like maybe like that fear of that, you know, that sort of for reflexive fear of sorts, you know, like how do we how do we how does that play into this whole kind of, you know, equation? Or not at all. It's like, no, we're done. We have a country. Stop it. Stop being a baby. You know, I mean, like, I don't know. Yeah. OK.
Shanie Reichman (54:53)
Neither of those things, neither of those things.
But we have to be strategic. It's not about realistic or what's right or what's fair. It's about what's strategic. And when if you talk to me about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I will say similar things. But when it comes to the Jewish community, we have to be strategic about engaging young people and keeping our tent open or we are going to lose too many people. And how many conversations do you have, do we have in the Jewish community amongst funders, among professional staff, among parents about how do we keep young people in the tent? This is how.
This is necessary. It's really annoying. Trust me. All the education we're talking about is not easy. Maintaining that perfect balance between giving them a really robust, complex, nuanced education and also instilling a love for Israel and care for Israel and investing in trips and the like. I mean, it's hard. It's a lot of work. And if this is something we're committed to and take seriously, then we probably should do it anyway.
Rebecca Guzman (55:45)
Yeah, I think the pain that we've all felt as a community has...
contributed to this kind of very quick response to put our walls up and be afraid of discussions that might be uncomfortable to navigate and that might be uncomfortable to force us to stretch our minds in certain ways that we haven't stretched before because of the pain. speaking for myself and being part of a community, I go to Yeshiva University. So campus has been incredibly united and we've all been just gaining strength from each other. And I haven't met a single
person who does not have either a family, friend, or a classmate, or all three, ⁓ tens of people, hundreds of people serving in the IDF right now, protecting our people, or family living in Israel, everything like that. So, and the amount of pain that is shared and felt by all of us has
forced us to atrophy in a sense. And we have all these barriers that we don't want to open and we don't want to bring them down because we're scared and we don't want to become flexible right now because we're busy sharing in our pain. And I'm not trying to minimize it or diminish it at all. But I think that the only way out is through. And like Shanie was saying, we are going to lose so much of the American Jewish community if we do not
open doors and if we do not start having uncomfortable conversations and putting aside our experiences to potentially step into the mind of somebody else. And this goes for this is I mean we're seeing this across the board for society right now where two people who voted differently can't even be in the same room with each other. I think it's indicative of a broader trend but I think that we need to do our part to break out of it.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (57:40)
So I mean, that's ⁓ thank you both. I mean, obviously, that's the work that we do. Right. Like we we believe that a more robust, more layered, thick, compelling, interesting, exciting Jewish life for each one of us and from the community perspective happens when it's when it isn't homogeneous. When we have those interactions of all the different experiences, if it's, you know, life experiences, age, language, approach, practice, belief.
And we need those places, those spaces where we can come together to create that resiliency of community. I think Rebecca's spot on, I imagine Shanie agrees this as well, is that this is indicative of much broader issue within the American ⁓ society, which is different from what's happening in Israel, by the way, with all its issues and problems. I do think that the, and this may be the naive version of myself, but at least the fact that people have to be on the same bus, same cab, work together, serve together and go to the supermarket together. There's no way to, you know,
In America, the crazy uncle we meet once a year is in Thanksgiving and Israel is to Shabbat dinner every other week. You know what mean? Like you can't get away from it. And that forced interaction, yes, means that the temperature is way higher and the volume might be louder. But ultimately, like there's just no escaping of it, right? Like you can't get away from it. can't you can't recede into your own kind of bubble. And I think that that's kind of ⁓ the core of the work of what we're doing here as well. And I know that what Shanie is doing and Rebecca, I know you're a earlier in the career, but at least from what you're writing, this idea that we need to think about how do we bring in people?
and have a havrutah have a study partner learning about what does it mean to be a Jew and an indigenous. So we're coming up towards the end of our time. I, our last, this is the last question for both of you. And if we're looking ahead, I'll give you two and you can pick what you want to say. Okay. One is simpler or easier, not really, but it's like what gives you hope? Cause we're in a particularly dark moment, I think. There's a lot of upside potentially, but still very difficult.
moment we have hostages, still in Gaza, there's war in Gaza, everything that's going on there, the destruction, it's the loss of life is really a lot, it's you know the orders of magnitude are you know it's a lot and of course what's going on in Iran is likewise, the impact we're seeing in Israel of course, it's not an easy moment. So one question is what gives you hope? That's one. And the second one, if you can answer both, is in 10 years from now maybe
What does it look like for us to be in a better place in this moment internally? Specifically internally because externally there's only so much we can control. Even internally, I put a question mark, but at least what do think we can do to move us in that direction? So what gives you hope and what do think we can do to get us in a better trajectory for a 10-year kind of growth?
Rebecca Guzman (1:00:26)
Sure, I think I'll just combine my answer. I'll make an answer that I think will hit both points. I hope what gives me hope is that we've stepped up our community and our generation, especially has stepped up. I mean our generation in the sense that we have absolutely I believe broken through this perception of the coddled iPhone generation who can't do anything themselves and have absolutely no.
integrity or whatever people believe about us, but I think that we've stepped up where my classmates have left school and gone back to serve, or we've organized trips and we've gone to communities and we've played with soldiers children or whatever manifestation of stepping up we have decided to embrace, that is what we have done. And I think that this determination and this will and curiosity
that our generation is showing right now is incredibly inspiring. Jews are right now, I mean, we know what happened with birthright literally this past week. The energy that we bring to the table is so important. And in 10 years, if we can just maintain and increase and nurture this energy, then I think we'll be in good hands.
Shanie Reichman (1:01:51)
gives me hope is that despite the fact that 66 % of young American Jews feel that Israel's actions conflicts with their moral, political, and Jewish values, you still have 76 % of them who feel connected to Israel. Which means that it doesn't really matter somehow what Israel does militarily or at the government level. American Jews still care, and it appears that they are not going to stop caring or stop feeling connected.
And that makes me hopeful. And as a policy person who spends most of their time thinking about resolving the conflict, it's hard to be optimistic right now. And yet, it's a moment where people are actually thinking and talking about the future. And being forward-looking is one of the most important parts of any optimistic future of building a horizon. The fact that you have Israelis and Palestinians and Americans and Jews and Muslims and everyone around the world
Thinking about how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in some way, thinking about regional peace, thinking about the Middle East more critically is important. Even if it's going to bring out some of the worst, some of the worst inclinations that we all have, which it does for me too, it's still amazing to see people actually caring about changing the status quo now that that has been shattered and waking up to the fact that we do have to solve this some way, somehow at some point. And I think that that in of itself brings us closer to getting there.
Rabbi Amitai Fraiman (1:03:19)
Thank you. Great. All right, Shanie, Rebecca, thank you so much for your time. I know that I could have gone on for more and more questions, but this was really wonderful and I truly appreciate your time and your thoughtfulness and sharing your perspectives, agreeing at times and disagreeing very politely at others. But part of this is to really model how this can be done. So thank you for that. And I look forward to more conversations in the future. So thank you so much for joining us today on the Z3 Podcast.
Rebecca Guzman (1:03:46)
Thank you for having us.
Shanie Reichman (1:03:46)
Thanks, Amitai.
