Ran Baratz on the Roots of Israeli Angst

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2023

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Starting in January of this year, there have been popular protests each week in Israel. On Saturday night, when Shabbat comes to a close, hundreds and thousands of people go into the streets protesting the government and its policies, chief among them judicial reform. Yet it was plain from the beginning that the protests were about more than judicial reform—that the lens of judicial reform isn't adequate to fully understand the deeper emotions on all sides of this civil crisis.

Ran Baratz is the founding editor of the Israeli magazine Mida and a regular contributor to the conservative newspaper Makor Rishon. Speaking here with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he tries to understand what’s really happening now in Israel. If the events of the last six months are not just about judicial reform, then what are they about? And how can any deeper sources of Israeli animosity be understood and addressed? For those who support the protestors, here’s a chance to learn how some Israeli conservatives actually think. For those who oppose the protestors, here’s a chance to think about their motivations sympathetically. Both endeavors are fitting for democratic citizens of the same nation, and their friends around the world.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Starting in January of this year and continuing on through the present moment with only very rare interruptions,
0:14.0	there have been popular protests each week in Israel.
0:17.2	On Saturday night, when Shabbat comes to a close, hundreds and thousands of people go into the streets
0:22.9	and exercise their right to protest the government and its policies.
0:27.2	Now, for the first many months, I had been looking at their actions through the lens of the proposed
0:31.9	judicial reform that the government began rolling out in January.
0:36.1	And that made sense, since much of the discourse
0:38.3	surrounding the protests, including the rhetoric of many of the protesters themselves, had to do
0:43.4	with opposition to judicial reform. But, to be honest, it was plain even in the earliest months
0:48.8	of this administration, that the protests were about more than just judicial reform.
0:53.8	Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that the people who say they oppose it
0:57.0	don't really oppose it or anything like that. Of course, many of them do.
1:00.8	But the lens of judicial reform is just not adequate to fully comprehend the deeper,
1:06.9	elemental, emotional convictions that are manifest in the streets of Israel on multiple sides of this
1:12.4	civil crisis. It's been a good long while since this podcast looked at Israeli politics,
1:18.0	and it's time to return to the subject that still dominates the Israeli media and Jewish media
1:22.4	worldwide. Today on the podcast, we're just talking politics. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
1:29.9	Now, Tikva is, of course, not a political institution.
1:32.9	We're an ideas and educational institution.
1:35.4	It's also a publisher of magazines and books and journals.
1:38.3	We are the conveners of important conversations, and of courses, for middle school
1:43.8	students all the way to serious
	...

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