00:00:00: Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Apricon Podcast.

00:00:04: Today, my dear colleague Pascal Bernhard, who is a political officer at the Kenned Foundation,

00:00:10: speaks with Shira Ben-Sasson-Fürstenberg, the associate director of the new Israel Fund.

00:00:16: Together, they explore Shira's personal story, her faith, her work in Israeli civil society,

00:00:22: and her vision for peace in Palestine and Israel.

00:00:26: Drawing on her deeply personal family history, Shira reflects on the power of human solidarity

00:00:32: across borders. As a modern Orthodox Jew, she is part of a small but determined community

00:00:38: that places compassion, equality, and responsibility at the heart of Jewish life.

00:00:44: In her role at the new Israel Fund, she works for peace, democracy, and coexistence.

00:00:50: Shira's voice, rare, courageous, and profoundly human carries a vision that feels urgently

00:00:57: and profoundly necessary today.

00:00:59: Today, it's my pleasure to host the Apricon Podcast. I'm Pascal Bernhard.

00:01:07: I work for the Kenned Foundation as a political officer within the Project Apricon,

00:01:14: and I'm responsible for the conferences and the implementation of Apricon in the northern

00:01:21: and Baltic states. But yet, today, it's my pleasure to host you, Shira Ben-Sasson-Fürstenberg.

00:01:30: You are a leading voice within the peace camp in Israel.

00:01:38: But you can tell about yourself more right away. When we prepared for this session today,

00:01:46: we, I think, went through a little bit of a loop, what we want to cover, and what you suggested

00:01:57: or what you wanted to discuss very much was the story of your grandmothers.

00:02:09: Dating back to 1929, during the Hebron massacre, and I can relate to that because it was also

00:02:18: my experience that after October 7th, when I went to Israel, a lot of people that I talked

00:02:25: with were saying, you know, it wasn't working back in the days, and it's not working today.

00:02:37: People were referring to Hebron massacre when Jews got lynched in their neighborhoods in

00:02:44: Hebron after some disputes around the western wall, and yeah, the conclusion for many was that

00:02:52: it didn't work out that time during the British mandate. It will not work today,

00:03:01: and it's either us or them. You, however, have a different story. What is it?

00:03:08: Yes, you're right that many people in Israel, Jews and possibly Palestinians too,

00:03:16: I can only speak as a Jewish Israeli. Look at the bloodshed and the history, the joint history

00:03:26: of Arabs and Jews on that land, on our land, and see it as an impossible past, an impossible present,

00:03:37: an impossible future, one that is always doomed to end. It's like we're doomed to live by our

00:03:45: sword. It's like we have this biblical blessing/cursing that we will always live by our sword in our

00:03:54: neighborhood in our region, and what I actually feel from my personal family, private, very,

00:04:02: very private experience, is that almost every single person of the generation of my grandparents,

00:04:10: and I think to sit in Berlin and talk about our generations of our grandparents is always very

00:04:18: heavy on history and legacy and difficult things that happened in past generations. But of the

00:04:28: generation of my grandparents, most of the people that I lived with and grew up with must have been

00:04:36: saved by someone if they were living among us, and therefore around us are a lot of stories of

00:04:45: neighborly life-saving and support and interaction of crossing the lines between nations that really

00:04:56: enabled the generation of my grandparents to live. And for me personally, in two incidents,

00:05:04: and I think about it now in the year 2025, it must have been a few minutes. You know,

00:05:10: everything I'm going to talk about now happened within very, very short periods of times,

00:05:16: but made a life and death difference for the two women, the two young women that grew up to be my

00:05:22: two grandmothers. And for my grandmother Rivka in Hevron, in the city of, in the Palestinian Jewish

00:05:30: city of Hevron, on the day of the massacre in August 1929, she was a young girl at home

00:05:37: with her father and sisters. And their Palestinian landlord came back from the olive trees and knew

00:05:46: that there was a massacre being organized by his Palestinian fellows and stood at the door,

00:05:52: at the doorway of the house and said to my, to the family of my grandmother, who was a little girl,

00:05:59: don't open the door to anyone. Stay in our house and don't open the door and I will protect you

00:06:06: from the door. And when his friends, the rioters came, he said, you will not enter. And they said,

00:06:12: we know you are hiding your tenants, your Jewish tenants, and they wounded him and left. And this

00:06:20: man saved the lives of his neighbors and made my grandmother gave her a future and a life.

00:06:30: You know, you get born once with your parents and then you get born the second time when someone

00:06:34: just makes an act of human handholding and endangers themselves to save your life. And

00:06:45: for my other grandmother was a young woman in the Holocaust, in what today is the Ukraine,

00:06:53: and ran out of the bunker where her family was hiding and was revealed. And everybody in the

00:07:02: bunker was shot and she was running outside in the night in the snow to a little house on a hill

00:07:09: nearby where there was light in the snow in the darkness and knocked on their window. And a young

00:07:16: couple, a young man and woman, let her in that night and hid her in their barn for the night and

00:07:22: gave her hot milk that she hadn't drunk and I don't know how long before that night. And in the next

00:07:28: morning hid her in their in their snow sledge and covered her on the on the bottom of their snow

00:07:34: sledge and took her to the next city where she found relatives who were hiding. So those few

00:07:40: moments in Hevron and in the Ukraine and people deciding to show an act of of humanity for me

00:07:49: became a debt of life and for me became a debt to my children that I need them to speak the names

00:07:58: of those people. And they know the names. My three children know the names of Abu Shaker and Um Shaker

00:08:05: in Hevron. And you have been there. And I have been there. And they know the name of Olga and

00:08:10: Mikolai Midensky in the Ukraine. And these are people we have never met. They lived two, three

00:08:17: generations before us. But my children know and say their names. It's a debt of life. And have you

00:08:25: met them? I my father met my father met Olga. And we have planted a tree in their name in the

00:08:39: where all the trees for the righteous among the nations in Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem

00:08:47: in their honor. The family in Hevron, I have not met. I visited Hevron many times with my friends

00:08:55: from the organization, the brave organization Breaking the Silence, which is an organization of

00:09:01: former IDF soldiers who give testimony to acts they did during their army service that they feel

00:09:10: were unnecessary and and and difficult. So I joined us Breaking the Silence tour in Hevron.

00:09:18: And Avner, who led the tour at the time, said, "Listen, Shira, we might meet a cousin, a nephew,

00:09:25: from Abu Shaker's family." And I asked myself, and I asked Avner, "What do you bring to such a meeting?

00:09:33: What kind of gift can you bring back to repay for the gift of life?" And I went to a plant shop in

00:09:44: Jerusalem. I bought a little olive tree for them to plant in their home. So I carried that olive

00:09:51: tree around with me on the bus on the way to Hevron. And then I was also told by my friends

00:09:58: from Breaking the Silence, something that I really couldn't wrap my head around. They said, "If you

00:10:03: write a little letter in Hebrew that says, 'My family would like to thank your family for protecting

00:10:12: us and saving our lives in 1929,' we are very grateful and we honor your act of kindness.

00:10:19: And if you only write a simple letter in Hebrew on a piece of paper in your own handwriting,

00:10:25: and Abu Shaker's nephew can carry it in his pocket, and any time he gets stopped by Israeli soldiers

00:10:33: in in the Shuhada Street in Hevron or anywhere, he can show that letter as proof of being a good

00:10:41: person or worthy person. Then that would be really quite helpful. And I felt so ridiculous to write

00:10:50: that letter that I'm in a situation where a mere piece of paper from me equals or responds to the

00:11:01: amazing act of life-saving that this family did for us was an embarrassment. But nevertheless,

00:11:10: if it can help, I wrote that letter. I didn't get to meet Abu Shaker's nephew that day. He didn't

00:11:15: get a permit to come to the part of Hevron that I was visiting. I left the tree and the letter for

00:11:21: him and I've been told that it was given. Wow. I'm almost speechless, Shira. And I think we got

00:11:32: some idea of who you are, but maybe you want to properly introduce yourself. What makes you special

00:11:42: as a person is not only your dedication in Jewish Arab cooperation, but also

00:11:54: you're an Orthodox Jew within the Peace Camp and by that speaking for not a lot of people.

00:12:06: And maybe you want to give a little bit of information who you are and also who is your

00:12:14: community in Israel. So I'm a Jerusalemite, born and raised, and live there today with my husband,

00:12:23: Yair. We've been together since high school and he's a professor of Talmud at Hebrew University

00:12:32: and we have three children. I would say that I grew up as the most mainstream, regular,

00:12:43: normal, modern Orthodox Israeli. I would say about 10 percent give or take, sometimes eight,

00:12:52: sometimes 12 percent, but around 10 percent of Jewish Israelis are modern Orthodox.

00:12:57: So we are a minority in the Israeli society, but a very influential and present minority. We may

00:13:06: talk about some of the figures that today represent us in the public sphere in Israel.

00:13:12: So I'm a part of a minority that is not suffering from minority issues and problems like other

00:13:23: minorities. It's a rather elitist minority in Israel. Ashkenazi surrounding maybe as well.

00:13:31: Ashkenazi educated upper middle class, mainstream, modern Orthodox Israeli. That's how I grew up

00:13:42: in the mainstream, modern Orthodox school system, youth movement. It's called Benay Akiva

00:13:47: in a very good all girls high school in the territories in the West Bank that I used to

00:13:54: drive to every day from Jerusalem. And you know, I just thought that I was as normal as it could be,

00:14:06: but I would say that today I am probably a statistical mistake and the sector that I belong

00:14:15: to is probably 0.001 percent of Israeli society. We could also say statistical fortune. Yes,

00:14:25: but not existing. Not existing statistically. I don't really exist. People like me are sadly

00:14:33: a very small group. I might say more about this. Just because you are not only modern Orthodox,

00:14:43: but also sort of very involved in the peace camp. It's a very unfortunate term, but still I think

00:14:55: what we or what we from Epicon understand by this sort of everyone that sees coexistence

00:15:03: as the long term goal. So you are an active member there, but also very much coming from a

00:15:15: religious background. This is what makes you. Yeah. So, you know, everybody likes to think that

00:15:21: they're unique. Yeah. I'm sure you are unique in so many ways. And everybody watching and

00:15:28: listening, every single person, you know, like Monty Python, say we are all individuals.

00:15:33: And I'm also an individual and I find my uniqueness. I would like more people to be

00:15:41: like me and to sign up to the values and the way that I believe in both in a Jewish way and in a

00:15:50: civic way to be the kind of Jew that I believe people should be and to be the kind of citizen

00:15:58: and human that I think people should be. But sadly, both my community at the synagogue that I helped

00:16:06: found and belonged to and the organization that I have the honor of being in the leadership of

00:16:16: are are such a small voice in the Jewish Israeli world that and we you and I discuss the question

00:16:28: of how do we grow? How do we grow? How do we spread these messages and ideas and

00:16:34: and you challenged me by these questions? And I will say that here, because sometimes the energy

00:16:42: that you need in order to maintain this identity at a time like this takes up so much

00:16:50: of the resources that you have that then to think about spreading the message

00:16:57: is a challenge in and of itself. And I want to say, you know, just in a sentence about my congregation

00:17:04: and in a sentence about my organization and the different hats that I'm wearing.

00:17:09: Yeah, for context, you're the associate director of the new Israel Fund, which is a

00:17:15: huge organization in the Israeli civil society, really like a landmark and with lots of other

00:17:24: organizations you're cooperating with. So these are the different hats, right?

00:17:29: Yeah. So one the professional life as a religious.

00:17:36: Yeah, so so for the professional hat, I would say that as I said, I have the honor and the

00:17:41: privilege of being working at the new Israel Fund for the last 20 years, actually. I don't

00:17:48: know that people in my generation already still hold careers in the same place for 20 years,

00:17:54: but I did leave twice and come back because NIF really is home. And it's a place where I grew

00:18:02: and where my social activism and political activism really developed over the years.

00:18:07: And I do have the privilege of today being in a position where I can influence

00:18:15: the new Israel Fund priorities and we may look into them later. And the new Israel Fund is a

00:18:21: philanthropy, but it's much more than that. It's the home for pro-democratic civil society in Israel.

00:18:28: And we are honored to support dozens and dozens of social change organizations and human rights

00:18:35: activists on the ground in Israel every year for more than 40 years now. So that is sort of my

00:18:43: professional hat. And in my personal community and Jewish practice hat, together with my family

00:18:54: and with 11 other families, we broke out of the synagogue that we belonged to in 2006

00:19:01: because we wanted more equality for women in our Jewish practice and religious life.

00:19:08: And to challenge the limits of women's participation in Jewish practice and in prayer.

00:19:19: And leading service and reading from the Torah. And as I knew and I discussed things that boys

00:19:27: do in the age of 13, I did into my 30s. Things that I saw and touched for the first time at

00:19:36: the age of 30, boys do when they're growing up. And that was a journey for us as a family

00:19:45: and a change from the circumstances that we knew and the kind of synagogue practice

00:19:52: that we knew growing up. And the community today, it's called HaKhel, it's in the south of Jerusalem,

00:19:59: has undergone a very difficult year and a half since October 7th and lost two sons of our synagogue,

00:20:13: Hirsch, Goldberg, Poland and Yuval Shoham in this terrible war. And my fellow congregants

00:20:20: have become much more than a group to pray with. But we really, many of us are so active in the

00:20:30: protest for the release of the hostages and organizing open vigils and prayers on the streets

00:20:37: in Israel during the time that Hirsch was still alive and also after his murder. And following

00:20:46: the message of his parents, Rachel and John Goldberg, Poland, with the message of partnership

00:20:53: and peace and a moderate Jewish voice, I'm honored and lucky to belong to these parts

00:21:01: of my personal and professional life that really complete each other. When we speak about your

00:21:09: understanding, your very personal understanding of Judaism, you spoke about values. What are these

00:21:18: core values and how is it different from other communities that also exist? And

00:21:28: I'm very bluntly asking, where do the Palestinians fit in there for you personally?

00:21:35: Yeah. So, you know, everything can be found in the big sea, in the big ocean that is Jewish

00:21:44: tradition. And you can pick and choose, really, it's not even cherry picking. It's like, you can

00:21:50: really find your voice and your direction in the ocean of Jewish tradition and Jewish writing and

00:21:58: Jewish teaching for whatever it is that speaks to you. And that's a beautiful thing, I think,

00:22:05: about Judaism and maybe also about other religions. I can't attest to that. But I feel

00:22:10: that the current leadership that we have, the rabbinical leadership, the political leadership,

00:22:16: the educational leadership in my sector, in the national religious sector in Israel,

00:22:23: has chosen the set of values and biblical stories that speak of revenge.

00:22:31: The rule of the sword.

00:22:32: Yes, the rule of the sword. And, you know, the eternal war between Ishmael and Jacob,

00:22:43: between Isaac and Esau, between the nations, between an eternal war and eternal killing,

00:22:52: eternal bloodshed. And I can't say that they made it up. I can't say that it doesn't exist in our

00:23:01: tradition. It does exist in our tradition. But what I choose to highlight and to commit to

00:23:07: are other things that exist in our tradition. And the God, I know it's very impolite to talk about

00:23:13: God in a modern setting. Please do. It's very private. It's very private. And for some people,

00:23:23: they say you can talk about your imaginary friend, God, if you want to. But as a student of sociology

00:23:32: and anthropology, I've learned that cultures design communities and cultures design the kind of God

00:23:43: that embodies their values, right? So God, did God create us? So did we create our God? Of course,

00:23:50: we won't go down that path. But the God that I understand is a God of mercy, is a God of

00:23:57: humanism, is a God of seeing my fellow and helping my fellow and loving my fellow,

00:24:08: which is sometimes very, very hard, even for to love my fellow Jews. But how hard it is to love

00:24:15: my fellow Palestinians. I see, as I said, I see it as a civic commitment, as a human commitment,

00:24:23: and as a religious commitment. Last year, when the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was starting to

00:24:33: develop, and when we were preparing for the holiday of Passover, so it was a few months after the

00:24:40: beginning of the war, let's say April 2024, we debated in the New Israel Fund whether or not

00:24:50: we need to step in and help with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And it was a very challenging,

00:24:57: internal conversation for us. Political conversation as well. Also about the mission,

00:25:04: what's the mission of our work as an organization? We are the New Israel Fund. We don't operate

00:25:09: outside the Green Line. We don't support organizations that their offices, Jewish

00:25:15: or Palestinian, we are the New Israel Fund. And are we committed to helping with the crisis,

00:25:23: with the hunger and lack of medication and clean water in Gaza. And the fact that I was able to,

00:25:32: together with my colleagues and fellow and board members at NIF, to lead our organization to decide

00:25:39: that we're also raising money to buy food and medicine and make sure it gets into Gaza through

00:25:46: trusted international partners like World Central Kitchen, and today with Clean Shelter,

00:25:52: an organization that helps access to clean water and to even tents and bathrooms and showers,

00:25:59: helped me, and this is going back to our conversation about religion and Jewish values,

00:26:07: helped. I know it's not about helping me, okay? It's about helping the people who are starving.

00:26:12: But from my Jewish perspective, being able to sit on Passover to the Seder table and to know

00:26:20: that I have helped raise close to two million dollars at the time to help with buying food

00:26:28: and medicine and making sure that trusted partners who get killed for doing their work on the ground

00:26:35: in Gaza are able to transfer this food to people who get killed standing in line to get something to

00:26:44: eat is, for me, a religious commitment and a Jewish commitment. And I know that that's kind of rare

00:26:53: in the peace camp and in the pro-democratic movement in Israel, and people have different

00:26:59: motivations. For me, that makes sense.

00:27:08: We talked a lot about the new Israel Fund, and I think what is interesting to know is

00:27:16: how the new Israel Fund as an organization also shifted its priorities.

00:27:23: being very active on social justice, feminism, rule of law until today, of course.

00:27:35: But with time, the Palestinian question or how to get to peace became one of the top priorities for the organization.

00:27:47: How?

00:27:48: Well, first of all, I'd like to say that an organization that deals with social change that constantly stays with the same set of priorities is not doing a good work.

00:28:00: And if you want to respond to the changing reality, you have to be a changing organization.

00:28:07: If you're not, if you don't have windows in your office and you don't know what's happening outside, how do you wish to make change?

00:28:16: How do we wish to be the new Israel fund and to bring a new Israel if we're not looking at the reality on the ground?

00:28:23: So the fact that we're changing our priorities and reexamining our investments and partnering with new NGOs and activists on the ground seems to me the core essence of being a responsible force of change.

00:28:40: And I'm proud of these changes and priorities that we were able to push forward because I think they respond to a changing reality.

00:28:50: When the new Israel fund was...

00:28:55: How did that reality or just for the audience also to understand maybe you have some examples, how did this change of your work?

00:29:08: Because it's very interesting at the time where it feels that the Israeli society after also the Palestinians, maybe you could say, after the failure of Oslo got so tired of peace.

00:29:24: And even more after October 7th, of course, that you exactly, your organization did the opposite. So it's really interesting.

00:29:37: So I mentioned two trees when we started our conversation. I mentioned the tree that we planted in Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem to honor the family.

00:29:54: That was for the Medenski family. And I mentioned the olive tree that I brought to Chevron when I was visiting to bring to the Abu Shakir family.

00:30:03: And I want to mention another tree. It's an avocado tree.

00:30:10: Post October 7th, all of us Israelis were volunteering in agriculture work for various reasons. And I drove to Kibbutz Sad. It's on the border of Gaza.

00:30:26: And I helped pick avocados because we were all doing that. It was a commitment that I was happy to volunteer for.

00:30:36: And I was picking avocados and I was hearing the cannons and you just stop hearing the cannons at a certain point because you just get used to it.

00:30:44: It was very early on in the first weeks of the war.

00:30:48: And I was working with other volunteers who I don't know. And I was wearing a new Israel fund t-shirt.

00:30:55: And someone said to me, "Oh, you're from the new Israel fund." Suspiciously, what is the new Israel fund doing now?

00:31:05: Post October 7th, where is your support going? What's your thinking? What's your priorities at the moment?

00:31:13: And when I said we are helping pay for hotels for people who are evacuated from their homes and with a special focus on residents of the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev who don't get response and protection.

00:31:29: Not even hearing sirens in their villages. That was fine. People who were picking avocados with me were like, "Okay, that's very nice."

00:31:38: And when I said, and we're doubling down on our investment in developing peace and vision and new ideas for the region and an Israeli peace initiative.

00:31:53: And we're standing by the avocado trees. And this man is volunteering and I'm volunteering. We're doing the same work.

00:31:59: And he's asking me, "What is NIF doing?" And I said, "NIF is committed much more today than in the past few months when we started the work on peace and security."

00:32:11: Much more today to developing a vision for peace for our region. The man laughed at my face. Laughed at my face between the avocado trees.

00:32:21: And said, "Are you kidding me? Who are you going to make peace with? Are you going to make peace with them?"

00:32:28: Don't you hear the bombing?

00:32:30: Yeah. And it was our cannons. It was Israeli cannons. I do hear the bombing. But he laughed at me.

00:32:39: And first of all, I thought it was rude because my friend, we're both doing the same work today. Don't judge me.

00:32:46: And secondly, I was fine. You know, I said, "Yes. Do you want this to continue? Do you want this to be our everyday reality? Do you want us to continue to live by our sword?

00:32:59: Do you not want a different future for ourselves and for the next generations?"

00:33:04: Therefore, you can laugh as much as you like and you can think as much as you like. This thought that Israelis love so much, there is no partner on the other side.

00:33:14: It's like a quote that everybody said, "There is no partner." So by saying, "There is no partner," you relieve yourself of the responsibility of paving your own way to peace.

00:33:25: Now, I'm not responsible to develop Palestinian leadership, Palestinian demands, Palestinian red lines, Palestinian ideas, Palestinian public opinion.

00:33:35: Let our Palestinian friends do that. I am responsible to develop Israeli state of mind, Israeli commitment to peace, Israeli red lines, Israeli leadership.

00:33:46: And I will continue to do that because I think that is the best response for October 7th.

00:33:54: How do you structure your work for peace within the new Israel Fund? What are your strategies in moving forward?

00:34:05: So what we've found to be most helpful in the way we're thinking about this is the division between blocking harmful trends and violence and building a different vision and a different direction.

00:34:21: So we divide our work in the area of peace and security and in the area of a different vision for our region in blocking the very, very concerning and deteriorating trends on the ground in the West Bank.

00:34:37: You know, the word occupation, the O word that many Israelis and also Jews around the world don't like for us to use.

00:34:44: Or de facto annexation.

00:34:46: Or de facto annexation.

00:34:48: Or de facto annexation.

00:34:50: And expulsion of entire communities from their villages and schools and roadblocks and the real and having to buy water tanks in the very hot Israeli summer, Palestinian summer.

00:35:06: You know, this reality on the ground is something that we're deeply committed to the strategy of blocking with amazing young activists who come to the villages, Jewish activists who come to accompany shepherds during the olive picking.

00:35:27: And just during everyday life in Mesafiriata and in the Jordan Valley, we are honored to support these activists with any kind of support that they need and to work on the very, very personal level of a single activist accompanying a single shepherd with their sheep to the level of advocacy and legal representation and presence in the Knesset and the Supreme Court in Israel and internationally

00:35:56: to do everything we can to block these trends.

00:35:59: And on the other hand, you block this and you build, because blocking alone will keep our finger in the dam forever and ever.

00:36:07: If that's what we're doing, we're blocking this flow of dangerous waters.

00:36:12: But if you don't build something, you will always have to keep your finger in the dam.

00:36:17: And therefore our building work is through partner organizations who have expertise and understanding in international relations and law and trends and understanding the Middle East like the Forum for Regional Thinking and Meet Veeam,

00:36:34: and like the Berle Katzenelsohn Foundation in Israel who come together to write an Israeli roadmap that would pave a way for, as I said, we're responsible for our own roadmap.

00:36:47: We will need international partners.

00:36:49: We will definitely need a Palestinian partner, but we want to draft the direction and to influence Israeli discourse, Israeli decision makers, any future Israeli leadership and government that we are all praying for.

00:37:03: To absorb some of these ideas.

00:37:07: And do you need the international community as well?

00:37:13: Oh, no, we don't need them. We can do it all on our own.

00:37:16: No, but sort of how could, because, I mean, we are here in Germany, you are part of a delegation here in Berlin.

00:37:26: We sat down yesterday with policymakers, but also media officials.

00:37:34: And what our interest, of course, is also, how can Europe, or in this case, particularly Germany, as we are here in Berlin, help you or offer sustainable policies in your work and in these two main pillars that you have,

00:38:01: blocking the occupation more or less and the harm from full trans probably also within the Israeli society.

00:38:11: Of course, Palestinians in Israel suffer from, you know, the first to suffer inside Israel.

00:38:18: Yeah, and also in building a new vision, because this is also, I think, something that many people are actually interested in learning how can we also contribute to new constructive ways.

00:38:39: So, I'd like to open by saying something back to you. Inviting me to participate in EPICON was an opportunity for me to meet people who live 15 minutes away from my house.

00:38:57: And I can't meet them, and they can't meet me. We could, but it would be very complicated, physically and socially.

00:39:07: And for you to create a group of equals, everybody's voice can be heard. Nobody has restrictions on what they can share and bring to the table.

00:39:19: Of Israelis and Palestinians from across the 15-minute border, who don't see each other's lives on an everyday basis, is a great thing. And sadly, we have to come to Berlin to do that.

00:39:37: And, gratefully, you enable us to do that. So, first of all, I don't know if it's the role of the international community, but we benefit from people who understand the importance of conversation, internal conversation to bring us to converse and to bring us to converse with others.

00:39:55: And to keep the issue heard, front-line, with the people who need to hear about it most. That is crucial. And I think your understanding of this important role is extremely helpful, not as a state, but as an organization.

00:40:12: So, if this doesn't get cut from the podcast, I really would like to say thank you for that direction and commitment.

00:40:20: And as for the international community, then let's look at the Germans in particular.

00:40:28: You know, we are responsible for things that happen in our own lands. They influence other lands and other countries.

00:40:36: When there is a pandemic in one country, it goes through the water, it goes through people who travel, you can't isolate one country from another country.

00:40:52: The world is a living organ. The human world, the political world is a living organ. Trends that happen in Turkey influence, you know, Europe.

00:41:03: Trends that happen in Europe influence Turkey. Trends that happen in the US influence everybody else.

00:41:09: So, I don't think that the international community has one nation or other nation has more of a commitment to the Palestinians or to the Israelis.

00:41:22: I just think that if you think of the world as a living organ, and if one organ is in pain or sick, it could influence the rest of the body.

00:41:31: And it could travel to the rest of our body parts. If you have an inflammation in your finger, it could hurt the whole hand.

00:41:41: So, parts of the world are sick right now. A lot of parts of the world are sick right now.

00:41:50: And the same way we're committed to the safety of Ukrainians and Russian civilians, we are committed to the safety of civilians everywhere.

00:42:01: And I have no skin in that game. That's something about international commitment that I see. We're a full organ.

00:42:08: What is the role of the international community, or specifically Germany? We are here in Berlin and we just sat down yesterday with policymakers, but also media officials.

00:42:26: And I think what people are very interested in is to know how to support constructive ways forward, be it by realistic policies, be it by diplomatic pressure or diplomacy in the whole.

00:42:51: But also really to find new ways forward, because I think by now, most leaders understand that this cannot go on.

00:43:05: So, we rely a lot on international partnership. And I want to call it international partnership, but not international pressure.

00:43:15: I think when your partners on many things, and you create trust, then you can also say, "I'm partnering with you on A, but I'm concerned about B."

00:43:29: And international partnership cannot start by only doing international pressure. It has to be built on faith and mutual commitment.

00:43:41: And I think we have mutual commitments over the years, which puts many countries around the world, in Europe and around the world in general,

00:43:52: in a position to say, "We have gone a long way together, and here's what we're feeling now, and we would like to say that to you."

00:43:59: Now, I identify a problem. The problem with you people is that you're not Israeli, and that you're very polite.

00:44:08: And by you people, I mean probably anybody who's not Mediterranean.

00:44:14: And sometimes, nations voice their concerns to Israel in a language, and in a framing, and with actions that are very careful and polite, because that is the DNA of said countries.

00:44:31: And the Israeli ear says, "Oh, well." So, they said that they're concerned. So, they asked us a question. It was merely a question.

00:44:41: Where for the asker of the question, that was a very big step to intervene and to even raise that question.

00:44:48: And they were asking themselves a hundred times, "Should we be asking the Israeli government these questions?"

00:44:53: And in Israel, it was like, "Oh, that was a small question." So, I'd like to implore, especially European nations, step out of your polite comfort zone.

00:45:06: And when you voice your opinion, and you believe in a set of values or opinion, voice them out in a way that they can resonate with an Israeli ear.

00:45:18: That's one thing I want to say. The second thing I want to say is that we don't have to invent the wheel.

00:45:23: Programs are in place, and plenty can be read online and in magazines and in areas where people put out ideas.

00:45:34: I know for a fact that the organizations that we support, such as the Israeli initiative that I mentioned earlier,

00:45:40: from Mitvim and Burl and the Forum for Regional Thinking and other organizations as Geneva Accord and many others and commanders for the Israeli security have put out writing that is fresh and detailed.

00:45:55: And realistic, sort of.

00:45:57: In my opinion, realistic and detailed. And they are professionals. You know, they didn't just make up these ideas.

00:46:05: They are so detailed. They are detailed to the level of whether or not we can live with an airport in Gaza and how we need to deal with water and with the right of return.

00:46:15: The questions are the same questions. The answers exist. You can read them. You can find them.

00:46:20: And I am happy to direct people in the direction of such ideas. But I think for Germany, there is something especially complicated.

00:46:33: I know that it's not just the German politeness. I think I would be naive to disregard the shared history that the Jewish people and the German people share.

00:46:46: And the tragedy and the trauma that we've had to work through. And I think that puts Germany in a special position.

00:46:55: Absolutely.

00:46:57: For Germans, I think I'm going to do very cheap psychoanalysis for a second. And I'd like to apologize if I'm getting you wrong, dear Germans.

00:47:14: But I think for Germans, it means for them that they're walking on eggshells when they talk to Israelis.

00:47:20: They're very, very tiptoeing. Very, very carefully. And we can't say many things because we are Germany to Israel.

00:47:30: And I'd like to tell my fellow Germans, don't do that.

00:47:36: I think our shared trauma and terrible shared history puts you in the position to share with us Israelis, Jews.

00:47:51: What worked for you? What helped you grow to be different? What helped you change as a nation?

00:48:02: What helped you join back into the family of nations? What did you have to do to overcome who you were?

00:48:12: And to continue to be yourselves, but the version of yourself that you want to be, if that is a process that you can share with us.

00:48:21: I don't know that every Israeli would be open to hearing that, but this Israeli would be very open to hearing that.

00:48:28: And I know that I'm not alone. And if German leadership was to very, very respectfully ask us, is this who you want to be?

00:48:41: Are you okay with the version of Israelism that you are currently leading?

00:48:49: If not, we're happy to share from our experience when we looked in the mirror as Germans and said, this is what I want to be and this is how I'm going to do it.

00:48:59: And the question is practically here, who does Germany partner with when they partner with Israelis?

00:49:08: Do they partner with our current leadership? Do they partner with our current Jewish ideas of revenge and killing?

00:49:18: And Jewish supremacy? Or do they find Israeli partners who exist and who will lead Israel God willing in the near future?

00:49:31: Who do you invite? Who do you disinvite? Who are you in conversation with?

00:49:38: There is an Israel that you can be in conversation with.

00:49:41: There are shared values that you can highlight when you talk to Israel and it is our shared past that enables this conversation in a much deeper way.

00:49:52: Let's use that to take us a step forward.

00:49:59: If I hear you correctly, Shira, maybe I would share that assessment. You would argue that peace is still very much possible.

00:50:15: For our viewers who can see us, I'm sitting here with my little notebook that has a sticker, "Yes, peace." And also in Arabic, you read Arabic and I don't, which is shameful.

00:50:26: But to reek, it's from standing together. Another organization that we very much support, a Jewish Arab movement on the ground in Israel.

00:50:36: And yes, peace, because first of all, even if I don't believe that it's possible and I do, I still need to continue imagining peace as an option as part of the political imagination that we need to enable for our region.

00:50:53: But it's not just imaginary. It's not my imaginary friend peace. It's the road I'm walking in.

00:51:01: And I will tell you this, every time the road gets too hard, and that happens. And that happens. I get exhausted and we lose loved ones.

00:51:16: And we, you know, it's hard times. It's hard times in very many aspects. I don't want to sit here and, in Yiddish, we say "kvech." I don't want to sit here and say how difficult it is for me because I'm very privileged.

00:51:33: I have a shelter in my building. I have running water. I have access to medical services. I can travel through the Ben-Gurion Airport.

00:51:40: But whenever the road gets hard, and these times have been very, very hard for Israelis and Palestinians, normal people,

00:51:52: I sometimes just go into YouTube and I look for the footage from the visit of Anu al-Sadat in the late 70s in Jerusalem.

00:52:02: And I look for the footage of him coming down the airplane at Ben-Gurion Airport and speaking at the Knesset.

00:52:08: And I say to myself, if peace with Egypt was possible after the carnage, the bloodshed of 1973, of the Yom Kippur War,

00:52:22: that happened to the day 50 years before October 7th, October 6th, 1973.

00:52:30: And by the end of that decade, by the end of the 70s, we had a peace agreement with our very, very fierce enemy from the south, Egypt.

00:52:42: And my parents visited Cairo later and bought me a necklace with my name in the hieroglyphic.

00:52:48: And, you know, it's lasting. It's a safe border. If that was possible, I was a little girl.

00:53:00: I wasn't alive in 1973, so I don't have the trauma personally, only in a communal way.

00:53:08: But I was already alive when he was visiting. And the three-year-old and the five-year-old that I was wants to relive that.

00:53:20: And in this crazy world, everything is possible. I believe everything. We wake up to the news today.

00:53:26: We believe everything. If they tell you something happened in America or in Israel or in Palestine, we believe everything now because the impossible is happening every day.

00:53:35: It's happening for the worse, but the impossible can also happen for the best.

00:53:39: And also, I believe it because I know how much we invest in it. We as an organization, we as a movement, we as international partners.

00:53:50: So many good people are doing such good work. And as a believer, I will have to say it's got to work. It's got to succeed.

00:53:57: Thank you, Shira.

00:53:58: Thank you.

00:53:59: And stay tuned for the next episode.

00:54:06: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Epochon Podcast.

00:54:12: Epochon stands for European Palestinian-Israeli Tri-Lateral Dialogue, an initiative that creates and fosters dialogue between Palestinian and Israeli peace advocates and European opinion leaders.

00:54:25: Epochon is implemented by the Candid Foundation with the financial support of the European Union.

00:54:32: For more information, visit the Candid website and follow us on our Epochon social media accounts linked in the description.