Episode #4 Passover Special with the wise son, the simple son and Eliyahu Hanavi (TJI Jerusalem correspondent Ittay Flescher)

In this week's episode of ATA, Dash (the wise son) and Tami (the simple son) interview Jerusalem-based journalist, educator and peacemaker Ittay Flescher (aka. The Aussie Eliyahu Hanavi?) about Passover and his experience on April 14th when Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel. Plus Tami shares 10 reasons why the 10 plagues need trigger warnings and they manage to squeeze in everyone’s favourite segment … kvetch of the week! 

SHOW NOTES 

TJI articles discussed in this episode:

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/fears-and-dreams-from-my-night-under-iranian-attack

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/ten-ways-to-make-seder-2024-relevant

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/vegan-push-for-pesach-earth-day

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/read-watch-listen?author=sidrakranzmoshinsky

Email your feedback, questions, show ideas etc: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au

(You can also email voice memos here).

Subscribe to The Jewish Independent's bi-weekly newsletter: jewishindependent.com.au

Tami and Dash on Instagram: tami_sussman_writer_celebrant and dashiel_and_pascoe

X: TJI_au

YouTube: thejewishindependentAU

Facebook: TheJewishIndependentAU

Instagram: thejewishindependent

LinkedIn: plus61-j-media/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Are you ashamed to admit that you're not across all of the issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large? Because, after you've had a full day hustling at work and scrambling to put the kids to bed, you just want to numb out to below deck, down under? I'm Tammy Sussman. In this podcast series, I ask the Jewish Independence Executive Director, dr Dashiell Lawrence, all the ignorant questions that I, and maybe you are too embarrassed to ask.

Speaker 2: 0:34

I'm Dash Lawrence and I'm going to attempt to answer most of Tammy's questions in the time that it might take you to walk your neurotic multi-shih tzu around Caulfield Park. Sometimes I might have to bring in an expert and sometimes I might have a few questions of my own, but together Tammy and I are going to try and cut through the week's chewiest and jewiest topics. Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast A Shame to Admit. So thanks for joining us. Episode four, season one of A Shame to Admit. Hugs Samaya. To you and yours. A very happy Pesach. I hope you've just enjoyed a delicious first night's Seder. I'm Dash Lawrence from the Jewish Independent.

Speaker 1: 1:26

And I'm your favourite colorectal patient. Tammy Sussman Dash, are you now regretting doing this podcast with me? We're four episodes in. You're like the big dog at the Jewish Independent. You're like I could be doing all this important stuff. I've got meetings to get to and instead I'm here putting up with Tammy's meshulgas.

Speaker 2: 1:49

Colorectal patient. I did not see that one coming. Perhaps that's a story for another day.

Speaker 1: 1:54

It is. We are recording today, on the 18th of April, and I thought we should state that clearly for our listeners because some people thought that you should have gone harder on Penny Wong in our second episode, which was released the day before her questionable slash probo speech. Thank you to my friend Jess for introducing me to the word probo short, for you know what it's short for.

Speaker 2: 2:18

Dash?

Speaker 1: 2:18

No, I've never heard it before Probo it's short for problematic.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Okay. So, tammy, from controversial people to controversial clans. Tammy, I believe your journalist friend Marina, has squeezed yet again more juice from the pickle. That is your family history in Australia, doth tell.

Speaker 1: 2:41

She did, but we have a jam-packed show today Jam-packed, povidal-packed if you're Hungarian, so I'm going to leave everyone in suspense and address that next week.

Speaker 2: 2:54

You're what You're going to leave me here, all of us here waiting in suspense, surrounded by your palata pickles family onions that are putrid and stinking because they've been sweating in the sun.

Speaker 1: 3:07

You got my delivery then? Glad to hear it. Yes, I am. I'm going to leave everyone in suspense because we've just got too much other juice. It's a fleshy show.

Speaker 2: 3:18

It is a fleshy show, okay, well, why not? Then just go ahead and tell us what are you ashamed to admit this week?

Speaker 1: 3:25

Okay. So firstly, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a bit behind with my Haggadah prep this year. So, as the writer in my family, I've always been the one in charge of curating the bespoke Seder, depending on the guests that year, and in my family we do a short one.

Speaker 1: 3:42

How short Short 20 to 30 minutes, and then, when my niece arrived, we do a short one. How short, Short 20 to 30 minutes. And then when my niece arrived, we're like we need to shorten it even more. She's grown up a little bit, but now my kids are four and two, so it's the first time in years that we can include them in a meaningful way. So my mum asked me to create a new Seder booklet. So I thought, sure I'll do that. I'll reread the Passover story, and as I was doing that, it suddenly occurred to me that I absolutely cannot relay this story to my kids.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Because, Because it is so traumatic. I've written a list of the reasons why the Passover story would freak my kids out, because it's all their worst nightmares compiled into one story. Number one being bullied by mean people or being pursued by a bad man, that bad man being Pharaoh. Two abandonment by a parent. Two abandonment by a parent. You might remember that yohevet places moshe in a basket in a river. That would absolutely destroy my kids um. Number three moshe discovers that he's been living in the wrong family's house. Number four bugs. A lot of references to Bugs Dash. There are flies, there are locusts. Number five a lot of murdered children. I just don't know how we can like gloss over that one.

Speaker 2: 5:12

Better to edit that one out, I think.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Exactly. But then there's also standing before you know the Red Sea and the prospect of drowning throughout all of this story.

Speaker 2: 5:22

It should come with a trigger warning, shouldn't it Really? I suppose they didn't have a trigger warning in biblical times.

Speaker 1: 5:29

It wasn't invented back then. There's also so much reference to blood water turning into blood blood on doorposts and then, something that I'm ashamed to admit, I hadn't thought of until this morning Moshe has a lisp, right I mean, I was taught he has a lisp because he burnt his tongue, which is also a concept that terrifies children. But talking about the fact that he needed Aaron to speak for him because of this lisp, that's pretty ableist in itself. I don't really like that. Obviously, we tell the story through a patriarchal lens.

Speaker 1: 6:06

We very rarely hear about Miriam or Yocheved or at least I didn't, having been told these stories in a modern Orthodox environment. So it's a real minefield. I don't know how I'm going to get around all of that. I'm working on it and for anyone who's nervous that I'm going to butcher the Haggadah and butcher the Exodus story, just remember that nobody owns the Haggadah. You can have your own interpretation and in fact I was reading an article on the Jewish Independence website. It was written by Sidra Kranz-Moschinski and she wrote an article really focusing on children and their perspective, and she even said that when talking about Manishtana, children should be encouraged to ask their own questions in their own language. So I'm going to take that further and say that children should be receiving these stories in their own language. Emphasis on age-appropriate language.

Speaker 2: 7:08

Clearly, Tammy, you've been giving a lot of thought to Pesach this year. It's all about the Afikoman from my boys.

Speaker 1: 7:14

Is it Okay? On that note, a recommendation for Afikoman.

Speaker 2: 7:20

Oh sorry, my pronunciation was a little awry there.

Speaker 1: 7:24

You say Afikoman, I say Afikoman. How about a book? Books are good. Afikoman Prize.

Speaker 2: 7:32

Yeah, absolutely Copy of Tammy Sussman's Tiny Tradies.

Speaker 1: 7:36

That's what I was getting at. Thank you for saying that. Available in all good bookstores, good bookstores, so Dash, it turns out the timing of our conversation with DrawDuron last week was apt. Tensions between Israel and its strategic enemies ratcheted up over the weekend, but retaliation didn't come from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as we'd initially been discussing with Draw. It came from Iran.

Speaker 3: 8:06

Breaking news. In a major escalation of the crisis in the Middle East, iran has started a direct attack on Israel by launching dozens of drones to attack targets there. They're expected to reach Israel in the next couple of hours. Israel says its armed forces are on full alert, with combat planes in the air. Iran has said it wants revenge for a suspected Israeli attack almost two weeks ago.

Speaker 1: 8:29

So I'm going to get to some of my ashamed questions shortly, but first we wanted to ask friend of the pod, friend of TJI, ittai Flesher, about how he experienced last Sunday's frightening and unprecedented bombardment of Israel. Itai Flesher is TJI's Jerusalem correspondent, writing and reporting since he moved there almost six years ago and he's also one part of the podcast series From the Yarra River to the Mediterranean Sea which I really enjoyed. It wasn't always easy listening but it was really enlightening and, I think, very important. So I guess it. I might do a little bit of fan-jewing right now, which is the gender neutral term that I prefer. I don't like fangirling. Congratulations on that podcast. I heard it's been doing really, really well.

Speaker 4: 9:20

Yeah, thank you. Similar to this podcast, which is called Ashamed to Admit, because people are ashamed to admit things that they don't know about the Jewish way of life in Australia From the Yara is for people that don't really know a lot about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and especially don't know a lot about peacemakers. And I kind of made that because, as someone that's facilitated over a thousand hours of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue in the last six years my work here I want to bring the voices that I hear in my work to the community in Australia and around the world to show them that there's an alternative to the current reality, and that podcast has been an amazing way to do that reality and that podcast has been an amazing way to do that.

Speaker 2: 10:09

You and I spoke, I think, 48 hours after the 7th of October and we had a very long conversation about what transpired for you on that day, and it was a very frank, very full conversation. So I had some idea of how you experienced the 7th of October. And then, just yesterday, I was reading your account of Iran's bombardment of Israel on Sunday night and, reading that account and reflecting on your experience of the 7th of October, I was struck by just how different your experience was of these two events. So can you talk us through how you and your family experienced last Sunday night and how that compared to the events of October last year? Yeah, sure.

Speaker 4: 10:58

So before I talk about the 7th of October, I want to talk about Yom Kippur. So Yom Kippur was a week before the 7th of October. I want to talk about Yom Kippur. So Yom Kippur was a week before the 7th of October. I remember this last Yom Kippur, the country was immensely divided over the judicial overhaul, but the only thing in my head was the Yom Kippur War, because it was the 50 year anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, where those don remember, israel was attacked by surprise by Egypt. 2,600 Israelis were killed in that war. It was until October 7th, considered, I think, the greatest tragedy and calamity in the history of Israel.

Speaker 4: 11:35

My father fought in the Yom Kippur War as well, in Egypt, and that whole week I was watching Yom Kippur War documentaries because I kind of wanted to get into my head how did this happen and where was there? Was the army, there was the defenses and hear all the stories of the soldiers. And I was just really fascinated with the Yom Kippur war. And I remember the anniversary of the Yom Kippur war was October 6th. So October 6th I've been watching all these documentaries as well. And then, when Octoberober 7th happened, I just I just had this strong yom kippur war, feeling like it straight away in the morning of like this has happened again. Like again we've been attacked, again, the army's not ready, again there was intelligence that we didn't hear, again there's no peace. And and then there was obviously the fear of there were rocket sirens in jerusalem. So I'm running up and down the stairs, you know, with my family, my young kids waking them up in the morning, loud booms in the sky. So obviously I blame October 7th on Hamas, clearly. But like there was also a sense of why can't my government protect me? Like I thought Yom Kippur War doesn't happen anymore and I thought my government can protect me. And where are they? And that is a feeling I think many Israelis feel today.

Speaker 4: 12:52

And then I think April 14th or Sunday night was for me it was almost like a tikkun. Tikkun is a Hebrew word which means repair for October 7th, because you know, there were 300 Iranian drones and missiles and rockets directed at my house and the houses of 9 million other Israelis and then another 5 million Palestinians that live here on Sunday night and amazingly, you know, 99% of them were shot down in the sky. But if that hadn't happened, sunday night would have been like an October 7th, there would have been thousands of people dead here, given the amount of firepower that was directed here. And I just feel like on April 14th my government was able to protect me and they did listen to the intelligence and they cooperated with several other countries, with Saudi arabia, with jordan, with the us, with the uk. They formed an incredible air defense coalition and they were able to stop you know what happened on October 7th happening again. But so that's on one level, on the strategic level, but then I'd say on a fear level.

Speaker 4: 14:04

So on October 7th I had no warning it was coming, so there was no lead up, there was just, you know, it was a peaceful Simchat Torah morning and then sirens at 8.30 in the morning and here Iran gave us a lot of warning. So you know, for a week warning. So you know, for a week it was like you know there was a joke in Israel. You know, because technicians here are very annoying and they often tell you you know, come sometime between Wednesday and Sunday, just be home all the time, and you're like what does that mean? You know, just tell me when you're coming. They're like, you know, the guy to fix the TV or whatever it is and Iran was like that.

Speaker 4: 14:43

There's a lot of memes of like, just just be ready for the end of the world sometime in the next three days. It's everyone's like do I go to work, do I? What do I tell my kids, you know? Um? Like there was all these jokes about pesach cleaning. Like, do I clean for pesach this year or not? Because if pesach seems really annoying and if they're going to destroy my kitchen anyway, then why should I bother?

Speaker 1: 15:05

I heard some people were saying do I pay my rent? Yeah, do I pay my rent All sorts of things.

Speaker 4: 15:10

So there was that sense of like what do I do, you know? Like? I mean, I know people on Saturday night that were writing messages to their loved ones of like I love you, and it's like like farewell messages, because they they didn't know what was going to happen and so, yeah, so I kind of we put our kids to sleep on Sunday night, like we usually do, at about 11, um, and my wife and I stayed awake. Obviously we weren't going to sleep because we knew there were, there were drones already. When we put the kids to sleep at 11, like we knew the drones were on the way to Israel and I told us they'll be here in about two hours. And there was a kind of sense of like, okay, if the world is going to end in two hours, like what do you do in your last two hours? And while you think you would do something amazing and beautiful and I don't know like have a romantic dinner, like all we did was watch the news obsessively, thinking like, have they been shot down? What will happen?

Speaker 4: 16:08

We were responding to lots of text messages from loved ones in Australia and around the world, like because they were asking us you were live like what's going on, you know, very scary, yeah. And then the, and then the first booms happened about 1 30 in the morning. Initially there wasn't sirens in jerusalem and then, about 10 seconds after we heard the boom in the sky, there were lots of sirens. And yeah, it was really scary because the booms it sort of sounds like. Try and just imagine lots of fireworks happening at the same time, except if you don't know the fireworks are happening and you're directly under the fireworks and so it's just like oh my god boom, boom, boom, and then the air rates aren't, which is always a scary sound.

Speaker 4: 16:49

And then, in the case of our house, like we don't have a shelter in a house, we have to leave the house, go downstairs to a shelter. That's cold. Obviously it's not on a heated room, but your, your house is warm, so there's a temperature thing. There's waking kids up at 1.30 in the morning. Initially my son thought we were waking him up for school, which he hates. And then, yes, we came downstairs and because Jerusalem didn't get many sirens over the last six months, like there's about 20 people who live in our building.

Speaker 4: 17:20

There was a lot of people like we hadn't seen since October 7th, so it was kind of like a little reunion. So we were all like oh, I haven't seen you for a while, how are you? How's the kids? One guy came without his shirt, someone comes with a dog, you know, like everyone just comes down with whatever they are. And so the conversation in the shelter was pretty, you know, chilled and jokey and whatever there was a lot of talk of. Are we doing this just once tonight, or are we going up and down the whole night like how many sirens are they going to be whatever. Anyway, it was just that one.

Speaker 4: 17:49

At 1 30 in the morning, I think. We stayed in the shelter for about 20 minutes, until you know, because you have to wait till in case there's any shrapnel or whatever, till till you can go back upstairs and then. And then we came back up and, yeah, it was very hard to go back to sleep because obviously the adrenaline is rushing, but eventually we did and yeah. So in conclusion, I'll just say we felt really grateful that a government, I guess, that wasn't able to protect us on October 7th was able to protect us on October 14th, and there was a sense that we experienced a miracle. Like you know, my wife Cam talked about it as if it was the exodus from Egypt. Like we, you know, in the story of the exodus, as the Jews leave, the Egyptians are chasing them and then all of a sudden, a sea splits in the least expected moment and the Jews survive and I feel like we crossed the sea on Sunday night.

Speaker 2: 18:42

Wow, well keeping with the biblical themes in this article you were reflecting on that. It felt somewhat like a Purim story in our lifetimes, with a Persian threat again being neutralized by greater powers and circumstances of fate that acted in our favor. Just elaborate a bit more on that comparison, yeah.

Speaker 4: 19:03

So something. I used to be a Tanakh teacher at Scopus teaching Bible, and so I'm very aware of biblical references but something that really struck me when I was watching the news and they said that the drones have been fired. The city they were fired from is a city in Iran called Hamadan, and now I've never been to Hamadan, but Hamadan. The city they were fired from is a city in Iran called Hamadan, and now I've never been to Hamadan, but Hamadan is the city where Esther and Mordechai from the Purim story are buried. It's literally the city where they're buried.

Speaker 1: 19:29

And I'm ashamed to admit, I did not know that until I read your article.

Speaker 4: 19:34

I don't think most people know, because I don't think many Jews are visiting Hamadan these days, but the tomb is still there, it's still in good condition and I think jews of iran can visit it. And so, yeah, there was. For me, there was something really poignant about the. The reason I made the purim reference in the article was because of that connection of you know, for those that know, the purim story is is also a story where the jews are facing annihilation and a miracle happens and then, unfortunately, a very violent war happens and and the jews are not destroyed it's I you mentioned that.

Speaker 1: 20:07

You know in when you were in the shelter, that you guys were joking, or you know classic jewish coping mechanism, chatting. But then you also referenced in the same article that how do I phrase this?

Speaker 4: 20:20

The most Googled term during that period was Tehillim, tehillim are Psalms, so they're chapters from the book of Psalms, also one of the books in the Tanakh that you say, when religious Jews generally say them, when one of two things, when there's they want to acknowledge or praise god. Sometimes people say it around illness of a loved one, and people also say for divine protection, and I imagine so if you're a religious jew, you probably have a book of psalms already, so you don't need to google that word. So I imagine most of the people googling psalms non-religious jews that don't have access to a book of psalms in their home and wanted to find that there's many websites that have them and wanted to say the Psalms because it's something that gives you protection and when you don't know what's going to happen to you in the next two hours, I can understand why you would say to heal him, Like it's a very understandable thing. You know, as we say, there's no atheists in foxholes. So yeah, I imagine that's why that was a very Google term. And then also a couple of hours later, the most Google term was which is a psalm of gratitude. So it's a psalm.

Speaker 4: 21:34

You said Psalm 100 that you say sort of after you've experienced some sort of you know, trauma that you came out of and that you want to praise God for. And so, yeah, I think that connection to religion is really interesting. You know, I always wonder why no one ever blames God for the bad things that are happening, but we always praise God when things come through. I can tell you like, even personally, like I used to be a lot more religious than I am, but for the first three or four weeks after October 7th, I went to shul just because I not because I wanted to pray or thank God, I just was like I need to be in community at the time and I need to do something that feels that I want to connect to other people. And I remember those first three Kabbalah Shabbats like a lot of people were crying during the tefillah, but it just. You know, there was something about religion that is comforting at this time in ways that it's hard to explain rationally.

Speaker 1: 22:32

I get that when I was a kid. This is like such a bad comparison. When I was a kid, I hated vomiting and whenever I got nauseous I would pray to God and I would say God, I will say the Shema every day If you please just make this diarrhea and not vomiting. Yeah, I've just compared your experience in a bomb shelter with bombardment of drones on top of your head.

Speaker 4: 23:01

A lot of people, when they hear those sirens and booms, probably want to vomit as well, so it's not actually such a bad analogy, okay.

Speaker 1: 23:07

Did anyone in your shelter say psalms?

Speaker 4: 23:11

Not in the shelter itself. In the shelter it's very casual and very jokey and yeah, I think the humour I make a lot of humour, very dark humour about the situation of my life at the moment. That's how I cope and so I think that was the tone in our in our shelter there's. You can look online and find hundreds of Iranian memes where people make jokes about these things yeah, yeah look, I don't know if all those drones would have landed. It's probably been a lot less funny, but like we do, joke a lot.

Speaker 2: 23:43

We've mentioned just how miraculous it was that 300 cruise missiles and drones headed for Israel did not result in any death, but it has tragically resulted in a young seven-year-old Bedouin girl, amina al-Hassani, who was seriously injured by falling shrapnel, I think on around 2 am on Sunday. Your article references her and some of the systematic inequalities faced by Bedouin communities in Israel. So what was it about her story that struck you, itai, and what does it tell us about some of the broader issues faced by Bedouins in Israel and the need for better protection of all of Israel's citizens there's?

Speaker 4: 24:35

300,000 Bedouin in Israel. About half of them live in what's called unrecognized villages. So they're villages mainly around Rahat, the place in the south of Israel, where they're not connected to water, to electricity, to internet. They don't have paved roads and most of them are up for demolition because the houses are built illegally. The government says that they want them to live in other places. The Bedouins say that they have lived there for many years and they want to stay there, and especially the current Minister for National Security, the Bank of Australia is often pushing to evacuate and demolish their houses and they very much want to stay. And it's a very sore point that you know, the state is 76 years old and hasn't decided the fate of these people. You know, I personally want those unrecognized villages to be recognized, I want them to be added to the grid and I want them to get all the municipal services that they deserve because they're Israeli citizens, and I think that's the solution. And now, one of the issues is that since 1995 there's a law in Israel that every new house built needs to have a shelter within the house, what's called a mamad. And those houses, because they're either built illegally or they're built before 1995, or the government's just not paying attention to anything that's going on. There have have no shelters. So on October 7th, I think there was over 17 Bedouin were killed by rocket attacks on that day because they didn't have shelters, and there were many rockets fired into Israel on that day. And then there's also yeah, it's really tragic about Amina Hussaini, who was, you know, in her house when shrapnel fell from a rocket, and her father has also got an eviction order two weeks before this happened, and there was an interview with him in Haaretz actually, where he said, like my daughter's in hospital and I still have to evacuate my house within a week or it's going to be demolished. And so I just felt like there was that tragedy on top of that. Now I think the person to blame for firing the rocket at his house is obviously the Iranian Islamic regime. It's not the fault of Israel, but Israel shouldn't be expelling him from his house or asking him to demolish his house or anything like that after this tragedy.

Speaker 4: 26:57

And so so you know, the point of the article I wrote was about humanization and I think I think often in war we see our own suffering, and I definitely saw my own suffering on sunday night, but I, as a peacemaker, feel like it's always important to see the suffering of others, and one other thing that definitely ran through my head on on sunday night was, you know that I have have friends in gaza, I have people or people that I work with who have loved ones in gaza as well, and I know that they have drones flying overhead every night, and I know that the people in gaza don't have iron dome and they don't have uh, some protect them and that's it's obviously on hamas. But the people there who are not Hamas are innocent, you know, and they they're probably also carrying their children around in tents in Rafah, not knowing where to be safe, not knowing what will happen if a rocket hits, choosing whether they want to be alone or together when they know that there's an airstrike coming. And I just I just felt like, for one night, every israeli kind of got a taste of maybe what it's like to be under aerial bombardment and not know what's going to happen. And so I mentioned that in the article as well, because I I do think it's important that when, when we go through trauma, rather than just seeing the trauma that happens to us, it's important to seeing the trauma that happens to us. It's important to understand the trauma that's happening to people who are around us who are maybe not Jewish or not Israeli, but are in the same situation, and I very much have a view of conflict, of war is terrible for everyone.

Speaker 4: 28:33

No one wins wars, and even when you win a war, there's trauma that lasts forever and there's's PTSD. And then there's the economic impact. You know, israel spent over a billion dollars firing down all those rockets. That's a lot of money that could have gone to many other things. And so you know, while again I'm very grateful that nothing bad happened to me and my family on April 14th, I'm very aware of the cost of war on Israelis, palestinians, jews, bedouins, haredim, secular, and so I think that if you read my articles on the Jewish Independent, you'll see that that's something that comes very clear on everything I'm writing about, because I think it's always important to hold empathy and humanisation for everyone affected by war.

Speaker 1: 29:17

So this morning I was doing my poop and scroll and I came across Dash is shaking his head. It's a thing.

Speaker 1: 29:27

We all do it, and in my home it's the wild wild west of IBS. So it was my first poop and scroll of the day and I came across some slides that you've made and from what you've just said, it's clear to me that you've imbued that sentiment into these. So you've created four slides for the four suns, which you wrote for the Haggadah supplement in partnership with NIF Australia for Seder Night. Itai, tell me more about those four representations and how you landed on them.

Speaker 4: 30:01

Yeah, so I, in addition to working at Kids for Faith and the Jewish Independent, also work at the New Israel Fund. I have many jobs, and Rick Benjamin, who is on the board of the New Israel Fund in Australia, approached me a couple of weeks ago and said we should do a Hakadah supplement that gives people language to talk about the war and if people want to sort of raise that in their center. And so this is. I read a few things online and this is something I wrote, so I posted this on my Instagram, which you can find, with all the pictures, at Itai78 that's where I'm there.

Speaker 4: 30:37

And so, on the first slide I wrote on this night the four children are an Israeli, a Palestinian, a peacemaker and one who has no words left within them. The Israeli what does he say? In this generation, we must all see ourselves as hostages in Gaza, doing all we can to bring them home. Achshav, the Palestinian what does she say? The distraction, the dispossession, starvation and death must end. Cease fire now. Chalas. The peacemakers what do they say? We both love this land and neither is leaving. We're all in this together, between the river and the sea. Two peoples must be free. The child, who has no words. They sit silently in tears with two plates of marrow before them, tasting the bitterness of all, dreaming the dreams of the holy and the broken, and all say together at the end this year we are slaves, this year we are hostages, this year we are hungry, but next year in Jerusalem, next year in freedom, next year in peace.

Speaker 4: 31:39

So I wrote that as to me as a prayer. I guess I don't. I don't say to heal him, but I write and I feel like what I write is my prayers, my hopes, and I guess within those slides I tried to capture a little bit about what I feel are not. You know, there's hundreds of voices within Israel, obviously, but I just sort of chose four voices that I wanted to connect to and very much you know, as someone again that works in the peacebuilding field, he resonated with a slide about the peacemakers who see the suffering of everyone and want everyone to be free, and know that that entails very painful compromises and dialogue and that dialogue is not easy, especially around the issue of the hostages for the ceasefire. I know that that dialogue has been happening for a long time and I'm very much in favor of, you know, both Israel and Hamas making the compromises necessary so that there can be a ceasefire and the hostages can be free. And unfortunately that hasn't happened yet. But to me, this was just a wish of kind of what I want to see in my Seder and what I want to see happening over the next year, because I think the Seder, in addition to being about the past and about slavery and about all of those things, the Seder is really a conversation about the future. It's a conversation about the future of Jews, it's about the conversation of all people who are enslaved around the world. There's never been a Seder in the history of Seder nights where there hasn't been someone suffering at that time.

Speaker 4: 33:08

And also, you know, I remember once seeing a survey about Jewish Australians and Dash. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one of the questions there was which festival do you mark the most? And the answer was Pesach. You know, more than Rosh Hashanah, more than Yom Kippur, more than and I've seen similar surveys in the US and the UK and everywhere around the world you know Jews that don't keep Shabbat, that don't keep Kosher, that don't have a circumcision. You know whatever Pesach is continually the top, have a circumcision. You know whatever Pesach is continually the top most observed Jewish ritual around the world and I think the reason for that is, unlike many other Jewish rituals, pesach happens in the home. You don't need to go to shul, you don't need a membership. And the other thing is, unlike, let's say, you know, rosh Hashanah and Kippur, where there's a mahzor like a siddur, that everyone uses the same book.

Speaker 4: 33:57

In Pesach, there are thousands and thousands of different haggadot. You can get a haggadah with a Holocaust theme, with an environmental theme, with a liberation theme. This year I just purchased this week a hostage haggadah from the Hostage Families Forum, that is. You know all the readings about that I saw online. Now there's a Taylor Swift haggadah this year. Oh, I saw online. Now there's a Taylor Swift Haggadah. This year.

Speaker 4: 34:17

Oh, I saw one, a Golden Girls version, yeah, and so you know you can really get everything in a Haggadah, and I think that's beautiful because it gives. I think Pesach is the most pluralist of all Jewish festivals because no one owns Pesach, it's done in your home, so you don't need a rabbi. It's with your own Haggadah. If you want to do a seder for five minutes, you can. If you want to do a seder for four hours, you can. If you want to eat chicken soup, you can. You can even eat bread in your seder. You know you can do whatever you like because we own Asa, and I think that's why it works. I think that's why so many people, the theme of slavery to freedom is so universal, you know, on a personal level, on a relationship level, on a national level, on a cultural level and so yeah, so I think it pays off a lot all year round, but especially this week.

Speaker 1: 35:06

I once invited a friend from drama school to our Seder, and it was the year when Seder coincided with Easter and she brought hot cross buns as her offering.

Speaker 1: 35:18

It was beautiful. Deborah Stone wrote a wonderful piece for the Jewish Independent. With Easter and she brought hot cross buns as her offering. It was beautiful. Deborah Stone wrote a wonderful piece for the Jewish Independent. It's called Ten Ways to Make Seder 2024 Relevant, and this year Pesach begins on Earth Day, which is April 22nd, an occurrence set to repeat only in another 30 years. So there was another article that I really enjoyed on the platform as well. It was a vegan push for Pesach Earth Day, so all our listeners can enjoy those as well, that's not the end of Yitai Flesher, though.

Speaker 2: 35:56

Next week, on A Shame to Admit, we're going to continue our conversation with him. In case you hadn't been aware and it had certainly slipped under the radar with everything that's been going on between Israel, iran and Lebanon in the past few weeks at the end of March, israel's Supreme Court made a decision that could see the ultra-Orthodox no longer exempt from military service. It could now be that the Haredim in Israel will face the same mandatory military service that other Israeli citizens do. So join us for that conversation with Itay next week. So, tammy, that's almost us done for another episode of A Shame to Admit, but before we do, it's time for everyone's favorite segment, kvetch of the Week.

Speaker 1: 36:50

Kvetch of the Week, okay. So every so often I have to scrub up for an event. Every so often I have to scrub up for an event and when I do I look in the mirror and I give myself a bit of a rating and it's usually a more positive rating than I would during the week. So during the week I'm like a five, six, six out of 10. And I'm cool with that. It's what's made me funny. But when I scrub up, I'm like a strong seven out of 10. Made me funny. But when I scrub up, I'm like a strong seven out of 10.

Speaker 1: 37:24

And then I'll be in the car and I'll be driving to that event. You know I'll be stopped at the lights and I'll check myself, you know, in the mirror and I'll say you know, this would be the ideal moment at this event that I'm driving to, this would be the ideal moment to bump into an ex. You know, right, as I've said something funny. They walk in. They see like a few people standing around me and laughing. So why is it that the reality is always the furthest from the fantasy dash? Why do I always run into exes or unsuccessful dates when my kids are melting down and my hair's all over my face and I'm covered in their schmutz. Does this happen to you?

Speaker 2: 38:03

It has happened to me on a few occasions, tammy, maybe not with the same regularity as you. It sounds like this is a recurring theme in your life.

Speaker 1: 38:14

It is because people underestimate that when you like, are living in a shtetl and your kids get to a certain age, all those people that you thought you could avoid, like when you, you know, in your 20s. Now, suddenly, your kids are friends with their kids and you're just running into them. All the time.

Speaker 2: 38:34

I don't know why, but it continues to be the yogurt stains that appear in these scenarios. I think it's maybe happened twice or three times now and for some reason so, both of my boys quite like those. You know, those little yogurt sachets, the pouches, yogurt pouches. Thank you, the yogurt pouch.

Speaker 2: 38:55

And my four-year-old's a bit more capable of not spilling it everywhere now, thankfully. But there was a good while there where, like, he just could not suckle on that thing without it somehow squirting out all over the place, left, right and center. And you know, if I was holding him or if I was in close vicinity, somehow, that a big dollop of yogurt would find its way onto my shoulder or onto my-.

Speaker 1: 39:20

Inevitable.

Speaker 2: 39:22

Yogurt schmutz, yogurt schmutz. And there I am at the playground down by the sandpit. And who do I happen to come across? But someone that I dated several years ago, also there with her children, but not looking anywhere near as self-conscious as me. And I'm wondering why there with her children but not looking anywhere near as self-conscious as me? And I'm wondering why? Oh, that's right, because I've got a massive Yopi blueberry stain all over my otherwise quite nice crisp linen shirt.

Speaker 1: 39:47

I don't want to victim blame or anything, but choosing to wear a linen, nice linen shirt to the park when there's a yogurt pouch around. So that's something that you need to work on. You never know when you're going to run into an ex, right, so that's something that you need to work on.

Speaker 2: 39:58

You never know when you're going to run into an ex right.

Speaker 1: 40:03

Okay, that's it for another week of A Shame to Admit, with Dash Lawrence and me, tammy Sussman, this is a TJI podcast.

Speaker 2: 40:09

Today's episode was mixed and edited by Nick King with music from Donovan Shanks.

Speaker 1: 40:14

Special thanks to Itai Flesher again for giving us so much of his time, and to God for giving Moses such clear instructions to strike the sea with your staff, which he did. Ata ata bene horim. And to Miriam and Aaron for making sure the kids were entertained and had enough unleavened bread to nosh on, so that Moses could have the space to do what he had to do, thus becoming Judaism's first influencer.

Speaker 2: 40:41

Links to the articles mentioned in today's show are, as with every other week, in the show notes and, if you like the podcast, please do us a huge favour and tell everyone you know about Ashamed to Admit or leave us a five-star review.

Speaker 1: 40:56

You can have a kvel or a kvetch via the contact form on the Jewish Independent website or email ashamed at thejewishindependentcomau. As always, thanks for your support. Chag Sameach and see you next week. Can you hear this? Do you know what I'm drinking?

Speaker 2: 41:33

A delicious brew of coffee roasted and ground in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

Speaker 1: 41:40

No, I'm drinking Amisrael chai Nature's cuppa. I think they would be great potential sponsors of this show.

Speaker 2: 41:51

Mmm chai, Might go make myself a cuppa now.