Ashamed to Admit
Are you ashamed to admit you're not across the big issues and events affecting Jews in Australia, Israel and around the Jewish world?
In this new podcast from online publication The Jewish Independent, Your Third Cousin Tami Sussman and TJI's Dashiel Lawrence tackle the week's 'Chewiest and Jewiest' topics.
Ashamed to Admit
Episode #30 The Holy and The Broken, with Ittay Flescher
To celebrate the highly anticipated release of The Holy and The Broken, Tami and Dash talk to the author himself: TJI's Jerusalem Correspondent & Australia’s favourite peacebuilder Ittay Flescher. Plus Dash celebrates Tami's accidental foray into the shmatte business.
Articles relevant to this episode:
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/ittay-flescher-the-greatest-obstacle-to-peace-is-dehumanisation
Email your feedback and voice memos here: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au
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: the-jewish-independent
Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in Australia, the Middle East and the world at large? But a little bit ashamed that you're barely keeping up to date.
Speaker 2:Well, you've come to the right place. I'm Dash Lawrence and, in this podcast series, your overwhelmed third cousin, tammy Sussman, and I call on experts and each other to address all the ignorant questions that you may be too ashamed to ask.
Speaker 1:Join us as we have a go at cutting through some seriously chewy and dewy topics.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast. Ashamed to Admit podcast. A shame to admit. Hello everyone, I'm Dash.
Speaker 1:Lawrence, Executive Director here at the Jewish Independent, and I'm future fashion mogul Tammy Sussman.
Speaker 2:Future fashion mogul Nice.
Speaker 1:Have you heard the news? Have you seen the Insta stories?
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Well done. I'm blown away by your entrepreneurial spirit, tammy. You're always looking for the next thing that could potentially generate you some extra income, or-.
Speaker 1:I wasn't looking for this, by the way.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:This was completely spontaneous.
Speaker 2:Let me fill the listener in. So we are approaching Mardi Gras, the festival celebrating LGBTIQ plus Australians, and in honour of that, tammy Sussman put up not necessarily with any seriousness a series of kind of t-shirt ideas referencing Australian Jews that are well-known in the community. And tell us what the message was on that shirt, tammy?
Speaker 1:The message said my Mardi Gras hall pass is and I just put different names of community members who have either had a presence at Mardi Gras in the past or community members who I just personally would like to see at the Mardi Gras.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cue Alex Riftian. I think that was the first one you put up there.
Speaker 1:Well, that was an obvious choice, because last year at Mardi Gras he marched and he waved the flag, he showed a bit of bicep. He became a spontaneous gay icon for the Australian Jewish community. But I also included Vic Aladef, former editor at the Australian Jewish News 25 marathons under his belt. I've recently learned that Vic is a great ally to the queer Jewish community here in Australia. He also identifies as a fit grandpa Yep and I thought he needs to be on the t-shirts to appease the boomers.
Speaker 2:Ficala defs a whole pass. So now this joke has just gone way too far and people have been calling for the t-shirts. They're like I want to get this one, I want to get my Australian Jewish Mardi Gras t-shirt.
Speaker 1:So they do and, having since set up my Redbubble merchandise online store, now our listeners and the people who follow me on social media don't even have to limit themselves to t-shirts.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Redbubble, of course automatically generated some clocks, wall clocks, some pet blankets, some pet bandanas, some bath mats, some shower curtains, some duvet covers.
Speaker 2:Just what you wanted.
Speaker 1:So I've now accidentally entered the shmada business. That's what's happened. There's a long tradition of Jews working in the shmada business, the clothing industry. I feel like now would be the appropriate time to ask if there's scope in the Jewish independent budget for a fashion correspondent.
Speaker 2:Probably not.
Speaker 1:What do you think?
Speaker 2:I think we're getting you to do enough as it is at the moment. I'm not sure that we need you to be adding on a whole new job title.
Speaker 1:I understand that the budget is limited, and if you had to create a whole new full-time role, you'd have to get rid of one, and so I have a suggestion.
Speaker 2:That I go.
Speaker 1:Of who you could get rid of.
Speaker 2:Who.
Speaker 1:I think you could get rid of Itai Flesher, the Jerusalem correspondent, Like he doesn't add much value, does he? It's not much happening in Jerusalem.
Speaker 2:Our readers would beg to differ, tammy. There would be a lot of people that would be very distressed to see Ittai go, and I know there will also be readers that will want to see more Tammy Sussman. But no, sorry, we're not jettisoning Ittai, we're keeping him.
Speaker 1:I'm obviously joking. I'm a huge fan of Ittai Me and everyone else. He's such a crowd pleaser. I'd go so far as to say he's probably the most beloved person in the Jewish community of Australia.
Speaker 2:He's got big mensch energy, doesn't he?
Speaker 1:big mensch energy, doesn't he?
Speaker 2:The reason why I say that is because I know that even for people in the Jewish community who disagree with him they still like him, or at least, yeah, they have an affection for him.
Speaker 1:It's warranted.
Speaker 2:There is so much sensitivity in the community around, talking about the conflict and acknowledging Palestinian suffering sometimes can lead people to sort of feel a sense of betrayal, or there's a strong wish for unity and for solidarity, and that impulse, I think, is something that makes sense. And then you've got Itai Flesher, someone who holds two narratives, two versions, two views the Israeli-Jewish perspective and the Palestinian perspective. And it's remarkable that there are people in the Australian Jewish community that they may not necessarily ideologically support or be aligned with Ittai, but they do hold a kind of an affection and a respect for him.
Speaker 1:Now, as well as being Jerusalem correspondent for the Jewish Independent Ittai, is also the education director at Kids for Peace Jerusalem, an interfaith movement for Israelis and Palestinians, and he's just released a book it's called the Holy and the Broken published by HarperCollins.
Speaker 2:Itai is in Australia promoting the book, which came about after the success of his podcast From the Yarra River to the Mediterranean Sea, which he hosted with Hannah Baker in the months after the October 7th attacks. Before moving to Jerusalem, itai was a high school teacher in Melbourne for 15 years, teaching Australian history, jewish studies and religion and society.
Speaker 1:These days he is a diva Just the demands that man makes at hotels in his hummers.
Speaker 2:That's not true. Enough of the introductions, we hope you enjoy this conversation with the inspiring, the warm, the funny and the engaging, itai Flesher, itai Flesher. Welcome to this makeshift Ashamed to Admit studio.
Speaker 3:It's a pleasure to be here in. Naam, otherwise known as Melbourne.
Speaker 2:It's really really great to have you. You are a repeat guest. This is your third time on the pod.
Speaker 3:There's a saying in Hebrew third time you do something, you get ice cream.
Speaker 2:Okay, but I'm in Melbourne, so I feel like I should get an acai bowl and the reason why you are here sitting with me in Richmond is that you are here for the much hyped and long anticipated launch of the Holy and the Broken. You've been here, I think, for two weeks now. You'll be here for another two weeks flying around the country doing book launches, conversations, media appearances, radio television all of the above, seeing lots of friends and family as well. How are you going? How does it feel?
Speaker 3:It's quite overwhelming. I think I've always dreamed of writing a book, but now I'm seeing people's reactions to reading the book and how it's moving them and I feel like I'm sort of now a cross between an author and a therapist.
Speaker 3:I mean so many people who are reading the book are sharing their feelings, not just about the war, but about their Jewishness and about their encounters with Palestinians and about their dreams, and because I've shared so much personally about myself, they want to obviously, in kind, share a lot about themselves. So I feel like I'm very lucky to be able to do this and at the same time, yeah, it's incredibly overwhelming and I'm just grateful that it happened.
Speaker 1:When you say overwhelming, do you mean at the end of the day you go into your room and you have a bit of a cry.
Speaker 3:No, I listen to Joni Mitchell when I'm stressed, but I think there's a lot of Jews in pain here and there's a lot of Palestinians in pain.
Speaker 3:One of the main reasons people are in pain is because other people don't see their pain, and they don't see their national pain, they don't see their personal pain, they don't see their family pain, and because so much of my book is about empathy and seeing the other person as a human being before you see them as a representative of a nation or a religion or a person you're at war with. People want to be validated in their experiences, and so they come to me and obviously do validate those experiences, because that's part of what being a dialogue facilitator is, and then I just yeah, I try and sort of hold all those stories together with compassion, but it's just, it's a lot to have on your mind at once sometimes.
Speaker 1:What was the catalyst for you to tell this story?
Speaker 3:So I've been wanting to write a book for many years and I think the main catalyst that made me actually start opening up a Word document and writing was the death of Mark Baker. Mark was a very influential person in my life and in the life of, I think, many Australian Jews. In addition to his academic output, mark was very influential in a number of organisations that were also influential in my life. They included Keshet, or what later became Stand Up, which is a Jewish social justice organisation, shir Achad Ashar, which is the first Orthodox partnership, minyan in Australia, the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, where Mark was teaching academic courses that had multiple narratives on Palestine and Israel and also doing trips to Israel and territories that very few groups were doing, and then also just his writings and, I think, being a thought leader in the community, and it was a voice that I cherished.
Speaker 3:And he died very young and he was, for me, a series of contradictions. He was both in an orthodox shul and he was a feminist. He was a person who would lead prayer but was also an atheist. He was a person that taught Holocaust studies and about the Rwandan genocide. He was a Zionist that also cared deeply about Palestinians and I, growing up, didn't have many people in my life that had both and that held those two things together. And maybe there's a lot of people like that today, but I didn't know many growing up and so I think him passing in 23 was a great shock for me, and I know that he wrote many books that influenced a lot of people and I kind of knew I had a book in me.
Speaker 3:I didn't know what it was about, but I just thought after he died I'm just going to start writing my life story and see where it goes. And I'd spoken to Dash about that as well, because Dash has published some books and I was like Dash, how do you write a book? Where do you start? What's? How do you publish a book? What do you put in a chapter? What order should they be in?
Speaker 3:And it was sort of an exploration. But the book was really vague until October 7th happened and then I knew what it should be about. And then, while I was writing the book, I was also recording a podcast called From the Yarra River to the Mediterranean Sea with Hannah Baker, and together we were having conversations about being Jewish on the left in Australia and in Israel during the war and then a lot of those conversations shaped what was in the book. And then, in addition to that, many, many other people that I interviewed, from Palestine and Israel about their experiences, to explore really what does peace look like at a time when everyone thinks peace is impossible?
Speaker 2:Let's talk about October 7th, because that is where the book begins and, as you said, it was the events of October 7th that gave the book its sharp focus and ultimately it is, I think, one of the central planks around which this memoir is written. Talk us a little bit about your experience on that day.
Speaker 3:So I mean, I think, like many Israelis, I was deeply in shock. We live in Jerusalem, my wife and my two children. We have a bomb shelter in our house, as does every house in Israel, but because Jerusalem rarely gets rockets, we don't use our bomb shelter. In fact, there's a restaurant next door that uses it to store broken microwaves. And so all of a sudden, very early morning on the 7th of October, we all had to rush into this disgusting shelter that's basically a storeroom, and after we'd done it two or three times because every time there's another siren, another 10 minutes to sit in there I realized, okay, I'm going to have to clean out this place. So we took out the microwaves, I put in some chairs, some water. I had a feeling we were going to be spending many hours there and I.
Speaker 3:I had a feeling we were going to be spending many hours there and I was the only person in the building on my phone because the rest of my building is religiously observant, so Jews who are Orthodox don't look at their phone on Shabbat and Simchat Torah, which is the Jewish festival, that it was that day.
Speaker 3:And so, because I was the only one on my phone, everyone kept asking me what's going on, and I already because I'm on on telegram, which is a sort of messaging app where things can appear that won't appear on the news I already had a very good sense of of what was going on by probably nine or ten in the morning, and I was kind of in a sense of disbelief and not sure what to tell the people in the building, and I didn't know if it was the role of me to tell them.
Speaker 3:But then I also felt that there was important information that they should know. And the other thing I was wary of is that my kids were also in the shelter with me as we were having these conversations, and I didn't want my kids to know that several children had been kidnapped from their beds that morning and I didn't know if Jerusalem was safe or not at that time. And so I'd gone from this place of, I guess, explaining what happens in Israel which is kind of like my job to all of a sudden not knowing how to talk about the news of the country where I lived, partly from disbelief of what I was seeing and partly from, if I say the truth, what's that going to do to the people around me? So that was my first feelings on that day.
Speaker 2:The other part of the first chapter, the start of the book, is you making the connection between that day and what had occurred 50 years and a day prior when your late father, reuven, was called up to the Yom Kippur War. You are the child of Israelis, in fact, you were born in Israel, later moved to Melbourne, but your father was a part of that generation of Israelis that were a part of the war. In many ways, that kind of broke Israel. And there you were, 50 years later and a day, and it feels like the next major substantive military and social crisis was upon Israel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the Yom Kippur War broke out on October 6th of 1973. And in the lead up to October 7th of 2023, I think for about two weeks, I watched about eight documentaries about the Yom Kippur War, because there was a lot of 50th anniversary documentaries and I was obviously interested to understand about that war, both because my father fought in it, as did my uncle, and I'd gone on Yom Kippur that year, which was a few days before October 7th also to synagogue where there was a special service in memorial of the Yom Kippur, where a number of soldiers and nurses and different people in the neighborhood share their experiences. And when October 7th happened, I don't know why, in my mind, I just thought someone is recreating the Yom Kippur War. Because again there's a shock. Again there's a sense of we weren't expecting this. Again there's a sense of we're not ready for this. Again there's a sense of no one saw it. Because, you know, after the Six-Day War, everyone in Israel thought Egypt's defeated, they're not going to bother with us again. We just won the Six-Day War.
Speaker 3:And I remember there were interviews on October 2nd, 3rd. People were talking about Hamas. Everyone was like Hamas is defeated, hamas would never do this, hamas is they're weak. So there was the same sort of I guess, arrogance hubris, the same sort of I guess, arrogance hubris, flawed intelligence that existed the weeks before October 6th 1973, where no one saw Egypt coming. It's almost that same thing happened before October 7th, where no one saw the Hamas thing coming. So I almost felt like, maybe because I love teaching history, like that, this history was repeating again and so now I know that the dates are not connected. Maybe because I love teaching history, like that this history was repeating again and so now I know that the dates are not connected. But initially I was very sure that there was some sort of Yom Kippur connection to the date that was chosen for October 7th.
Speaker 3:Well, indeed it occurred on Simchat Torah, and it was on Shabbat as well, so Israelis were not ready on that morning, yes, and I think, in the same way that on Yom Kippur the army bases are pretty empty, that Shabbat of Simchat Torah there were far, far less soldiers on all of the bases around southern Gaza than would have been on any other day of the year. So, yes, the date being a Jewish festival, I think is very significant the year.
Speaker 2:So yes, the date being a Jewish festival, I think is very significant.
Speaker 3:So do you remember that you and I spoke in?
Speaker 1:the days after.
Speaker 3:October 7th. I spoke to about a thousand people that week. Most people messaging me literally say Itay, are you alive? Yes, and which is a weird question to have to answer a thousand times answer a thousand times.
Speaker 2:So when we spoke in those days after October 7th, by that stage I think the situation had stabilised somewhat. Israel was still facing bombardments, but more or less they had regained control and accounted for all of the infiltrators into Israel and accounted for all of the infiltrators into Israel. So I think you were perhaps less concerned for your immediate safety than maybe you had been in the first 24 hours. But I asked you about your fears and your anxieties. What you said to me was that you're now very afraid of what Israel is going to do to the Palestinians in Gaza and that that was actually what was making you most anxious. Did your worst anxieties come true?
Speaker 3:I think when October 7th happened and I had, you know, incredible fear and worries of rockets and you know it was a traumatic day I was like I don't want anyone else to experience what I did that day because it was awful. It was awful for me, it was awful for my children, it was awful what I saw on TV and it became very clear to me that people in Gaza were about to experience what I experienced on October 7th, but on a much larger scale. I didn't know exactly how large that scale would be, but, yes, it was definitely a concern for me and unfortunately, that is exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:Itai, you have this amazing capacity to have empathy for I hate using the word sides but both groups of people. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3:I think my whole life I've been with people who are opposite to me. My own family I have, you know, I'm secular on the left. I've got a right-wing Haredi brother. I've got a mother who's born in Iraq, a father who's born in Germany. I've taught at Adas, a Haredi school. I've taught at King David, a reform school. I have close friends who are settlers and Palestinians.
Speaker 3:And you know just my whole life of just being surrounded by people who are different with me and I talk to them and I listen to them and I don't hate them because they disagree with me. And I think part of being on the left is being a pluralist and I think a lot of people on the left have forgotten what it means to be on the left. But I believe pluralism is at the heart of my sort of world ideology and that means seeing people that I don't agree with as human beings and understanding that most people that disagree with me they're not mad, they're not insane, they're not brainwashed, they're not all the things that people say about them. They just had a different life experience. And if I would have had those life experiences that they had, I probably would also believe those ideologies, and I'm lucky that I had life experiences that generated empathy through you know people like Mark Baker and teachers that I've had over the years and I've been a youth movement Madrich and a high school teacher.
Speaker 3:You know what happens in a high school classroom. Every day, 20 kids who have, you know, way too much hormones in their lives, share their opinions with one another in a really unfiltered and intense manner and you, as a teacher, have to manage that. That's what I did for 15 years, putting aside the subjects I taught, like the actual reality of a classroom is that's what you do. So I learned very quickly to say, okay, daniel feels this, and Janice feels this, and David feels this, and Naomi feels this, and then like that's how you hold together a classroom of you seven kids, and so, yeah, it comes very natural to me to hold space for multiple voices.
Speaker 1:When you were in Jerusalem if I'm not mistaken, prior to October 7, you were working as an interfaith dialogue facilitator. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yes, at Kids for Peace Jerusalem, a program of Seeds of Peace, where we every second Thursday night we bring together Israeli and Palestinian kids to meet each other in kind, of like a youth movement environment.
Speaker 2:Is there something that you have observed and noted in some ways very disturbing paradox that there you are in Israel in dialogue with Palestinians and Muslims, so close to the sort of centre point of this confrontation, this violence. It's so raw there, and yet I know that you have been, you continue to be and you will always find others that are ready and willing to engage in a dialogue with you, between Jews, between Palestinians and Muslims. And yet here in Australia right now, it would be almost impossible to find a Jewish Australian and a Muslim Australian leader, religious or otherwise, who are ready and willing to engage in a dialogue. It seems that civil dialogue between the two sides in this city and indeed in this country right now is impossible, and yet we are so far away from the conflict. Yeah, so I'm interested in your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3:I'll just maybe challenge one primitive question. I think in Australia there is a lot of connections between Jews and Muslims who agree with each other on everything. They're on the far left, and there's also dialogue between Jews and Muslims on the far right, when they happen to agree with each other on everything, if they're on the far left and there's also dialogue between Jews and Muslims on the far right when they happen to agree with each other on everything as well. The place where there isn't dialogue is between, say, supporters of Israel and supporters of Palestine, of many religions, where they don't agree with each other, and then it becomes impossible to talk not only about that topic but about any other topic. And then it becomes impossible to talk not only about that topic but about any other topic.
Speaker 3:And what I find fascinating, or very sad actually, is the fact that we in Jerusalem have all the reasons not to talk to one another because this directly affects our lives.
Speaker 3:Yet we do, whereas in Australia, when you're tens of thousands of kilometers away from this and you don't have those pressures, it's harder for you to talk, and I think one of the reasons for that is, I'd say, a lot of the people that are in dialogue in Jerusalem. We know that there's no other alternative. We know that ultimately, this is our home and if I stay in my bubble and you stay in your bubble, that's going to ultimately cause a lot of death and destruction for everyone, whereas I think sometimes in Melbourne people feel like we have the luxury of not talking to each other because we can have security and walls and fences and we can be in our own echo chambers and if I go through my whole day without talking to someone on the other side, then I didn't lose anything. And I think that wasn't the Australia that I grew up in. You know, I grew up in a country where every second day, you heard the word multiculturalism.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't think we hear that word in Australia. Now there's this new buzzword called social cohesion. I don't exactly know what it means, but I feel like it came from some think tank. But yeah, there's a real crisis here in social cohesion and I think it goes back to the fact that we are all very good at debate and advocacy. I think you know.
Speaker 3:I look at the Jewish community events, emails and every day there's how to advocate, how to speak, how to win a debate, how to make a point, how to do a social media meme. I haven't seen one workshop on how to dialogue. Dialogue is a skill, just as advocacy is a skill. Dialogue is really hard and you have to learn a lot about yourself and you have to be vulnerable and sometimes you cry and it challenges your beliefs. But who's teaching dialogue? And it's the same for the Palestinian side. There's an immense amount of time and effort involved in advocacy. Understandably so, because they want the destruction of Gaza to end, but I don't see anyone saying maybe dialogue could also be a tool that could make things better for us and safer for us here in Melbourne and Sydney.
Speaker 1:I think people are starting to realise that. In fact, last week, we interviewed Dr Josh Roos, and one of the things that stood out to me from that interview was when he mentioned the fact that, in order to heal or in order to move forward, one of the things that's going to have to happen is more outreach. It's easy enough for someone to say that who isn't traumatised, and he acknowledged that. For someone to say that who isn't traumatized, and he acknowledged that. Do you think that we can move forward if we continue to stay in our bubbles?
Speaker 3:I'm going to share a dream, because you know I'm a dreamer. If there's any listeners here that have a million dollars, this is what I want you to do. I want you to make an app, and the app is called Meal by you, and the way the app works is everyone in Australia opens a profile and on the profile sort of a bit like a dating profile, but there's no sex involved you maybe that also happens with some dating profiles as well actually you put a photo of yourself and your family and then you write all of your biases I like Albo, I like Penny Wong, I'm left wing. I of your biases, I like elbow, I like Penny Wong, I'm left wing, I'm right wing, I'm straight, I'm gay, I am a vegetarian, I'm a Christian, I'm a Jew, et cetera.
Speaker 3:And then on the other side, you write someone that you want to meet with that has a different view for you. I want to have a meal with a Muslim. I want to have a meal with someone unemployed. I I want to have a meal with a Muslim. I want to have a meal with someone unemployed. I want to have a meal with someone that lives in rural Victoria. I want to have a meal with someone who is an immigrant. I want to have a meal with someone who's a refugee.
Speaker 3:And then what the app does is it matches you up with someone opposite to you and you have to have two meals one at your house and one at their house.
Speaker 3:Now, the rule is it can't be in a cafe, it has to be in your houses, because when you have a meal in someone's house, you learn so much about them. You see the artwork on their walls, or the lack of artwork on the walls, you see the neighborhood where they live, you see, maybe, their pets, what music is on in the background, what the garden looks like, and you start seeing them, not as this, like sort of box on a Zoom screen as we often talk to each other, but you start seeing them as a real person. And then a week later, they come to your house for a meal and the same thing happens and they see, let's say, you're Jewish. They see a menorah on your mantelpiece, like what's a menorah. They see a little box on your door what's a mezuzah? And they see a little box on your door what's a mezuzah? And they might eat some horrible bread and you'll say this is matzah.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry about this you know and you see each other as a full person. And then, I think, imagine someone would create this app and every year in Australia, tens of thousands of people would be having meals two meals, that's it with someone different from them. Then people would go back home and say you meals, that's it with someone different from them. And then people would go back home and say, you know, I know people say this stuff all the time about Afghan refugees or about Jews or about, you know, the Muslims who come from Sudan or whatever it is. But you know, I had a meal with one and this is what happened. Wouldn't that be amazing for social cohesion?
Speaker 3:Because now, when we talk about social cohesion, it's often framed as, and how to combat anti-Semitism and racism and these sorts of things. It's often the sense of we need tougher laws and we need more walls and we need more fences and we need more security guards. But that only deals with the symptom. Security is only helpful when there's an attacker on the way and it stops it. But I want to stop the hatred in the first place. I want to stop people doing that, and I think one of the main causes of the hatred is dehumanisation, is people not knowing each other, and so I think, just as we're investing in security and I'm not denying security is important, obviously it is we also need to invest in dialogue and in bridge building and an app like the one I suggested, or another idea, because I think that's also important for our safety and for making us feel more at home in Australia, which I think is a really important thing to do right now, as it is in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:Itai, you're such a dreamer. That's beautiful and as a cynic, I was like that could also double up as a murder app.
Speaker 3:Well, do you remember? A few years ago, someone had this crazy idea that anyone could be a taxi driver? Any person, any random dude, could be a taxi driver, and I've been in Australia now for two weeks. I've been in a few Ubers and it works. And then someone else came up with a crazy idea that anyone can be a hotel owner, and now there's like 10,000 homes in Australia in this app called Airbnb, where everyone rents out their homes to everyone else and it kind of works. Yes, there's a few bad stories with Uber and Airbnb, but 99% of people use these apps and have positive experience. But, like, hopefully, hopefully, this app will lead to far more good than bad, and I don't think we can let the one or two people who may abuse this app stop it from doing a lot of good in Australian society, which is something that I think it could.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:The book's coda touches on two influential figures in your life, and we've already mentioned them the late mark baker, and also your father, reuben, both of whom passed away prematurely from cancer, as did, I believe, your uncle. I sense from you that the book, the work that you're moving forward with now, is motivated in part by your own thinking about mortality and of the fragility of life.
Speaker 3:Yes, I know it's very cliche to say one should live every day as if it's your last, but when you have the family history of pancreatic cancer that I have and you live in a place where I've gone to far more funerals this year than I would have wanted to in my whole life, you really hold on to every moment of life as being precious.
Speaker 3:And I every day do so many things every day music, meetings, work, work, social, obviously, time with my wife and my kids and people often ask me how do you, how do you fit so much into every day?
Speaker 3:And and then you're also on top of social media and that sort of thing, and I'm like, because I only live once and because I'm lucky that at the moment in my life I'm I'm young and I'm healthy and I can communicate clearly, and there's a lot of stuff I want to do, and I feel like, again, I've been given a gift that I can communicate, I think, to people in ways that maybe some other people can't, and I want to use that skill to do good and to give people hope and to give people comfort, and that's part of why I wrote this book. It's part of why I wrote this book. It's part of why I made the podcast with hannah baker. It's also part of why I write and why I was a teacher, because I think, when people sort of show the best of themselves to others, others show the best of themselves to you, because the whole, the whole world operates on that, on that beautiful idea of which is if you love your neighbour as yourself, then your neighbours will love you as themselves too.
Speaker 2:I met your mother for the first time the other night. She's such a fan of the Jewish independent brand she asked for a T-shirt. It's wonderful that she could be there. What do you think Reuven would have made of what you've done, your career, your work as a peace builder, your writing in this book?
Speaker 3:So Abba was a peacemaker as well. I think he was very beloved by all of the people who knew him. He very rarely would gossip about people. He was a very kind person and I try and honor his memory in what I do. In fact, when I was packing my clothes for the book launch in Israel, I have an old sweater that he used to wear and I said to Cam, I really want to wear Abba's sweater, and it was a sweater from the 1970s and my wife said to me I really get the sentiment of you wanting to do a book launch with your father's sweater, but it's really ugly and you can't wear this in front of 500 people. So I did it. I got a nicer shirt that I bought for the occasion.
Speaker 2:You look very smart the other night. I should say Thank you. I like your dress and shirt.
Speaker 3:No, I really thought, well, how else can I carry his memory without wearing his sweater? So I put a photo of him and my mother on the screen at the start of the book launch and I spoke about him. And, yeah, I think all of us want to do things that honor the people that came before us. A lot of the book launch actually, I spent probably 10 minutes acknowledging different people in my life that had helped me write this book. Book because I think it's important that in order to know where we're going, we need to know where we came from.
Speaker 1:As TJI's future fashion correspondent, I would just like to add my two cents and say no disrespect to Calm, but I think you need to be wearing that vintage sweater in more of your promo.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I did bring it with me to Australia, and so I will try and do at least one event with a vintage sweater. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Great. I want to see it on Instagram. The name of your book, again Itai, is the Holy and the Broken. Who would you love to read the book?
Speaker 3:So I write in the book that the purpose of the book is to comfort the troubled and trouble the comfortable, and that's who should read the book. So people that have found the past 15 months awful and need comforting, they should read the book. And also people that really struggle to see either Israelis or Palestinians as human beings and show empathy with them, and that this book will make them uncomfortable, they should read it too.
Speaker 1:Good answer.
Speaker 2:Given the current turn in the space of the last few weeks. Where are you finding hope in the current moment?
Speaker 3:So I just want to explain the difference between a politician and an educator. A politician is responsible for having answers to short-term problems that can be implemented tomorrow. So often people say I feel unsafe, I need economic prosperity, I need a home, and the politician says, if you vote for me, I will do this tomorrow and I will fix your problem. I am not a politician, I do not want to be a politician and I never will be a politician, and I don't have answers for short-term questions like the ones people ask me a lot, because they're very, very complicated things and thankfully there are very wise politicians that I respect and think tanks that do have solutions to these.
Speaker 3:I'm an educator, which means that I mainly work with children who may only realize the things I taught them 20 or 30 years after I teach them those things. That's how education works. You plant seeds and they grow, and so the things that, yeah, if I look at the short term, obviously there's not a lot to be optimistic in. There's a lot of, in the short term, very, very awful things that are happening in the place where I live and there's awful things happening to Australia and that's very depressing. But the reason I'm hopeful for the future is because I know that by working with children and working with education, and talking about hope and talking about a future different, that's different from our own, there's something to grasp onto that can hopefully not make tomorrow a repeat of yesterday, but instead make tomorrow something where all people shed their land, their eye, live in equality and also people in Australia can go back to again calling this the lucky country.
Speaker 1:Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Isai Flesher. Congratulations, mazel Tov, on the release of the Holy and the Broken. All listeners should be getting their copy at all good bookstores. So great to see you doing your thing in front of hundreds of people in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. Look forward to another conversation live, perhaps in Jerusalem when we come over and do a shame to admit in Jerusalem. Perhaps again here in Melbourne, wherever it is.
Speaker 1:Or perhaps in Lisbon when Itai joins the new community that I'm setting up there.
Speaker 3:So, as we say in Arabic Inshallah. And can you hear a song? So may it be. Thank you, so may it be.
Speaker 2:Thank you. That was Itai Flesher, education Director at Kids for Peace and Jerusalem, correspondent for the Jewish Independent, and that's it for another week.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to. A Shame to Admit with me, tammy Sussman and Executive Director of TJI, dr Dashiell Lawrence.
Speaker 2:This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with theme music by Donovan Jenks.
Speaker 1:If you like the podcast, leave a positive review, tell your people or encourage your third cousin's cousin to advertise on the show.
Speaker 2:You can tell us what you're ashamed to admit via the contact form on the Jewish Independent website or by emailing ashamed at the jewishindependentcomau.
Speaker 1:As always, thank you for your support and look out for us next week. Thank you.