Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.
Major Pager Rager
A stunning attack-by-pager left dozens of Hezbollah militiamen dead and thousands maimed and wounded. What are we to make of a thing like that?
Commemoration Vexation
How do you memorialize October 7, when October 7 hasn’t ended yet?
Testicles in the Twitterverse?
For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra discussion: Hezbollah pagers explode, social media memes erupt, but not all Israelis are laughing.
All this and the music from the remarkable new record רוח באה מדרום (Wind Comes from the South).
Songs
- Adi-Keshet Cohen — Ha-Ruach Ba’ah Mi-Darom
- Matan — Shever ha-Olam
- Roni Bar Hadas — Im Yesh Ba-Olam
I am a regular listener. I love this podcast. I have learned so much. I have written in before as a NY Jew who only began thinking about my Judaism and connection to Israel on Oct 7th, and this podcast was my first teacher, along with my one Israeli friend. Then I started reading Haaretz and listening to/reading Hartman Institute material. Ok I have a complaint today about the pager episode: I know that Lebanon has eclipsed the hostages. I don’t like that and it feels wrong, to this American Jew for whom the moral compass is set Rachel Goldberg Goldberg-Polin. But I don’t pretend to understand all the dynamics of war in Israel. Ok the complaint (and I am only taking the time here because I respect and truly adore this podcast): the joking about feeling safe in the underground space you have as a studio, and the good coffee above, the whole underground idea as a fun place and safe place, when we know the hostages are down underground and suffering and some have died there— I hated that joking. But still love this podcast.
Thank you for this generous note. Your complaint about the joking is right, and important, and I will try to keep it in mind in the future. Full stop. Having said that, and meant it, I would add that I don’t think the joking necessarily means that we are making light of anything about our situation (and definitely not the suffering of the hostages, their loved ones, the soldiers, their families and everyone else who is suffering, including the people in Gaza who have suffered such terrible losses). I think the joking reflects something about the strange tension and anxiety of being attacked by missiles and rockets. It feels so unreal and, at the same time, so desperately real. Still, your point is right, and I will try my best always to keep it in mind.
As for your other point about the hostages, I agree with that, too. They’re the first thing I think of every morning, and the last thing I think of every night before I go to bed. Lebanon has not displaced them for me or, I think, for most of us here, as yesterday’s memorial services made very clear.
Thanks, Laura. I was very happy to hear from you.