Along The Seam, Episode 22
Barak Sella
INTRO
Hey Everyone. Welcome to Along The Seam. I’m Rachael Cerrotti.
Every conversation I have on this show feels personal to me, but this episode feels like it deserves an extra moment of recognition because it's the first time since October 7, 2023 that I’m stepping into some form of public conversation about my relationship to Judaism and Israel. And that makes me nervous. But, I’m grateful to approach this space with my friend Barak Sella who sat with me for three hours one afternoon to share stories about his life working towards creating a more just Israel.
This episode is longer than most, but that is intentional. With a deeply painful war happening between Israel and Hamas, it felt important to create space for a long conversation. And I thank Barak for giving so much of his time and energy to talk me through questions I had about Israel’s history, politics and his own experiences. We do not talk explicitly about the ongoing war, but my intention is that this conversation gives some context to the wide variety of Israeli perspectives and also provides some hope in knowing that there are people committed to building a peaceful future where both Israelis and Palestinians, and all of their neighbors, can live with self-determination, dignity, and safety.
A bit about Barak – he is an educator, an activist, a writer and a researcher, and one of the leading Israeli experts on US-Israel relations. One of his formative experiences as a young person was when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995. Rabin was an Israeli Prime minister who was dedicated to making peace with the Palestinians. And ten years later, as a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces, Barak was part of the disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and in the unit that evacuated the very last Jewish settlers from the region. He has spent the last year here in the states studying at Harvard and recently graduated from the Harvard Kennedy school.
This conversation with Barak Sella was recorded on January 17, 2024. He was in Boston, Massachusetts and I was in Portland, Maine.
CONVERSATION
Rachael: Hi. It's nice to see you.
Barak: Hi, Rachael. It's great to see you. Always.
Rachael: I'm so looking forward to this conversation. And I think I asked you about talking with me for this show, like, a year ago.
Barak: Yeah
Rachael: Um, a lot has changed in the last year. But I just feel really grateful that we can still have this conversation. So before we dive into conversation, I'm just going to state this for you and for me and for the listeners that the topic that we're going to talk about today is deeply personal to me. So I'm gonna - I'm going to jump in in some ways that I might not in other conversations. And that's because today we're going to talk about the difference of being a Jewish person from Israel versus being a Jewish person in the diaspora.
Barak: Yes.
Rachael: And, yeah, big topic.
Barak: I might Start interviewing you in a certain point.
Rachael: Perfect. It's actually kind of like a nerve wracking thing for me to talk about. And as I was, like, prepping for this conversation, I caught myself, like, doing some personal writing about how even throughout my life, I've, um - I've kind of distanced myself from my Jewish identity, even in the field of Holocaust studies, and that's like a whole therapy thing I won't take us into immediately.
Barak: I don’t think you can be a Jew if you don't go through a period where you distance yourself from your Jewish identity.
Rachael: Okay, let's just start there. Why?
Barak: Because I think there's something that people don't understand about Judaism or Jewish identity. Where it's something you're born with, right. So you don't really have a choice. You can choose to not be religious. You can be an atheist, but you're still a Jew even if you don't identify as one. You don't really have a choice. So I think the fact that you sort of don't have a choice, unless you are one of the magnificent few who choose to convert. So I don't think there's a way to own your Jewish identity, first of all, without struggling with it at a certain point of your life, deeply - the same way you sort of struggle with your parents. Our parents are our whole world. And then at a certain point of our life, we need to break free from our parents, kick them away, reject them only to sort of re-embrace them as equal human beings and not as parents figures. And I think it's very similar to Judaism because it's not a religion. That's what people don't understand. There's the religion practice, but I look at Judaism more as a story that you choose to connect to and find yourself within. And so if you don't distance yourself from your Jewish identity, if you're always immersed in it, I don't think you can ever zoom out and see what part of the story or identity really connects to yourself and make it your own.
Rachael: For me when I was growing up. I grew up in a, like, urban household in Boston. Part of a reform community. Definitely growing up people would be like, oh, you're Jewish? And I'd be like, well, not really, kinda like I there was always something about like, I knew instinctually it was not cool. And at an age where, like, you really want to be cool, it's like, let's push this thing away. And I'd be like, no, my last name is Cerrotti. I'm Italian. And - and it was like that even though I went to Jewish summer camp and I went to Hebrew school and I had your, you know, Reform Jewish upbringing. It wasn't until I went to Israel on Birthright when I was 18 years old, and it was the first time I ever showed up somewhere where my identity was a part of the majority that suddenly my guard came down to myself.
Barak: You know, I experienced it in a interesting way from the opposite direction. So I'll get to it later. But in my early 30s, I moved to live in New York, and I was single at the time, and it was the first time that I started dating non-Jewish women. And, you know, I'm a very Jewish person in my identity, but I'm entirely non-religious, which in Israel, again, sort of makes sense. You're secular, you can be a non-religious Jew. It's part of your identity. But then you meet these non-Jewish women whose knowledge of Judaism is very limited. And they know Judaism, you know, as a religion. And then we meet, we talk about ourselves, and they are sure that I'm like a religious man. And I'm like, no, no, I'm not religious, but I'm very Jewish and they were like, how does that work? And this experience of explaining my Jewish identity to non-Jewish women in New York really helped me understand what it means to be a non-religious, very Jewish man in a way that I didn't expect to.
Speaker 1: I get that question, but because I work in the field of Holocaust storytelling, where people who meet me, particularly at this stage of my life where I have, you know, these bodies of work that have been published. And I had this deep interest in Jewish history, but people assume that I'm, like, deeply connected to a religious practice.
Barak: Yeah.
Rachael: But the older I get, the more I do find myself craving tradition and ritual, which then gets even more wonky because you're like, all of this stuff is related to the religious practice, but I'm coming at it from this, like, cultural space, not necessarily from a God-driven space. And maybe there's spirituality there, but spirituality in itself is different than religion for me.
Barak: I feel, you know, very similarly. I recently just had to fill out a form and filling out forms in the US for Israelis is a very different experience because we have to fill out our race. And I, first of all, never want to fill out that race because what am I supposed to write? Middle Eastern? White? I don't identify as any of those. And secondly, my learning of history taught me that you should never identify as a Jew towards the authorities. There’s no reason for them to know that information.
Rachael: Oh, a little intergenerational trauma coming in there, don't you think?
Barak: Yeah. Yeah. You don't think there's no reason - why? Why do you want to count me as a Jew? But anyways, there was a place in the form to fill out your faith, and there was a bunch of options. And under Jewish, there were three options: conservative, reform and Orthodox. Which none of them I subscribed to. So I left it empty because I couldn't write that I'm an Orthodox Jew. Maybe the closest I am is to conservative, but I'm not a conservative Jew in no way. And it's interesting because when you try to explain your Jewish identity a lot of time to people, people ask me sometimes if I believe in God. I don't have an answer to that question. I can't say I believe in God. I can't. But I can also not say that I think that God is a totally false concept. There's like a lot of truth and a reality to the concept of God, to the role. There's a role. God has a role in my life, if I like it or not. I have some kind of relationship, even if I don't believe in it. And it's very hard for people because it's like, it's a yes or no question. And it's a very Jewish thing - people ask me a yes or no question. I answer with a story. So that's part of my Jewish education, I guess.
Rachael: Well, let's go back. Let's go back in time now. You were raised in Texas. And that is probably not a line anybody who's listening expected me to say at this moment in this conversation.
Barak: You couldn't tell by my accent that I'm born and raised in Texas?
Rachael: No. And although I know many Jews from Texas, every stereotype would tell me that after you just told me you're very Jewish that probably the story doesn't start in Texas.
Barak: Of course.
Rachael: And, of course, that's leaning into a stereotype because I've been to Texas and I've worked in Texas, and I know some very wonderful Jewish people and wonderful Jewish communities there.
Barak: Yeah.
Rachael: But let's go back there. You were born in Texas, and you lived there until you were ten. So tell us a little bit about your background and your family history as you grew up in it.
Barak: So my parents are both Israelis born in Israel. My dad's, a doctor, an oncologist, and my mom worked her whole life in education, and, you know, in the early 80s, they moved to Houston. My dad got a fellowship working for MD Anderson Cancer Center. And like many sort of Israeli immigrants to the US, they planned on going there for two years and ended up staying 12 years. After they moved, I was born, so I was born in the US. So my parents always joke that I could potentially be the president, which I don't think will ever happen. I don't know if the world is ready for a Israeli dual national president of the United States. But, um –
Rachael: The eyebrow piercing will get you there, though.
Barak: Hopefully. Hopefully. You know, I got this eyebrow piercing the day I was released from the army. Haven't touched it since, but it's like I like it. It's a staple. But anyways, I was born in Texas and really sort of grew up in the Jewish bubble. Um, in the 80s, there wasn't an organized Israeli community, but my parents were sort of the center for the Israeli community, at least for the culture. I remember, my mom, you know, she's a singer, so she would host all the sort of holiday events at our house and community events and always singing on stage. And all their friends were, you know, Israelis like them who moved to the states in the 80s to, you know, in search for better opportunity. I went to, you know, a Jewish kindergarten. We would go to Beit Hasheron, like synagogue and they sent me, actually, to a Jewish day school. A conservative, sort of Orthodox Jewish day school and I was almost the only Israeli kid in my grade, and the reason they sent me there was they wanted me to study Hebrew because they would teach Hebrew two hours a day there, and we would talk Hebrew at home. My house was a very Israeli household. Like my dad had, you know, one of these old satellite radios that he would use to listen to Israeli army radio shows. And it was weird because my family was very secular. But at school I had to like wear a kippah and I had to learn how to pray, and I would pray every day. At a certain point they would - I became sort of religious in my younger ages, and my parents would laugh and call me the rabbi and they would have fights with the school. Like, we want him to learn more math and English. Why are you spending so much time on religious studies? but I loved it. It was a great experience. And I really grew up in sort of this, uh, Jewish bubble. But I also, you know, had this weird feeling growing up in Texas where I knew that I was born into a place that was temporary because we always knew that we're gonna go back to Israel. We would visit every now and then, and it was always sort of in the back of my mind that one day we're going to leave the place that I call home and go to our quote unquote, real home, right where my parents are from and where I am apparently from, even though I wasn't born there, and I've only visit there twice or three times. So it was sort of this weird experience. And, one day they sort of, you know, announced, okay, in a few months we're moving to Israel. When I was older, I would ask my dad a lot of times, what? So why did you move to Israel? Why, like after 12 years and not after 15 or 10? Like, what made you guys make the decision? And there's a lot of family mythology about why. And I think, you know, I studied in my master's Jewish immigration. And it's fascinating the stories that Jewish immigrants tell to themselves to rationalize why they immigrate, right. Because there's a lot of stories and a lot of justifications that you have to make. For example, there's a famous sort-of myth about Jewish immigrants to Ellis Island, where they came from Eastern Europe with all these, like, Jewish Eastern European names. And then, you know, they came to the US and they adopted American names. And there's a myth about how the clerk at Ellis Island couldn't understand my Jewish name and sort of gave me a local name. And the research shows that that never happened. That never happened.
Rachael: This is like early 1900s we're talking about?
Barak: Exactly. And what the research shows is that actually, you know, people could keep their names, but then they came to New York and they had to write, you know, apply for a job or register somewhere. And they didn't want their, you know, Jewish sounding name to be so obvious. And so they adopted more American names, but they felt a guilt about it. So they would tell the story. Oh yeah, the clerk made me change it, but it was their own decision. And that's something that a lot of Jewish immigrants do when they try to rationalize why they make their migration decisions. And the same thing was my dad. So, we always heard the story about, I wanted you guys to grow up as Israelis. And at a certain point, I felt that you were becoming too American. So we decided to go back home. Later, I realized that he was in the process of getting his American citizenship, and he was done. He felt that he couldn't live in the US anymore. But then he told me the story. He was working with this immigration lawyer and he was telling the lawyer, listen, I don't think I'm going to go through with the citizenship. I need to go back to Israel. And then suddenly the lawyer comes out as a Jew and says, my dad's name is Avi, he says Avi. We the Jews, we always need a second option. Get the citizenship. Go back home. So the moment my parents pledged allegiance to the flag, we left the US with, you know, our second option in hand. And that's how we came back to Israel when I was ten. But I think, looking back, one of the other reasons that we came, was that, you know, in the early 90s, Yitzhak Rabin, was voted into power. And my parents were sort of like a Labor Party supporting family.
Rachael: Let's pause for one second
Barak: Yeah
Rachael: to kind of set the stage for that because this history I actually think is really relevant and really important. So as you tell us about Yitzhak Rabin, if you could also share some of the Oslo Accords, which is, I think, what you're about to go into. And really the importance that this was like a really, really unique moment that had not happened before and has not happened since.
Barak: Yeah. So if I'll go back to Texas, there are two memories that I think set the stage for me. One is when I was in third grade, my parents sent me to Young Judaea summer camp, which is a Jewish youth organization. to a summer camp in the middle of nowhere. So when I was eight years old, went out for a month, you know, without my parents. And this was a Zionist youth organization and I had a life altering experience. It later really, I think, influenced me in my choice to be an educator, this sort of experience. But one of the most memorable activities we had was a Peace and War day, where during the day we had this huge capture the flag game between the Middle Eastern countries. And it was all chaos. And then we like, experienced negotiations. And, you know, the sort of message was, look at how war is chaotic and how through peace negotiations, everyone can achieve their goals. And we had this like sort-of fire ceremony where they had this like huge fire sculpture of a dove and peace and Arabic and English and Hebrew. And so that was the feeling of the time. And another experience is when Israel signed the peace agreement with Jordan, you know, they gathered us in our school, in our Hebrew school in Houston. And they stopped, you know, studies to sit us in front of the TV and to watch this. You know, so we're like seven, eight years old, and Americans watching this peace treaty between Israel and Jordan and the balloons, white and blue and red and green balloons flying into the sky. And this moment of optimism.
Rachael: What year are we in for this?
Barak: I think the agreement was signed in 1993.
Rachael: Is this pre Oslo Accords.
Barak: So it's sort of on the background. It's not part of the Oslo Accords, but it's part of the same process. Rabin came into power in 1992. And, you know, in the 90s. This is post first intifada. Intifada, sort of the first armed uprising of the Palestinians. And first, like real big violent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians. And, this really experience of terrorism and post the first intifada, you know, the Labor Party was still very strong in Israel. And Rabin came into power with, you know, this promise of peace, because at the time, I think most Israelis, they saw peace as a path to security. Because the important thing to know about Israelis is Israelis first, most important priority, is always security. It's always security. What will make us safe? If peace will make us safe. We'll go towards peace. If peace will make us not safe and there's other options, then we'll choose that other option. Security, you know, for our generational trauma, but also for our lived experiences in Israel is always the defining choice. And so Rabin came into power with this real big promise of, you know, Rabin, he was the head of the Israeli military. Had a military career. He then became a diplomat and an ambassador, and he was prime minister before. But he was sort of voted as this military person that fought wars his whole life and now chose to transition into promoting peace because he had this saying, you know, that the best way to protect human lives is not fortifications and bombs and tanks, but is long lasting peace. That's the best way. And I think many people believed him, and many people went and followed him, and wanted to believe his vision. Many people in Israel didn't. And that, we'll get there in a second. But -
Rachael: I just want to note really quickly, how from a leadership standpoint, how valuable it is to have somebody who's a leader who's willing to change their mind or, like, grow from their experiences. Like a lot of times when I hear people talk about politicians today, there's this like, well, they flip flopped or, you know, how do we know what they actually think if they, you know, voted on this and how they voted on this? It's like, well, that's what you hope for in a leader is someone who can live their years and kind of assess things differently and be open minded to that. And I think that's a really special part of his story, that he came from, this military background
Barak: Yeah
Rachael: and then started to see another way.
Barak: And something that's important to know about Rabin is that he grew up in a socialist, you know, background in Tel Aviv. He's the first Israeli born prime minister and he grew up in the Labor Youth Movement and connected to the kibbutz movement and really to sort of socialist humanist values. And, you know, his choice to begin his military career - there's a famous story about him when he was 18 and he finished high school, you know, his honors. He was offered a scholarship to go study in Berkeley by the British Mandate. And he always said he he wanted to be a water engineer because he thought that it was very important in the Middle East to like build water irrigation systems, but then he was sort of called to be part of the military and made that sacrifice of not going to study in the US and he always said, when you're a teenager, you don't want to take a gun and go protect your country, but you do it because you have to. And I think Rabin, he always, always saw the military as a necessity and not a desire, right. Something you have to do because that's the best way or only way to protect yourself. And I think when he got to a place in his life and I don't think he changed his values, I just think he realized that the circumstances have changed and he has changed and his way to protect, you know, the Jewish people was not through leading a military, but by brokering a peace agreement. And so people always say, like, how did he turn from a man of war to a man of peace? I think he was always the same. But he just realized that, if you have a hammer, every problem is a nail. You can change tools. It doesn’t change who you are. You can change tools. And, you know, when Rabin came to power - I moved to Israel in the end of 1994 and the Oslo Accords, which was sort of the peace negotiations between Israelis and the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Yasser Arafat, were in full throttle, and there was real promise.
Rachael: This is the famous picture that we often see in history books, where it's like on the White House lawn, and Bill Clinton is standing between Rabin and Arafat, and they're shaking hands. And this is like the picture of potential peace. So I think that'll be a familiar image for many people.
Barak: It's hard to explain how much we were in a time of optimism. You know, as a kid in the fourth grade, I remember we had an exercise in class where they handed out papers and they were like, draw peace. How is peace going to look like? And I remember we went, this was something that was very popular at the time in Israel. I went with my school to a day trip to the Golan Heights, which is sort of the mountainous area on the Israeli-Syrian border that was conquered by Israel in the 1967 war and was annexed by Israel. But it's sort of an area in dispute. And in the ‘90s there were also negotiations with Syria. And everyone knew that if we signed a peace agreement with Syria, it would probably mean giving back the Golan Heights, which is a beautiful, beautiful region. And I remember we would go on trips there to say goodbye. To, like, say our farewells to the Golan Heights. And that was sort of the atmosphere we were in of, like, normalcy.
Rachael: That's so poetic.
Barak: Yeah. And so at least for the community I was in, right. We also have to acknowledge that Israeli society was not on one page around the Oslo Accords and the peace agreements, and I, as someone who was living in a secular, left-leaning, you know, Labor Party community, many people in Israel, who are more right wing Likud party supporters, people from the settlements. They strongly, strongly opposed Yitzhak Rabin's policies and his pursuit to get to an agreement with the Palestinians. And so at the same time that, you know, many people on my side were feeling this huge optimism, there were terrorist attacks happening by Palestinian extremists who opposed peace as well, because for them the fight with Israel is eternal. And you had really intense protests of people, of Israelis against the government, very intense protests that people accused Rabin of being a traitor, of being a murderer, of someone who will have blood on his hands. Very violent, very intense protests that really ripped the country apart in many ways. And if you look at it, you can really say the country was sort of split 50/50, and it was really a slim margin that Rabin had support, but he really went through that. He was very convinced. He was committed.
Rachael: I have a question about the population for and against Rabin's attempt to make peace. Now, Israel is not just Jewish people. For the population that was not Jewish-Israeli. Was there more agreement towards peace because, like, I mean, it's a good like 20-30% of the nation is not Jewish.
Barak: Yeah
Rachael: Do you know, like where that community was standing in whether or not they were for or against his policies?
Barak: So the Israeli population in general, it's good to think about it as 80% Jewish and 20% non-Jewish. And amongst those 20%, there's a small Arab Christian minority, even smaller, like Christian or non-Christian, non-Arab minority. And most of that 20% is Arab Muslims. And during Rabin's government - first of all, it's important to note that the Arab political parties were never part of the coalition, were never part of the government. The only time that there was an Arab party in government was during the 2021 government where Naftali Bennett was prime minister and Mahmoud Abbas from the Islamic Arab Party was part of the government. So for more than 70 years, there was never an Arab party. Doesn't matter if the government was left wing or right wing. But when Rabin was promoting the Oslo Accords, they, what we call, supported him from the outside. So even though they weren't part of the coalition, they did support the Oslo Accords and the sort of right wing Jewish community that was one of their criticisms that they would say, oh, you're passing this Oslo Accord with support of the Arabs, and they did support Rabin. Something that's important to know about Rabin is that he really had an interest in uplifting the Arab community. Like, every country in the world, there's discrimination between Arabs and Jews. And, Arab cities are less developed and have more poverty. And Rabin in the 90s, sort of a big thing that he did, that he would go to Arab cities and he would meet with Arab mayors. And there's a famous like thing that he did that he put traffic lights and street lights in the entrances to all these cities because they were so underdeveloped, they didn't have lighting. He was the first prime minister that invested heavily financially in developing the Arab community and their infrastructure. And the Arab community really saw him as someone who's legitimate. They saw him as, okay, this is a military guy, but we believe in his really genuine will to go towards peace. And he's also coming and meeting with us and supporting us. So they were very supportive of him. That's part of the reason that he would even actually be able to go forward with the Oslo Accords.
Rachael: Thank you for helping me understand that better. So, the first Oslo Accords, which was this attempt for peace between Israel and Palestinians. It was like the first direct peace agreement, is signed in 1993. And then there's the second Oslo Accords are signed in 1995. And these accords are supposed to lay the groundwork essentially for a two state solution. Is that correct?
Barak: So there's a dispute if uh, the Oslo Accords would actually lead to an independent Palestinian state. What the Oslo Accords did was divide the occupied territories in Gaza and the West Bank to area A, B and C. Area A, being governed 100% by the Palestinian security and civil wise. Area B, which are areas where there are Jews and Palestinians, which had civil governance by the Palestinians, but security control of the Israelis. And area C, which only had Jews and very few Palestinians, which was 100% still controlled by the Israelis. You know, these accords had lots of different things. They basically sort of tried to lay out the infrastructure for a future Palestinian state. And there was a lot of security agreements and security coordination and infrastructure. And, you know, things about water, electricity and taxes. And a lot of things that were trying to basically give more authority to the Palestinian Authority and hopefully lay the groundwork for a Palestinian state. You know, the critics, the Palestinian critics of the Oslo Accords would say, well, the Oslo Accords never really promised a Palestinian state explicitly. But we all sort of saw that as something that would eventually lead to that. And I want to say something about my experience as a child. Because I was very young, so I was nine, ten years old, but I was a very politically aware child. And, you know, moving to Israel - it's a complicated thing. It's not an easy country to immigrate to because first of all, Israel doesn't have an immigration policy like other countries. It has a Jewish immigration policy. It's a country that was created to be, you know, the homeland for Jews wherever they are. And there's something called the Law of Return, which allows Jews from all over the world. They don't have to be born in Israel. They just have to be Jewish. It allows them to claim citizenship and move to the state of Israel. And again, my parents are Israelis. They were born in Israel. So for me, there was a sense of going home, right? For many years when I would talk about me, moving to Israel, I would say I went back even though I wasn't born there. So how could I go back to a place that I was never a part of, right. But because of my parents and because my Israeli identity. Because of my language, my first language is Hebrew. For me, it was going back. But then you come to Israel. And then you realize that it's very different from Houston, Texas. Everything works differently. The atmosphere is different. You know, school is different. In Israel, we call our teachers - we don't call them Mr. or Mrs. something. We call them by their first names. It's a much more informal society. It's more rough. It's more independent. You know, I would have to learn things like, I remember I would go meet my friends in the park, and then I wanted to go home, but I didn't have the skill of walking by myself in my neighborhood, because in Houston, my parents would drive me anywhere. I never gained the skill of walking. And I had an accent. I had a really strong American accent. And I was sort of ashamed because one thing to know about Israel is that it's a very conforming society. You want to be like everyone. It's a very collectivist society. You want to be part of the group. You want to be like everyone. And I realized that my accent is sort of my differentiating characteristic. So I was determined to get rid of my American accent. And I remember I would practice. It took me about three years. I would literally come home and I would stand in front of the mirror and I would practice. And once I got it, even today, if I want to really speak in a good Israeli accent, I really need to be intentional about it. But the moment I got the accent, my Americanness was invisible. No one knew it. because I had an Hebrew name. I have Israeli parents. I looked like an Israeli, and now I had the accent. So, till this day, people are always surprised when I told them I grew up in the States. You know, that's my childhood because I don't look like it. I don't act like it, but it's a part of me. But I sort of put it to the side because I was like, now I am Israeli.
Rachael: That feeling of like, not from here, not from there. Not from anywhere, but also from everywhere.
Barak: Exactly. And I think that's maybe also a very Jewish experience. But it's also, I think, experience that many immigrants have. But again, I think - going back to Rabin. Rabin was assassinated almost exactly a year after I moved to Israel. I moved to Israel in October ‘94, and he was assassinated in November ‘95. So I was in fifth grade. I was ten years old. And, you know, again, we were Labor Party supporters. And I remember there was a big rally. The rally which Rabin was eventually assassinated at. There was a big rally in Tel Aviv to support the peace process. And Saturday morning I was with my mom at one of her friend’s house. And I recall them talking with one another. And my parents were never very political people. They wouldn't go to protests. They wouldn't go to rallies. They had their political views and they were open about them, but they weren't active, you know, in the party or in political events. But it was such a big rally and everyone was talking about it. And I remember my mom was asking her friend, ‘are you going to the rally today? I'm thinking of going or not.’ And her friend told her, yeah, I wanted to go, but my husband is on call at the hospital, so I need to stay home. And eventually my parents decided not to go. And I remember that Saturday evening, you know, all Israelis who are conscious at the time remember this because there were only like two channels, TV channels. And channel one, which was the national channel, they were screening Crocodile Dundee. So everyone remembers they were watching Crocodile Dundee. And then the news report came in that Rabin was shot and taken to the hospital. And the sort of ironic thing is that the person who operated on him at the hospital was my mom's friend’s husband, Dr. Moti who was the surgeon on call.
Rachael: Wow.
Barak: And he unfortunately could not save Yitzhak Rabin. And I think close to midnight, it was announced that he passed away. And I remember the feeling of shock. I don't remember exactly how my parents reacted, but I do remember that they were extremely in shock and distressed. And I remember going back to sleep because they woke me up and I came to the living room to see the news. And then I went back to sleep, knowing that Rabin was assassinated and has died. And I remember, you know, I was ten and I was laying in my bed, and it was the first time in my life that I felt deep anxiety and sort of dread. And I remember I really recalled the thought and I was like, I can't believe that a whole country is going to be ruined because of one man. And I remember this, and I had this, like, existential fear.
Rachael: As a ten year old?
Barak: Yeah
Rachel: That's how you felt?
Barak: Yes.
Rachel: Wow.
Barak: And the day after, you know, we went to school and the whole country was in shock. And I remember we sort of started to gather in our classroom. You have to understand, for us it was the first time we dealt with death in a direct way. Someone that we knew and we admired had been killed. And this was our first not only dealing with national grief, but our first experience with death in general was Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.
Rachael: I'm wondering, I guess if there's something - something extra about the fact that he was killed by a Jewish person that made it harder to accept or maybe provoked more anxiety.
Barak: I don't know if directly for me as a kid. I think definitely looking back and studying it, you know, people were at the beginning convinced that he was killed by an Arab terrorist. But then when they discovered it was actually by a Jewish assassin, I would call him a Jewish terrorist, was shocking because the country was in great tension and a lot of clashes between right wing and left wing and a lot of protests. But I think that only a few people really recognized the violent and incitement in these rallies that could lead to actual actions. And I think there was a lot of shock in the country and a lot of pain and a lot of anger. People were angry at religious people. Were angry at rightwing people because they took away our dream. And I think till this day, people are deeply traumatized by this event. You know, in some ways, Israelis, like many countries, are obsessed with 90s culture and with 90s music. And I have this theory that it's sort of, like, because this reality, this optimistic reality of the 90s is frozen in time. We're still experiencing the assassination. We're still waiting. You know, Rabin’s campaign slogan was [hebrew, Israel is waiting for Rabin. That was his slogan when he was voted for 92. And Israel to this day is waiting for Rabin. We have still not dealt with this extreme trauma.
Rachael: And this event almost 30 years ago changes the course of your life. This really is kind of the event that puts you on the course that you're still on now.
Barak: 100%. Looking back, I realize that my socialization and integration into Israeli society and Israeli identity was parallel to how we dealt and processed the assassination. Because I joined the youth movement when I was in fifth grade, HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed, which translates to the working and learning youth. It was sort of the Labor Zionist Youth Movement that was affiliated with the Labor Party, sort of center left politically, and was the same youth movement that Rabin was a member of as a kid. And my second activity in the youth movement was a memorial service for Rabin. And we would talk about Rabin and we would talk about, you know, his vision for peace and democracy and Zionism. And as I grew up and I was very active in my youth movement, I became a counselor and a youth leader. and I was an educator. I would educate kids my age, younger about Rabin's sort of legacy. And I really became almost obsessed with his sort of character and with his personality because I sort of identified with him. You know, he was the redhead, too. He had a weird accent. He was this person who I saw as very strong, but also very committed. Rabin also had an obsession with America because he always regretted the fact that he didn't go to study there when he was 18. And later, when he was ambassador of Israel to the United States, it was like fulfilling his – he had a huge connection to US politics and culture. And I think I really connected to him on a personal level, but also on his vision, a very pragmatic vision. He wasn't a big ideologue, Rabin. He was about pragmatism. He was about, okay, let's see what is possible at this moment in these circumstances. And he knew how to take what is possible and turn it into a vision. He wasn't an ideologue. Like I have this vision and the reality will bend itself towards my vision. No. He was like, what is possible now? And that will become our vision.
Rachael: I vaguely remember when I was like in Hebrew school as a kid, there was like a blue and white bumper sticker type of decal. I can't remember the phrase, but it had something to do with Rabin's death. Do you know what I'm talking about? Was there like a phrase that was -
Barak: Are you talking about “Shalom Chaver”?
Rachael: That's it. So, I remember seeing that a lot when I was young and maybe I'll actually ask you to tell me why. Because now I'm realizing that I don't actually know the reason why, but that phrase was present in my young life. In that context, what was that in reference to?
Barak: So Rabin was assassinated on November 4th, 1995, and his funeral was an international event and leaders from all over the world came to pay their respects. And one of them was president of the United States, was very close to Rabin, Bill Clinton. And in his eulogy, he ended it with saying in his sort of, you know, Arkansas accent. Shalom, Chaver. Which means, ‘goodbye, friend’ but also peace, because shalom is hello. It's a goodbye, but it's also peace in Hebrew. And I think it was a perfect slogan because it expressed people's sadness and grief. But it also expressed their longing, their vision right at the same time. It sort of -
Rachael: Hope.
Barak: Yeah. It had this, like, message of hope because there was sort of the saying about Rabin's legacy, [hebrew], in his death, he commanded us to strive for peace. And I really took that to heart. I was like, okay, so what I need to do is. And I'm like, tearing up talking about this because, it's weird being so connected to someone that you've never met, but feeling that sense of emptiness personally, but not only personally. Also, a reality that was stolen away from you. You know, it's like when someone breaks up from you, like someone that you love breaks up from you. They don't only break your heart. In a way, they steal your potential future like we were supposed to have kids together. That was our future. You took that future away. And when Rabin was assassinated, I think for many Israelis, for me, my future was stolen. And how was I going to get that future back? And, growing up in Israel, I became very politically active. And I would go to rallies and protests. And I would protest the occupation. I would go to pro-peace rallies when I was 14, 15, 16. And when I was 17, everything changed because when I was 17, that's when the second Intifada broke out.
Rachael: I'm going to pause you really quick to ask you to define a couple things. This is really like a very contextual overview of that period. I want to say of Israeli history, but we're talking about your life right now. So if you could share a little bit of the ramifications of the Intifada. And a short deep dive on how that was a turning point.
Barak: Yeah
Rachael: And then we're having this conversation. It's January 2024. There's a war right now between Israel and Hamas. It's violent. It's awful. It's causing issues all around the world. And there's a lot of words and phrases that are up for debate. And the word Zionism is this very complicated word these days and has been for a long time for anybody who's been engaged in this conversation. I'd love to hear your definition of that. And just if you could bring us along with the way words have changed as history has moved forward.
Barak: Yeah. I think that's a great thing to dive into because I describe myself as a Zionist. Even as I would say a hardcore Zionist. But, you know, Zionism - that's the word in English. But the word in Hebrew is Tzionut. And as a bilingual person, as I grew up, I discovered that you are a different person in different languages. There are parts of me that come out only when I speak Hebrew, and there's parts of me that come out only when I speak English. And the conversation about Zionism is extremely different from the conversation about the Hebrew word Tzionut - Zion. Zionism - it's an ism. Socialism. Communism. Capitalism. Zionism. It's an ideology. But when you say Tzionut, it doesn't have the same context of isms. You know, of, like these totalistic ideologist ideas. It's an identity more than like an ideology. I'm Tzioni. I'm Zionist. You know, Zionism is a movement that's more than 130 years old as a political movement, but as an idea, it's inseparable from Judaism. Jews in the diaspora, every Passover, they say [hebrew], next year in Jerusalem. We have always been looking towards Jerusalem. Always waiting to return. And the idea of Zionism, it's actually a very simplistic idea. It basically says that Jews have the right for self-determination in the land of Israel. In our ancestral homeland. Now, what does that land look like? What are its borders? That's up for debate. What does self-determination look like? That's up for debate. You know, what does this state look like? You know, you have left wing Zionism and right wing Zionism. And religious and secular and cultural and political. And a lot of different types that sort of struggled and fought with each other over the way, the way I see Zionism. There are two important pillars. One is that Israel is the homeland for the Jews. And the second is that this homeland needs to be a just society. It's not only a place for the Jews, but it needs to be a place that is exemplary of Jewish values, which, the way I see it as the basic Jewish value is equality, right. What is the basic Jewish idea? The basic Jewish idea is [hebrew], you have to love your neighbor like yourself. We were all made [hebrew], in the image of God. We are all equal. Zionism is not only the Jews need to congregate somewhere and be sovereign, but the State of Israel needs to be a just society. It needs to be a society that examples equality for everyone who is there. And so I think that's why peace for me. You know, the state of Israel, it's not fulfilled in a way, until we create it as a place that is equal for anyone who lives there and who lives in peace with its neighbors and brings prosperity for the world. You know, some people look at Israel and they say, you know, they might look at it as a colonial project, which I totally disagree with because a colonial project is something that a foreign nation comes to a foreign land and uses it to extract resources. When Jews came to Israel, first of all, we had nowhere to go back to. Secondly, we didn't extract resources to anywhere. And we had an undeniable historic relationship with the land of Israel. But I see, and I think that's the work that I do today, our role as I see it is to eventually bring peace. And it's sort of like if we solve this conflict, first of all, what conflict cannot be solved if we solve this one? And how will the region look like? You know, the relationship between west and east? Between the religions? Between these fighting powers? So that's why I see it as a real important mission and that's how I see my Zionist identity, right? As a place, as someone who is third generation to Holocaust survivors, to refugees, who knows on my lived familial experience that we need a home. We deserve a home. But what will this home look like? Because, again, I think being a Jew is not only religious identity or a cultural identity, it's a mission. If you are truly subscribing to Judaism. You know, people know it as the chosen people. The chosen people is not an idea that means that you are superior. It means that you were chosen for a mission, and that you need to take on that mission. And that mission is without being cynical, world peace. That's the mission.
Rachael: Tikkun Olam.
Barak: Tikkun Olam. Yeah. Tikkun Olam. And if you want to subscribe to Judaism. You have to take the burden of that mission. If you're not, then I don't think you're really choosing to be part of what it means to be a Jew. If you're not subscribing to that mission. If you're not taking that burden upon you.
Rachael: Thank you for that. one of the challenges I feel, you know, I public speak all the time and tell my grandmother's Holocaust survival story and her story of escape, her story of being saved starts with the Zionist Youth Movement. And, I find myself and this has been for years, making sure to let people know that when we go back in history, one of the pieces of hard work that we have to do is remember that words mean different things at different time in history. They become loaded with time oftentimes, or they lose meaning. But also exactly like what you said, depending what culture you're coming from, what language, what perspective that's going to be different. Like, you can't directly translate stories in the way that we want to. There's a lot that has to come along with it.
Barak: Yeah, I agree, I think that’s a real challenge that we have, especially trying to get to peace with people who speak different languages. And, you know, in the world of Judaism and, you know, the Jewish global community where some of us speak Hebrew and many of us do not, and how we sort of, you know, we talked about Zionism. It's hard for me to say that I'm a Zionist because the word Zionism in English, I feel, does not describe my identity. I would need to use the word in Hebrew. I need to say Tzioni. I need to say Tzionut. I feel like it's a totally different conversation, right. The word Zionism is so loaded, but the word in Hebrew has such different connotations and context. And it's hard to sort of bridge that gap. Another heated word is intifada, right. Which is Arabic, and it means uprising or to shake off. In this sort of, maybe almost neutral way to shake off. But for Israelis, intifada is a very real experience. When we say intifada, even though there was the First Intifada, we're usually talking about the Second Intifada, which was much more violent. So the Second Intifada broke out in the early 2000. I was in 11th grade. I was 17 years old. Ariel Sharon was in the opposition, visited the Temple Mount, and riots started. And it very quickly escalated into basically a four year war between Israelis and Palestinians. Many Palestinians died and many Israelis died. This was the deadliest clash up to date between Israelis and Palestinians and there were a lot of terrorism attacks in Tel Aviv. You know, growing up, I was several times almost near an exploding bus. You know, I remember going out to see a movie when I was 18 in Tel Aviv. And, you know, we're hanging outside the movie theater and then we hear a huge explosion. And about 500m away from us, there was, you know, a terrorist attack where 20-something people were killed. And I remember when I was in a year of service, before the Army, I was living in Jerusalem, and we heard a huge explosion from our house, and it was a terrorist attack. And in high school and we went to our sort of yearly trip, and we were hiking the north in the middle of our hike, they rushed us back to our buses because there was a terrorist attack a mile away. And this was sort of life, right. and as someone who was a peace activist, this was the collapse of the peace agreement. And for many Israelis, you know, Israelis supported peace in the 90s because they saw it as a way for security and normalcy. But I think what the Second Intifada did for many Israelis is that it conveyed the message that peace is riskier than non-peace. Because if you try to do peace, then you will have terrorist attacks. And so it's better to just continue the conflict and be as strong as we can. It's like, again, I always go to like relationship metaphors when your heart is broken. Are you going to fall in love again and risk breaking your heart again? No, you're going to shut off and like, no, I don't want to break my heart again. I know that if I connect with someone, I'm opening myself up. But, breaking your heart and losing your life are two different things. Even though sometimes they feel the same.
Rachael: That's why there's therapy, though, right? Like we got to -
Barak: Yeah. I agree. But how do you do therapy for a society, right? How do you take a society that already has extreme generational trauma right from the Holocaust and now has generational trauma from our lived lives and reeducate people?
Rachael: We're talking about generational trauma on both sides, too.
Barak: Yes
Rachael: Right.
Barak: Yes
Rachael: And then confirmation bias on both sides too that's happening as a result.
Barak: Yeah. You know, after apartheid ended in South Africa, they had truth commissions. Because after a war, usually you have like a war tribunal, like in Nuremberg trials, where the winning side takes the losing side and judges them and convicts them and sends them to jail or executes them. And the winning side writes history. And what they did in the truce commissions was a different approach, where they said, wait, we overthrew apartheid and now we need to go through a process of healing and voicing our traumas and creating recognition. And I think one of the biggest mistakes in the history of Israel is that after 1948, we didn't have truth commissions. Israelis and Palestinians never recognized the trauma that we inflicted over each other over a century. One day - this will happen one day. And hopefully I'll be alive to be a part of it. One day Israelis and Palestinians will have truth commissions, and it'll take several years, and it'll be a process where we will voice the traumas that we inflict on each other. We will voice what we went through. And peace will only come once we fully recognize each other's trauma. And we give that space. Because now there is no dual recognition. Now we're only protecting our trauma. We're being drived by our trauma. And we're too afraid to let our guard down. But only when we get to a place one day where we will be able to recognize what the Palestinians went through and feel that it doesn't diminish from our own trauma or our own history and the other way around. Only then will there be true peace. And it might be in a few years, and it might be in a few decades, but eventually it will have to happen. Because all wars end. All wars end. There has never been a war that has gone on forever. And this war will end too. And that's how it's going to end. But we have to see how we're going to get there, right?
Rachael: I'm going to take that and ask you to take us to your army experience.
Barak: Yeah
Rachael: So in Israeli society, for folks who don't know, majority of young people go to the army and there are certain communities that do not have to do the mandatory service. And there are kind of like how in our country, you know, there was conscientious objection during the Vietnam War, there are people who can make a request to not go. And, you know, that's on a case by case basis, as far as I understand it.
Barak: So going to the army in Israel, everyone does it. And so it's sort of a natural thing you go through again as a Jew in certain communities. And it was always clear to me that I'm going to join the army, and I wanted to be the most I can be. You go to a lot of tryouts and tests and you want to get into a, like, a elite unit. And I wanted to be a combat soldier. And I went to this training day when I was in 12th grade for, like, elite units. And I dropped out in the middle because it was too hard. And I was like I'm just going to be regular infantry.
Rachael: Can I ask? Being a peace activist, what made you want to be a combat soldier? Those few things feel at odds for me.
Barak: Um, so I think you can be a peace activist and not be a pacifist. Because I think if you are a peace activist, you know that even when we get to peace, you have to protect the peace, and you have to protect against extremists that will always try to harm the peace, right. Like our history teaches us. When the Oslo Accords were in negotiations, Hamas was blowing up bombs because they didn't want peace. And they never want peace. And if we want to be able to make peace between the moderate sides, then you have to be able to be strong and you have to be able to protect the peace. And I saw that very connected, but also like, I’m maybe making it a bit more ideological than it is. I was just like a young guy who wanted to be macho and wanted to be, like, strong and part of Israeli society and being part of Israeli society is going to the army and being like, you know, a combat soldier is like this masculine sort of desire. And I think it was more, more that than ideology. Right? So real.
Rachael: It’s a real like experiencing self first, remembering self. It's like, oh, this is how it was but this is how I want to remember it.
Barak: Yeah. Exactly. I got into a very elite intelligence unit and I decided not to go because if you choose combat, then that's like sort of, lets you get out of other things. My parents were very angry with me that I didn't go to this intelligence unit. Instead, I wanted to be a combat soldier. And I was in different test to be a fighter pilot. And I actually got pretty far in my testing. And in one of my more advanced health checkups, they found a problem in my inner ear. They're like, listen, if you're going to fly in an F-16, you might lose your hearing. So we can't let you be a fighter pilot. So I was like, okay, I'll just be a regular combat soldier. But then what happened is that because they discovered this problem in my ear, they lowered my health profile. So I couldn't do elite combat roles. I could only do sort of like the more basic ones. And that sort of set me on an interesting path because the combat unit that I could join was the first mixed gender combat unit. So men and women together. This is 2004. It was the first type of the unit in the Army and we had pretty like simple, relatively security missions. We were mainly stationed on the Jordanian border, which nothing happens there. You just look at the mountains basically, what do you do? It's very, very boring, but beautiful.
Rachael: Is that because the peace treaty that Israel and Jordan signed back in 1992 is still in effect?
Barak: Yeah, it's still in effect that it's a very quiet place. There's only a bit of drug smuggling, but there's no, like, real security issues. So, you know, you have basic training and you learn how to fire an M-16 and you learn survival techniques. You work on your fitness and you do a lot of things. Part of your basic training is they sent you to settlements to do basic patrol duty.
Rachael: Can you just quickly define settlements for us. What do you mean when you say that?
Barak: I'm talking about settlements beyond the Green Line. So either in the West Bank or at the time in the Gaza Strip.
Rachael And Green Line, just for people don't know, are the borders that were laid out in the 67’ war? Correct?
Barak: Yeah. So, two and a half months into my military service. I was sent to Gaza, to the settlements in the Gaza Strip for about 2 or 3 weeks. And it was a surreal and not so good experience because at the time, this is 2004, Israel is still occupying Gaza. There are about 20,000 settlers living in Gaza Strip in Jewish settlements. And Gaza was a war zone. I remember going into it and, you know, you have to understand the experience. I grew up in Tel Aviv. And then you suddenly get drafted, and then two months later, you're in a war zone with barbed wire and tanks and you're waking up at four in the morning and going up to a watchtower that last night, someone fired an anti-tank missile at. And you're afraid for your life, right? And you see explosions and gunfire. And it was very disturbing experience. When you go to the army, you put your politics aside because you're a soldier now and you do what you're told unless it's, uh, illegal command, but you do what you're told. And so personally, I was against the settlements politically, but my duty was to make sure that during this night that I'm patrolling, that no one gets killed here,right? And so it was a very conflicting experience, but I only was there for 2 or 3 weeks, went back to my unit, and later we were stationed in Jordan. And what happened is that in 2005, Ariel Sharon, who was the prime minister passed a decision that Israel was going to retreat from the Gaza Strip. So this is post Second Intifada. The peace process is sort-of collapsed and dead, and for many reasons, Israel decides that it wants to remove itself from Gaza. Now, the reason that Israel made these decisions, there's a lot of debate about what was sort of the motivation. But first of all, it was very costly. There were 20,000 settlers there. You had thousands of soldiers needed to protect them. Soldiers were dying every week. people were questioning, why are we there? Why are we spending our resources there? And the other thing is that Israel wanted to sort of make a one sided move to improve their international standing and to sort of improve their position in future peace agreements. And so there was a lot of dispute over this decision about the disengagement from Gaza. It was very contested politically. Again, I was a peace activist, but I also had my problems with the disengagement. And my problem was the disengagement was I did not believe that we needed to leave Gaza without a peace agreement. I was like, we need to leave as part of a peace agreement. We're just leaving. Then what are we going to do? We have to make peace. But still, I thought that it was the best thing to do at the time, in the circumstances. Now, it was very complicated task to evict so many people. And the police didn't have enough resources and manpower. So the army was enlisted to help with the evictions because people were not going willingly. Some were going willingly. And, you know, they got reparations. But many people, especially people who are more religious, more ideological were not willing to leave their homes. And they were like, no, you have to come and take us by force. And so the Army started to prepare of how to do this and how to execute this.
Rachael: Are we still in 2004 now?
Barak: So this is 2005. And our unit was chosen to be in the group of soldiers that would be tasked to do the actual evictions. And now you got to remember, we were trained as combat soldiers. Trained to shoot a gun and fight terrorists and armies. We were not trained to evict civilians. We were not police. We were soldiers. So they had to train us. And, you know, there was a slogan that the army used at the time. [Hebrew], which means with sensitivity and with firmness. So that was like the message we need to do this mission in a very sensitive way. But with real conviction. We went through sort-of mental and moral training. The army was very concerned about soldiers who would refuse to evict. And so we had a lot of moral training about what it means to follow orders. And, you know, what is an illegal order. How do you do this if you morally object to it. You know, because we had a lot of people who objected to it morally but still were asked to do it. And we also had physical training. How do you evict someone without injuring them? Without injuring yourself? It's a whole method.
Rachael: And just to reiterate, we're evicting Jewish people
Barak: Yes.
Rachael: from Gaza to go back over the Green Line.
Barak: Exactly. Exactly. At the time, the country was in great conflict internally about this. There was a huge protest movement led by the religious right that opposed the disengagement. There were a lot of protests and in the weeks coming up to the disengagement, many people - activists, right wing activists - from the West Bank, mainly young people, started to come to the Gaza Strip to, like, barricade themselves. So a few weeks before the disengagement, the army declared the whole area around the Gaza Strip as a closed military zone. They didn't allow civilians to come in. And so the weeks leading up to disengagement, we were sleeping in forests around the Gaza border, looking for right wing teenagers from the West Bank. Like running in the forests and trying to, like, capture them. [It] was pretty hilarious in a weird way because it was, like, surreal. We're like in the middle of the night. These teenagers are running around.
Rachael: Jewish teenagers.
Barak: Yeah
Rachael: I just want to make sure people realize. Yeah
Barak: Jewish teenagers, We're, like, playing hide and seek. Since the Army closed off the area, many of the Jewish settlers from the West Bank that came into this area, they congregated in a very small village called Kfar Darom. And they sort of held a huge protest. So thousands of people concentrated in this town. And the army sent hundreds of soldiers, maybe thousands, to secure the area because we were afraid that these thousands of people will sort of try to infiltrate the Gaza Strip. And we came there. I remember it was evening. They took us there. And we literally made a human chain around the village of soldiers. So imagine I'm drawing the scene, right. This is night time. The village is surrounded by a fence. So on one side of the fence were a bunch of soldiers holding hands, literally like a human chain. And on the other side of the fence, there's a bunch of young people, Jewish settlers, having a sort of Woodstock. Singing and dancing, but at the same time confronting us. Spitting at us. And I remember this young 15-year-old kid stood in front of me and was like, yelling at me that I'm a Nazi, that I'm a Nazi. And I couldn't say anything. I was like, completely, you know, I'm not allowed to engage, right? And these people are screaming at me, Nazi, Nazi. and I want to break their face. Are you calling me a Nazi? I have 22 relatives that were killed by Nazis. And you're calling me a Nazi for being a Jewish soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces. Like this is where we've come to, right? And so times were very tense. And we had one last training session before disengagement. We would do these trainings where we would have scenarios of how it's going to be. And we did this scenario, and I was pretending to be a settler, and soldiers were pretending to evict me. And I was starting to have back pain during my trainings. And I remember I went to my commander and I said, listen, I have back pain, I need to see a doctor. And I was - I wasn't sleeping well at night and I was really suffering from anxiety. I didn't know at the time. Now I know. And I went to the doctor and he was like, no, you have nothing, it'll be fine. And I went to my commander and I was like, I really have back pain. I can't participate in this training. I need to rest. And he was like, no, we really need you. Because I was like a unit commander. And I did this training and I got injured in the training. And I just remember someone, like, pretended to pick me up and I felt my back rip apart. And I came home and I didn't move from my bed for like 4 or 5 days. And I got some official rest. And what happens is that the disengagement started without me and after about ten days, I felt better, and I went back to my unit. I didn't immediately join the evictions. They sent me to this industrial area in the Gaza Strip that was being evicted. And I was doing basically just like patrol detail. And I sort of saw the chaos of trying to evict an industrial area and sort of, you know, there was a lot of chaos around it. I actually got a very interesting mission. They sent me one day to guard the area where the Palestinian and Israeli officers were coordinating with one another. So there was this designated area where they were unarmed. So unarmed officers from Gaza and unarmed Israeli officers had this area where they would do the coordination. And I remember I came there and I was like the guard. So I was the only person who was armed. And they sent me there. And I was very stressed because this is the first time in my life that I'm meeting Palestinians. And I came to the space and I was super, like, formal and, like, following orders. And I remember I saw these officers and they're probably like in their 30s, 40s. And I remember they were just sitting around like a picnic table and chatting. These Palestinians and Israelis. And I'm, like, standing very firm to the side and these officers who are like reservists, right. They look at me and they're like, dude, chill. Like, come. Put your gun to the side. Come have lunch with us. And they had hummus that the Palestinians brought from Gaza City. And they had, like, food that they brought from Israel. And they were just sitting there and eating and chatting. And I was like, what is happening?
Rachael: Doesn’t match the stories you've been given, huh?
Barak: It was just normal. It was just like officers fighting about who has better hummus, Tel Aviv or Gaza, right. And then I was finally healthy enough and I joined my unit for the last eviction. the last town. So this is Netzarim. Netzarim is the last settlement that was evicted. And it's right outside the city of Gaza. Used to be. And they debriefed us. And before they debriefed us, they told us, listen, the Army got to an agreement with the settlers. And the agreement is that if there are no journalists allowed to document the eviction, they will evict willingly and voluntarily. So I remember 6a.m., we came to like this orchard on the outskirts of the settlement. And our commander was like, okay, everyone, just chill here. Have coffee. They're supposed to evict themselves. The buses are already here. It'll probably take them a few hours. We're just here to sort of facilitate. And then after a few hours, he comes and he says, okay, they asked for a few more hours. And so we're going to continue waiting there. And that's how it happened all day, every two hours. They asked for more time and more time and more time. After about 12 hours just hanging out in this orchard at around 7 p.m., I think, our commander comes up to us and he says, like, okay, we're not giving them any more time. We’re going to evict them. And so we walk into the settlement and they're all sort of congregated in the main house, which was like where the rabbi lived. And our commander leads and we start walking in. Now to paint the scene. We’re soldiers were in, you know, military uniform. But we were without weapons. We're wearing these blue vests that have the flag of Israel on it, and we're wearing blue baseball caps with the flag of Israel. So we're not like walking in formation. We're like walking organized, but sort of like calmly, casually. And we walk into the building and nothing is packed. There are no boxes. The kettle on the stove is hot, right? The food is outside there. They were doing no packing. They were waiting for a miracle to happen.
Rachael: They have no intention of leaving.
Barak: No. And they were all congregated on the roof. And imagine a big rooftop. And it wasn't like - they weren't barricaded there. They were just hanging out. And there was, like, vegetables and bread and coffee. And we sort of started to pour in and it became very crowded because there was a lot of settlers and a lot of soldiers and our, you know, commander, he was like, okay, everyone, it's time to leave. And then the rabbi, sort of the elderly person there, he was like, wait, I just want to say one more thing. And he asked to do a speech. And I remember this speech vividly. It was very weird because he started with saying, I want to thank you all. I want to thank you because you prove to me that education works because the Army was able to educate you wonderful people, that what you are doing is right and what you are doing is moral. And they were able to educate you so efficiently that it gives me hope that education is possible. And instead of letting us live here and build our lives here, we’re giving our beautiful town to these dogs, and then you're, like, pointed at the city of Gaza. And I was shocked by this racist rhetoric. I was thinking to myself, do you not see the absurdity? Do you not see the absurdity of you living in this small, beautiful town when there's this huge city here and you are treating them like this? And do you not see why it is the right thing for you to leave? And he did this whole speech. And eventually our commander was like, okay. It's time. And then they, you know, we started the evictions and some people started just leaving by themselves. And some people started crying and some people just, like, sat on the ground. And my commander told me and another friend of mine to go and evict the rabbi. He’s like 70. He has a white beard, suit and he's on the ground. He can't move. And we pick him up and we're starting to take him, like hold him, you know, by the shoulders, by the knees and he's sobbing. He's sobbing. And I can feel his, like, frail body, sort of, you know, I feel like his arms, like, you know, he's very, like, thin and he's sobbing and we're dragging him to the bus and we get to the bus and he asks to kiss the ground. And he kneels down and he kisses the ground and I pick him up. And I said, you need to go. And I bring him on the bus and he's like crying, you know, he's like in a panic attack. The rabbi - like this very respectable old figure, like crying. And I sit him down and I ask him if he needs anything and he's like, can't communicate. And I go and I fetch him water and I give him water, and I see him like, you know, drinking this water, like, you know, like a small child. And I go down and it's already dark and like, in the background, people are bringing in people and evicting. And I get off the bus and I have a panic attack and I just start crying uncontrollably. Not like tears. Like uncontrollable sobbing. And I panic because I'm a soldier. And this is like the first time I've ever cried like this in public since I was like a child.
Rachael: Can I ask you a personal question?
Barak: Yeah
Rachael: Do you cry like that in private before, or was this, like, really one of the first times.
Barak: I never cried like that. Because it was - it was an anxiety attack. I was just losing it. I, like, uncontrollably, just ran away. We're in the middle of the military operation and I just run away. And I run away to the bushes. There was, like, these huge rosemary bushes, and I just didn't want anyone to see me. And I'm just standing there, like, with my hands over my eyes, sobbing, kneeling, not understanding what I'm experiencing. And at a certain point, one of our officers comes to me and he, like, puts his hand on my shoulder like, this guy never talked to me in my life, right? And he's like, are you okay? And I was like you know, I don't know. And he's like waiting with me. And at a certain point I sort of, like, got myself together and I turn around and I see, like all my friends, you know, looking at me. And they're unfazed. I didn't understand what was happening. Like, why am I so emotional about this? Why am I losing, you know, my composure and having this panic attack when everyone seems to be fine in this situation? I couldn't explain it. I didn't understand. I did one eviction, which was the last house in Gaza, but I did one eviction. And then, you know, we went back to the base and the day after we had like a debriefing session. But very quickly everyone wanted to get home and it was like nothing happened. And, you know, the next two days after we went back to our regular base in the Jordan Valley and just continued our military service never really acknowledging what happened. Just like, okay, we fulfilled our mission. We had a summary talk and, you know, went forward and I never processed this and it was only years later with my therapist that I was trying to figure out because all the years later, like, memories started to emerge. Because there was also no photographs from this day because there were no journalists. Only years later, I discovered that one of my friends had a camera and I found a picture of me from that day while we were waiting. And memories started to come because I repressed this whole experience. And I later, you know, I had a friend who was writing a research paper about the concept of moral injury. And he asked to interview me after I told him my story. And he told me that this is what you're experiencing is - it's called moral injury. And I didn't understand it because as I explained, I supported the disengagement. I still support it. I thought that it was the right thing to do. I thought that the right thing to do was to evict those people from their houses. But it was still an immoral thing to do. To remove a person from their house, from their home, if they're Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Palestinian, it doesn't matter. Red. White. Blue. It's not a moral thing to do. That was their home. They wanted to live their lives there. They wanted to build their future there. They built that home and I removed them. And I think only years later, when I was trying to figure out why I reacted so viscerally. And I think it's connected to my own feelings of the way I relate to a home, the way I left the home that wasn't the home in the US and came to Israel, which was supposed to be my home, but always never felt exactly like a home because I always felt a bit different. I always felt that I didn't, you know, the same way. I sort of concealed my accent. I always tried to, like, show that I'm part of this country and part of this community, but always felt a bit other, always felt a bit different. Didn't feel, like you said, like not here, not there. And then I had to take all this baggage of my feelings towards home. My, you know, my grandparents who were refugees, who were chased away from their homes, their homes burnt down. And I had to now remove people from their homes. And it was sort of this realization that, you know, people talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ending the occupation and peace, and they don't understand that anything that is done in this region comes at huge personal costs, even peace. Even doing something like evicting people from a settlement. It comes at a personal price of someone who has to actually do that, of someone who has to be taken from their home and someone who has to take them. The end it comes down to a person who needs to do this, right. These like sort of international conversations of foreign policy and the conflict and then the, you know, people talking on CNN. But at the end it's people whose lives are very connected and their traumas and the way they understand themselves and the other. And I think when I look back, you know, I dedicated my 20s to education. I worked with youth around the Gaza border and I worked with youth at risk. And I was involved in a lot of religious and secular dialogue because I saw when I was in the disengagement, I saw the price of internal conflict. I saw what happens when society doesn't come to an agreement. And I was like, I have to find a way to patch this rift. I have to work. I have to dedicate what I'm doing to get people to understand each other because our conflicting opinions aren't just opinions, they're going to manifest themselves into really harmful and problematic situations. And if people don't work to bridge those differences. To create a bridge, right? Because we're always going to have differences. And if we don't have people who are actively working to build those bridges, then we're not going to survive. We're not going to be a safe place for Jews. We're not going to be a just society. We're not going to achieve peace because we're going to kill each other before we get there. We're going to destroy each other. So, I'll just finish. There was another interesting story that happened was - so this is how the story ends about the disengagement. Years later when I was 28, I was spokesperson for the national youth movement I was working for. And we did this project with B’nai Akiva, which is a religious, more right leaning youth movement. And we did this project of dialogue with leaders from our left leaning movement, with leaders from the religious right leaning movement. And it was this three day tour where we were going to settlements and synagogues and communities, and we were bringing them to our communities. And this was attempt and dialogue. And then I look at the itinerary.
Rachael: And this is in Israel, correct?
Barak: This is in Israel. And I look in the itinerary and on the itinerary we have a visit to a settlement in the West Bank called Eli, where the community of Netzarim resettled after the disengagement. And we're going to meet with the rabbi of the community. And I did not tell people that I was in the disengagement. Definitely not religious friends of mine. I concealed the fact. And I was like, what am I going to do? How am I going to go meet these people? I won't be able to. And I was like, okay, I'll just stay in the bus. And I ended up going. And we had the conversation after it was over. I didn't talk. But after it was over, I went to the guy who was talking and I came over to him and I said, ‘Hi, my name is Barak and I just wanted to say that I was in the unit that evicted your community.’ And he was like, ‘wow, I can't believe this.’ And he was like, ‘let's take a picture’ And I was like, ‘no, no, no. I just came to tell you that I respect you and I respect our differences. And I'm just wanted to say that - that's it.’ I didn't say I'm sorry. I just wanted to know that I respect you and got that off my chest. And it was very weird experience, but that's sort of how that sort of loop ended. Um, I had a relatively easy military experience. I wasn't in, like, any intense wars, but this was my thing. You know, when you go to the Army, you think, okay, you're going to have hard experiences on the border and war and the checkpoints with Palestinians. No. My hard experience was, was my Jewish brothers and sisters, right.
Rachael: So you've had these two very profound experiences now as part of Israeli society. You had this experience when you're ten with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, which sets you on this trajectory as a peace activist. And then you have this experience when you're about 20 with the disengagement from Gaza, where you're evacuating the last Jewish settlers out of Gaza, and you experience this moral injury, as you put it, which is a really hauntingly beautiful phrase. And these two things seem to be very profound markers that now you're carrying with you as you move forward in life and continue into your 20s and into your work in the education field and public speaking. And somewhere along the way, you move back to America and you move to New York City. So now, you know, I imagine it's one thing to carry those experiences as a part of Israeli society where everybody you're around has some personal experience with those events. I mean, Israel is a small place. It’s the size of New Jersey. There's this unspoken language of experience there that now you're coming to America, you're hanging out with Jews and people who aren't Jews. And I'm sure there's this real kind of disorienting feel. So this is going to take us to what does it mean to be a Jew in Israel versus a Jew in the diaspora? what arises for you when you get here?
Barak: I think I was a bit burnt out from my years, you know, in activism and education. And I was in a long relationship at the time that ended and I was heartbroken. And I always had this unanswered question of what if my parents never came back? Would I have decided to move to Israel? Or would I have just, like, stayed in the States and, like, go to college and become an American? Or would I, at age 18, decide to go to Israel and join the army? Like, did I become Israeli just because my parents took me? Or was this really my desire? Maybe I need to be American. I always had this at the back of my head. And then I was offered - I was at the time a spokesperson for the youth movement, and I was offered by my boss who saw that I was in need for a change, was like, listen, we need someone to go to New York. And I was like, yes, this is what I need. First of all, I needed to put an ocean between me and my ex-girlfriend. That's the first thing I needed.
Rachael: Nothing like love to just kind of, like, really redirect your life, right.
Barak: Exactly. And secondly, I was like, okay, I need to go. I need to live alone. I need to speak English. I need to fall in love in English. I need to discover myself. And I moved to New York and it was a life changing experience. It was hard at the beginning because I literally didn't know anyone and I had to build my community and find out where I belong. And I worked for a Jewish youth organization in the US and Canada. And so I had an opportunity to travel, you know, all over the States and Canada and meet a lot of different communities. And I found myself very attracted to Jewish communities. I found myself surrounding myself with many Jewish friends and learning about Jewish history. And I was fascinated by it. And I was an Israeli, but my English was far better than most Israelis. So Americans had this connection to me. And suddenly the fact that I was there for ten years at the beginning of my life was a great starting point for building relationships, because I had a lot of shared memories and shared cultural references. And I had this deeper understanding of American mentality, but also deep understanding of Israeli mentality and culture and language. And suddenly something sort of clicked for me. I was, for the first time, looking at my childhood of not living in Israel as actually something good, actually as an advantage, as something I can work with. And maybe I started seeing these, like differences between Israeli Jews and American Jews and these different perspectives and these clashes and this breakdown of communication. And I found myself in a very, I would say, good position to mediate and to connect. To explain to the Israelis what's happening in the States and explain to the Americans what's happening for Israelis. And in many ways reconnect to my Jewish identity from a place of choice because, you know, maybe one of the biggest differences - in Israel, Judaism is the water. When it's a holiday, everyone's on holiday. You speak Hebrew, you use Jewish language. When there's Shabbat, everyone doesn't work. And in the States, if you want to have a Shabbat - find the Shabbat dinner, you need to figure it out. If you want to have a holiday, you need to go drive 40 minutes to find some, you know, matzah or something. You have to really carve out your Jewish space and you have to choose which type of Jewish space do you want. It's not just the default that you have in Israel. Why do I want to go to a reform synagogue? Do I want to go to an Israeli community? Do I maybe want to go to an Orthodox place? Who do I want to spend time with? Who are my friends? Who are my community? And it reflects a lot about your Jewishness. And, you know, it's important when you're living in a society where you're a majority. It's important to remember what it's like to be a minority. How many nations can experience this being a majority and a minority at the same time? This tension between particularism and universalism, between these different values and I became like an advocate for American Judaism and why it's important. And it's actually good to have Israelis living in the states and Americans living in Israel and having this like, I would say the sort of like metabolism between our cultures. Because in many ways, this is the best time in Jewish history. We have a sovereign state, a strong sovereign state, and we have a strong diaspora. We actually are in the best moment in history to create some kind of really deep, flourishing culture instead of like, sort of fighting about what is the true way, the right way. But actually, there are many ways.
Rachael: From the American perspective. I don't think we're so concerned with this question, what is the right way or the true way? It's more of like, which way are we going to do it? And you know, you were talking about America having all these options of like, do you want to be reformed? Do you want to be conservative? Do you wanna be Orthodox? Do you want to be in the hippie synagogue that doesn't define themselves? Like, you know, do you want to be in a friend's basement once a month to have a dinner together and call that, you know, your practice? Whereas, like my Jewish friends in Europe don't have those options either. So there's something very American about having a lot of options, which is reflected in other parts of our society as well, but I think there's something also distinctly beautiful, and there's some real deep connections to be made when you are part of the minority. And, you know, I had mentioned at the start to you that, you know, the first time I really started to get comfortable with my Judaism was when I went to Israel, and suddenly I was part of the majority because I lost my, I want to call it shame. That's a strong word, but that is the word I want to use. I lost some of the shame around being Jewish, which, you know, that's a whole other conversation in itself of why it was there to begin with, but started to just relax into it. And, you know, I've thought about living in Israel many times, I've started paperwork. You know, and ultimately decided that America is the right place for me to live.
Barak: What made you decide that?
Rachael: Well, a little bit of life decided it for me. So, you know, my late husband was European and so there was like a real opportunity to live in Europe at one point, which I was very excited about, particularly to live in Scandinavia. But prior to that, I mean, ever since I was 18, I've flirted with the idea of living in Israel. And I think ultimately some work opportunities came my way that just I kind of had to be in America for. And a lot of the work that I have felt compelled to do. And of course, you know, this is language I use now, but probably couldn't have used in-process, is I really, really value being around people who are not like me. And so, you know, maybe one of my draws to Israel is that as much as I felt part of a majority, I also - nobody was like me, right? Like, you know, similar to you like I was included, but I was very American. You know, I remember one time, oh, God, I don't think I've ever told this story, but I remember one time I was an intern for a photojournalism agency in Jerusalem. This was when I was in college. And I was, like, invited to a barbecue or something. And it was like all Israelis and me, and like my Hebrew is like it exists, but it's bad. And there was a toilet that had like a sign on it in Hebrew. And like, I did not know that it said out of order and I like used it and flushed it and it flooded.
Barak: Oh my god.
Rachael: And I remember there's crisis and everybody was talking in Hebrew, and I just felt like an idiot because I knew I had done it, but I couldn't even participate in the conversation to figure it out. And I was like, this intern and this youngin and like, you know, I mean, God, I never thought about that memory in so long. Anyways, I just felt eventually that maybe something similar to the themes you've been talking about. But I'm from New England. I left for college swearing I’d never come back and then realized it's a place I love to live. I really like New England. And now I live in Maine. And, you know, circling to back up to the point I was thinking about to begin with when I moved to Maine. I kind of had this conversation with myself, and I was like, well, you're probably done having Jewish friends, at least in your neighborhood just because it's Maine. but because there's so few of us here, we, like really gravitate towards each other, and there's this real kinship that I only ever felt in Israel before, which was just like oh, we're going to do holidays together, even if we're not religious, but we're going to get together and it like, binds you and it's something really, really special. And when I talk to friends who maybe come from a background that's more of the majority here in America, white Christian, maybe they don't really know where their family came from. They'll say like England or Ireland or something, I've had people, like, say that they're a little jealous that I have that type of community, right? So there's always this, like, the grass is greener. You want to be part of the tight knit small community, but you also want to blend into the majority.
Barak: You know, I think that, one of the good things that happens from being a minority is that you are sort of forced to either blend in and assimilate. This is one option. But if you want to retain, sort of, your unique history and background, you have to be very active in doing that. And you have to search for your identity. And I've seen this a lot in America in different ways, sort of Jews relate to their identity. And I think many American Jews are definitely more American than Jewish and sometimes don't know a lot about their history. Like where their family come from. Why are you here? Why are you living in Boston? Where did your great-grandfather come from? And what did he go through to get you to where you are now? And I asked, you know, where is your family from? Eastern Europe. I don't know, they came, you know, something very general. But then you have, I think, American Jews who really try to be actively Jewish. And as a result, I think they learn a lot more about their history, because I don't think that you can sort of deal with the turbulence and difficulties of being in a minority without having strong roots. In Judaism, one of the - my favorite sort of phrases is [hebrew] which means “know where you came from. Where you are going and who you give judgment to.” Which for me is my life. You need to know where you're from. You need to know where you're going. And who you give judgment to, which is like, what are your values? What are you loyal to? Because when you have to make decisions, what's going to guide you? And if you don't know those three things, I think it's very hard to make an impact on the world. I think that's very important. I don't understand how people can deal with complicated, you know, geopolitical issues without understanding their history and their stake. Like my family history, my grandma, what she went through is an intense, guiding concept in my life?
Rachael: And she was a Holocaust survivor? Both your grandmother and grandfather?
Barak: No. So my grandmother on my father's side was a Holocaust survivor. My grandma on my mother's side, she was a Holocaust evader. She was lucky to come to Tel Aviv in 1935. But, many of her brothers were killed in the Holocaust. She and I were very connected, and she passed away about two years ago, and she lived to be 103 years old.
Rachael: Wow.
Barak: And so I was lucky enough to be able to speak with her as an adult. And she had the most amazing memory. And up until, you know, her last years, she was totally conscious and with clarity. And so she would tell me all these stories about her life. And I was sort of the keeper of the stories. And I would document and she had an amazing life. She was, you know, a communist teenager in Poland. And she was arrested and she was an anti-Zionist. And her father, who was a Zionist, dragged her to Tel Aviv because she had a criminal record. And her brothers, who were like bankers and whatnot, they sadly were killed in the Holocaust. And she always had the guilt. Because she was such a rebel. She made, like, a lot of problems for her father, but, and I remember I always told her that, like, Safta, because of your being such a rebel, you survived because you would have never come to Israel. What was then Palestine. You would never come. You were anti-Zionist. You would have stayed in Europe. Your father would have stayed in Europe. But because you were a young communist rebel that got into legal issues and arrested all the time, you actually saved yourself, right? And her husband, my grandfather, he was also a refugee. He fled Warsaw one day before the Nazis entered the city and was a refugee in Lithuania and was eventually saved thanks to Sugihara, which was the deputy consul in Lithuania for Japan, who handed out visas to Japan, to Jews, you know, against the orders of his superiors. And thanks to this visa, my grandfather was able to go to Japan, spent the war there. And it took him about two and a half years until he made it to Israel and reunited with his grandparents. And, you know, his brother, his older brother was a doctor, an officer in the Polish army, and was captured by the Soviets and was executed in the Katyn Forest massacre. And again, my grandfather was not a Zionist. He always wanted to immigrate to the US, and he was not a big Jew. Not at all. He was a super assimilated Jew, but he was persecuted. And his brother Julius, who was a Polish officer, was executed by Soviets. And his Jewish identity - my grandfather was never connected to his Jewish identity. He would eat bacon on Yom Kippur just to make God mad. But he ended up living as a Jew in Israel because he had no choice. And I think these stories and the way that I uncovered them and connected to them and what my grandparents went through and what they lost, you know, they lost brothers and sisters. What they went through allowed me to grow up safely, to be educated, you know, to live a full life. And I carry that when I go, even when I'm here in Boston or in Israel, wherever I am. I carry that memory because, first of all, I wouldn't be who I am without them and without their sacrifices that they chose or not to do. I think it fills me with perspective about what I need to do and where I need to go. Know where you came from and where you're going.
Rachael: I've heard you say that knowing your family history is one of the most powerful leadership skills you can have.
Barak: Yeah.
Rachael: I love this. Tell me why.
Barak: So, I think if you're trying to be a leader, and it can be in any type of field. You have to deal with a lot of uncertainty. And you have to create empathy and conviction. And make decisions in situations of doubt. And you need to make connections with people. The only thing that we all have that no one else has is our story. That's the only thing that no one else in the world has. I might not be the most skilled analyst or mathematician or lawyer or whatever. But my story, I tell the best in the world. And when you know where you came from, your history, your detailed history. And you are able to share that story, I think it creates a connection. A real connection. It creates real empathy. Which is the most important because it creates trust. And I think it also helps you figure out why you're doing what you're doing. I remember a conversation about Israel-Palestine with one of the students here at Harvard. And she caught me in the hallway and started talking to me for so long and was asking me so many questions. And she's British-German, and we're talking and she's asking me, and she's putting me in corners and I'm answering. And in a certain point I get annoyed and I'm like, why do you care? Why do you care? I have no choice but to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is my life. I cannot run away from it. You have no - what's your skin in the game? Why are you so involved? And she started giving me some, you know, rational explanations about, you know, Europe and refugees and justice. And I was like, okay, that's ideology. Why are you so involved? Like, what's your story? And she was like, what do you mean? Like, who are your grandparents? Like, what did they do? Like, where do they come from? Do you know? And she was like, honestly, I don't. And I was telling her: Look, you have a vision for the world. You are going to die one day. And you're either biological children or, you know, ideological children are supposed to carry your vision forward. And if you're not able to know where you came from, how do you think that anyone's going to respect your legacy and take what you're trying to do in the world forward? And she's like, no, I'm just an individual. I'm like, no, you're not an individual. You're here studying at Harvard because your grandparents made decisions. Might have been good decisions, might have been bad decisions, but you have to deal with them. And I think when a leader knows his history and is able to communicate it, people understand why you're doing what you're doing. They might not agree with you, but they will understand. And I think that if you look at all of our biggest leaders, they all know where they came from, what their roots were and what they're fighting for. Because if you're going to fight for something, you're going to hit a wall that you don't know how to go around and how to climb over. But you need to know where you came from if you want to try to go forward over that wall. And definitely if you want to convince people to join you.
Rachael: One of the words that I want to add to your list is vulnerability. This willingness to share where you come from. Because a lot of us have heroes in our family, or we see them as heroes, and a lot of us have bystanders and perpetrators and people who made the wrong decision. And that could be on a political level, and it could very much be on a interpersonal level.
Barak: Yeah
Rachael: Recognizing the fallibility in our own families that we love and trust and admire is recognizing the fallibility in ourselves. Which then gives a little bit of grace and understanding for other people. And so I think there's this real vulnerability that comes of being able to say, this is why I care. And it makes it okay for a little bit of selfishness, too. That not everything has to be ideological. Some things can be in self-interest. And that's okay. There's a lot of passion that comes from self-interest.
Barak: You know, these stories, I can't get rid of them. I can't change who my grandparents were and what my parents' decisions were and how they affected me. I think the best thing to do is to come to terms with them and understand them and respect, you know, the good decisions and the bad. And I would probably have made different life choices than my ancestors in many things, but I need to respect them and I need to look at them, you know, as the flawed individuals that they are. The flawed individuals that I am. We're not perfect. We can't strive for perfection. We have to strive for acceptance of what we are and not the perfection of what we are. And if we have a bad story in our history, then it's a bad story and we need to take it and own it. And, you know, I've been thinking a lot about my future and what I want to do and how I want to continue my cause. I’m deeply concerned about the Jewish people and about the state of Israel. So I think when I'm looking at my future forward, that's the work that I'm trying to do when I write about Israel and US, when I write about peace, when I try to community organize, when I try to work on social justice issues in Israel, when I do community relations in the US and in Israel and in Arab countries in the Middle East. At the end, what I'm trying to do with the bridges that I'm trying to build are things that I see necessary for Israel to become the just country that I think it needs to be and to fulfill its role. And, you know, it might be some, like, big dream, but I really believe that if we don't dedicate ourselves to this wider cause. At a personal level, I think life is just really hard to make sense of, right? How are we supposed to deal with all these hardships if there's no larger vision, and I don't believe in isolationism. I don't believe that Israelis will solve their problems by themselves. I believe that we will only solve it if we can create bridges and relationships with other nations and with other cultures, first and foremost with Arab culture. But also as Americans, they're also fine. So that's sort of the work that I'm trying to do now that I'm studying and preparing myself for. And hopefully I'll be able to talk to you again years from now and feel them on some, on the right track at least.
Rachael: I have no doubt that that's the case. I have no doubt at all. And I look forward to watching, not just watching your journey. But I'll say this, participating in it. Thank you for this conversation.
Barak: Thank you.
OUTRO
You’ve been listening to Along The Seam. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend, rating the show and leaving a review. For more about our guest, please visit alongtheseam.com. And while there, don’t forget to sign up for the Along The Seam newsletter which is my place of creative writing where I dig deeper into the stories and themes you hear on these episodes. You can also find a link to that in the show notes.
This season is supported with help from The Witness Institute and New America. A big thank you to both organizations.
Our editor is Lene Bech Sillesen and the music is from Blue Dot Sessions.
I’m Rachael Cerrotti. Thanks for joining the conversation.