Dave Bender: Uncommon Israel Artistry From Behind the Lens (Judean Rose)

Dave Bender is a sensitive soul, thank God, because that acute sensitivity informs his work from behind the lens. Bender is a photographer and videographer, but then he is many things, for example, a prize-winning radio journalist, beekeeper, and a husband to Miri. Still, it’s the photographs that grab you as you scroll through your Instagram feed, if you’re lucky enough to follow him. The viewer finds he must pause his mindless scrolling to fully appreciate each arresting image as it appears. Dave Brian Bender has an eye for the perfect moment and an uncommon artistry; his work is a thought-provoking pleasure to behold.

Born in the Bronx, Dave grew up in a then small town on Florida’s west coast, until 1972, when he made Aliyah with his dad while still in middle school. In Israel, Bender was sent to boarding school for a couple of years, and it was during this time that he had his first personal experience with war in the form of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a prominent marker in his life. At this point, Dave returned to the States, where he remained for a decade before making Aliyah once more, this time for good. Today, Dave and Miri live near Tzfat (Safed, if you prefer your Hebrew Anglicized), where they tend to their beehives and artisanal honey and honey products company, Neshikha. And of course, Dave is taking those photos and shooting that footage—at events, and whenever the mood strikes or something catches his eye, which is often.

Dave Bender with a young bee safari visitor.

Here, Dave talks about his early life, his craft, and what inspires him today:

Varda Epstein: We’ve been acquainted for some time. When I first knew you, I thought of you mainly as a writer, something we share in common. Then more and more, I began to see your photographs and videos. Would you say that today, photographer/videographer is your main gig? Was it a conscious decision to narrow your creative focus?

Dave Bender: Yes, on both counts – I was never a good typist or note-taker; due to the distraction of sitting next to the ebulliently lovely Susan Walton in Mrs. Haney's typing class. Susan was no less than the head of the Stratford Sr. High School Spartanaires cheerleader team. Let's just say that – for a neighborhood newbie dork like me - focusing on IBM Selectric touch-typing inevitably took second place to sharpening my situational awareness and side-glance visual acuity skills, which would later come in useful in “reading” subtle cues by interviewees and covering breaking news events.

So, Susan, if you’re reading this: thanks for, well - just being you. And yes, I really did want to take you to the prom.

Nor did I ever formally learn the news-gathering craft via Journalism or communications courses at university or college, where fast, accurate typing is a prerequisite – never went to school at all, actually. In fact, I was actually expelled from my sole journalism class, being summarily told off by my instructor: “...face it, Dave: you're never going to be a journalist.”

Guess I made up for it tho, even picking up a GA Associated Press radio award or two along the way. So – maybe – her dismissal planted a hard seed of “Oh yeah? Hold my beer...” that took a lot of tough living in the interim to germinate.

"Shacharit on the beehives in the backyard Beeyard during Covid. Their hum is very centering."

However, in my defense, I did later earn a BA at The Life U School of Hard Knocks, and a second degree in news coverage at Whossamotta U (Google it); I learned shoe-leather reporting the “old-skool” way via the bullpen, first at the JPost Breaking News Desk, and later at a raft of other outlets, locally and internationally, and branching out into radio, and later video, as the Internet came to the fore.

While I worked for decades as a print, radio, and, later, TV reporter and editor in both Israel and the US, I'd always been attracted to photography and videography; as time went by I'd often end up shooting more and more stills and video footage covering breaking news events, at features, in interviews, and commonly used the imaging as a tool to better describe and flesh out the dry text.

When I worked a three-year stint at NPR affiliate radio stations in Georgia (WJSP-FM as a bureau chief, and WABE as a freelancer), I'd often record audio and shoot simultaneously which sometimes seemed, at least to me – others just stared - the only way to sufficiently absorb what the story was about.

Street scene, Shuk HaPishpeshim, Yaffo

Varda Epstein: How did you get bit by the photography bug? When did you get your first camera? Can you tell us a bit about that camera and your earliest days behind the lens?

Dave Bender: About as far back as I can recall as a kid, my dad “loaned” me his Yashika camera – then a Japanese mid-range model, which stopped production around 2005. As I remember, not only did I use it for photos, but it became my first “tear-down” device to see how it worked – ages before YouTube creators glommed onto the idea; I'm insatiably curious like that. The Yashika, regrettably, never went fully back together, and I seem to recall having a few leftover parts after the reassembly... not long after that, I came to own a cheapo Super-8 camera which I used to shoot clips of my model car collection and whatnot.

Varda Epstein: What do you enjoy most? Videography or photography? What can you capture in a photo that you cannot in a video?

Dave Bender: I'm a quick study in both genres; I shoot video nowadays mostly for marketing our honey and bee products buzzness (see what I did there?), Neshikha, and the still photography for my own professional development and personal pleasure.

Both skill sets and philosophies really merge though; I really think that the technical, compositional, and “telling a story in one shot” are crucial to mastering both crafts. Indeed, as, for example, smartphone still and video quality continue dramatically improving – and over 90 percent of my work nowadays is shot and edited on my Samsung S22 Ultra (and previously, others, and whatever comes down the pike next) – I believe we're starting to see a melding of the genres, and – maybe next year or a decade from now – won’t even understand the primitive dichotomy between still and moving images, and view “imaging,” maybe with fully immersive tactile, aural, and other abilities – as a continuum, and not as separate conceptual boxes. You already see glimmers of it in AI-assisted photography - which nowadays means pretty much anything digitally recorded, and not necessarily a clunky AI text or visual prompt.

Varda Epstein: The black and white event photos you’ve shared on Instagram are probably the main reason I wanted to do this interview. Those photos, are to me, more beautiful than any color photos you might have taken of the same scene. What can we see in black and white that we might not see in color?

Dave Bender: I’m really flattered - thank you (and - as you know - I’m usually the kind to prefer chewing hot glass to accepting a compliment. The check is already in the mail as we speak).

Anyway, in the words of advertising and documentary photographer, Elliot Erwitt, “Color is descriptive. Black and White is interpretative.” Often, visualizing, composing and shooting (or post editing) in black and white strips away the visual clutter and distraction inherent in a color photo and forces the viewer to quietly notice shape, form, and the geometry of buildings, poses, and, hopefully, whatever the photographer wanted to feature in the image. And - no less importantly - the sense of time passing; something about black and white always looks contemporary, as it’s been said, and I’d sign off on that.

As legendary Canadian newspaper photographer, Ted Grant, once memorably put it: “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!” Just to stress: I'm nobody's pretentious fotogsnob, and love photos and footage of scenes drenched in color, or dulcet, pastel soft tones. Maybe it's a left brain/right brain kind of thing. American film director, Samuel Fuller, once cleverly quipped: “Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic.”

Hachnasat Sefer Torah, Kfar Hananya

Varda Epstein: Who influences your work as a photographer and why?

Dave Bender: Well, one quote that really grabbed me was by Jennifer Price: “What I love about Black & White photographs is that they're more like reading the book than seeing the movie.” so she’s on my list now, lol.

UK-based Sean Tucker is among my current photographic “spirit animals,” among others, and his achingly honest self-critique, soul quietude and Zen-like focus on the philosophy of imaging really gets me where I live - or, at least, aspire to rent.

"This one, of a greengrocer sorting through greens after hours, looked like a stage set as the play begins, with lights, dark shadows, and 'popp-eye' color - was already composed and all I had to do was notice the scene, and take the shot."

Locally, there are so many; if I named one, I’d be inadvertently dissing another, but - offhand, on mobile, Ido Izsak does some funky fashion stuff; Dina Alfasi does phenomenal iPhone street portraits - many of them on her daily commuter train route; I’ve hired and would love to work with powerhouse, Rebecca Kowalski; Laura Ben-David has a great eye; there’s a long list actually, and I see many of them via my social media feeds.

Oh, also there’s an astounding collection of fotog talent over at Fearless Photographers that I’d frequent for sheer, bold inspiration when I was actively shooting weddings and similar family events.

But - growing out of being a DSLR photographic gearhead, and centering on mobile photography (which also has its own gear - just commonly much smaller, lighter, and more inexpensive…) - forces you to zone in on classic technique: subject, composition, and lighting, and not rely on $5k DSLR bodies wedded to $10k lenses to get the “money shot.”

Apropos, there’s an amazingly instructive - and often unintentionally hilarious - video series many of my fave, top-end shooters have taken part in over the years dubbed, “The Toy Camera Challenge.”

 

There, world-famous fotogs head out for some impromptu street or fashion photography, but wielding a Playskool, Lego, or - gawd help us - a Barbie camera, instead of a heavy camera backpack or two of camera bodies, lenses, lights, and assistants.

What’s fascinating, and inspiring, is how they’ll gamely - if sometimes ironically - take on the challenge, and, along the way happily share their trade secrets, honed skills, comprehensive technical knowledge, and flat-out talents - to get remarkable, and even artistic, images, despite the limitations of the device. It really separates the pros from the dilettantes…

"Still life with Scruff"

Varda Epstein: Recently you shared some of your street photography. My husband remarked that your work was reminiscent of Edward Hopper. What is it about street photography that is so compelling for you as a genre?

Dave Bender: “Nighthawks” Hopper? We are not worthy… shooting street - and I’m a relative newbie on this playing field - demands a quick eye, absolutely knowing your gear and how to deal with fast-changing lighting and composition - and an ability to discreetly meld into the scene, and not draw attention to yourself. As Tucker calls it, one can be a “hunter,” or “fisherman” fotog, and that’s a useful way to divvy up the approaches: you either actively seek out or patiently wait out the “decisive moment.”

I’m still learning.

Street scene

Varda Epstein: Some years back, you did your first model shoot, right? Can you talk about that? What was it like?

Dave Bender: There’s a fun, Israeli social media-based photography group I belonged to that hires/barters a rotating cast of models for remote shoots, like at the Dead Sea, Mitzpe Ramon, or sites at various beaches. It was the first time I'd actually worked with models, costumes, makeup and props, and it was invigorating to see how the some three dozen photographers - at all experience and equipment levels - succeeded in working with the professional (and patient) models and dancers.

It was a very intensive gig and set in an inspirational wild and desolate setting, located in the desert at Mitzpe Ramon. I had a blast and learned a ton about that side of the biz during the two-day event, including how to integrate with the group as the (apparently) sole outwardly observant (kipa and tzitzit-out) Jew; not being a particularly modest or subtle guy anyway, it never occurred to me that - fortunately very few - others in the group would look askance, or even aghast, at me for “daring” to be there, working the shots with the rest of the fotogs, with the flamboyantly, lightly clad models. I really didn’t think of it as immodest; there was nothing perverse or kinky going on - and, no, I’m far from naive, having grown up totally secular and assimilated - since it was a very respectful and informal scenario for both the models and the team. I felt mostly at home and comfortable.

I’m proud of the shots I got and edited, and share here. Interestingly enough, afterward, when I showed the photos to my wife and our coterie of strictly religiously observant local female friends - all admired and loved the shots, with some noting that they showed strong, independent, secure and proud women, “owning” the visual space. Crazily, ironically, some secular, self-declared feminist friends in the US took a far less kind take on the images, accusing me of “the male gaze” and objectifying the models. The native Israeli female fotogs I was ducking and weaving right along with at the shoot might take issue with that reflexive presumption of guilt.

Varda Epstein: Okay, enough about you. Where and when did you meet your wife? How did the two of you end up in Tzfat? What made Miri become a beekeeper? Did she ever think, when she was a little girl, that she’d grow up and be a beekeeper in Tzfat?

Dave Bender: Miri and I met via the JWed/Frumster dating app, and met, dated in real life, and, married in Tzfat in 2013. Miri, as a 24-year US Army veteran, had made several close friends during her service who had, eventually, made Aliyah (emigrated) to Israel, and some to Tzfat, and she, essentially, made Aliyah in their wake.

She’d always viewed professional beekeeping as an intensive, creative, and possibly profitable retirement activity, and, soon after we married signed on to an intensive, year-long, weekly, hands-on beekeeping course taught by a senior beekeeping professor. I, initially, thought it was, frankly, sweetly eccentric, and shrugged, not even liking honey… I came around after a few years of doing scut work, and, later, took my own year-long COVID-era online course via Michigan State University’s “Hives for Heroes” course for US military personnel and dependents - and, I was, um, “stung” with the beekeeping bug.

Miri, in beekeeper mode.

Miri explains the business of making honey.

Varda Epstein: A lot of people who make Aliyah find themselves doing things they’d never thought of doing, to make a living. Would you say that’s true of you and your wife? What do you think you would have ended up doing professionally in the States?
 
Dave Bender: And how. After living here a year during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and, later, making final Aliyah a decade or so later in my mid-20s, we’ve collectively invested five decades of our lives here. Frankly, not only do I have no earthly idea what or where I’d be in the States by now - I’ve long since ceased entertaining the question.

Dave and his daughter in-law feeding the bees in winter. 

Varda Epstein: What’s next for Dave Bender?

Dave Bender: In the inestimable words of Marlon Brando in The Wild One, “Whaddya’ got?”

***

To learn more about Dave Bender and his professional event and editorial photography, video, editing, and mentoring services, or to purchase prints, see: http://www.davebrianbender.com/.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Havat Efraim: This Beit El Children’s Zoo Honors the Memory of a Boy Killed by Terrorists (Judean Rose)

                                                     

                                                           Interview with Tuvia Victor of Havat Efraim

Havat Efraim, the Beit El Children’s Zoo, comes upon one like a surprise. My friend had said “I’m going to the petting zoo in Beit El. Do you want to come with?”

I eagerly accepted. It’s not that I cared so much about seeing a “petting zoo” but I really, really wanted to go to Beit El. Somehow in 43 years of living in Israel, I had never managed to see this important biblical city. Here was my chance and I was taking it with or without the animals.

It was a magical day.

Havat Efraim, or “Efraim’s Farm” is not really a “petting zoo” (or “pinat chai” as the Hebrew-speaking locals call it), though there is a bunny pen for this purpose. It’s a proper children’s zoo, albeit small, nestled inside a wooded area, with numerous water features and proper benches to sit on. Some of the animals roam free, while others are in cages, and the place just seems to wind on and on, as you constantly come upon yet another interesting species of animal, just around the corner.

The man who runs this impressive—and impressively-sized—children’s zoo is Tuvia Victor. It is doubtful that Victor ever expected to become a zookeeper. Born in South Africa, the

Tuvia Victor with a deer at Havat Efraim, Efraim's Farm

accountant/insurance and pension agent has lived in Beit El since he was married, now nearly 37 years ago. Today, the Victor family is a living representation of the Ingathering of the Exiles, as its ranks swell with Israeli grandchildren of Yemenite, Tunisian, Moroccan, Polish and Ethiopian ancestry.

Tuvia took time from his busy schedule to answer some questions about his labor of love, Havat Efraim, Efraim’s Farm:

Varda Epstein: What event was the inspiration for the expansion of the pinat chai? When did you become involved?

Tuvia Victor: On the last night of Chanuka in 1996, there was a terrorist attack and I went in the ambulance as a medic to the scene of the attack. A family on its return from lighting candles with family was shot, and the mother and the 12-year-old son were seriously wounded. The son died from a head wound at the site of the attack and the mother passed away later that night in the hospital. The Tzur family were neighbours of mine. The young boy, Efraim, together with his friends had tendered a spot where they kept some ducks and a goat His friends made a sign which read: “Efraim’s Farm – in memory of our friend.” I was moved by their action and started to help them improve and enlarge the cages which they had built. From there Efraim’s Farm grew and grew until it became what it is today.

The story of Efraim Tzur, HY"D. Memorial plaque at Havat Efraim.

Varda Epstein: Is there something special about the location of the pinat chai? Why do you think Efraim chose this spot?  

Tuvia Victor: The pinat chai is located in the valley below the settlement—I imagine that the children wanted to tend to animals but their parents (mothers?) were not so keen for that to happen in their garden!

A boy feeds a red deer at Havat Efraim, the "pinat chai" or petting zoo of Beit El 

Varda Epstein: What kind of animals do you have at the pinat chai today, and how many of them are there altogether? How big a part does your location play in determining the types of animals you bring in? How much space do you have in which to house them all?

Tuvia Victor: We have a variety of animals – mammals, birds and fowl, small carnivores, reptiles and fish. We house about 250 animals in about 12 dunam.  We have deer, sheep, goats, coatimundi, horses, donkeys, peacocks, guinea fowl, a variety of ducks and geese, Sulcata tortoises and a number of species of birds. 

Sulcata tortoises 

Varda Epstein: What does it take the feed all those animals? Is the feed delivered?

Tuvia Victor: Each animal is fed with a diet suitable to it. We feed with hay and prepared dry feed mixtures, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables. The community leaves leftover fruit, vegetables and bread in a special crate built at the entrance to the pinat chai. The hay is delivered by truck (about 8 tons) while I collect the dry food every 2 weeks.

Cameroon sheep, goats, and horses at the Pinat Chai in Beit El

Varda Epstein: Talk to us about the expansion. Who does the work? What kind of improvements have you made?

Tuvia Victor: We employ any worker that needs work – over the years we have employed unemployed, under-employed and those needing to supplement their income. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) built the duck pond and the caves for the farm animals. Together with the employees we spoke about before, volunteers (both adult and children), and myself, we built the rest of the structures. We use recycled materials wherever possible, like equipment from children’s parks etc.

Mandarin Ducks 

                                   The duck pond

                                                              

Varda Epstein: What are some of your favorite animals at the pinat chai, and why?

Tuvia Victor: Each and every one is special to me! Naturally when we get new animals they are the most exciting and challenging – learning what they need in terms of feeding, housing and "entertainment". Our latest residents are the Jacob Sheep. Some believe that the modern breed is actually the same one mentioned in the Bible (although there is little genetic evidence). We have two males and are hoping to begin breeding them by bringing female ewes. Some of them have 4 horns!

A Jacob sheep is fed a treat of lavender from a visitor 

Varda Epstein: What can visitors expect to find on arrival at the pinat chai? Is there an entry fee? Is there a way to visit on Shabbat? 

Tuvia Victor: Efraim’s Farm is open from dawn to dusk. The information center at the entrance offers a map of the pinat chai as well as its story. The expected code of behavior is also displayed there. The entry fee is 5 NIS per visitor. Entrance fee can be paid by bank transfer (Bank Leumi, Branch 902, Account 20880098), by credit card via the website, or cash which is fed to the stone rabbit at the entrance. Visitors on Shabbat are requested to pay on a weekday.

Kids enjoy "feeding" this stone rabbit their 5 NIS entry fee. 


Me speaking bastard Yiddish nonsense to an Emu

Varda Epstein: Do you offer any activities for children? Is the pinat chai a safe place for them? Are all of the animals caged?

Tuvia Victor: We welcome schools, nursery schools and groups to visit and enjoy pita-making, a petting area, and other activities – all with prior arrangement. We also offer animal therapy for children. Although most of the animals are in their own areas, the smaller goats do wander around. We do suggest parents look after their children in the pinat chai – for both their safety and to ensure they treat the animals with the expected respect and without hurting them.

Coatimundi at Havat Efraim, the Pinat Chai of Beit El

                                                        Tuvia feeds the coatimundis 

Varda Epstein: Tell us more about your location. Are there other local attractions to see in Beit El?

Tuvia Victor: Beit El is a vibrant and growing community with about 1300 families. In addition to visiting the pinat chai, one can walk back in history by visiting the spot of Jacob’s dream, the remains of Jerobam’s altar, and ancient burial caves. There are restaurants, springs and parks. A new visitors’ center is soon to be opened.

Just a rock or the rock where Jacob slept and had his dream? 

Varda Epstein: What are your future aspirations for the pinat chai? What’s next on the agenda?

Tuvia Victor: Our next project is to complete a reptile house which will include snakes, iguanas, lizards etc. Donations will help us tremendously to continue employing the unemployed, providing for the animals and improving our unique place for the benefit of all the visitors – children and adults alike.

To make a donation to Havat Efraim/Efraim’s Farm, and for more information, please visit the website of the Beit El Children’s Zoo.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Book Review: Can “The Whole World” Be Wrong? (Judean Rose)

Can “The Whole World” Be Wrong? Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad is a book that makes you shake your head a lot. You just can’t believe how stupid people are. The stupid things they say and do to make themselves feel better about themselves; the stupid things and the lies they say that allow them to hate Jews and look the other way at the jihadists who target the liars, their loved ones, and their way of life. It’s hard to watch—you want to look away from this slow, global, own-goal suicide. But the author, Professor Richard Landes, has made this work so compelling, you have no choice but to continue reading, even when, as a sane person, it leaves you, the reader, feeling rather queasy. 

Richard Landes

The book takes its title from the words of two men on the subject of blood libels, issued a century apart. There are the mocking words of writer Ahad Ha’am (Asher Ginsburg), who in 1897, echoing the oft-expressed sentiment by European non-Jews when confronted with proof that, no. Jews don’t use the blood of Christian babies in the manufacture of matzah: “Is it possible the whole world is wrong and the Jews are right?”

Ahad Ha'am (Asher Ginsburg)

In 2002, little more than 100 years later, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, referring to Israeli denials of a massacre in Jenin that never occurred, said, “I don’t think the whole world, including the friends of the Israeli people and government, can be wrong.”

In this way, antisemitism takes its path. Because there are plenty of Jew-haters in the world. And the more there are, the more they give themselves moral permission to hate. The media, of course, is there to help things along with its own rendition of the modern blood libel. It’s called “lethal journalism.” They use fake footage, knowing it’s fake. They lie, because the lies are what their audiences want to hear. And they demonize Israel every time, because again: it’s exactly what their audiences want to hear.

Landes takes you on a journey, beginning in 2000 with the Al Durah hoax, moving on to 9-11, the phony Jenin “massacre,” and the Danish cartoon scandal (Danoongate). At the end of each chapter, Landes summarizes the stupid things that various figures have said in relation to these events. For example, journalist Catherine Nay said of the faked viral photo of the dead boy in his father’s arms, “This death erases, replaces the image of the boy in the Warsaw Ghetto.”

Every bit as shockingly stupid are the words of George W. Bush, spoken at the Islamic Center of Washington only days after 9-11, on September 17, 2001, “Islam is peace.”

Regarding the fictional Jenin massacre, journalist Janine di Giovanni wrote, “Rarely in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechniya, Sierra Leone, Kossovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life," 'Inside the Camp of the Dead,' The Times, April 16, 2002.

And off Danoongate, the French Director of Intelligence speaking in 2005, said, “These riots have nothing to do with Islam.”

Landes has been documenting this astounding stupidity and world folly for more than a decade. The result is this 500-page compendium with its prodigious, painstaking footnotes that leave the reader open-mouthed and astonished. You wonder: “How on earth did we get here?”

But you already know. Landes has connected up all the dots: the lies and lethal journalism, and the way the world gave jihad a pass, while damning the Jews. The facts and the progression of this deadly state of affairs have been amply covered by the author and you begin to understand the depth of the threat to our world, today. 

This a book you want on your shelf. It is not an easy read, but a necessary one if you want to understand how we got here—and how we are to dig our way out of this ugly, Jew-hating, jihadi, fake news mess. I put some questions to author Richard Landes to learn more about his book and its implications for the future:

Varda Epstein: Most writers think about who they’re writing for and gear their writing to that reader. “Can The ‘Whole World’ Be Wrong?” seems to be identifying who the reader is not. The book begins with a warning, but it’s more like a dare, or even a threat—like you’re trying to scare the reader off: “If you feel up to the task . . . turn the page. If not, just sit in your tub tweeting about white, racist privilege, while you bleed out.”

Who do you envisage as your reader? Who is it you’re trying to reach?

Richard Landes: My ideal reader is someone who really does care about liberal and progressive values. I actually lay out my concerns in the introductory chapter by contrasting zero-sum and positive-sum values, and stating my unequivocal preference for the latter, while conceding that the former has an inevitable presence in our lives and warning that those thinking they can eliminate zero-sum are not only fooling themselves with messianic dreams, but ultimately opposed to key life forces.

What I document in the book, however, is a massive shift in what was considered “liberal” or “progressive” in the new century/millennium. By 2003 it became a “litmus test of liberal credentials” to be pro-Palestinian (Buruma in NYT), at a time when the Palestinians were engaged in a suicide-mass murder war against Israeli civilians. By any standards of real liberal values that was a travesty which continues to this day (think Gays and LGBTQ for Palestine). So in a sense, the book is an attempt to go back to the moment this travesty first “took” and rethink how it could have happened so quickly and thoroughly. But since I firmly believe that the willingness to hear criticism and take it seriously is one of the key components of the liberal sensibility, I address this criticism to liberals sufficiently committed to their values to take it seriously.

Varda Epstein: Do you worry you’re preaching to the choir? Do you even aspire to reach the masses?

Richard Landes: Well that’s hard to say. Obviously a 500-page book with notes at the bottom of each page is not for “the masses.” But, between masses and choir lies many a circle of readers. Obviously, the “choir” of pro-Israel people are going to find it congenial. A number of people have written me about devouring the book in one sitting and thanking me: “Someone finally has the words for everything I’ve been struggling to say!” wrote one person. And if it helps them make the point to others, that’s great. But my real audience is what we might call the goats. As shepherds know, if you have about one goat to every ten sheep, then when there’s a problem, the sheep look to the goats. If they’re calm, the skittish sheep settle down. Similarly, I don’t think I’m going to reach some gay guy so caught up in his peer group that he repeats nonsense about being passionately for a political culture that hates gays. But if I can reach the thoughtful ones, then maybe they can explain it to him.

Varda Epstein: You write, “In a sense, this book should not have had to be written and I should be able to work on the origins of modern Western civilization in the demotic millennialism of eleventh-century France to my heart’s content.” Why did the “Can The ‘Whole World’ Be Wrong?” have to be written, and why by you, Richard Landes? After all, as you suggest, lethal journalism, antisemitism, and global jihad are not your chosen field.

Richard Landes: Well, actually, global jihad is my field since it’s an apocalyptic millennial movement, and it came on my screen in the mid-90s through the (then) graduate work of David Cook (now at Rice U.). Actually, in the mid-1990s, in my work on the 11^th century, I began to work out a model of antisemitism that went in waves starting with philo-semitism, leading to important socio-economic changes that eventually produced an antisemitic reaction. Given that the period after the Holocaust (i.e. my life) was the longest and most philo-semitic period in recorded history (especially in the USA where I grew up), I speculated that the advent of 2000 might mark the reappearance of antisemitism in the West. At the time I thought it would come from the apocalyptic “right” – fundamentalist Christian Zionists disappointed that the Rapture didn’t happen, and Jihadi Muslims who were already openly and ferociously antisemitic. What I didn’t see coming were two linked phenomena: 1) the attraction of the “Left” for the Jihadi apocalyptic narrative that Israel and the US were “Satans”/Antichrists, and 2) the utter failure of liberals, who had a huge presence in the public sphere, to resist. As a result, what I thought would be a wave of Jew-hatred that we could resist, has, over 20 years of astonishing and self-destructive mishandling, become an existential threat not only to Israel (its purported target) but to democracies around the world.

Why did I have to write it rather than someone else? I don’t know. But someone else didn’t write it. It’s such a hard thing to grasp, a history of your own time. Maybe working historians in the early 11^th century writing histories of the turn of that millennium made it a conceivable project. Obviously I don’t write about everything (and neither did they). I write in depth about what I think were errors of judgment on a civilizational plane, which continue to be made by very smart people. We all love the story of the emperor’s new clothes, but few of us want to entertain the notion that it’s actually happening. Someone jokingly said that Amazon should bundle my book not with another book, but with antidepressants. It’s dark stuff. Very depressing. Without a deep sense of humor, I wouldn't have been able to keep my eye on this ball over the course of decades.

Varda Epstein: How, if at all, does your work as a medievalist inform your book, and in particular your interest in eleventh-century France? Does your work on the al Durah story, which you mention in your book, have anything to do with that? You cite many French sources and drop French phrases in your book. I’m getting the idea that you’re a Francophile—but not!

Richard Landes: As for the Middle Ages, there are three key issues:

1)      Honor-shame societies: As a medievalist I work on a society in which gaining/keeping honor and avoiding/revenging shame were key components of public life, where it was legitimate, accepted, even required that one shed blood for the sake of honor. Without understanding those dynamics, you don’t understand Arab political culture. Now Edward Saïd made it taboo to discuss these matters (the quintessence of “Orientalism”), and in doing so blinded the West to the cultural dynamics of this region. In my book I show how the Oslo Accords were based on thinking that Arafat and Arab political culture were ready to give up the view that the very existence of Israel was so shameful that it must be destroyed, and go for the positive-sum, win-win, of “land for peace,” to the benefit of both the Israelis and the Palestinians. And how ignoring those dynamics meant that right up to the last second, the peace negotiators thought we were “sooo close.” And still do.

2)      Apocalyptic millenarian: the jihadis are a classic expression of a distinctly (but not exclusively) medieval form of eschatological thinking, namely they embrace an “active cataclysmic apocalyptic scenario” – evil permeates the world and we are God’s agents in destroying it – aiming at a hierarchical millennium – Islam will dominate the world, infidels either accept dhimmitude (subjection), or convert, or die. It’s really hard for moderns to take apocalyptic beliefs seriously because every time in the past that people have been so moved, they’ve been wrong, sometimes disastrously so. (This included modern historians of the Middle Ages.) As a result of this cognitive lapse, and the pressures of political correctness in the 21^st century, to avoid anything too negative about Islam (don’t say “radical Islam”), has produced a Western culture that cannot see its enemy (embodied in the absurd formula “war on terrorism”).

3)      Public Secrets: for reasons that I’m not sure about, both my academic career and my journalistic one have found and investigated public secrets, that is, something everyone “in the know” knows about, but when it comes to the public record, they deny any knowledge or existence of the issue in question. In the Middle Ages it was about how Charlemagne was crowned on the first day of the year 6000 from Creation – a millennial date Christian chronographers had been tracking for over 6 centuries – and yet no one who wrote about the coronation, or his imperial period, mentioned it. In this book, the main public secret I deal with is that the Palestinians fake news footage all the time, and that the press is so profoundly intimidated by them, that they run Palestinian “lethal narratives” as news. This unacknowledged, even denied phenomenon, has immense impact on the kind of lethal journalism that we get constantly from our news media.

Varda Epstein: There’s a lot about stupidity in your book—you call it when and where you see it, using exactly that word “stupid” in its various forms. Why is it important to you to use precisely this descriptor and how do you account for the sheer amount of it that exists in the world? 

Richard Landes: First because it’s a technical term in economic and game theory for someone who hurts someone else without gaining any advantage (Cipolla). Secondly because it’s so stunningly prominent in our times. I define “astoundingly stupid” as creating advantages for an avowed enemy. And as far as I can make out, that has been a consistent pattern among the Western opinion leaders – journalists, academics, public intellectuals, politicians, and policy makers – for the last two decades. As Elder of Ziyon put it, my book is a “modern take on the Emperor’s New Clothes.” Then, when I found the comment by Bonhoeffer (which I included in the epigrams)—who also lived at a time when his society was being seized by apocalyptic memes—about the impossibility of arguing with precisely this kind of self-destructive stupidity, I knew I was on the right track. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Varda Epstein: How did you decide on the structure of the book? How does the first part complement the second? Why not have it in, say, two volumes? Oh, and you must tell us about the haikus! That must have been fun.

Richard Landes: The structure wrote itself. The first four chapters are my “history of my time,” namely four incidents in the early aughts (‘00s) that chronicle key moments in the assault of global jihad on western democracies, and the astoundingly stupid way in which the West processed what was happening to them: the outbreak of the intifada and the al Durah affair; 9-11; the “Jenin Massacre”; and the Danish cartoon scandal.

Then, to explain how this could happen, I went through the key players: 1) Shame-Honor driven Arab culture; 2) Apocalyptic-Millennial driven Jihadi beliefs – what I call Caliphators; 3) Liberal Cognitive Egocentrics: people who project their positive-sum values onto cultures that don’t share it; 4) radical progressives who, blinded by Saïd’s assault on Orientalism, end up allying with the most imperialist movement in the world because it’s “anti-imperialist,” i.e. anti-USA and Israel; 5) the lethal journalists who radically disorient their audiences with their Palestinian-compliant “news” reports; and 6) the virtue-signaling Jews who adopt their enemy’s narrative (something an apocalyptic Caliphator predicted in 2001), thereby giving wings to the very kind of exterminationist antisemitism that fueled the Nazi madness.

The last part sketches developments over the next decade and a half (mid-aughts to now), identifying some of the phenomena so striking in our current culture that I think this turn-of-the-millennium seizure helped set in motion – woke, cancel-culture politics, fake news, anti-racism discourse, and what I call pre-emptive dhimmitude, namely the adoption by our information elites of a posture of subjection to Muslim demands for respect which ends up attacking not the invaders of democratic culture, but those (like me) who warn and mobilize against those enemies.

As for the haikus, I’ve been writing them ever since I ran across the form in my youth. The one for al Durah (chapter one) was originally written for Y2K: “We need not have been/ Mouths open inhaling, when/ The sh*t hit the fan.” My favorite is the one for the chapter on Jews against themselves: “Have ever before/ lambs denounced lambs who refuse/ to lie with lions?”

Varda Epstein: I so appreciated all the detailed footnotes you included at the bottom of each page (I hate it when writers put them the end and I have to flip back and forth). But that would have been a daunting task! You must have been taking voluminous notes for years on end, as you read, watched, talked . . . does that about sum it up? How many years was this book in the making? 

"A book that keeps writing itself,"
Tat Aluf Yossi Kuperwasser

Richard Landes: Yes, it does sum it up nicely. Thanks to Evernote (I have over 35,000 notes clipped there), I’ve been able to preserve access to articles that no longer can be found online. I’m ashamed to say the book was over a decade in the making. The working title – They’re so smart, cause we’re so Stupid – was inspired by the Fort Hood Massacre (2009) in which a Palestinian-American major in the army, after extensively displaying his jihadi sympathies, shot dozens of his fellow-soldiers, and inspired Mark Steyn to write an article entitled: “These days, it’s easier to be even more stupid after the event.” It’s just hard to write a history book about your own time. As Yossi Kuperwasser put it, “It’s a book that keeps writing itself.” When Shireen abu Akleh was killed, I knew I couldn't include this ongoing, slow-motion train wreck.

As for the footnotes, I feel passionately about a) having many, and b) at the bottom of the page. I took out all the URLs one can find for oneself easily from the hard-copy book, but for those who want to get them, I have them up at my personal webpage for the book: https://richard-landes.com/the-whole-world/. 

Varda Epstein: There are so many shocking parts in your book still rattling around in my head. For instance, that remark from a peer, “Well, the Jews have been asking for it, and now, thank God, we can say what we think at last.”

Richard Landes: For me it will always be Charles Enderlin, when I pointed out how much faking was going on at Netzarim Junction the day Muhammad al Durah was allegedly shot, saying to me “Oh yes, they do that all the time.”

But the two worst comments by far were a) when a colleague in the history department responded to my bemoaning the suicide terror war of the Palestinians with the comment, “What choice do they have?” and b) the journalist Catherine Nay saying that the image of al Durah “erased, replaced” the picture of the boy in the Warsaw Ghetto. Hard to get more empirically and morally disoriented, and yet people heard these kinds of remarks and nodded knowingly.

What would you say shocked you most about your findings? I’m guessing it’s the stupidity. . .

Richard Landes: That’s one way to put it. Cowardice is another. The way I’d put it, in the ‘90s, I may have seen a wave of antisemitism coming in 2000, and even a wave of Jihadi attacks on the West, but I never dreamed that Western democracies would be so feckless in responding.

Varda Epstein: What do you want the reader to take away from your book?

Richard Landes:

1) that when “the whole world” agrees on something (whether it’s the emperor’s courtiers or the academics and journalists and pundits who think they speak for “the whole world” and are sure they’re right) they can (and have, and are and will) be, sometimes, wrong.

2) that the meanings of “liberal” and “progressive” have been terribly distorted, even betrayed, in the 21st century. 

3) that when the legacy media reports Israel has done something terrible and Israeli sources deny it (or even admit to it only partially) it’s possible that the legacy media is wrong.

4) that we’ve gotten into this mess because a lot of nice and well-intentioned people have allowed themselves to be pushed around, silenced, and cowed by those filled with passionate intensity, and we need to speak up.

5) that to continue down this path spells disaster.

***

Landes, R. (2022). Can “The Whole World” Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad (Antisemitism in America). Boston : Academic Studies Press, 2022. 

(available on Amazon.)

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Yamit: The Forgotten Expulsion (Judean Rose)

                                                     Interview with Isser Coopersmith

Yamit was the first expulsion of Jews by Jews in the Jewish State. That is what a lot of people forget when they point to Gush Katif and say that at least now we have proof that the land for peace formula doesn’t work. Gush Katif, it is true, was a massive, outsized event, with 8,600 Jews expelled from their homes, while “only” 2,500 Jews had been forced from their homes in Yamit, 23 years earlier. Expulsion in either case proved traumatic, resulting in spiraling statistics for suicide, divorce, and bankruptcy.

Isser Coopersmith

Just as right wing Israelis flocked to Gush Katif to strengthen the people in the run-up to Disengagement, so too, they came to Yamit in 1982, ready to fight. One of those who rushed to join the 2,500 Israeli Jews of Yamit was Isser Coopersmith, an American immigrant to Israel who had settled in Shilo. He was ready to do anything to help prevent the evacuation.

Coopersmith was 25, and no stranger to showing his loyalty to the Jewish State. After making Aliyah in 1979, Isser helped to build a settlement and a kibbutz, then joined the IDF in 1980, serving in a combat unit. After the evacuation of Yamit, Coopersmith went on to serve in the reserves during the First Lebanon War.

Isser has worn many hats in his professional life: shepherd, goldsmith, chef, house painter. It’s the way of many of us expats. You do whatever is in your capacity to make things work and be part of the project that is Israel, the first Jewish state in the Holy Land. Today, forty years after Yamit, Coopersmith has a 33-year-old son, and is married and living in Maale Adumim.

Ruti and Isser Coopersmith

Here is the story of the evacuation of Yamit, as experienced by Isser Coopersmith:

Coopersmith as a young reservist based on Yamit, 6 months prior to the evacuation.

Varda Epstein: How did you come to live in Yamit? When did you settle there?

Isser Coopersmith: The year was 1982. I had just finished my army service and there was turmoil in the country because the government was going to return Sinai to the Egyptians and destroy the settlements. Most of the residents took compensation and left. A number of people from around the country organized fishing boats to try and break the naval blockade and reach Yamit. We left in the middle of the night from Michlelet Herzog near Massuot Yitzchak and drove to the Tel Aviv Marina where we set sail on a number of vessels. We were followed and hounded by the navy along the way but reached the shore and descended into Zodiacs and paddled to the beach where hundreds of residents and the army waited. It was like out of a scene from the movie Exodus. We mixed in with the people so the army couldn’t nab us.

"We rented a fishing boat and 6 or 7 pleasure boats and met at the Tel Aviv Marina, hoping to get into Yamit."

“We labeled one of the boats ‘Al tefanena,’ [“Don’t evacuate us,” V.E.]  which of course is an allusion to the Altalena.”

Isser on one of the rented pleasure boats

Here you can see the navy, flanking us, trying to deter us from getting any closer. When I got off the boat, I realized I was going to be in Yamit for the long haul, and knew I needed to get back out of there to get more supplies. I managed to get out of Yamit, and on my way back, met with a convoy at Kfar Maimon. In the middle of the night we drove off-road and traveled through sand dunes to get back into Yamit. 

Varda Epstein: What was it like, being part of Yamit during that time? Can you describe a typical day?

Isser Coopersmith: In one way it felt like we were on a holy mission to keep our land. In another way it felt tense because we knew the government was going to try and evict us any day. A typical day was eating sleeping, davening [praying, V.E.], setting up barricades, and going to the beach.

Bunker in Yamit

"Here you see, from right to left, Baruch Marzel, Rav Ariel, andAvi Farhan, standing outside the bunker. Avi Farhan was one of the original inhabitants of Yamit, and one of the ones who refused to leave."

"Here you have the chief rabbis, Ovadia Yosef and Shlomo Goren, trying to talk the Kachnikim [followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, V.E.] out of the suicide bunker. I was guarding the doors of the bunker for a while, so Geula Cohen and my rav [rabbi, V.E.], Rav Elhanan Bin Nun from Shilo, tried to talk me out of there.

"At some point, a reporter from the NY Times asked me a question: Do I have anything to tell the world?

"I said, 'Tell Laura I love her,' and I heard people saying, 'Who’s Laura?'

"Like, nobody got it." 

An evacuation soldier outside the bunker. Soldiers attempted to pry open the bunker door with a wooden board, at center

The "suicide bunker." The army tried to get in with an acetylene torch.

"From guarding the bunker I went to a rooftop of a villa, which we barricaded. We put all kinds of like, fencing and things down the staircase, so people couldn’t get to us. I was in the villa with Levi Hazan and Misha Mishkan who tried to self-immolate, which we prevented him from doing. Baruch Marzel was on the second floor, fighting off like ten or 12 soldiers by himself—he weighed like twice as much in those days."

Rooftop in "Schunat HaIksim," Yamit

"They tried getting us off the roof with ladders. We pushed the ladders off of the building. They finally got us off the roof by shoving us into cages--the foam is to put out the fires."

"When I was cuffed I kept my wrists facing up so it was wider. When I twisted my wrists together I was able to slip out of the cuffs, opened a window on the bus and escaped to another rooftop. I was arrested again. They sent us to Kela Ashkelon [Ashkelon Prison, V.E.]. I managed to escape from the bus the first time, but they caught me again. Other people, there were some famous people who went to Kela Ashkelon, but because they were famous, they got out early. Benny Katsover and Hanan Porat and Rav Kahane, but we were stuck in jail for a few days."

Varda Epstein: What was the demographic makeup of Yamit? What was the flavor of the neighborhood? Did you feel comfortable with the people you met there?

Isser Coopersmith: By the time I settled in, most of the people were Dati Leumi [National Religious, V.E.]. There were lots of settlers from other settlements and also yeshiva boys. We gave each other strength.

Varda Epstein: Can you tell us about some of the hardships you experienced while on Yamit during the evacuation?

Isser Coopersmith: Well, as a single guy I relied on the families for food. We slept in vacated apartments. All the municipal systems were turned off. Water wasn’t flowing to the local flora of the city.

Varda Epstein: What is your best memory of Yamit?

Isser Coopersmith: The camaraderie of the people, the natural beauty of the area.

Typical street scene, Yamit

Varda Epstein: Most of the Gush Katif settlers refused to believe the expulsion would happen. They didn’t pack or otherwise plan for the eventuality. They believed until the end that a miracle would happen and that they could stay. How was the purge of Yamit similar to and how did it differ from the banishment of the residents of Gush Katif?

Isser Coopersmith: Well, we didn’t believe it would happen. When it did, we thought it would be so painful that the government wouldn’t ever do it again. Of course, the people in power have no heart.

Varda Epstein: Did you do anything to fight against being evicted from Yamit?

Isser Coopersmith: We set up barricades, stocked up on food, and fought the soldiers who came to take us.

Varda Epstein: Where did you go after Yamit? What was your emotional state? How long did it take for you to get back to normal?

Isser Coopersmith: I returned to Shilo. I was emotionally depressed, but two months later I was called up for the war in Lebanon so I had to readjust to the new situation.

Varda Epstein: Looking back, is there anything anyone could have done to stop the evacuation of Yamit? What would you personally have done differently? Conversely, what are you most proud of in relation to your part in the Yamit story?

Isser Coopersmith: I doubt there is anything we could have done to prevent the destruction of Yamit. Maybe if tens of thousands of people had joined us, the army wouldn’t have had the manpower to make it happen. I was proud that I made a stand for my beliefs.

Varda Epstein: What can we learn from Yamit?

Isser Coopersmith: Never trust the government.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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