The Israeli President Is Right: ‘Talk to One Another’

There is a critical missing piece in the response to Israel’s new government from liberal Jewish factions. 

I support the protests in the street against judicial reforms. I laud the letters to the prime minister and the American Congress, carrying the signatures of influential people. I believe in the importance of the articles that have been written to the American Jewish Community encouraging us to raise our voices. 

But Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, is right as he asks for something else: Conversations between opposing sides. 

I learned the importance of conversations when I moved from the business marketing world, where I created ad campaigns for clients ranging from Apple to Coca Cola, into the nonprofit world. In that new environment, I had to refocus my communication skills to help raise hundreds of millions of dollars, convincing people to reach into their pockets and give their money away in the hope of creating a better community and society. In the business world, I just had to convince people to spend their money for the immediate gratification of getting a product or service in return. Now I had to convince people to work on changing their opinions about an issue, rather than decide which products they would buy. 

Working in communication for society and community was a much bigger challenge than working for business. It was a lot more textured and nuanced. As a result, at the beginning of my endeavors in the nonprofit world, I did a lot of things wrong, such as wasting too many donor dollars on messaging and branding, which did not bring results. But then I learned about the power of conversations between people to change their opinions and actions.  

I witnessed that when you brought people of different outlooks to the table and facilitated the conversation with insights, they would see one another’s humanity. They could learn to listen and understand the reasons behind their beliefs. They were able to work together, collaborating on ideas. They found compromise. Change would happen.

I witnessed that when you brought people of different outlooks to the table and facilitated with insight, they would see each others’ humanity.

Conversations between opposing sides should not be news to liberals, particularly those invested in Israel’s issues. I remember many years ago when an Israeli father who had lost a son to terrorism  began a campaign connecting Israelis and Palestinians through phone calls, just phone calls, where they could begin to have conversations with one another. I remember groups of Israeli Jewish mothers in West Jerusalem meeting with groups of Arab mothers in East Jerusalem to have conversations with one another. I remember bereaved Israeli parents meeting with bereaved Palestinian parents to converse, share stories of their loved ones and take actions together. 

But in the Jewish world, this is about more than conversations. This is about culture change. This is about the way we perceive one another as enemies rather than family. People often ask me, and even accuse me of being mercenary, when they find I have serviced clients in the Jewish world ranging from leftist organizations to more conservative and right-wing ones.  “Aren’t they in opposition to one another? Which side are you on, Gary? Everything is political and you have no rules. Do you just take every client?”

“No,” I tell them. “I don’t take clients who I believe are dangerous and morally bankrupt.”  

I have a different opinion than my questioners and accusers. I serviced the building of the Jewish world, which has a rich multiplicity of opinions, as it should. We are not enemies. We are building this world together. I have had disagreements with my clients on belief systems. But I have also found much commonality with them, no matter how opposed we may be.

I have always found great intrigue traveling in different Jewish circles. When my kids were young, I would take them to different synagogues on Shabbat. Haredi. Orthodox. Conservative. Reform. Sephardic. Mizrahi. Reconstructionist. Gay. I would say to them that they were witnessing the diversity and beauty of the Jewish world and that the incredible reality is that as Jews, we are connected to all these people. As a result, my now grown up kids are as comfortable as I am in all these different Jewish environments, finding them fascinating.

My attachment to the whole Jewish people, to different kinds of Jews, is as important to me as my political and societal beliefs.  

My attachment to the whole Jewish people, to different kinds of Jews, is as important to me as my political and societal beliefs.  It is always a balancing issue, as is life itself. Israeli President Herzog is right. The only way through this mess is if the different sides in Israel can have conversation with one another, finding compromise and commonality, however difficult. Just like we liberals hope will happen one day between the Jews and Palestinians.

Gary Wexler was honored by the National Library of Israel with its establishment of the Gary Wexler Archive, twenty years of marketing and communication for the Jewish world.