French-Israeli actress Sarah Adler has walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival and at the Ophir Awards (the Israeli Oscars) for starring turns in noted dramas such as Jean-Luc Godard’s “Notre Musique” and Etgar Keret’s “Jellyfish.” So she was startled to learn that her first sojourn to the Academy Awards will be not for a feature film but for her performance in a 40-minute Israeli short, “Aya,” nominated in the best live action short category, even though it previously had not been widely seen outside Israel.
“I had done the film without any expectations,” the actress, 36, said in a telephone conversation from her home in Paris, where she has lived on and off between years in Israel. “It wasn’t even a full-length feature, where you knew it would be released and have all kinds of different opportunities. So to see a small film like this that has grown and made it to one of the biggest exposures in the world has been incredibly rewarding.”
In the short, Adler portrays Aya, a 29-year-old woman who, on a whim, meets a Danish musician (Ulrich Thomsen) at an airport and pretends to be his designated driver; en route to his destination, she brashly pressures the complete stranger to forge what turns out to be an unexpectedly strong emotional bond.
“Sex isn’t her objective,” Adler said. “She’s just lonely, and in a way she lives a life of habit. And suddenly, when there is this opportunity for something new, she allows herself to be drawn in without really being conscious of what she is doing. She desperately wants to communicate with someone who has a completely different energy and culture, and to be looked at with new eyes. And I think he ultimately also wants to feel awakened, to open up to emotions he hadn’t previously allowed himself.”
To tackle the film, most of which takes place in a car and interweaves awkward silences with scenes of growing intimacy, Adler worked closely with filmmakers Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun to meticulously break down the characters’ emotional nuances from moment to moment. “The major challenge was to find the right behavior to make Aya’s outrageous actions credible,” Adler said. “It was, ‘When do the characters search for each other, and when do they ignore each other? When do they go inside or open up?’ All these beats had to be very precise.
“I also tried to build a performance in which Aya almost looks different as the film evolves,” Adler added. “We see her seem to appear more radiant and open, almost as if you can see her through his eyes.”
Filmmakers Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun chose Adler for the role “because … it was important for us to cast someone who we can believe is capable of doing such an unusual act, and at the same time, does not appear crazy,” Brezis wrote in an email. “Sarah has something exceptionally intriguing about her, some kind of mystery which raises one's curiosity. … At the same time, she balances it with amazing charms, and together it is the perfect cocktail for our Aya.”
Adler is a citizen of both Israel and France, and merging her dual identities has been a complex journey for the actress. She grew up in a bohemian family in Paris until she was 10, when her mother made the decision to relocate with Sarah to Israel. “She thought that my heritage would remain very abstract if we remained in France,” Adler said. “She wanted me to speak Hebrew and know more about my origins. But it was for me an incredible culture shock. Everything was different — from the language, which I didn’t speak, to the light, the temperature and the way that people would interact. I felt like a foreigner.”
At 17, finding Israel to be a “closed and narrow place,” Adler dropped out of her Tel Aviv arts high school and eventually moved to New York, where she studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute and earned a small role in the 1999 independent film “Afraid of Everything,” among other projects.
Seven years later, however, she returned to Israel “with fresh eyes,” she said. “I could appreciate the warmth and the closeness of the people.” Even so, most of her family was in France as were creative opportunities, so over the years, she moved back and forth between Paris and Tel Aviv, starring in Yossi Madmoni’s Israeli melodrama “Restoration,” for example, as well as Godard’s “Notre Musique,” in which she portrays an Israeli journalist who seeks to learn more about her own besieged country while on assignment in war-torn Sarajevo.
Godard, an admitted anti-Zionist, was criticized in some circles for the movie’s comparison of the Palestinian plight to the Holocaust. “For me, it was important to find the right balance in my performance to protect what I was conveying and not do anything too radical — but at the same time, to collaborate with someone who may have been criticizing where I come from,” Adler said of how she tackled the inflammatory material. “I think the only way to evolve within the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict is to continue to have dialogue with people who think differently than you do.”
While Adler said she has never personally experienced anti-Semitism in France, she’s all too familiar with “the people who are very judgmental about how Israel handles its political situation, so it can be very tough.” She is married to the French-Jewish director Raphael Nadjari.
Like almost everyone, she was, of course, stunned by the recent terrorist attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher market in Paris. “But in the end, that only reinforced things that I’ve already felt, which is that France is both a great place on a human level and yet it has major problems of racism and hatred,” she said. “It does feel a bit oppressive to be a citizen of both France and Israel these days; I don’t belong to the most peaceful places on earth,” she added. I wonder, where in the world can I just be myself without [being] defined as a Jew or anything else?”
Yet Adler said she will proudly represent Israel when she attends the Academy Awards Feb. 22: “I no longer consider myself more French than Israeli; I’ve stopped asking myself that question,” she said. “Something in me has now resolved: I’m very connected to Israel and I’m also French. I’m a combination, and, in a way, a citizen of the world.”
Arab-Israeli lawmaker Hanin Zoabi and far-right Jewish activist Baruch Marzel were disqualified from running in Israel’s March 3 elections.
At hearings Thursday, the Central Elections Committee voted 27-6 to ban Zoabi, a Knesset member from the Arab-Israeli Balad party since 2009. The vote on Marzel, of the Yachad party, was 17-16.
Both bans will be automatically appealed to the Supreme Court.
Zoabi and Marzel previously have been banned from running in elections, most recently Zoabi in January 2013. The Supreme Court overturned those decisions.
Zoabi, who participated in the 2010 flotilla sail to Gaza to bust Israel’s blockade organized by the Islamic IHH group in Turkey, has been censured before for anti-Israel statements. Most recently she was suspended from the Knesset for statements she made encouraging Palestinian “popular resistance” and saying that the kidnappers of three Israeli teens, who later were murdered, were not terrorists.
Marzel, who headed the outlawed Kach movement after the death of Rabbi Meir Kahane, has previously run for Knesset.
Several judges from Israel’s prestigious Israel Prize resigned, accusing the Prime Minister’s Office of political meddling.
Six judges resigned from the literary panel after the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vetoed nominations for two other judges, apparently due to political objections, and attempted to name a replacement, according to reports. Netanyahu’s office also dismissed a member of the Israel Prize’s film panel and attempted to name a replacement, causing another member of the film panel to drop out in solidarity.
On the literary panel, Ariel Hirschfeld and Avner Holtzman were nominated by the staff of the Education Ministry, which administers the annual prize, in November or December. However, Netanyahu assumed the post of education minister in early December with the resignation of Shai Piron and the dissolution of the coalition government.
Netanyahu’s office released a statement Tuesday saying that it “decided to review the panel’s composition” upon learning that Hirschfeld had supported the practice of boycotting army service as a form of protest. This was confirmed obliquely by a statement posted on Netanyahu’s Facebook page that did not mention Hirschfeld by name but stated that the Israel Prize panels had come to be dominated by “extremists” who support “anti-Zionist causes,” including “refusal to serve in the IDF.”
No reason was offered for the veto on Holtzman. Netanyahu’s office also reportedly attempted to appoint another judge of the prime minister’s choosing.
The Prime Minister’s Office also reportedly ordered the dismissal of film jury member Chaim Sharir in favor of another appointee who subsequently refused upon learning of Sharir’s dismissal. Fellow jury member Ram Loevy resigned in protest of Sharir’s dismissal.
Literary prize jurors Nurith Gertz, Ziva Ben-Porat, Ephraim Hazan and Uri Hollander resigned en masse to protest the dismissal of Hirschfeld and Holtzman, and author Gail Hareven also resigned separately over the same issue.
In addition, Yigal Schwartz withdrew his candidacy on Tuesday for a prize in the field of literary research to protest Netanyahu’s involvement with the jury, which Schwartz described to Haaretz as “sabotage.”
I was accepted into the all-girls Marlborough School on my 12th birthday. I wanted to be a Marlborough girl more than anything. I wanted to put on a khaki skirt and polo shirt and be welcomed into a space where women were encouraged to be loud, smart and powerful.
Although my official acceptance into the class of 2011 established my formal entrance into this elite sisterhood, it wasn’t until I was taught Marlborough’s alma mater by Head of School Barbara Wagner that I truly felt like I was a part of something larger than myself. On that day, our entire seventh-grade class was ushered into the auditorium where Wagner was waiting for us. We stood on the stage as she taught us the Marlborough alma mater, critiquing us when we made an error and cheering us on as our individual voices became one.
But there was one line in the alma mater, Wagner told us, that almost everyone got wrong: “Love for Marlborough will endure.” It was the word “endure” that all previous classes stumbled over. We would be the class to fix this. We would sing the word with perfect pronunciation and imbue it with all the meaning it commanded.
Looking back on that day now, as a 21-year-old woman, far away from the unsure 12-year-old girl I was then, I can hear that line echoing over and over again. In the midst of the horrific behavior of English teacher Joseph Koetters and the appalling response of Wagner, Director of Upper School Laura Hotchkiss and Marlborough’s board of trustees, I am questioning if love for Marlborough should endure in its current contradictory state.
The institution of Marlborough does a lot of things well. I cannot deny that as a middle and high school student I received a superb education. I was given every academic opportunity and taught how to take my intelligence seriously, which is a gift I will always cherish, and one that has undoubtedly shaped the woman I am today. Nearly every day in school we were told that women were invaluable, that no man was better than us simply because he was male. Our teachers challenged us. They pushed us to think creatively, to work harder than we thought possible, and to grow into women who would someday run the world. Here is where the disparity emerges. While we were consistently taught to be loud, we were simultaneously silenced where it mattered. Marlborough excelled at celebrating our accomplishments — a personalized letter home from Wagner whenever I won a debate tournament or Model U.N. conference. Yet when we failed, or when we felt disappointed, or uncertain, we were made invisible.
I could write pages on how disgusted I am with Koetters, a predator who was also my AP English teacher. A man who made me feel uncomfortable and unsafe. A man who sexually abused his students and went unpunished for many years, and who deserves to be publicly and legally identified as a dangerous person. I hope that this happens and that his case is treated with the seriousness it deserves. However, my disgust with Koetters is self-explanatory. It is my deep disappointment with the institution of Marlborough, specifically with the non-actions of Wagner and Hotchkiss, that need explanation.
Wagner and Hotchkiss seem to exemplify what all Marlborough girls hope to become — strong and powerful women who run a respected institution. Wagner and Hotchkiss both position themselves as resources and support systems for all Marlborough girls. They preach about the safety and security of their students being their No. 1 priority. However, when a student actually goes to them for help, their safety and their emotional needs take a back seat to the reputation of Marlborough and its faculty.
I would like to say that what happened with Koetters was an isolated incident, but that would be untrue.
While I was a student at Marlborough, teachers and staff repeatedly crossed boundaries, interacting with us like we were adults, and not adolescents who were still growing and forming. As a student, I was privy to numerous inappropriate student-teacher relationships. Aside from Koetters, to my knowledge none of these relationships resulted in sexual abuse, but they did result in extreme distress, and still the institution of Marlborough did not take concrete actions in any of these situations unless forced to by parents. A female teacher became so involved in a student’s life that she sent secret messages and followed her off campus. There were teachers who instant-messaged students inappropriate and cryptic messages at all hours of the night, significantly blurring the line between right and wrong.
This paradox creates patterns of boundary-violating relationships that have been sanctioned by the school itself. The priority of Wagner, Hotchkiss and the faculty was not protecting the girls. They valued the institution above all else. Teachers were not fired or openly acknowledged as acting inappropriately unless parents and the students themselves fought to be heard. It should not have been this way. Young women who are taught to demand equality in academic spheres should not simultaneously be taught to be quiet when it comes to their safety and their emotional and physical well-being.
I wonder how Wagner, Hotchkiss and the institution of Marlborough can pride itself on its exceptional student body, the same student body that it doesn’t protect? In writing this, I am pleading for the institution of Marlborough to prioritize its students and their safety above all else. We need to value the voices of young women even when what they are saying may be hard to hear and even more difficult to address. The current scandal at Marlborough is not only about Koetters. It is about a school culture that needs critical self-evaluation that will lead to core changes. Marlborough needs to face the dangerous culture that it has created in order to stop allowing its students to pay the price of its neglect. Love for Marlborough must be questioned and reconstructed in order to endure.
Isabelle Sanderson is a Los Angeles native and currently a senior at Kenyon College in Ohio, studying psychology and trauma
Jewish leaders in Canada reacted with caution and disappointment to a decision by the country’s Supreme Court legalizing assisted suicide.
Canada’s high court struck down the country’s laws against physician-assisted suicide, meaning it will no longer be illegal for a doctor to help someone who is ill and suffering to end his life. But the ban struck down last week won’t be lifted for another year and assisted suicide will have conditions attached.
The Toronto Board of Rabbis, the country’s largest rabbinic group, has scheduled “a study day” for later this month to explore differing perspectives on the issue, board president Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl said this week, and later will issue a statement.
But in an email to JTA, Frydman-Kohl, of Toronto’s Beth Tzedec Congregation, the largest in Canada, said he was concerned the ruling “will blur the distinctive protection that we give to human life and diminish the desire to care with dedication and devotion for the weakest and most vulnerable of our society.”
Frydman-Kohl called for more support and comfort “to those who are dying, so that no one, because of loneliness, vulnerability, loss of decision-making ability or fear of pain and suffering, will feel a need to actively end life.”
The rabbi called on officials to view the judgment “in narrow terms and allow for freedom of conscience for health care workers who do not accept assisted dying as a medical response to pain and suffering.”
Frydman-Kohl also called for adequate funding for palliative and hospice care, “and excellent social support for the weak, the ill, the elderly, the disabled and those who are socially isolated.”
Toronto’s Vaad Harabanim, which represents Orthodox rabbis in the city, said it was “disappointed and distressed” by the court’s decision.
“For over three millennia, Judaism has taught the infinite value and sanctity of all human life and that we must seek to preserve it, while at the same time taking all responsible measures to comfort the ill,” the Vaad said in a statement Thursday. “To deliberately shorten a life by even one second is an act of murder that is interfering with G-d’s will.”
The court’s decision “reflects a dangerous trend away from the recognition of life’s inherent sanctity and presents a stark challenge to our nation’s morals,” the statement said.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, or CIJA, in a statement this week called the issue “complex” and said it will work to inform the community of “the implications of the decision and the ensuing legislation so they have greater understanding of an issue that touches many families.”
CIJA said it was “committed to ensuring the legislation gives Canadians full freedom to make decisions according to their unique personal circumstances, their conscience, and their religious beliefs.”
Rob Eshman: What year did you first meet Commander Media, the leader of the female militia you film in your documentary.
Itai Anglel: 2010. She was already a commander. So when I saw her now, it was very good, you know. It meant for her, you know, that, “Okay, it’s fine. He can join us. “
Rob: And you just crossed into Syria?
Anghel: I’ve been to Iraq four times and I’ve been to Syria two times. I have an American passport. I was born in the United States, but I never lived actually in the States because my parents have been studying in Columbia University in New York for six years.
Rob: But it still must give you an extra level of, I don’t know, caution or fear thinking what people would do to you in these places if they found out you were Israeli somehow.
Itai: Yeah. Of course. I deal with it a lot. I actually, you know, do some sort of techniques in order to make my way through all these very tense places. The way I see it is like that, I mean, if I will attract attention, then it is the beginning of the end. The thing is try not to attract attention. I mean, I try not to be interesting. I’m working on not being interesting when I’m working in journalism.
If I try to summarize it in one sentence, you know, whenever you feel anxious, whenever you look scared — and I’m scared, I’m scared to death — but whenever you look scared, then all the attention is on you, all eyes on you because you look like someone who has done something bad. You look like you’re guilty of something.
When you hang around in places where there are a lot of conspiracies among other people going on, so when they see someone look at his face, immediately, “Okay, who’s this guy? Why does he look like that?” So although I feel very scared of this outside I got to a point where, you know, when I got from the border of Pakistan to Afghanistan, it was exactly on the day that America began bombarding there and there was a lot of hostility in this specific place that I had to go through. They were chanting, “Death to Israel. Death to America!” and I would put my camera and there were like hundred men. And they burned the flag of Israel and they burned the flag of the United States.
So you know, the instinct is just to run away, but actually it’s not the place to run away. Running away was something that attracts attention. So I do exactly the other thing. I try to look at them, respond to, you know, even the problematic people around them. For example, one burned the Israel’s flag and they go straight to me. “Hello, who are you?” “I can speak some Arabic, I can speak English, I can speak whatever language you speak.”
He was smoking a cigarette, so I asked for a cigarette. I do not even smoke, by the way, but you know the circumstance. And I think in every moment — not in every moment — in every second back there I’m engaging myself in what they are thinking about me and how they see me. And when I ask him for a cigarette, I mean, obviously he doesn’t know me, but he has an idea of, “Oh, this guy looks cool. He probably used to come in here, probably know people in here.” And this is how I make my way. And I realized, I mean, the flag of my country is melting in front of me, so what I feel in my stomach is one thing, and the outrage is one thing, but on the outside I stepped on this flag, this part of this flag that is being melted as it had nothing with me.
And I talked to him and I give him the impression like, “Oh, great that you’re here. I’ve been looking for you. What are you doing right now?” and then, you know, it’s sort of a dance between us begins. This is actually the beginning for everything that I’ve done anywhere. I’ve been to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Gaza, whatever. This is the way I’ve been around, absolutely in contrast to what you would accept, contrary to what I would do, you know, normally. Now the situation is not normal, so you have to think out of the box. It’s what I’ve been doing in the past 20 years.
Rob: The fact that you have an American passport in a lot of these places doesn’t really protect you either. It’s not like America is that popular.
Itai: Yeah, exactly. I mean, the American passport enables me to put a step on the map, like when the Americans invaded Iraq, so with the American passport I could go inside. While inside it doesn’t have to do with nationality and it doesn’t have to do with your religion. It has to do with you being a human being. The way you manage to handle yourself socially. Normally, they don’t even ask you where you’re from. Really. And if they ask, I tell them that I’m an American. In Fallujah, for example, where they’re fighting against the Americans. I was there by the way, when the Iraqi sniper [Mustapha,made infamous in the American Sniper movie], you know, shot Marines.
Rob: From 'American Sniper.'
Itai: I tell [the Iraqis] that I’m an American. And they say, “Hey, hey, American is not good.” But I tell them in Arabic, “I’m an American, but I’m not a soldier. I’m not from the Army, I’m a journalist.” And when I speak in Arabic, believe me, they’re amazed, because it’s not that they saw during the 10 years that the Americans have been there someone speaking Arabic, without a professional translator.
So immediately the next question is, “How come you know Arabic?” And I told them that I studied, and then, immediately the next question that I know will be asked is, “Why do you study Arabic?” because they never saw an American make an effort to speak Arabic. And I told him, “Because I want to speak with you, I want to talk to you.”
And then something happened, you know. “Okay.” They see me. I’m alone usually. I’m also the cameraman and the soundman … I do everything by myself. So I’m not intimidating. I will never be intimidating.
Rob: But [ISIS] seems to especially hate journalists, right?
Itai: Yeah. This is in the specific territory of ISIS. I’ve been with the Kurdish guerrilla while I was taping them and knowing, without any doubts, that if I was caught within ISIS territory, I’m dead. So I went with a Kurdish fighter. I was in the front line but still with the Kurds. Had something happened to the Kurds, some sort of attack by ISIS and they would’ve managed to capture me. I mean, I didn’t even try to fool myself. I know what might’ve happened. But I trusted this guy.
Rob: Did the Kurds know that you were Israeli or Jewish?
Itai: I had, in this specific place, two people that they knew who I am. They knew the truth of me being Israeli, and because of my visit in 2010 and some Kurdish friends.
After the massacre in Sinjar, which was the biggest massacre that ISIS committed against the Iraqi Kurds, I talked to a friend and I felt like I really needed to go again and tell the story again. I tried to verify whether there is a possibility for me to hang around there. And a friend told me, “Yeah, why not?” I mean, it’s okay. I was not sure whether I really needed it, but slowly but surely I knew a conflict was built. It was two people, a man and a woman, and one of them from Syria and one of them from they were very interested in an Israeli coming there, but they knew who I am, because of my previous work. So they said okay, and they told me that I can absolutely trust them. So I trusted them. It proved to me the right assessment. And then, you know, I got in.
Rob: And these were Kurds? The people you trusted they were Kurds?
Itai: Obviously, yeah. Absolutely. So among them … they told me, “Listen, don’t share too much that you’re an Israeli because we know there are also, within the Kurdish area, a lot of Sunni Muslims that would’ve liked ISIS to capture the place. So if there is a rumor that is spread about an Israeli in here, it would be a problem.”
But little by little more people realized who I am. It was good, because normally I hide my identity and I occupy myself 24 hours a day, every minute and every second with what they think about me and how do a look. And it’s difficult because I’m a very honest man, but you have to live this part of lying and never tell the whole truth of who you are. I mean, I am an American with an American passport, but it’s not the whole story. You meet people, and you make friends, but you cannot tell them who you are. Even if I absolutely trust them, I cannot.
Rob: Right.
Itai: And this specific trip was amazing. It was a great relief because they knew who I am. They knew who I am. I didn’t have to engage myself in pretending.
Rob: So, say, like the female commander Media, she knew you were Israeli?
Itai: Yeah. Definitely. And then we kept another segment of this commander when she’s saying something specific about it because she knew that I’m an Israeli. She said, “The other people who suffer, the only people who suffer, the only community who suffer more than the Kurds, are the Jewish people. So we would’ve expected you, more than any other nation, to sympathize and to be our allies.” And we share the same enemies, by the way. And you, out of this genocide, managed to fight back to win, to have a state, an important state in the world. And this is the model we are looking for because this is our war for independence.” I was amazed.
Rob: Why did you cut that out of the documentary?
Itai: I don’t know. Instead of putting it inside the documentary, we decided, you know, when we go to the studio—because everybody was watching it live—and then you go to the studio and everybody is in love with this commander. “So now this is what this commander has to say about us.” And then we brought it up, so everybody saw it.
Rob: I see.
Itai: She referred mainly to the fact that Israel provided a lot of weapons to Turkey and a lot of drones to Turkey and these drones are used in order to shoot and kill people like her.
Even when I was there four and a half years ago, 2010, and I hung around where they take refuge and hide, there were drones, you know, even there. And they were Israeli drones!
Rob: Crazy.
Itai: They were operated by Israelis. Even in the toughest times of the relationship between Turkey and Israel, you still have the kid in Ashdod with joysticks between the Israeli army and the Turkish army.
Rob: So you could’ve been killed by an Israeli drone.
Itai: Yeah, exactly! That went through my head, you know. “If I’m killed now, it would be done by an Israeli weapon driven by Israeli people.”
Rob: It could be your cousin.
Itai: So, yeah, so this is, you know, she was referring to that.
Rob: And do you know if Israel is now helping the Kurds in the ISIS territory at all?
Itai: I don’t know too much about the [government], but after this documentary we made a lot of difference. So I mean, everybody was in love with the Kurds and everybody supported the Kurds…
Kurds have been enemies of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, our same enemies, and they share values like democracy and human rights. And then they see the Commander Media and then they see the respect for Israel — so everybody is absolutely in love with them. And everybody is very much enraged when they realize what we’ve done when they heard the commander. There was a lot of reaction right now.
Rob: How long total were you inside doing this documentary? How long were you inside Iraq and Syria doing the documentary?
Itai: Two weeks.
Rob: Two weeks.
Itai: More or less one week in Iraq, one in Syria.
Rob: Did you go in thinking it was going to be focused so much on this woman, or is that something you discovered when you got there?
Itai: No, I knew about [Media]. I wanted to make all the efforts to meet the woman. Obviously I didn’t know that I would be able to meet her. It was by chance. They told me, “Listen, there is a city of Mahmour that was held by ISIS and is liberated. We’re going in and we’re going to see the commander.”
And the commander I realized she is a woman, and Media. And I told the interpreter, “Why didn’t you tell me that the commander is a woman?” And they looked at me as if, you know, something is wrong with me, because they don’t differentiate. In Hebrew you say, Mefaked or Mefakedet (Male or Female Commander).
Rob: Right.
Itai: In Kurdish there is one word for male or female. So I was surprised. This is amazing! Nowhere else in the world.
Rob: You interviewed a man who said the woman are actually better fighters than men.
Itai: You know, in terms of feminism, it’s not that male fighters are their enemy. This is not like it happens with Western feminism. No, no, absolutely it’s like brothers and sisters are fighting together, trusting each other. It’s amazing. So I knew about all of the women because I saw them fighting two and a half years ago. I was very, very happy to meet the commander.
Rob: America and Israel have women in their armies, but these are really hardcore combat troops. I mean, they’re—
Itai: They are absolutely frontline. In Israel, you know, the idea to say that a women have liberty to make something big of themselves in the army, which is — I hate to say it — it’s bullshit. Everybody knows it’s bullshit …
ISIS is a very serious, complicated mission for the Kurdish guerrilla. It’s not that you’re looking for the most macho male. No. Sometimes it is the women who are doing all the jobs. And Mahmour was liberated only by women. They left more than 300 bodies of ISIS behind, and ISIS ran away, even from the neighboring region. And what is amazing is that women happen to frighten the [ISIS] men because, according to their perception, the theological perception of ISIS, if you get t killed in a combat, what is called “jihad”, you go to heaven.
Rob: Right, right.
Itai: But if a woman kills him, because a woman is not exactly a human being according to their perception of Islam, so you will not go to heaven. And therefore the ISIS panic by the presence of women. So if they engage in a battle they will try to kill the women first, and they’re thinking would be, as an ISIS fighter, “I have to kill the women, because if later on I would be killed by a man it’s okay because I would be in heaven. If a woman would kill me, then this is really the end. So, you know, I will try to make the effort to kill the women.” The women know that the ISIS fighters are getting panicked when they are out, so they signal them that they are there. We call it in Hebrew, if you’re like at an Oriental wedding, we call it hululu.
Rob: The war cry.
Itai: Yeah. So this is what the Kurdish women are doing. I think it’s a very, very crazy situation that these women make this scream you know only from—
Rob: Weddings, right.
Itai: —Parties. It was so crazy. And at night, when we were sitting by the fire one km from the ISIS lines. And I told them that I was Israeli and that these voices, you know, we call it hululu. We shout it at wedding and parties. They were laughing because they told me, “Listen, it’s not hululu, it’s pilili. That’s the way they call it. And it’s not so fun. It’s like a—
Rob: —War cry.
Itai: Yeah. Exactly. Even in the funerals — unfortunately you have a lot of funerals of male and female fighters there. It’s very emotional.
Rob: That was part of the documentary.
Itai: Yeah. You hear in the megaphone they make this pilili, because that’s a cry to show ISIS, “You can kill us, but we’re not backing off. We will put up a fight.”
Rob: The other really powerful part of the documentary is the interrogation of the ISIS fighters.
Itai: They were prisoners. And to me is very emotional because, you know, I knew, not as a friend, but I saw him as a filmmaker three times, James Foley. James Foley was the first one to be beheaded by them.
Rob: Right.
Itai: And when he entered Syria it was November 2012. He entered from Turkey to Syria, and this is exactly what I’ve done in November 2012, four or five days after he did it. Me and my colleague found out what is the distance between the route he had taken and mine: About a kilometer and half. So back then we realized it was very lucky.
But when we came in — because I saw him, you know, like three times and it was only, “Hey, take care. How are you? Take care.” We were not trying to mingle or to make friends in those places, because you know, I’m an Israeli and I want the least number of people to know about it.
Rob: Right.
Itai: My friend told me that he was a great guy and you could trust him.. So I tell him of this specific situation in our country. And then, you know, you hear that he has gone. When they [the prisoners] came in, you know, immediately I thought about him. What they might have done with him or not.
And then they’re talking so openly about how they beheaded, and how killed, how they just decided to tell, which was completely crazy, completely crazy, but I have to tell you it was also very, very, very interesting. I mean, besides the initial shock of mine, it was so interesting.
And I was given 20 minutes to talk to them, because even the process of getting this interview was, it was very abrupt. So we did the interview, and asked all the possible questions. And I can speak Arabic, but my Arabic is okay enough to get by. It’s not perfect, as I cannot understand every word, especially Iraqi Arabic.
Rob: What drugs did they take?
Itai: Hallucinogens. He was hallucinating. This is what he was saying. And one of them told that he remembers that he killed specifically three under drugs and he cannot tell how many women he raped. The one that was in Iraq told me that he doesn’t remember exactly if it’s 60, 70 or 80 people beheaded and killed.
Rob: But they almost said it with almost no emotion. Like nothing, just like kids talking about a book report or something? Was that shocking?
Itai: No, it was not shocking. You undergo under such a brainstorming. You do what God wants you to do. And they use a knifewhich is not so sharp, in order to increase the suffering of the one you’re beheading, “This is exactly what prophet Mohamed would’ve done, would’ve like you to do,” which, you know, according to any other Muslim in the world is completely far from it. According to them this is it. So they are good and they are fine.
Rob: They didn’t seem to be that educated. They didn’t seem to be that learned or even that religious.
Itai: Most of the soldiers anyplace are exactly like that, if you think about it. Most, the great mass of soldiers are people like that. But never in the history of the Middle East was such a conquest of territory in such a short period of time. They inflict terror among the population with a video clip. So all the people who are supposed to go out and fight them, watch it and run away in order to not to be burned or not to be beheaded. And the Kurds are the only ones to fight, which is amazing, the female and male fighters.
Rob: When I lived in Israel I knew some Jewish Kurds.
Itai: The Kurds are a nationality, and this is most important to more than 90 percent of the Kurds. But when you talk about religion, most of them by the way by origin are Muslim. But for them religion is not relevant. If they’re in guerilla, [religion] doesn’t even exist.
So you have the majority are Sunni Muslim, you have some Shia Muslim, you have Yazidi, and you have almost 200,000 Jews now in Israel and maybe in Jerusalem. And by the way, the relationship between Jews and Kurds over the years was amazing. Look at even the US warfare in Iraq. You had like 4,500 Americans killed, not one in Kurdish territory. I mean, it’s something there within this darkness of region you have like a light.
Rob: Are they observant at all?
Itai: No. I mean, they have mosques, you know, when you go to like big cities like Erbil. You hear them. But, you know, it’s not a factor. In the guerrilla army it doesn’t exist at all.
Rob: It’s all about the nationality.
Itai: It does exist, and you have also Christians by the way. And you have a very, very tiny minority who even go to ISIS. So you have some Muslim Kurds who are going to ISIS but then it’s a very tiny minority, but it exists.
Rob: When you told the ISIS prisoner that you were Jewish or Israeli, it looks like he couldn’t even process it.
Itai: Yeah. Unlike what people think in Israel and the government, we are not like the first priority of ISIS.
Rob: Right.
Itai: They told me, “Listen, we never encountered anything like it.” And when I ask them they specifically said, “Yeah, Israel is a Muslim territory, so we have to fight and kill the Israelis.’ But this is something they would say about Sweden and China and whatever.
Rob: Did the two ISIS prisoners, the two of them did they think they were going to be killed or executed?
Itai: I don’t know. Good question. When they were brought to the room they were blindfolded. And I think by then they realized that the Kurds are not killing them, but they didn’t know what they are coming to. And when my translator told them, “Listen, we’re journalists and I’m the translator.” “Okay, okay.” They realized that the Kurds are not killing them, not executing them.
Rob: So the Kurds really do just keep their prisoners.
Itai: A translator of mine walked out while the interview took place. Apparently she couldn’t go on sitting there when they were explaining how they take women, kidnap women and provide these women to the commander. And now they’re being raped and now they’re being sold for $20 if a woman is old, or $70 for a [12-year-old] because she’s worth more. She went out of the room and she was very, very emotional and upset. She’s very liberal and very intellectual. She said [just shoot them]. Why provide them with good conditions and later on, you know, there will be a prisoner’s exchange.
Rob: As an Israeli, it has to be surreal for you walking through Syria. I’m assuming you were alive in ‘73 or…? How old are you?
Itai: I’m 46.
Rob: But you remember the ’73 war, right?
Itai: Yes, I was 5 years old.
Rob: But, I mean, it must be surreal, right?
Itai: Totally. I was growing up with the idea that all Iraqis want to kill you, that all Syrians want to kill you. And then when I went to these places and see the reality to be different from what was being said. And I liked it very much, because they realized that the journalist every time I go to a place I learned something new and my knowledge multiplies by ten.
So I become only more curious every time there is place I think I know something about … I know it when I will be there. I will know for what is going on. And obviously there is a great curiosity.
Rob: And even, you’re giving these people voices.
Itai: Yeah, definitely.
Rob: Even the ISIS fighters, you’re not so much yelling at them or screaming. You’re just letting them talk.
Itai: Never. I mean, I’m talking a place where to me it was very clear the good guys and the bad guys, but normally it doesn’t exist. I gave a lot of voice to Palestinian because I’ve been a lot to Gaza and the West Bank from people from all over. Even when I began, in Bosnia. Each and every faction has something interesting to tell me. Because I’m coming from a land of disputes, so I know that there is not one complete black and white story. So I go to all the warring factions. There’s only two times I was not able to do that. I was not able to go into ISIS territory, but I was able to talk to the prisoners. I was listening to them, not proving them wrong, I’m hear to understand what they are doing.
Rob: Right. Do you have family?
Itai: No, I do not have children yet. I hope, you know, it will come soon. I have a girlfriend. But not married. You know, children hopefully, you know, will come soon. In this way of life it is very difficult–
Rob: I was going to say–
Itai: [But] … I still have something to do with this world regarding this job of mine.
Rob: Are you worried that ISIS knows how to use the internet just like you know how to use the internet. Are you worried they’ll see this and it’ll be harder to be discrete and go to these places without being recognized?
Itai: Well, obviously I’m burning myself little by little. I mean in Israel, where I’m more famous and everybody knows me, they think I’m committing suicide. But again it’s like everybody in Israel is thinking everybody in the world is watching Israeli television. No, nobody is watching. Only intelligence services. And I go only to countries where the intelligence in the country itself is completely in chaos. All the places I’ve been to — and I’ve been to dozens of places — are only in the moment where everything is crashed, the system is crashed, and anybody who is supposed to spot me is running away for his life.
Rob: So the safest time for you is when everything is in chaos?
This essay is part of a continuing dialogue on the nature of pro-Israel activism.
The disagreement between J Street and other pro-Israel groups continues.
In a recent op-ed, J Street’s Alan Eisner contended that Israel needs “fans, not cheerleaders,” arguing that American pro-Israel groups mindlessly root for Israel while fans would be more judicious, criticizing it for the occupation and the settlements.
That is the rub. J Street is fixated on blaming Israel for failed peace efforts and wants the United States to pressure the Jewish state to unilaterally bring about the two-state solution. But that view ignores dangerous realities.
It is not cheerleading to respect Israel’s right to require that a two-state solution does not turn into a repeat of the Gaza withdrawal, with Hamas taking over and escalating attacks against Jewish civilians, and that Israel’s ability to protect its citizens from terrorism is ensured.
It is not mindless cheerleading to point out that anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement pervades Palestinian society. Terrorists are glorified, town squares are named in their honor and the Palestinian Authority continues to reward with handsome salaries Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who have been convicted of terrorism. The greater the crime, the higher the salary.
It is not mindless cheerleading to emphasize that Israel offered precisely the two-state solution that J Street advocates but that Palestinian leaders rejected in 2000, 2001 and 2008. Those who do not hold the Palestinian leadership accountable are infantilizing them and perpetuating obstacles to peace.
It is not blind cheerleading to stress that Israel has reason to be cautious in an increasingly unstable and threatening region. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is spreading — recent reports indicate that it has followers in the West Bank and Gaza. Hezbollah is staking out positions in the Syrian Golan and openly threatens Israel. Hamas is repairing relations with Iran, remains pledged to the murder of Jews everywhere and the obliteration of Israel, and has resumed building cross-border terror attack tunnels. Islamist extremists are gaining footholds from Yemen to Libya. And Iran continues its genocidal rhetoric against the Jewish state, even as the outcome of negotiations about ending its nuclear weapons capability remains uncertain.
It is not cheerleading to counter the dangerous anti-Israel propaganda of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) that seeks to defame and delegitimize Israel. Although J Street opposes BDS, it prioritizes criticizing Israel and highlighting its shortcomings, which adds to the chorus of condemnation.
Eisner and J Street ignore these realities more than do pro-Israel groups who bring the issues to public attention.
J Street’s mission contradicts the decades-old policy of a bilateral, negotiated solution to the conflict. J Street hopes to marshal popular and official American support for the U.S. to impose a specific solution. J Street disparages existing pro-Israel groups, charging that they have worked against American and Israeli interests and against peace, earning the praise of Stephen Walt, co-author of the discredited and frequently anti-Semitic “The Israel Lobby.”
J Street drew a moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel during the 2008-9 war, and a prominent J Street member attempted to facilitate Judge Richard Goldstone meeting with congressional leaders about the discredited Goldstone Report that accused Israel of war crimes — before Goldstone himself recanted. During last summer’s Hamas-Israel war, as Hamas barraged Israel with more than 4,000 rockets and Hamas’ cross-border attack tunnels were exposed, J Street refused to participate in a Boston solidarity rally for Israel.
J Street opposes bipartisan legislation for renewed sanctions against Iran, demanding that Congress wait for the outcome of negotiations, even though many argue that this legislation would help the negotiations, and Israel views Iranian nuclear weapons capability as an existential threat and supports such a measure. And why would J Street have endorsed many 2014 congressional candidates known for their anti-Israel views?
J Street and Eisner feel it is important to criticize Israel’s policies but they don’t seem to feel the same need to criticize the Palestinian leadership, which has refused to make peace, continue negotiations, do the hard work of state building or denounce terrorism. One-sided criticism of Israel will not build up the Palestinians or bring us closer to peace.
It is not cheerleading to highlight Israel’s extraordinary accomplishments in re-establishing the Jewish state as a robust, pluralistic, progressive democracy, and in turning a third-world economy into a first-world economy on the cutting edge of innovations that benefits the world. That does not mean agreeing with all of Israel’s policies, but it does mean countering the anti-peace extremism and factual distortions that are now invading mainstream discourse. The Jewish state deserves no less as it navigates how to survive and thrive in a very dangerous neighborhood.
Roz Rothstein is the CEO and co-founder of StandWithUs. Roberta Seid, Ph.D., is the education and research director of StandWithUs.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm Ashton Carter as President Barack Obama's next secretary of defense.
Carter, 60, who was approved in a 93-5 vote, served as deputy defense secretary, the Pentagon's No. 2 position, from 2011 to 2013. He was also the Defense Department's chief weapons buyer from 2009 to 2011 when he led a major restructuring of the F-35 fighter jet program.
At his confirmation hearing on Feb. 4, Carter underscored his determination to boost the U.S. defense budget, drive down the cost of new weapons and make sure new technologies are delivered to troops quicker.
He also told lawmakers he was leaning in favor of providing arms to Ukraine but later cautioned that the focus of the international community's efforts to handle the crisis must remain on pressuring Russia economically and politically.
Carter will be Obama's fourth defense secretary, succeeding Chuck Hagel, who resigned under pressure last year.
We are now facing a genuine singles crisis. Lara, a successful 37-year-old chemist from San Diego, is concerned that her dream of marriage and a family will elude her. She rarely meets anyone for more than a few dates, and her only serious relationships have been long-distance ones. Jeremy, a 42-year-old good-looking accountant from Boston, has dated more than 200 women over a 25-year period and has just broken up with his fiancee after panicking for fear he had chosen the wrong one. For many singles, the best chance they have of coming home to someone else is if they have just had a burglary. Tens of thousands of Jewish singles in the United States are struggling to form and secure lasting relationships. Many are distressed and demoralized, further pressured by worried parents and grandparents. Jews, it seems, are not marrying. The former British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks has noted that nonmarriage is now more of a challenge to the viability of our community than interfaith marriage. According to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research, Jewish marriage rates in the U.S.have fallen to a new historic low. I cannot imagine another cause of this magnitude that would receive such a tepid response.
Many singles experience a huge amount of pain and frustration as they struggle for years to achieve their most important objective of getting married and having a family. The deep sense of frustration many singles experience is compounded by a community that they feel judges and blames them. A communal rabbi recently provided me with his verdict: “I’ve come to the conclusion that most singles don’t really want to get married, or they’d find a way.” Knowing that this rabbi had a child with educational challenges, I responded: “Like telling a child with dyslexia that the reason they are struggling to read is because they cannot be bothered, for if they cared enough, they’d figure it out.” It’s true, some people are single because they do not wish to be married, or are disinclined to make an effort — which is their prerogative. However, the vast majority of singles I meet try enormously hard to find a life partner, throwing toward that effort inordinate amounts of time, effort and money. To tell these people that they don’t want it enough is ignorant and hurtful. They need our understanding and support, not our judgment and criticism. Blaming singles for their struggles just adds insult to injury. As Bella dePaulo, an expert and author on the topic who teaches at UC Santa Barbara, has argued, disparaging singles — what she terms “singlism” — is about the only form of discrimination still deemed acceptable in our postmodern era.
What many singles need most is not someone else to meet, but to meet him or herself.
The truth needs to be told: Singles are generally trying their level best to succeed in relationships, but it’s not working out for many of them. So what to do? Let’s start by understanding the issue. Finding the right person is half of the dating challenge; being the right person is the other half. As a relationship coach, I am often asked, “Can you suggest someone nice?” as if meeting someone “nice” is likely to make the difference. The person who asks has almost certainly met dozens of “nice” people, so meeting one more is unlikely to resolve the issue. Many singles — and those whom they turn to for advice — are unaware that, most likely, some internal barrier is holding them back. Simply meeting a bunch of new people won’t wish that away. Arranging social events and providing matchmaking or dating services, while necessary, is nowhere near sufficient. Many people who attend singles events, though grateful for the opportunity, return home disappointed that it did not result in a meaningful chance at a relationship. Matchmakers, whether formal or informal, will tell you how frustrating it is making suggestion after recommendation only to be told that something or another is wrong, or doesn’t work. For someone who is struggling with some internal barrier, attending another singles event or being introduced to one more date is typically just another chance to experience failure.
What many singles need most is not someone else to meet, but to meet him or herself. Most of the singles I meet are highly successful and attractive people who are high-functioning in pretty much every other aspect of their life, but for some reason are falling down in this most crucial pursuit. What they need are the awareness and skills to successfully manage the internal resistance or limitation that is holding them back from enjoying relationship success. As long as the issues that are at the heart of the relationship struggles remain unaddressed, continued disappointment is far too likely.
A man approached me in a restaurant: “I’m looking for a beautiful, good Jewish girl; what advice can you give me?” In response, I quipped: “Try starting by being a beautiful, good Jewish boy!” So many people would have you believe that their problems are outside of themselves, and that if only Mr. or Ms. Right would show up, wedding bells would ring. If only it were so. Some of the people I work with have dated hundreds of people, and it is implausible that all of them were unsuited. We need to use education and coaching to encourage people to be Mr. or Ms. Right. Singles should know that while, of course, we don’t blame them for their difficulties, they can play a crucial role in improving their own chances for success.
When I first discovered this issue, I contacted two of the most important relationship organizations in the English-speaking world and asked them what they could offer singles. The response: “We are a relationship organization, so we focus on people who are in a relationship.” In other words, if you are married and your relationship gets into trouble, you have a relationship problem. But if your issue is that you are having trouble getting into a relationship in the first place, you are fine, because your relationship is not in crisis. This would be hilarious if it were not so tragic.
Determined that something had to be done, I became a relationship coach. I completed a doctorate and published a book on coaching psychology. Together with my brother Zevi, I established Jewish European Professionals, to provide high-quality events around Europe that would not only enable Jewish singles to meet, but also would provide valuable relationship education and coaching. Ever modest, I now provide relationship coaching under the banner of “The Singles Guru.” My practice and research with dozens of singles suggests that most people who are struggling to succeed in relationships are being hindered by a single key issue, of which they are generally unaware. With raised awareness of the nature of the issues and with support to devise personal strategies to cope with them, many people would be able to dramatically enhance their chances of relationship success. My learning from this journey is now the subject of my recently published book, “Relationship Coaching.”
People are often unfairly labelled “commitment-phobic.” Jonathan, a 39-year-old graphic designer from London, had a history of entering into relationships and breaking off when things started to get “too” serious. Then he started dating Debbie, who everyone insisted was ideal for him. Jonathan, however, was experiencing his usual misgivings: “There are some things about her that bother me; I can’t go through with this.” The reasons were flimsy at best, and by Jonathan’s own estimation, Debbie more than met his key requirements. Jonathan questioned, if she was so perfect for him, why is he so resistant to marrying her? Debbie was ready to quit, having put up long enough with Jonathan’s endless prevarications.
I helped Jonathan understand why he felt compelled to withdraw from suitable relationships — it is called “avoidant attachment orientation.” For various reasons, a person may develop an unhealthy relationship orientation, which sometimes manifests itself in an extreme fear of attachment. People who are fearful of attachment are ambivalent, desperately wanting closeness on the one hand, but afraid of it on the other hand. Thus, their relationships exist in a manic state of drawing close and pulling away. To their partners, this type of person appears highly inconsistent and unreliable, seemingly unable to stick to a relationship without escaping, often for contrived reasons, behaving as what psychotherapist Randi Gunther called a “relationship saboteur.” Jonathan was caught up in this cycle and was unaware of the madness that is running amok in his mind.
Until a person is aware that this is happening, they are largely powerless to help themselves. However, once a person becomes aware, the matter often can be easily addressed. On their next date, Jonathan required three attempts over an hour and half, but he finally did propose! They are now happily married with a child. The problem for most singles is not that they are picky — they are stuck. If we are serious about making an impact on this issue, we need to help them become unstuck. It’s that complicated and that simple.
Rabbi Yossi Ives is an experienced relationship coach based in London, focused on helping singles find relationship success. He is the author of “Relationship Coaching” (Routledge, 2014) and is the co-founder of JEP, a European singles organization. Ives wrote this piece while visiting L.A. to set up a singles project in the United States. He can be reached at yossi@singlesguru.co.uk.
