Rosner’s Domain: Proof of Adaptation

At the end of last year, attempting to summarize an eventful twelve months in a short 700-word article, I concluded with the following thoughts: “Proportion is essential. This was a challenging year; bad, but not the worst ever. With luck, when the pandemic is under control and the economy recovers, we might even remember it with bemusement and slight nostalgia: ‘Remember the year of the pandemic?’”.

What a fool I was. I could have written something else and saved that paragraph for this year. Instead, I’d write something slightly different: Remember the year when we thought the pandemic would be over by next year? I remember it, even though the time that has passed since the beginning of the pandemic is somewhat blurred. I also remember that both those two years, the one before last, when we thought the pandemic might be over soon, and the last, in which we realized that it’s going to take more time, were not the worst ever. 

When Rosh Hashanah arrives, it is better to focus on the good things that we have, rather than the bad things with which we must cope. 

Here is one good thing: the print is not dead. Proof: you hold a print issue in your hands. Here is another good thing: the Jewish people is still a living entity. Proof: you hold a print issue of the Jewish Journal in your hands. Here is another good thing: Israel is still around, amid political chaos and other hurdles. Proof: you read a column written in Tel Aviv. I write it as the people around me deal with the following challenges: one son just ended a short quarantine and goes back to work. He does not have COVID. One son just went back to the military, having spent more than a week at home, because more than thirty cases of COVID in his unit. Another son decided to take the risk and go to central America for a few weeks of vacation. We all assume he will get the virus. My daughter is going back to school, vaccinated twice. My wife and I work mostly from home, vaccinated three times. 

Three times! Israelis, as frustrated with their old or new government as they might be, should stop and take a minute to appreciate their good luck. Three times! Israel was an early vaccinated country. Then it was a vastly vaccinated country (with the usual share of detractors who still refuse to do the obvious thing). Then it was the first to take the risk and vaccinate us with a third shot. And again, this operation we quick and efficient. Two days after the third shot was offered, and two minutes after I entered the clinic, the process was over. More than a million and a half Israelis got the shot in less than two weeks—that, in a country of ten million (many of which are children who can’t even get the vaccine). 

Forgive me for feeling lucky on this new year’s eve. Forgive me for feeling that the year was not a bad year. Sure, it was complicated. Sure, it was challenging in many ways. But complications and challenges are not necessarily bad. They force us to rethink our models of living. They force us to reinvent our relationships and communities. They force us to rescale our priorities. We see people all around us doing these things—thinking afresh about work and life, reimagining ambitions, redesigning routines. 

In the book “Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure,” by Tim Harford, there’s a wonderful story about guppy fish, who have less color if they live downstream and are more colorful if they live upstream. Harford describes the work of the researcher who cracked the mystery of this color difference, and then writes something quite illuminating. We, as people, tend to think about our life as if we are the researcher who can manipulate the colors of fish—but, in fact, we are the guppy. We are the fish. When we adapt, this is not about something that we do but often something that is done to us—like a pandemic. The wise guppy understands that when circumstances change, and he cannot control the change, what is left are three possibilities: try new things; try them with caution—to make sure that in case the trial fails it doesn’t kill you; identify failure and learn from it.    

Have we tried? Have we made sure to survive? Have we learned by trial and error? I think we did. Proof: you hold a print issue of the Jewish Journal in your hands.

Something I wrote in Hebrew

Here I will share paragraphs from what I write in Hebrew (mostly for themadad.com). Today, something about justices’ state salaries, and how Israelis view them:

“Israelis who identify with the right, and Israelis who identify as religious and ultra-Orthodox (in many cases these are overlapping definitions), are less trustful of the justice system. Therefore, they would cut more of the judges’ salaries. Israelis from the left, secular Israelis, trust the judiciary. Although they also think that judges’ salaries should be cut, in their case the cut is not accompanied by a sense of desire to punish or weaken the judiciary. They just think the judges are earning too much.”

A week’s numbers

The data gathered by the “who is a Jew” public opinion project, a joint venture of themadad.com and Israel’s public TV, is fascinating. Here is one bit of it, representing the average view of Jewish Israelis. If you’d like to join in and answer the challenging questions (in English), there’s no better time than the beginning of a new year. Try: themadad.com/whojewworld

A reader’s response:

Responding on twitter @rosnersdomain Daniel Kupervaser argued that what Biden wants from Bennett is for “Jews to continue the massive funding of American elections”. 

My response: Daniel is Israeli and hence doesn’t see how inappropriate it is to make such comment. Because of their special circumstances, Israelis, by and large, lost the anti-Semitism sensors that Jews had been carrying around for the last two millennia.  

Shmuel Rosner is senior political editor. For more analysis of Israeli and international politics, visit Rosner’s Domain at jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain.