L’Chaim! Two Jews with Opposing Views
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
“L’Chaim” is the Hebrew toast “To Life!” It’s also the name of a radio show, which is fitting as “L’Chaim” is more than an invitation to share a schnapps, but perhaps a whole life (see Fiddler on the Roof), or at least a friendly conversation about serious things.
And a friendly conversation about serious things is what we had on “L’Chaim Jewish Radio” live on the WCAP 980 AM airwaves. Or you could call it a passionate but polite debate, since L’Chaim’s host – longtime New England Jewish community activist Jim Shainker – and I are in diametric disagreement on almost everything regarding Israel and Palestine, Hamas and Likud, war and peace, and the “Zionist Colonial Project.”
Lazy lefty that I am, I prefer preaching to the choir, and I’d much rather make love not war. But occasionally I enjoy sparring with the opposition, especially for a worthy cause (and what is worthier than peace and a free Palestine?), and especially over a drink. In this case, it being 7am (PST), the drink was freshly brewed coffee, heavily spiked with coconut milk.
I felt like I was entering enemy territory through my cousin Jimmy’s living room. Jim and I bonded over our Jewish roots, notably our mutual admiration for my old rabbi, the late great Gerald Wolpe, the Zero Mostel of Philadelphia’s Har Zion Temple, who presided over my entire Judaic youth as well as my wedding to Max 33 years ago. Max also loved Rabbi Wolpe mainly because, upon hearing that Max (a Jewish convert) was uncircumcised, he shrugged his big heimish shoulders as if to say, “Don’t worry, I won’t cut you,” causing Max to exhale with great relief. I also just found out Rabbi Wolpe was the primary caregiver for his beloved aphasia-stricken wife – an eerily similar relationship to mine with Max who also just had a stroke, and now has aphasia – and I can almost hear Rabbi Wolpe’s resonant baritone guiding the two of us through the darkness of these times.
Back to L’Chaim, where I mentioned a Jewish social club near Yale’s campus called Shabtai where I gave a talk 20 years ago about the Biblical heroine, Queen Esther during the now-legendary Sex Week at Yale (ah memories). Back then, Shabtai felt like a lively, open-minded salon fostering a free-ranging exchange of ideas over latkes and slivovitz – L’Chaim! Two decades later, I realized that Shabtai had taken a hard turn to the right – or maybe I was just getting “woke” to what it was – when I found in my inbox an invitation to a Shabtai “lunch” with none other than Israel’s infamous Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir.
Yes, that Ben Gvir (and no, I didn’t go) – Netanyahu’s right-hand hardliner, a man whose hands are dripping with so much blood, Lady Macbeth herself would tell him to take a shower and a long, hard look in the mirror. Most tragically, a great deal of that blood belongs to innocent Palestinians, slaughtered by Israeli bombs and starvation.
“It’s a Shonda!” I cried, using the Hebrew word for “shame” to describe the Netanyahu regime and all of Israel’s monstrous assault on the Palestinian people.
“No, it’s not a Shonda!” Jim retorted, trying to defend Israel with all the heart and heimishness he could muster, though I could sense some wobble in his position. At least, he professed to dislike Netanyahu, and he joined me in condemning the Zionist thugs who harassed and assaulted lone female pro-Palestine protestors and passers-by on the streets of Brooklyn after Ben Gvir’s inflaming appearance.
Still, how could he defend what I called the Zionist Colonialist Project – punishing the Palestinians for the sins of the Nazis, serving as a military outpost for America (another colonialist project), confiscating native lands and building an apartheid society – even with so-called liberals running the government? In addition to being horrified as a human, I felt embarrassed as a Jew, stung by this sense of collective mortification for the sins of my murderous Zionist brethren.
“And no, I’m not a self-hating Jew,” I assured Jim. “In fact, I’m very self-loving, and tis the Season of Self-Love! Happy M Month (I didn’t say “Masturbation Month” – as I didn’t want to be censored over sex on a show about Israel’s war crimes)! Give yourself a hand. And stop stealing land.”
“They’re not stealing land!” Jim protested.
I honestly wish Jim was right, but there are numerous documentaries about Zionist settlers’ land theft, violence, arson and further misbehavior, including our friend, the amazing Abby Martin’s Gaza Fights for Freedom and many more since then. Israeli settlers help themselves to Palestinian land, homes, farms and olive groves like they’re on a government-subsidized, army-defended shopping spree – and they are! What they can’t steal, they blow up… with US-taxpayer-financed explosives. Jim wasn’t buying what I was saying, but he did let me say it on his program. Seems we also have a common interest in Free Speech.
Which brings me to where Jim found me: on another WCAP show, Active Radio hosted by the delightful Hartley Pleshaw, where I delivered my 5th annual State of the Sexual Unionaddress and talked about the bonobos who show us the way to peace through pleasure, as opposed to war for profit or, in the case of Zionist Israel vs. Palestine, genocide for profit. In between segments about caretaking Max and taking Zuck the Cuck to court, I expressed my rising support for a Free Palestine and loathing for Bibi and Don the Con’s Trumpocalyptic plans for a Gaza Trump Plaza on their Gaza Riviera built on the bones of slaughtered Palestinians.
At this point, Jim texted in to *correct* me, saying “Israel is at war with Hamas, not the Palestinian people.”
Oh, please.
With a heavy heart (I was there to talk about making love, not war… sort of), I replied that over 100,000 dead and wounded Palestinians would beg to disagree, pretty much dismissing Jim’s critique as “the standard Zionist hasbara” (propaganda) and doubling down on my disgust with Israel’s ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in their homes, schools and hospitals, as well as social media’s censorship of pro-Palestine views. I also unsubtly mentioned my Judaic credentials (I’m a Jewish Bloc/k for Palestine, baby!), and Jim invited me onto his show. He is, after all, a nice Jewish liberal. Yes, liberals may have paved the way for our current authoritarian nightmare, but where there is liberalism, there is hope – and usually, a fairly well-stocked bar – L’Chaim!
So… I went on Jim’s show and had the conversation my Zionist friends and relatives will never have with me – or at least, the beginning of such a conversation. I listened and tried to understand Jim when he spoke, and he listened to me. At least, he seemed to be listening, and not just wondering if his Zionist sponsors or in-laws were listening. We didn’t interrupt each other very often – especially for two Jews with such opposing views.
I imagine it will disappoint most people I know for opposing reasons. My Zionist family members and old friends now living in Israel will be mortified that I openly expressed such pro-Palestine views at all, let alone on a Jewish show (if they read my articles and listened to my own shows, they’d be more mortified). On the other side, my pro-Palestine friends will feel I wasn’t hard enough on Jim for supporting blood-drenched Israel’s “right to exist” or “the Israeli people” who elected Netanyahu whose definition of that “right” includes perpetrating a genocide. Or maybe they feel I shouldn’t even go on an Israel-supportive show like L’Chaim. While I respect that opinion, I don’t share it. Jim isn’t a war criminal, and I’m not a firebrand; I’m a sex therapist with pro-bonobo tendencies and an ardent desire to get the “free Palestine” message heard.
And Jim did let me have the last word. After dispelling another stubbornly lingering bit of Zionist hasbara that Hamas had burned Israeli babies in ovens on October 7, 2023 (it never happened!), I made sure to tell the L’Chaim Jewish Radio audience that, just in case they haven’t seen the numerous horrific photos and videos:
“Babies are being burned in Gaza [by Israel].”
And then, our time was up. “Wonderful to talk to you,” boomed congenial Jim before inviting me back for a future round. It’s not like holding peace talks in Qatar, but “L’Chaim” made me feel that dialogues can develop, and that someday (hopefully before it’s too late), the Bonobo Way of peace through pleasure can prevail over perma-war for profit, and that Palestine will be free. And maybe so will “wandering Jews” like me… and Jim.
It’s a drop in the bloody bucket of hasbara, but perhaps speaking directly to American Jewish communities like those served by L’Chaim Jewish Radio could help shift public opinion toward a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, a rejection of Zionist apartheid and a more evolved and dare-I-say *respected* Jewish people around the world.
To life! To friendly conversations on serious topics and a Free FREE Palestine.
Listen to L’Chaim: 2 Jews with Opposing Views on DrSusanBlock.com or Bonoboville YouTube.
