Upstream - Palestine Pt. 10: Healing from Zionism w/ Meital Yaniv

Starting point is 00:00:00 Ah Ah When I really understood that my liberation is actually interconnected When I really understood that my liberation is actually interconnected with Palestinian liberation and with black liberation and with indigenous liberation and that all of that is actually interconnected and I show up for myself because when I free myself I free the land and I free the ancestors and we're not just like singular beings moving through the planet. So from that place bringing the identity and the

Starting point is 00:00:46 state together to its death is an offering. We understand that we cannot continue and by any means necessary it's like another way of saying never again. We have become the never again so how do we bring that cycle to its death? You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Robert Raymond.

Starting point is 00:01:16 And I'm Della Duncan. What Israel is doing right now has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. What Israel is doing right now is a genocide. What Israel has been doing for the past 75 years is apartheid, is occupation. There is no need for any one of us to serve in the IDF. The IDF should not exist. The state of Israel should not exist. The state of Israel should not exist. These are the words of a former Israeli soldier turned anti-Zionist organizer, Meytal Yanni. Meytal describes himself as a death laborer,

Starting point is 00:01:56 tending to a prayer for the liberation of the land of Palestine, and has recently written the book, Bloodlines, which traces their paternal lineage being survivors of the Holocaust and subsequently migrating to Palestine. From there, Metal traces their lineage through indoctrination into Zionism and as settler colonists and defenders of the so-called state of Israel. Metal then describes their refusal to serve in the IDF and their subsequent departure from Israel and development into a death doula for Zionism and Israel. In this conversation with Metal, we hear about what it's like to be raised quote, extremely

Starting point is 00:02:36 Zionistic and to serve in the IDF. We learn about the consequences of trauma that is passed down intergenerationally and what's necessary to truly heal individually and collectively. We explore how to talk to people who defend Zionism and the state of Israel, and what the tradition of Judaism would say about Zionism and the genocide of the Palestinian people. And finally, Metal offers invitations for how we can all contribute to bringing the state of Israel to an end for the liberation of Palestine. And before we get started, Upstream is almost entirely listener funded. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. There are a number of ways in which you can support us financially. You can sign up to be a Patreon subscriber, which will give you access to bonus episodes,

Starting point is 00:03:27 at least one a month, but usually more, along with our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes at patreon.com forward slash upstreampodcast. And you can also make a tax deductible recurring donation or a one-time donation on our website, upstreampodcast.org forward slash support. Through your support, you'll be helping us to keep upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going.

Starting point is 00:03:54 Socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund, so thank you in advance for the crucial support. And now, here's Della in conversation with Mehtal Yaneem. So good to be with you. Thank you for joining me. We love to start with our guests introducing themselves. So would you mind introducing yourself? Yeah, thank you for having me. My name is Maitalia Neve. My first name means dew water, like the warning dew. And my last name means will bear fruit. And those meaning makings happen in Hebrew, which is my mother tongue.

Starting point is 00:04:49 I am queer, trans, non-binary, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Arab, Jewish, move through the world in a white body. And I reside on the home and gathering place of the Kuya, Tongva, Luciano and Serrano. I'm a death laborer. I am tending to a prayer for the liberation of the land of Palestine and the land of our bodies. Yeah, hello. Hello, yes, and thank you for that introduction. Particularly as we are a podcast, it's helpful to hear about the being behind the voice. So thank you for that introduction. And our show is called Upstream and it comes from a parable that we heard from Public Health,

Starting point is 00:05:48 but it's this parable about the challenges of our time and then going upstream to the root causes. And so just to start there, you know, as we as we sit together in conversation and you feel into what's happening in the world, near and far and all over. What is it that's happening in the world that's breaking your heart or concerning you at this moment? It's hard not to say everything. And I want to leave room for all the things that I still don't know that are currently

Starting point is 00:06:21 breaking my heart. And I say that because even that just that notion of upstream to get to the root cause makes me think about something that I forget and remind myself constantly which is that we are currently on a planet that is moving through space and aside from gravity what is up and what is down actually? So I think about the concept of sky routes a lot, and just that like, you know, up is down and forward is backward and what is actually direction. But then there is a direction in our heart.

Starting point is 00:07:00 And I think that direction in our heart is actually connecting us to everything, which is why I want to stay also in not knowing what breaks my heart, because there's many things that I do know, and I want to stay in the wonder of not knowing that so many other things I am connected to unconsciously that are constantly breaking my heart. In this moment, I also cannot not think about the Salman as like moving upstream and trying to return home and that notion of trying to return home. What breaks my heart, what has been breaking my heart is the genocide in Gaza, the genocidal ethnic cleansing apartheid regime that has been ruling the land of Palestine for over 75 years.

Starting point is 00:07:50 What breaks my heart is all the beings who are currently being tortured and found in mass graves. After being tortured, what is happening in the West Bank, what is happening inside Israeli prisons, just the level of untamed brutality and confusion of where is home and what is home. And how do we move upstream or downstream or in all direction to find the home that is already here, which is this earth. What breaks my find the home that is already here, which is this Earth. What breaks my heart is everything that is dying in this moment in relation

Starting point is 00:08:31 to how we have shaped this Earth planet. What breaks my heart is seeing police officers that have been trained by Israeli soldiers moving with the same brutality against students who are peacefully calling attention to a genocide that we should all be trying to stop. What breaks my heart, I think the most is that nothing has stopped, is that we've been in this genocidal cycle for seven months now almost, and we're still supposed to go to our jobs

Starting point is 00:09:09 and just that nothing makes us actually stop and understand that we're lost looking for home because home is already here. Yeah. I hear you and thank you. And of course, you're not alone in that heartbreak. And yet your bloodlines and your lived experience and your ancestral experience give you a very interesting upstream perspective on that heartbreak.

Starting point is 00:09:36 So I'm wondering if you can share that too, when you go upstream from the apartheid regime, from the genocide, from the confusion, from the desire for home and belonging and yet that being erected or created in ways that do not actually bring us home and belonging. What do you find is the root causes? What are those root causes that you see when you go upstream from that heartbreak?

Starting point is 00:10:02 I feel, I published a book in December of 2023 called Bloodlines, and it's a prayer to bring the Israeli identity and state to a loving and caring death. And it starts like the first cycle of that book is what my Ashkenazi ancestors survived by surviving World War II and the Holocaust, and how their survival also matches up

Starting point is 00:10:31 with the creation of what we still call the State of Israel. And there's a reason there, like I'm starting, in this journey, I'm starting from the wounds. And there's something about returning to open wounds that were never healed. That is, for me, I had to find my heart to enter those spaces because the generational obsession with victimhood is there and the fear of annihilation is there. And everything that has caused those root traumas to really solidify into ever ending wounds,

Starting point is 00:11:11 bleeding wounds that even when they don't bleed, they never quite scar. And even when they scar, they don't quite heal. And just really being able to like massage that inner tensions had to come from my heart. And for that I had to find my heart. So I think that's maybe like the first journey of understanding that I say this often

Starting point is 00:11:36 that I feel like my indoctrination into an Israeli soldier, a Zionist soldier really started in the womb. And I feel like I've left my mother's womb stitched into a uniform, like a soldier uniform that has grown with me. And there's something about the relationality between finding those beginning moments and then connecting them to what caused that, right?

Starting point is 00:12:02 So what caused that to happen in the womb? Where are the spells that were placed in my body while I was in the womb in order for me to become the things that can protect them from what they cannot engage with, right? Yeah, I feel like I took us on an upstream circle, spiral, and I'm wondering if you want to redirect me to exactly the question you were asking. Well, I really hear, you know, that your upstream answer for what's happening right now in Palestine

Starting point is 00:12:37 is in one way that I would describe it. Maybe you would use these words too, but intergenerational trauma and this idea of hurt people, hurt people, healed people, heal people. So one thing I'm hearing is that when you go upstream from what's happening, you trace, you know, in your own bloodlines, but also the bloodlines of the people of what is called Israel, that this pain, this trauma,

Starting point is 00:13:01 which in other conversations, I've even heard you go back to Germany, really interestingly, and the healing that's needed there, but that that lack of healing and that violence and that trauma that then led to maybe a searching for or even an acceptance of Zionism as this kind of answer to that. So maybe you can speak more about that, those connections, those weavings. Yeah, I mean, one of my biggest fears at the moment is that, you know, we find ourselves as Jewish people recreating the next cycle of this, we are Germany, where we are all of a sudden selling arms to Postinians, you know, and I say this, and I'm not even sure that it's my place to say

Starting point is 00:13:47 this, but it's coming from a place of asking how do we recover from this? So from everything that we've witnessed and experienced and has happened to our bodies in the last seven months, not to mention like the last 75 years, but everything that we have experienced in the last seven months, how do we recover that from that knowing that it's already in our DNA? And then how do we make sure that we're not recreating the cycle? So what I see happening in Germany right now

Starting point is 00:14:16 is just a whole population moving from shame and guilt. Like the pain of what they did is so big that it's not even... Like there's a wall, an upstream wall, if you will, that doesn't even let them get to the root because in order to get to the root they really need to forgive themselves for what they did. So I think it's my place these days to be like, I forgive you. Like I really do. My ancestors forgive you, but can you please go upstream, downstream,

Starting point is 00:14:46 in all directions, just find the cause, because what you're doing with it right now is actually recreating the cycle. So I think for me, from that same place, I want us to stay in the ever-wondering not knowing of what's next. I say this often, that I don't believe from this positionality, Israelis or Jewish folks get to imagine Palestine when Palestine is free. We are living through our wildest imagination and it's killing everyone we come in contact with, including ourselves.

Starting point is 00:15:20 So from this positionality, can we imagine ourselves healed? Can we imagine ourselves free when Palestine is free? And then from that place, coming to right relationships with what does it mean to show up from a place of love and not shame, guilt, punishment, and all those other recycling of the cycle elements. And then within my own lineages, it's really been about... You know, I also like like I fear leaning into the Holocaust

Starting point is 00:15:49 too much into what we're seeing right now is because of that which obviously it is but there's something about it that almost makes it feel like Israelis have no choice in this you know like we must recreate what has happened to us. And of course, that within the trauma brain, that is true. But I think there is like a personal responsibility at this point to wake up from it. And I don't know that we could have expected our ancestors, right, our great grandparents to get to a place of healing from the trauma that they have moved through during the Holocaust, giving the extent of that trauma. But these days, like three generation, four generation,

Starting point is 00:16:33 five generation out, it's really on us to stop being moved from that and kind of be like, okay, we can trace how we got here, but how are we? How do we want to keep walking? Is this really what we want to keep on doing? Is this really how we heal? And obviously not, but the fear of what will happen if you change your mind is so engraved since childhood. And again, I'm not saying it is an excuse, I'm saying it is a way to really understand what we're looking at right now. Because what we're looking at right now is, you know, Israeli soldiers that are thinking that they're saving their grandmothers by really mimicking the atrocities we saw in the Holocaust. Like those mass graves, like we know, we know them, you know, tortured, starving bodies. We know how that looks.

Starting point is 00:17:27 Rubble, like all of that, we know it in like an ancestral way. So to be the person who's recreating it, while you still think that you're the thing that is under attack, like what kind of web is that and how do we cut through it? And I think the way that we cut through it is really through true belonging, which is again our heart and the only place we actually true truly belong to which is this earth, this planet, these elements and how do we get to right relationship with all that is alive in order to find our aliveness in that. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how we get there

Starting point is 00:18:06 and I think it's a good thing. I think if we knew how to get there, it wouldn't be real. And part of the undoing or what needs to be composted or what needs to die is Zionism. And I know that you explore in your book or you describe in your book how you grew up with the indoctrination. And I'm wondering if you can share with us what are the values, the worldviews, the paradigms within Zionism as you experience them, particularly growing up so that those who maybe didn't can feel into what that looks and feels like. Yeah, it's a really interesting question to explore because I think what Zionism gave me to keep me

Starting point is 00:18:56 is kind of like an elimination of any other way. So I was raised very Israeli, very Zionist, very non-Jewish, because Jewish values and Zionist values actually cancel each other out most of the time. So if you like strip the Jewishness away, and if you strip the lineages away, right, so the Arab-Jewish lineage got completely assimilated, The Sephardic Jewish lineage got completely assimilated. Ladino Arabic language that I should have known were never passed to me. Even the Ashkenazi side, Yiddish was never passed to me, but also the trauma was never passed to me in a conscious way. And that's where it gets really

Starting point is 00:19:41 interesting because obviously the trauma bodies have raised me. And that's why I know that trauma from within. That's why I can, you know, in this book, like really allow my great grandma to write this book through me and to relive those memories that feel like they're in my body, even though I've never consciously in this lifetime lived them. But even that, to take away the ability to speak about it, to open it up, to be in relationality around it, it was closed and it was away and it was shameful to bring it up. It was something we needed to forget. And by forgetting it, it became its own entity within us, obviously. So all these things that were supposed to hold me within culture, lineage, memory work, even I would say, connection to practices of the places where my people came from, which is like Palestine, Greece, Poland, all those places were like, we can't go back there. So you take all that

Starting point is 00:20:40 away. And what you give is Zionism and militarism. And the way that they work together is Zionism is what saves us, militarism is how we keep ourselves safe basically. So you really make it be about love in that way. So the way that we are loved is through how strong of a soldier we are or how strong of a soldier we will become and And what do we need to protect in that? So when the whole, you know, like it's such a grandiose way to raise a child's nervous system, thinking that this entire idea of Jewishness and they make it worldwide, right? It's not about Israel.

Starting point is 00:21:20 When I grew up in Israel, they made it about every Jew in the world is dependent on you keeping us safe. And it's actually fascinating for me in this moment in time where we're at right now to think about the fact that Jewish American folks here on Turtle Island, Zionist American Jewish, Zionist period, are really, they feel like their safety is dependent upon the state of Israel, which, I mean, you know, just like in the logic place, it's kind of far away, even though I keep saying there's no here and there, Israel is far away from here. Like if something happens, I don't know, you can get there, you know? And then another thing is like, not only you can't

Starting point is 00:22:05 really get there, you don't want to live there. You obviously want to live here, but you want that place to continuously exist for your safety. And which first of all makes us Israelis, like you are literally killing us because of this need of yours. Like you're killing a spiritually morally physically where are your soldiers so that you can feel safe so far away but at the same time. That fear of safety i think is real. But it's really within the trauma. It has nothing actually to do with Israel. It has nothing to do with Zionism. It has everything to do with the trauma that happened to you

Starting point is 00:22:49 where you feel like you need to have a security blanket. And for some reason Israel became that security blanket because Israel became nothing but Zionism. So I think there's a way in which we need to reroute to the root cause of what caused that unsafety and from that place also return to the practices and the lands, right? This is like becoming a little bit of a tangent, so please stop me if you need to. But I feel like, you know, in this, a month ago when Iran sent missiles, right? And like people in Israel first of all got a notice that this is about to happen. Everyone had a shelter to go into. We have iron dooms. We have

Starting point is 00:23:33 like we knew that the missiles are not really going to hit the ground. The U.S. like people helped us to do that. All that sharp null still went into the ground, proudly killed so many living beings. Not to mention what it's killing right now in its way of into waterways, plants, whatever it is, right? Like all that sharp null is actually real. So what even is that? What even is that like obsession with a state, but a complete disengage with like the land, right? So like we're obsessed with states that are upon lands that we do not care about. And how do we return to really understanding,

Starting point is 00:24:16 how do I take care of everything that is alive on this land? Including ourselves, of course, but like how do we get back to that? And from that place, how do the then we understand, oh, Jewishness, my lineages, my cultures actually give me a way in there. The Zionism took away from me. That Israelism took away from me. Yeah, thank you for that.

Starting point is 00:24:40 And I'm really thinking of this quote about there are times when humanity saws off the limb from the tree that it perches on. And as you were describing this kind of feeling of being cut off from the roots and from, you know, you said traditions and language and ancestral, also, you know, Jewish heritage. And it's like that sawing off the limb and really the separation and the and then the othering, the dehumanization is another thing I've heard you speak about and how that has really created this this fortress. And I really hear you when you say this kind of pressure that that must be felt of protecting all the world's Jewish people.

Starting point is 00:25:24 And the yeah, the indoctrination of that, the fact that all Israelis need to do service, that's such an interesting element of it. And then also this- The fact that we call it service, right? Yes. Even that. Yes. Like we call it service.

Starting point is 00:25:41 Yeah. And Israeli defense. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and Israeli defense. And then also the birthright travels or the trips. That's an interesting element to this too. Yeah. And I wonder, well, do you have anything more to say about that? That separation, that othering, that humanity sawing off the limb from the tree that it perches on? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, you know, it's for those of their listening that have never been on the land of Palestine, it's so very small. Everything that is being thrown into the sea in Gaza is literally going to be in Tel Aviv tomorrow. into the sea in Gaza is literally going to be in Tel Aviv tomorrow. The land space is actually extremely small. So when we bomb and when we use white phosphorus, when so

Starting point is 00:26:34 much is being used to exterminate another being that is living on the same land as yours, all of that goes into the water we drink later. All of that goes into the land that grows our food later. So it's just like the level of needing to other, not only another being, but to other yourself from the land that is actually keeping you alive in order to participate in that. So, so I see it as like almost like a double othering. There's like the, the, again, the generational training to see Palestinian as non-human. It's not even, I don't even like to say non-human because non-human brings it into a conversation about humanity, which

Starting point is 00:27:14 separates us from everything else that is alive. But there is something about seeing, being trained to see Palestinians as, it's almost as nothing but an enemy, nothing but an evil that wants to throw you into the sea. And in order for a human mind, heart, spirit, a human body that is full of senses and alchemy and and like technology that we can't even fully understand. In order for all of that to be shaped and to see someone who looks exactly like you as someone you not only deserve to kill but must kill, that really it's generational but it also means that all of the senses had to be shifted, that something had to take over everything that this body knows is true, that this heart knows is true, every kind of sensitivity, every kind of a sense that you have, everything has been taken away, stripped away from you in order for you to do this. Now we've seen this in history, right? Like that's again the interesting thing that we can look back at the Holocaust and be like,

Starting point is 00:28:29 well, everything that Nazis used to say about Jews, we are currently in this current genocide are saying about Palestinians. And yet we still use Nazi terminology to describe what they are doing to us. And that tension point of it's like a hole of mirror that is constantly like mirroring yourself into another that you cannot see. And I really don't know how we get out of this as a society except for again, we will find the way, but we must be seized first. You know, like the only way we're going to stop what's happening right now is if the US stopped the funding. And if the whole world really excludes Israel through like divestment, through boycott, and really corner us to a point where there's nothing left to do but to find a healing to this.

Starting point is 00:29:29 You're listening to an Upstream Conversation with Meytal Yaniv, author of Bloodlines. We'll be right back. Arvales lloran paul por ti, querida amante Penso y digo que va a ser de mí de mi en tierras all y no puedo mi corazón suspira That was Arvolis-Joran Porluvius, or Arvolis Huron Porluvius or Trees Cry for Rain performed by Gloria Levy. Now back to our conversation with Maytal Yaniv. Despite the assault on one's senses, the indoctrination, and even your own family's presence in the IDF and connection to Zionism, something in your body told you no or told you to leave. Can you share that story? Because that is so powerful that you had that embodied

Starting point is 00:31:57 knowing and that you went with it or trusted it or said yes to it. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. I thank you for all the autonomy you offered me and how you described it. I don't feel like any of it was conscious. I was raised by, from my dad's side,

Starting point is 00:32:16 Ashkenazi Jews, survivors of the Holocaust that has moved to the newly established state of Israel in 49 when my dad was one years old. Later had a son on the land that died as a soldier in Yom Kippur War. And my dad was an Air Force commander for when I came to the world, he was still an Air Force commander. And from that side, I also have a great uncle that stayed behind and became a very famous Mossad agent. And then from my mom's side, Sephardic on both of our parents,

Starting point is 00:32:47 my grandma escaped Greece, pogroms in Greece in the 30s and moved to Palestine. And my grandfather is Arab Jewish Sephardic from Jerusalem, from Palestine. And they both met in the 30s. They were recruiters for the Lechi, which is a known Jewish terrorist organization that was fighting both the British and the Palestinians off the land. So I was raised.

Starting point is 00:33:14 Very specifically, one can say I was raised to really believe that, you know, the right party, I voted for Bibi Netanyahu when I was 18, is our only way, Zionism is our only way, Israelism is our only way. And really this affiliation with the army, right? This affiliation with, it's interesting that we've started saying I-O-F instead of I-D-F, as you said, like instead of defense, occupation or offense. And I wonder

Starting point is 00:33:46 if that is a way for Israelis to start getting jumbled in that web of brainwash, because there's never quite been defense in this force. There's always been a reactional hunger, fear, grabbing of land and the complete annihilation of the indigenous population of the land. And racism against the Jewish indigenous population of the land as well. So there's just like this many, many layers of differentiation from the land you occupy, actually.

Starting point is 00:34:26 But to say all that, I joined the army as second generation because I was my dad's child. I was also, so within the, I have many cousins and family members and I am the first female-bodied grandchild of, in the family. So there were many, many spells actually placed in my womb around creating more soldiers that I'm till today, I'm trying to release and tend to inhale. But there was also something about me joining the army that carried some of that.

Starting point is 00:35:02 There was some pride in that, some extra layer of pride to see me going to the army. And yeah, after six months, I did like, you know, I did a very short basic training and then a course, and then was based in an Air Force base and was working in shifts. And very early on, they moved my base to a southern base from the center, from Tel Aviv,

Starting point is 00:35:26 because the IDF was bombing Gaza, and I needed to send planes to fuel the planes on their way to Gaza. And again, none of it at that moment was like, we are killing, like, none of it was there. It was very like, this is the mission, this is what I do. And right after that, they took us back to our base and I was puking the whole way. And the next day, my dad drove me in for my shift and right in the last turn, I had my first panic attack and couldn't enter the base and had to come the next day

Starting point is 00:36:02 and I had to like stand trial. I was walking to the trial room next to the portrait of my dad with all the other Air Force commanders and in that trial they gave me two options. So I was grounded to the base for three weeks and I could either do kitchen duty or guard the base. If I would choose to guard the base, they would have given me a rifle. And they really wanted me to choose that option because it felt a little bit more like, you know, in the patriarchal, heroic realm of how you save face. And I knew at that moment, I didn't know much, but I knew two things. I knew that I'm leaving the army. I don't know how yet, but I know that this is what's about to happen, that there's no way I'm staying here.

Starting point is 00:36:47 And I knew that if they give me a rifle, I will kill myself. But it wasn't because of what I did yet. It was because I knew that I was leaving the army. So me knowing that I am going to live the thing that I was meant to do, that I was trained to do, raised to do, born to do. Literally, I was born to put on that uniform. And to now know that I am going to disgracefully live that made me want to take my life because I couldn't understand how to live with myself. So again, coming back to that autonomy you gave me, I think there was a lot of guides and spirits and beings that have held me in that moment and There's many things I need to to bow down and say thank you for for how that moment

Starting point is 00:37:34 continued to Shape my life, but it was as you said my body said no and there was no No ignoring it or controlling it. There was just a surrendering and there was no ignoring it or controlling it. There was just a surrendering and it was choiceless almost. Like I didn't feel like I said it made a choice. It was just happening and I had to follow along. And then, so I disgracefully left the army and then that started the process.

Starting point is 00:38:01 Cause after the choice was made, then there was a lot of questions of like, OK, well, who am I? What's next? How do we move from here? What did I just do? What happened? So there was a lot of questions that needed answer that,

Starting point is 00:38:18 some I've answered, some will take the rest of my life for answer. Four years after that moment, I went to art school, to undergrad in Israel in Jerusalem, and I would drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem next to the apartheid wall every day. And I didn't see it as that. And this is four years already after I left the army. And then fast-track that six years after that. So ten years after I left the army, I left the state. I moved, I knew that something is deeply wrong

Starting point is 00:38:49 and that I would never understand it if I stay. And when I look back at my work from undergrad, it's all about this, but still with not very much language. And I moved, I left for grad school, that was like my easy way out. And then the first time that I came back, I went into the West Bank for the first time. With again, when I moved out of Israel

Starting point is 00:39:11 and came to grad school, I was really gifted and privileged to have a lot of mentors that really supported me, that really heard my questions and were like, okay, look at that, watch that, read that, let's talk about it, pushed me, argued with me, hugged me. I met Palestinians for the first time. It really gave me the space that I needed to be with my questions.

Starting point is 00:39:36 And then yeah, the first time that I went back, I went into the West Bank for the first time. And that was really a moment that shifted everything. Because, you know, when you walk in a street in Hebron, for instance, and it's a street that I can walk down the street as much, all day if I want to, back and forth, and the doors next to my walk are welded because Palestinian families are living in there and they can come out. And if they do come out, there's a sniper that is gonna shoot them.

Starting point is 00:40:11 Once you experience that, it's really, I can't convince myself otherwise. I came back from that visit to a family dinner where in the middle of dinner, I looked at everyone and just said, we're all murderers. And everyone said, what did you just say? And I was like, well, I'm a murderer, you know?

Starting point is 00:40:31 And obviously that started a conversation that I learned to have in more skillful ways later, but just there was something about that moment that really shifted everything. So, you know, if leaving the army was a body moment, and everything that came after that was more mind, spirit moments, that moment in the West Bank was a heart moment.

Starting point is 00:40:58 Was like, okay, like I am ready to like shed everything that I know as true home, love, belonging, safety, all of those things that I know as all of those in my, like I am ready to shed, I'm ready to eat my own shit to bring this to its death to like, I'll do whatever it takes because there's no way that I will participate in this. You're reminding me of stories I've heard of people who've had spiritual experiences where they've had everything they knew about themselves or identities just die or unravel. And yet they felt held by something at the end of it.

Starting point is 00:41:38 And how comforting that is to know that even when we lose everything or everything that we know or our identities unravel that there is this this feeling held that we can experience and I've heard you describe a feeling of empathy or compassion for those who are still supportive of Israel or Zionist because you've walked every step of the way and you just said that you've become more skillful in those conversations. So I'm curious, like, you know, when you meet someone who is, you know, Zionist or still supportive of the state of Israel, how do you be with that person? Is there questions you ask or things that you share? Obviously, your book is an offering to those those people. But how do you engage in that in a wise and skillful way? Yeah, very much still learning.

Starting point is 00:42:30 And before I even enter that, I want to respond to one other thing you said about how actually shedding everything is a whole new way of holding or being held. And, you know, it's like. I feel today the most free I've ever felt. People keep saying that I'm a self-hating Jew, and I'm actually for the first time like a self-loving Jew. I have access to love. I have access to my heart, my sensitivities, my senses in ways that I've never before.

Starting point is 00:43:03 And yet the more free that I get, the more I lose everything that has to do with my bloodlines and my blood family. So I'm not saying that there's no loss, but, like, what I'm finding within myself is irreplaceable. It's like the unconditional love is within in moments of clarity. Obviously, it's not constant.

Starting point is 00:43:28 I wish it was. So from that place, and I also, in the same way that I know that I can't really tell someone you're a murderer for them to listen to me, I also can convince someone that they're going to be free if they don't, if they already feel free. Right? Like I can't be like, you don't understand though. Like it's, they're not going to listen.

Starting point is 00:43:53 So how to speak, it's, it's something again, I'm constantly learning it. I think a lot of the time when someone is hurt, they want to be heard. And I do see it as my duty to be a ear to that listening, because I know what usually comes out, what's going to come out of their mouth. And it's not because I can see the future, it's because I used to say the exact same thing. So there's also a moment where those sayings that they will say, you know, like everything.

Starting point is 00:44:30 It's like, there's like, I can list right now 10 things that are gonna be said to me when I say this. So when we reach those 10 things, then I'm waiting for the moment of silence, even if it's 10 seconds, just a moment of silence, and then trying to linger there. And usually how I linger there is by telling a personal story from a personal experience. So instead of telling someone about them,

Starting point is 00:44:56 I'm just going to tell them how I feel in this moment, or what I'm grieving, or what's hard, or what is breaking my heart as we started this conversation. And then from them, ask them what is breaking their heart. So I think there's also something about grief that is a way for us to connect with each other without us feeling like we need to tell each other about each other yet. Like they can grieve what they're grieving, I can grieve what they're grieving, and from a place of grief, we can grieve with their grieving, and from a place of grief we can hold that.

Starting point is 00:45:25 And then from that, if there's another step, then just invite a question. You know, like again, with American Jewish folks right now, I really try to ask them as much as I can, why is the dependency on Israel keeping you safe? Like explain that to me logically, it doesn't make any sense. So let's explain it from like the feeling of it. Okay, maybe there's some sense there, but it actually has nothing to do with that. It has to do with something else. So like let's find that something else.

Starting point is 00:45:57 But I think there's ways in which questions and just asking someone just carry the question for a week and let's talk in a week, let's talk in a month, let's talk in a year. And another thing is also knowing when to leave the conversation. So, you know, a lot of the time that 10 things that I said will become 20, will become 30, will become 40, will become 50, and every time that I try to say something, there's 60 more things that needs to be said in response. And at that point, I'm like, okay, here's a list of books, here's a way for you to look at news from other outlets. I already told you multiple times that you're being lied to on the news you're watching,

Starting point is 00:46:35 so here's other options. And at this point, if you choose not to look otherwise or outside of your comfort zone, it's on you. You know? So there's also just like the boundary of, I'm here for this, I'm here for this work, but if you're not ready, then I'll meet you when you are. And in the meantime, like I got work to do, you know? Yeah. And part of that work, as you mentioned, is this idea of bringing the state of Israel to a loving and caring death for the liberation of Palestine and this work as a death laborer.

Starting point is 00:47:14 And so tell us about, you know, what does that look and feel like to lay Zionism, the state of Israel, to death in a loving and caring way from where you are and what you're doing. The book is obviously a prayer for that, your activism, but yeah, tell us how does one do this and it's also reminded me of the book by Vanessa de la Vera, The Hospicing Modernity, right? And so I'm thinking of all the things that we may want to die or to compost, to let go of such as capitalism or white

Starting point is 00:47:47 supremacy. So tell us about what you've learned about laying the state of Israel and Zionism to die. Yeah, Vanessa's work is very much an echo to this prayer. And yeah, I talk a lot about bringing the Israeli identity and state, and I think the separation to both identity and state is important for me because it makes it be a little bit more personal and intimate than just a state. Because a state can easily be a concept,

Starting point is 00:48:18 but what I found with the Israeli identity is that the concept of the state actually live within the family structure. So in order for this indoctrination to work, in order to really indoctrinate a child, it's like every fraction of society needs to be on it, knowingly or not. So even family structure, even like a birthday party, all of that is connected. A family member celebrated a 14-year-old birthday in our family by telling them how many years they have until they join the army and how proud they are and that they should start training. So this is what we're working with.

Starting point is 00:49:00 So when I say bring the identity and the state to its death, it's really inviting people to bring everything that they believe is true to its death, knowing that there is no other way. Knowing that we got to a place where this is not only not working, it's killing us. And I'm making it about us. I used to show up for Palestinian liberation, for Palestinian solidarity from a place of guilt, of shame, of almost punishment, like self-punishment. Like, I must do this. I must undo the harm that I did by showing up. And that was one way of showing up that was very not authentic, very not real, very not healing, and was not actually in right relations with myself or the cause or the people, right?

Starting point is 00:49:50 You can't do this for another person. But when I started showing up for Palestinian liberation and solidarity for myself, when I really understood that my liberation is actually interconnected with Palestinian liberation and with black liberation and with indigenous liberation and that all of that is actually interconnected and I show up for myself because when I free myself I free the land and I free the ancestors and it's like we're not just like singular beings moving through the planet so from that place bringing the identity and the state together to its death is an offering. We understand that we cannot continue and by any means necessary, it's like another way of saying never again. We have become the never again, so how do we bring that cycle to its death?

Starting point is 00:50:38 So when we bring both of those things to their death, we're actually bare naked. There's nothing left. It's like the two things that have held everything that I know as true love, all of those things, held them together. When we release them, there's nothing left. In that void of nothing left, that's where the care and love comes in.

Starting point is 00:51:03 May we cuddle and care for each other and create new clothes for each other and bury the things together. And just like, there's like so many practices and so many, I think, practices that are already buried in the secret tissue of our cultures that we just need to unravel. That's like the death laborer, death worker, grief worker in me, that I really want us

Starting point is 00:51:29 to return to those practices and really unravel and rise from that place of what does it mean to let everything we know is true die? And what does it mean to do it together like together actively with care and love for each other and ourselves and from that place I would also say that we don't get to imagine what's next because if we imagine what's next it's not going to be real if we're doing it for someone else for something else for a vision we already see, for anything that is giving us an answer, a solution, a fix, it's not actually real.

Starting point is 00:52:13 If I know where I'm going, I'm not actually bringing something to its death. Bringing something to its death is like a procession for this ends and we don't know what next, but we trust that something is. And we are humbled enough to understand that there is no other way. And yeah, the book Bloodlines is coming from that fire

Starting point is 00:52:36 and I will probably tend to this prayer for the rest of my life, right? Like I don't know, and that's again again a good thing that I don't know, that we don't know, but I think that this is one way we move forward is by really from the core of humility and with the core like true belonging to this earth are saying like naked and bare and empty and just we cannot do this anymore. And if we actually want to love each other, if we actually want our children to be loved by us and to love us in return from all of their senses, from their giant hearts, this must shed. And in order for it to shed, we cannot see where we're going. Yeah, I'm really hearing the need to compost what

Starting point is 00:53:27 is dying to lay it into the ground. And I'm hearing Joanna Macy, an eco justice, a Buddhist philosopher and activist who talks about our emptiness. Another way to see our emptiness is a space for something new to arise. And another way to see our grief is our love, right? Our grief points to that which we love. And, you know, to close, you're reminding me of when I when I did spend some time with Joanna at an eco-spiritual retreat, which I'm hearing a lot of eco-spirituality in this conversation. There was somebody who led a Jewish ritual in a river where we let go of what we wanted to shed and we kind of submerged ourselves in the water. And I don't know which holiday or ritual, but it was something about like letting go and forgiveness and all of that. And I love the way that you talk about

Starting point is 00:54:18 the difference and the complete actual tension between Zionism and Judaism. And I'm thinking about times when I've celebrated Shabbat and just all the beauty that I've that I've experienced from the faith of the Jewish tradition. So maybe to close, can you just share about, you know, what would what would Judaism, what would the Jewish tradition, faith, ritual have to offer us at this time as we go forth from this call? Yeah, thank you. I really saw you in the river for a second. I think, so I am returning to Judaism as a form of healing for myself.

Starting point is 00:54:56 And I think that it gives me an opportunity also to see what works for me and what I need to reimagine. So like for instance, I started lighting Shabbat candles six years ago and I asked everyone, like friends, Sephardic friends, Ashkenazi friends, Arab Jewish friends, what is the prayer that they say? And they each told me their prayer and then I sat with all of that

Starting point is 00:55:22 and kind of combined things into my own prayer and added like another line about uh Palestine, about Palestine. And in that creation right I, it doesn't feel like I am reinventing something, it feels like I'm resurrecting something that was already there, you know. So, so first of all I want to just give us permission to, So first of all, I want to just give us permission to understand these religions, this cultural transfer of knowledge as questions, right? And Judaism really helps us stay in the questions and in the wandering of things, which is also very helpful. And you know, bloodlines starts with, I'm bringing in two Jewish values.

Starting point is 00:56:06 One is pikuach nefesh, which is saving life, and one is kolam atzil nefesh akad, kielu etzil olam um lo'o, the person who saves one life is as if they have saved the entire world. And those two values are actually, like for saving life, like it is said that all other values can be put to risk for that one. So like nothing else matters, right? So like take that into Israel today. And like, again, the places where it does not match.

Starting point is 00:56:41 But I think for me, I hold those values, I hold those mitzvot, I hold those intention, I hold the understanding the moon as a timekeeper, not in relation to linear time, not in relation to capitalism, just like in relation to cycles, right? Judaism helps me find ways into the earth, returning to what does it mean to carry a seed, what does it mean to plant a seed, what does it mean to every seven years to let the earth be a year of shmita, like nothing touches the earth, we are not allowed to sow, we are not allowed to do anything, like let the land rest, right? And then there's moments where, you know, I find the magic, the mysticism, the invitation to take something that I know from Judaism and kind of explore it. So very recently,

Starting point is 00:57:36 in a conversation I had with Bayo Akumalaffe, I had this vision of offering ourselves to the sea as a way to... This entire indoctrination is based on us being pushed into the sea. So I was kind of like, what if we just go in? And then Passover came, which in Passover story, the Jews ran away from slavery and got to the water and had no choice and went in and the water opened. And I think, you know, returning even to that story of Passover that just passed about not even having time to wait for the bread to rise, right? It's like, I think we're in this moment of like that there's no time for the bread to rise. We need to rise anyway. Who's gonna open the water? I actually redid

Starting point is 00:58:19 this ritual with Ilana June Margolis. We invited people to do it on the ocean here in the West Coast. And in doing that ritual, we were very much attuned with our Jewishness, right? And what we know of Judaism. And Ilana invited people, Ilana June invited people to do a mikveh, which I think is what you did in the river maybe. And from all those beginnings, all of those threads, we were able to cast a tapestry to hold us in this moment, which again, did not feel new. None of this feels new. It all feels ancient and it all feels like waiting for us to rise in it.

Starting point is 00:58:58 And I think a lot of the time we are afraid to enter a practice that is within a lineage or within a religion because we're afraid we're going to do it wrong. And I want to invite us to be a little bit more curious, playful, explorative, both with our grief and with our lineage practices, and to really try things out and to really get to a place of surrendering to not knowing, but I really want to light this candle and I don't know how. And instead of opening Google right now to Google, what is the Shabbat prayer?

Starting point is 00:59:32 I'm just going to like find it and catch it and then share it with a friend. And then we can talk about it. And then recreate it again. And yeah, I guess to very end, as you offered me, I want to just really invite every Jewish American person or every Jewish person in the world who's listening to this conversation right now to really just sit with one value, the main value, which is Bikwa Chnephesh, Saving Life,

Starting point is 01:00:05 and just allow that to move through your entire body, and may your prayers for Palestine come from that place. And if you're not yet praying for Palestine, may you start. You've been listening to an Upstream conversation with Meytal Yaniv, an interdisciplinary visual artist, filmmaker, and author of Bloodlines. Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode. Thank you to Gloria Levy for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by me, Ravi. Upstream is almost entirely listener funded.

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Upstream - Palestine Pt. 10: Healing from Zionism w/ Meital Yaniv

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