Yishai Fleisher: ‘Israel is not meant to be equal for all — it’s a nation-state’

Transcripts are lightly edited—please excuse any imperfections.

Sruli Fruchter: Should Israel treat its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens the same?

Yishai Fleisher: What do you mean by the same?

Sruli Fruchter: However you would answer it, you can qualify as you like.

Yishai Fleisher: It has to treat them with honor and dignity and give them upward mobility and opportunity. But to say that it has to give them full equality is not correct. You cannot give non-Jews full equality to govern the affairs of the state in the same way.

Or else they will take it to a different…

Sruli Fruchter: What would that mean practically?

Yishai Fleisher: It means practically that I prefer to see that non-Jews would have residency in this land or some kind of limited voting. They could vote but they would only have, let’s say, 120 Knesset members. They would have three.

Constitutionally limited. They would have some representation but they cannot govern and decide if the army is going to be kosher or not kosher. And certainly they cannot be jihadists and be in our Knesset. I mean, there’s an absurdity.

Hi everybody, I’m Yishai Fleisher. I’m the international spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron. I’m also a YouTuber and I also help the Jewish communities of Judea build up as much as I can. And I try to get out there to the world and push Israel’s narrative.

And this is 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers from 18Forty.

Sruli Fruchter: From 18Forty, this is 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers. And I’m your host, Sruli Fruchter. 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers is a podcast that interviews Israel’s leading voices to explore those critical questions people are having today on Zionism, the Israel-Hamas war, democracy, morality, Judaism, peace, Israel’s future, and so much more.

Every week, we introduce you to fresh perspectives and challenging ideas about Israel from across the political spectrum that you won’t find anywhere else. So if you’re the kind of person who wants to learn, understand, and dive deeper into Israel, then join us on our journey as we pose 18 pressing questions to the 40 Israeli journalists, scholars, and religious thinkers you need to hear from today.

In Israel’s political environment, there is a lot more diversity, at least I think, than many people assume about the different categories of the spectrum of Israeli politics on the left, in the center, and on the right. Today’s guest is a prominent figure of the Israeli right, one who actually worked for the National Security Minister in Israel, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is definitely of the more right wing in Netanyahu’s current coalition in the Knesset.

Today’s guest is Yishai Fleisher. Yishai Fleisher is the international spokesperson for the Jewish community of Hebron, really a hotspot in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, given the tension surrounding it between the Jewish and Palestinian communities in Hebron. Yishai is also an elected councilman for the Jewish community in Efrat, and he is a podcaster and YouTuber who frequently speaks about Israel, Judaism, the Middle East, and has appeared in CNN, The Piers Morgan Show, written an article in 2017 for The New York Times, and was even featured in the controversial film Israelism, which attacked the pro-Israel education in Jewish communities and questions their Zionist upbringing. Aside from that, Yishai is a rabbi and actually a lawyer who studied at Cardozo Law School and continues to serve in reservist duty in Miluim.

Part of the reason why I wanted to bring Yishai on is because I really appreciate his candor for his own views and his ability to say what he means and to mean what he says, whether or not others agree with it or disagree with it. I think that makes for a much better conversation and allows for better insight into his worldview, into how he thinks about issues, how he thinks about Israel, and what he likes or hopes for in Israel’s near and far future. There were many points in this conversation or in this interview when I really tried to press hard to understand the implications and the associations for certain views that Yishai held. Specifically, in the middle of the podcast, we spoke about his views on whether or not Israel should be a state or a country of equality for all its citizens or prioritize Jewish citizens above all else.

And it led us down very important conversations surrounding larger Israel discourse, international law, and the media battles taking place for people’s views on Israel in the conflict, and specifically in this war against Hamas. I had read Yishai’s article in 2017 in The New York Times where he wrote, I believe it was titled, “A Settler’s View for the Future of the Jewish State” or something along those lines. What I was so intrigued by was that A, he was able to get a space in arguably the biggest and most successful newspaper in the world and make a case for his views, which are certainly very right-wing, especially when compared to the, at the very least, liberal sensitivities of the New York Times. I think also his close associations with Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is definitely a staple in American and Israeli media, given his views and his positioning on the Israeli political spectrum.

For those unfamiliar, Ben-Gvir has been a vocal opponent to the hostage deal and has a much stronger push for force and intensity in the military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Many people and papers take issues, strong issues, I might say, with his views of Arabs and Palestinians in the conflict and for his overall approach to Israeli politics. And so while we aren’t getting on politicians like Itamar Ben-Gvir, bringing someone on who I think at least it’s fair to say is very much in the same camp as him really is helping us achieve that goal of representing the full spectrum of the political reality in Israel. I really enjoyed this conversation and our ability to probe much deeper and to challenge assumptions in both directions of what is best for Israel and what ought to happen in the future.

So before we head into this interview, as usual, if you have questions that you want us to ask or guests that you want us to feature, please shoot us an email info@18Forty.org and be sure to subscribe and share with friends so that we can reach new listeners. This is the golden number 30 interview of our 40 Israeli thinkers. We have 10 more to go. If you ever had suggestions of which Israelis need to be on this podcast, now’s the time to send them in.

So without further ado, here is 18 Questions with Yishai Fleisher.

So we’ll begin where we always do. As an Israeli and as a Jew, how are you feeling at this moment in Israeli history?

Yishai Fleisher: Oh, that’s a big question. How am I feeling about Israeli history? Well, on the one hand, I feel very happy just even to come into Jerusalem today.

Even those small things, like it’s just exciting to see it being built. I saw a new building coming up and I’m just like, wow, Jerusalem is being built. It’s pumping. My kids are on tiyulim today on hikes because it’s a beautiful day and as the Ezra Movement took them to hike.

So there’s a lot of beauty, a lot of awesomeness. But I’m also a lot of times just frustrated with Israeli weakness with a sense that Israel doesn’t take care of business fully to defend its soldiers and to defend its peoplehood the way it should. We got a green light from the American president. Not that I think that Israel should rely totally on American presidents, but we got a green light to destroy Hamas, to evict them.

It’s not happening. And so a lot of the slowness that happens in Israeli politics is frustrating to me to see the jihad be strong all around us, to live not far away from jihadists who are really neo-Nazis and have a sick ideology. And that’s not being taken care of. Those moments are very frustrating.

So it’s the best of times and the worst of times. It is the best of times, but it is frustrating that we’re not as fast as we could be to ensure Jewish safety.

Sruli Fruchter: Why frustrated?

Yishai Fleisher: Because I don’t want to see Jews being killed. And I think that we just don’t act in a way that makes Middle East sense.

Sruli Fruchter: Can you say more about that?

Yishai Fleisher: Well, the Middle East has certain rules. There are certain ways to succeed in the Middle East. And the most basic way is you have to get respect. And the way you get respect is acting clearly, forthrightly, asserting your claim, and push back on people that want to hate you.

And so if there’s people who are jihadists in your land, even by the rules of the Middle East, not to mention the rules of the Torah, not to mention the rules of common sense, you got to get rid of them. You got to push them out. You can’t allow people that hate you and plan to destroy you to live amongst you, not to mention be the doctors in your hospital or the drivers of your buses. Every single day when I think of my kids going on a bus, you know, a terror goes through me, which is exactly what they want.

And that some Arab bus driver who may have jihadist inclinations in his heart is going to just, you know, take the bus off the road. And that is terrifying. And we should not allow that. We should not allow Jewish children, women, or men to be afraid in our land.

There’s no reason for it. We are a strong country, and we have a right to allow the kind of people that want to live here, the good kind of people that want to follow the laws and be loyal Israeli residents to live here. And those who hate our country should not. And these are plain things.

It’s simple things. You get frustrated that the discourse is not plain. I have, I believe.

Sruli Fruchter: Plain how?

Yishai Fleisher: Plain in reducing things to plain values, to simple values.

Sruli Fruchter: What does that mean, practically?

Yishai Fleisher: It means that you should not allow people who hate your country to live amongst you. You should not allow them to get illegal arms. Judea and Samaria is flooded with arms that have flown in through Jordan, through Iran. We know that.

We know that almost every Arab house has guns. And we know that at any point it could turn.

Sruli Fruchter: Almost every Arab house has illegal guns?

Yishai Fleisher: That’s right.

Sruli Fruchter: Where does that number come from? Or what does that like—

Yishai Fleisher: The police.

Sruli Fruchter: That’s a statistic?

Yishai Fleisher: Yeah, absolutely. They estimate about 400,000 illegal weapons, and everybody knows that’s a low estimate. And I had the privilege of working with the minister of police for a while. And we know.

We know. You could see it at any wedding. It’s not hidden. Everybody knows about it.

You could see it in the videos of Hamas in Gaza. And if in Gaza they have weapons, certainly in Judea and Samaria, which is more porous, there’s weapons. So we know there’s illegal weapons. We know that there’s bad guys around.

Sruli Fruchter: Not to harp on this too much, but 400,000 of them, like several million.

Yishai Fleisher: Not several million, about two million in Judea and Samaria, maybe. Some people say less. And that’s people.

Reduce it now to households. So as I said, there’s a lot of guns out there. There’s a lot of illegal weapons. The exact number is not the concern.

Because let me tell you something. Every M16 can do tremendous damage to a bus. As we saw a few weeks ago. So the bottom line is we have a lot of bad guys.

We should not allow them to have weapons and to threaten our country. And we have a lot of people who are decent people. Arabs and others who want to live amongst us. And the Torah tells us that there will be goyim, nations, that want to live amongst us.

And we have to provide them with decencies and opportunities. I don’t deny that for a second. I don’t deny for a second that there are many Arabs who are not part of the jihad. But just realistically speaking, you see the videos of the children filled with anti-Israel ideology.

You see that. You saw the story now of the Muslim doctors in Australia. The doctor and the nurse who were just professing anti-Israel. That they’re willing to kill Israeli patients.

You know that that exists here as well. Although I have to admit, I was recently in the hospital. And I had a very good stay. I was for a week in the hospital after surgery.

And you know, I dealt with a lot of Arab nurses. And it was fine. It was really, really fine. I don’t deny that it could be fine.

But the State of Israel has to be strong. It has to be strong. It has to push back on forces that endanger it. That is the central purpose of a state in general.

And certainly the Jewish state, where people that have been persecuted for 2,000 years. And now we’re supposed to defend ourselves. And that’s the rules of the Middle East. That’s the way you survive as any entity in the Middle East.

Sruli Fruchter: What do you think has been Israel’s greatest success? And greatest mistake in the current war against Hamas? Or the war against Hamas? Because arguably it’s not—

Yishai Fleisher: You know, when you first started asking that, I heard, you know, what is Israel’s greatest success, period? You know, and what is Israel’s greatest success? Bringing the Jewish people back home?

Sruli Fruchter: Well, again, it’s really in the war against Hamas.

Yishai Fleisher: Right. I’m getting there.

It’s just like you triggered a thought like, what’s Israel’s greatest success? I thought to myself, you know, bringing the Jewish people back home. Allowing Jews to survive, to thrive. And to allow Yiddishkeit, Judaism, to survive and thrive. That’s the greatest success.

Vis-a-vis this war, what has been our greatest success? The beeper attack, the beeper operation, was a beautiful operation. It was precise.

Sruli Fruchter: Against Hamas specifically, though. Unless you see those two words more directly linked.

Yishai Fleisher: The killing of Sinwar was important. But the truth is, I think that we have not been as successful against Hamas as we should have been. So I can’t really count it as a great success. I count it actually as, so far, a loss and not a victory.

Sruli Fruchter: What’s a loss?

Yishai Fleisher: It’s a loss that we have after 500 days of war. We have not destroyed the Hamas. And that they’re able to parade in Gaza with their jeeps and their guns. And to toy with our hostages.

We have not been able to release the hostages in a military campaign. Instead, we’ve given them their prisoners, their murderers. So to me, there has not been a great success against Hamas. The very fact that they’re around is exactly a proof that there has not been a success.

I say this because I just look at things objectively. I’m not always trying to look at things like to pat ourselves on the shoulder. I think that we should have eliminated Hamas. Moreover, I think that Israel should have made it clear that it will now control the Gaza Strip.

And it never made that clear. And in fact, it never really did control the Gaza Strip properly. That’s our land, our ancestral land, our biblical land, our historical land. We controlled it till 2005.

We’re the only ones that can govern it. We’re the only ones. Nobody else can govern it effectively. And sadly, we haven’t done that.

Now the Trump plan has come out. Even that, I would take over the current jihadist control of Gaza. But it’s slow. And October 7th was your right to act carte blanche.

Do whatever you want. Do whatever you want. Take care of business. You have Israeli publicists with you.

The world is with you. And even if they’re not with you, it is a justification to act unilaterally.

Sruli Fruchter: What would you have wanted to happen?

Yishai Fleisher: For me, it’s really clear. It’s really simple.

First thing is, as the rules of war, you first turn off the water, the electricity, the fuel, and certainly the so-called humanitarian aid, the food that came into Gaza. You just stop that. You stop that. You make it into a siege.

Siege is, by the way, legal in international law. You besiege that place. Move out all the civilians that want out. Find them a way out.

And then whoever’s left as a combatant, fight them. Liberate our hostages by use of force, not by use of diplomacy.

Sruli Fruchter: Isn’t that arguably how Israel orchestrated the military campaign? By trying to clear out civilians in Gaza and then …

Yishai Fleisher: We did not clear out civilians in Gaza totally.

Not entirely, but in certain areas. We kept moving them around inside. We allowed tons of food to flow in. That food fed the Hamas and also empowered them vis-a-vis the population.

We did not use overwhelming force to get our hostages back.

Sruli Fruchter: What do you mean by that? Meaning many military experts and those in the government felt that effectively the outcome from the beginning of whichever hostages had come out in the course of the war was likely the best that really could have been done, given that they were all spread out, given that they were hidden in tunnels, given that they weren’t accessible, and that there could be instances in which a military campaign could lead to their deaths. Are you saying you see… Meaning, what do you see differently than that?

Yishai Fleisher: First thing, the majority of the hostages have died.

So liberating them by use of force right from the beginning would have yielded some losses, but also a show of strength.

Sruli Fruchter: But when you say liberate them by force, I’m just trying to understand what you mean by that. Because they weren’t all located in one place. So what do you envision that looking like?

Yishai Fleisher: Sruli, with respect, the very question that you’re asking shows me how deeply we have gone down the rabbit hole of not understanding what force is.

Gaza is our little neighbor. It’s a 400-square-kilometer sandbox right next door. We’ve literally allowed an organization to create a terror tunnel world. We’re supposed to have this great military intelligence, yet we’re not able to liberate our own hostages right next door.

1976, we flew to Uganda. Here, we can’t get in to use all of our special forces, all of this intelligence. We can’t get our guys. Of course we can.

We could have. But they were afraid. They were afraid of the leadership. They were afraid of the Biden administration.

They were afraid of the Israeli left arguing that they’re callous. They’re afraid of them. And they simply did not have the guts to make a type of war that was going to be unilateral and victorious, to vanquish, that word vanquish. I mean, what did Netanyahu promise us? He promised us that in the end of this, there wouldn’t be a Hamas and they wouldn’t control Gaza.

In the meantime, and I hope that by the time this podcast plays, I’ll be totally wrong. But in the meantime, what we see is that we have not destroyed them utterly.

Sruli Fruchter: Do you feel like Netanyahu failed you?

Yishai Fleisher: Absolutely. On the one hand, I think that he’s a great statesman.

And I think that he’s a great leader. And I have no doubt that one day his face will be on our money. But on the other hand, he voted for the 2005 disengagement, which we left our own land and gave it over to the PA. And then Hamas took it over.

Then he channeled funding from Qatar to Hamas. We know that. Then allowed them to build up a military infrastructure underneath our nose. And then released a thousand of their prisoners that we held in our prisons.

For one, Gilad Shalit, those prisoners became the leaders of the October 7th massacre. So yeah, yeah, very much so. That’s a fail. And not a lot of people, the position that I’m taking is not very popular to say on this kind of forum, but that’s the truth, I think.

And then this 500-day war that was not a war to vanquish our enemies and to take Gaza over and to say, I’ve made a mistake and to destroy the bad guys and make sure that they’re not around anymore. In the meantime, they are parading our hostages, which they were able to keep successfully from us, parading them around on the world stage with cameras and guns and Toyotas. Yeah, that’s a fail. And I think that seeing any other way is just trying to pat ourselves in the back and to feel good.

The other day, they released these murderers, these people that murdered like 40 Israelis. They released them, but they released them with sweatshirts that said, lo nishkach, lo nislach. You know, they released them with these sweatshirts saying, we will not forget, we will not forget, we will not forgive. And people were like, wow, Israel really showed them.

What a joke. What an absolute joke. You released murderers of Jews back into society and then you think you won a point because you made them wear a sweatshirt? It’s childish. It’s babyish.

And it’s certainly, it’s like this kind of like uber westernism instead of realizing where you live. You don’t let people who murdered 40 Jews out. Why don’t you let Eichmann out? Like, what is this about? What is this about? So yeah, absolutely. And I despise the weakness.

But the other hand, I’m a religious person. And I mean, I believe in God. I believe in God. I believe in Torah.

I believe in the process of Hashem. And I see that many of the families of the hostages are putting on tefillin and keeping Shabbos. There’s beauty that comes out through this. And I see a lot of change in Israeli society, positive change.

So there are many good things. There are many good vectors. There are some vectors, vectors of weakness, which I just abhor. And it happens to be I’m also a Russian Jew.

My parents are Russian Jews. And I don’t like this whole like, get the world to see our pain. I don’t need the world to see our pain. I don’t need the world to understand what the others, how bad the other side is.

I don’t need to get a lot of, you know, a lot of, what’s the word I’m looking for?

Sruli Fruchter: Sympathy.

Yishai Fleisher: I don’t need sympathy. I don’t need that. Somebody’s trying to attack my people.

We destroy them. Be ruthless against people who are ruthless against you. Like you end up being merciful to the wicked. So I don’t like this whole, the whole time that we live in.

I don’t like the whole hostages dialogue. You know, like we’re watching them. They come out. They’re embracing the families.

And we’ve become these like, these like people that we watch a soap opera trying to like, you know, the hostage. What about all the soldiers that fell? What about all the soldiers that lost arms and limbs? What about all the hostages that didn’t come out? Like, where’s all that? Like, where’s the rage? Where’s the hate? You gotta hate evil. There’s a mitzvah in the Torah. Lovers of Hashem should hate evil.

We should hate Hamas. By the way, Hamas, it’s not just bad to the Jews. Right now, as we speak, as we’re doing this podcast, they’re shooting and killing any Arabs who have said anything pro-Israel. They are a brutal lot.

And our inability to take them on and our inability to even say these things, the things that I’m saying now are things that you rarely hear on the media. And yet many people think it is a sign that we live in a time of weakness.

Sruli Fruchter: How have your religious views changed since October 7th?

Yishai Fleisher: They have not.

Sruli Fruchter: What do you mean by that?

What do you mean by that?

Sruli Fruchter: You tell me.

Yishai Fleisher: What religious views were supposed to change?

Sruli Fruchter: Not supposed to change, but may have changed. Adapted, developed, been challenged.

Yishai Fleisher: The shocking thing that I tell media a lot of times is that I say to them, I play with them, I say to them, you know what really changed in me since October 7th? They’re like, what? I’m like, nothing. What changed? That we should hold on to the land of Israel? That we should get back to a consciousness of the biblical land and the love of the book of Bereshit and the love of our peoplehood?

Sruli Fruchter: Does that surprise you? That nothing changed?

Yishai Fleisher: No, nothing changed in me.

Sruli Fruchter: Yeah, I don’t know, Meaning that nothing changed in your religious views?

Yishai Fleisher: No, why would it change? We foresaw in 2005, my wife and I were sent by Arutz Sheva down to, we worked for Arutz Sheva at the time, Israel National News. We were sent down to Gaza to cover and, frankly, to protest the Gaza disengagement. And what we said out loud, day in, day out, for many months, is that if you give away this land, the Hamas or whatever jihadist entity at the time will take over this thing. You know, it could be Al-Qaeda, it could be Muslim Brotherhood, it could be whatever, ISIS.

Something’s going to take it over and then they’re going to make war from this land. It’s going to become a forward base of the jihad.

Sruli Fruchter: So in many ways, you saw this coming.

Yishai Fleisher: Absolutely. And that’s on record. You don’t have to take my word for it. It’s all on record. You can just go back.

We did tens and tens of hundreds of shows from Gush Katif. I was broadcasting from them from Gaza and we saw it so clearly. We saw it so clearly. It’s not rocket science.

You give the jihad a piece of land, it uses it. It’s just people want to deny basic Middle East facts. So nothing changed and just clarified and hardened those positions. The only thing that changed in me is a certain element of frustration because I would have thought that after October the 7th, we would be like, all right, come on, let’s stop playing around.

This isn’t working. Look what happened to our people. This is just horrific. You can’t let a crisis go to waste.

You know, a horrible crisis, like, okay, it should be like a crisis. But that, I guess I’ve gotten some more frustration and I’m working on that, religiously speaking, to kind of rid myself of the sense of frustration because it’s not my world, it’s Hashem’s world and we have to take it at His pace. But there is a frustration. But in terms of an ideological or religious change, no, none whatsoever.

Sruli Fruchter: Shifting gears a little bit to talk more generally about Israeli society and Israeli government, what do you look for in deciding which Knesset party to vote for?

Yishai Fleisher: You know, when you go to America and you go to a conference like CPAC, you see so clearly that they have their positions on a range of issues really laid out. They know what abortion or pro-life is. They know what Second Amendment gun rights are or not. You know, they have a real sense, they know about small government versus big government.

They have a very keen and written out sense of their positions vis-a-vis a gamut of issues. And they understand what it is to be on the right and on the left. And they’re very formed and thought out positions. And the pundits speak about it.

And you go to a conference, you go to their expo, there’s a table for Second Amendment, and they have all the rights and explain to you the constitution. Here in Israel, it’s much looser and much less defined. Conceptions of right or left, whatever your political conceptions are. So for example, there are so-called right-wing parties that don’t want to give away the Land of Israel and want to undo the two-state solution and the Palestinian Authority.

But then they kind of vote to continue to pay the Palestinian Authority, even though they’re in the treasury ministry. And when it comes to a financial fiscal policy, they’re pretty much socialists. And they don’t really work to undo bureaucracy. And they don’t understand the difference between small government and big government.

And they’re perfectly fine with big government. So they may be on the right on one issue, but they’re on what we would understand from American way of thinking, left on other issues. For example, COVID, the same thing, with the whole vaccines and the lockdowns and the passports. There’s no sense of…

There was no other side to speak of here in Israel. So when I look for a political party, yes, I want to see them work towards the end of the two-state solution, to defund the Palestinian Authority, to assert sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. That’s really just one issue. What about fiscal policy? What about statesmanship? There’s very few statesmen in the cadre of Knesset members.

So I sometimes wish we had a more formed political outlook and more transparency and to really rid the country of bureaucracy. I mean, just speak to people who are trying to make Aliyah. I mean, the amount of paperwork that you have to bring to show. And you have to have a FBI background check.

And then you have to have it all … And if it doesn’t pass in six months, if six months passes, you got to get it again. We make things hard. I have many friends who are businessmen.

They say Israel makes it hard. I myself had an Israeli amutah. I had to close it down because it was too hard to manage. So the point is that I wish Israel, our beloved, beloved, beloved Israel, of which we’ve waited for for 2,000 years, of which I am a passionate, passionate, you know, it’s my whole life.

But when I look for a political party, I wish I could look for a little bit more than just the one security issue.

Sruli Fruchter: Do you have a couple of brief examples of what you would like those positions to be on, let’s say, fiscal or otherwise?

Yishai Fleisher: I would like to see a de-bureaucratization. I’d like to see that. You know what I mean? I’d like to see-

Sruli Fruchter: Like a DOGE for—

Yishai Fleisher: Yeah, absolutely. But you know, it’s a socialist country. It’s a socialist country. And therefore, big government is the modus operandi of it. It’s from the get-go a big government country.

And that’s a problem. I’d love to see DOGE for pensions and for army pensions and for salaries that are being paid here. I’d love to see making businesses, starting businesses to make them easier. By the way, there is one department that they have made making businesses easier.

That’s in high tech. But the rest, help people be more entrepreneurial. I’d like to see us do a lot of other things. For example, I don’t see us doing any effective speaking in Arabic.

It’s almost absurd. The Arab world right next door to us has no teachings of what is Judaism, what is Zionism. I mean, they have teachings from the jihad exclusively. And we never talk to them properly.

We never talk to them. The best people who speak in Arabic to the Arab world are all private citizens on X, on Twitter that are doing their thing. But the government, it has a very poor PR campaign towards the Arab world. We have to accept that we live in the Arab world.

We have to learn Arabic. I wish that every kid, I wish every grade school would teach Arabic. Because every kid should understand this region. And more and more, there are many things that I would love to…

I’ll give you just… You know what? I’ll give you three quick examples. Three quick ones, okay? I call it three things that we take for granted. One, the Dead Sea.

We have one of the most beautiful, natural occurring bodies of water in the world. It’s just gorgeous. It’s a world-class site. And yet it’s…

We’re drying it out. We’re mistreating it. We barely have developed it. We have a few hotels in the South where we’re drying it out.

But to make it into the… In America, it would be a national park. You wouldn’t be able to do anything on it. Okay, I would make it into, you know…

It’s a world heritage site. It’s a national Israeli park. I would protect it, fix it, make sure that it’s not getting dried out. That’s the Dead Sea.

Another one is medicine. We’re the Jews. We should be teaching medicine to the world. And yet some of our best students, who are not the number one students, end up having to go to Bologna, Jamaica, Hungary to study medicine.

I would make giant medical schools and then invite the world to study here. We should be Bologna. We should be Jamaica. People should be coming here to study with the Jews.

And then get a certificate saying, like, you studied in Israel. And then, you know, in Africa, and you see a nurse that studied in Israel, she’s got that certificate. Everybody’s like, wow, you went to Tel Aviv? You went to Jerusalem to study medicine? That’s amazing. You know what I mean? Wow, you studied with the Jews.

You must have really learned something. And so then we take that for granted tremendously. We take for granted our own youth. And finally, something that is really problematic, is that we take the Bible for granted.

Let me ask you a question, Sruli. Do we have a Museum of the Bible here in Israel?

Sruli Fruchter: Oh, now I’m answering the question?

Yishai Fleisher: I’m asking you, do we have a Museum of the Bible?

Sruli Fruchter: I’m going to guess no.

Yishai Fleisher: No, we really don’t. There’s something called the Bible Lands Museum.

It’s really the Museum of the avodah zarah that existed in the Land of Israel before the Jewish people came. You go to Washington, D.C. on the Mall, there is an amazing museum. It’s partially Christian, but it’s an amazing Museum of the Bible.

We should be so jealous. We should have a Museum of the Bible and a Bible theme park. Have you ever been to Colonial Williamsburg in America?

Sruli Fruchter: No.

Yishai Fleisher: Where you can go back 300 years and see the founding of America.

Imagine if we had Abraham Land. You came there and you really felt that you were back in Bible times. And you put on the clothes and the whole thing. We underdo the natural asset that we have, which is the Bible.

You don’t have to be religious, but the world has read the Bible. The world loves the Bible. And yet, we’re famous for having Hebrew University’s Bible Criticism Department. Instead of really teaching the love of the stories of the Bible, we take for granted these three things.

Our medicine, our Dead Sea, our Bible. And I’ll give you just one last one. You know what else we take for granted? Our Jerusalem. Jerusalem.

Do you know that ancient cartography was basically based first? The creation of maps was based on creating maps about the Terra Sancta, the Holy Land. And Jerusalem, Jerusalem. And yet, when you drive from Gush Etzion to Jerusalem, there’s a little sign that says, Jerusalem. I would make a golden arch at every entrance in Jerusalem.

And I would make it so that when you come to Jerusalem, you’re like, whoa, there’s the eternal city. There’s Yerushalayim. We take these things for granted, and it’s a shame. And the government could do a lot more to stop taking those things for granted.

The Dead Sea, stop taking it for granted. And people would, of course, respond to it.

Sruli Fruchter: Which is more important for Israel, Judaism or democracy?

Yishai Fleisher: Judaism. Democracy is a good value.

And probably democracy, Judaism has a lot of elements of democracy in it. But Israel is not a democracy. Israel has some democratic values. But certainly, not just Judaism as in Torah, but Jewish peoplehood trumps democracy.

This is not a country that’s meant to be equal for all. It’s meant to be a nation state. It favors the national ethnic group called the Jewish people. It has to favor it.

That’s what a nation state does. Therefore, it’s at odds with full democratic principles. That has to be subservient to… Democracy has to be subservient to Jewish and Judaism.

There’s no doubt about that. Democracy is… There’s many beautiful aspects of democracy. I think Judaism incorporates many of them in its very essence.

But if you ask, is Israel democratic or Jewish? It certainly has to be Jewish first and then have democratic principles that help govern it. But that’s… Democracy is not God. Moreover, democracy by its very root is a Greek word.

This is not a Greek country. This is a Jewish country.

Sruli Fruchter: Should Israel treat its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens the same?

Yishai Fleisher: What do you mean by the same?

Sruli Fruchter: However you would answer, you can qualify as you like.

Yishai Fleisher: It has to treat them with honor and dignity and give them upward mobility and opportunity.

But to say that it has to give them full equality is not correct. You cannot give non-Jews full equality to govern the affairs of the state in the same way. Or else they will take it to a different…

Sruli Fruchter: What would that mean practically?

Yishai Fleisher: It means practically that I prefer to see that non-Jews would have residency in this land or some kind of limited voting means that they could vote, but they would only have, let’s say there’s 120 Knesset members, they would have three.

Constitutionally limited. They would have some representation, but they cannot govern and decide if the army is going to be kosher or not kosher. And certainly they cannot be jihadist and be in our Knesset. I mean, there’s an absurdity.

There’s an absurdity. No democracy in the world has haters of the country within their Knesset. Yet we have, because we’re more democratic than the Pope, or I don’t know what. We’re more Catholic than the Pope that we allow jihadists to be inside of our Knesset.

So I would say, again, it’s not just a rational way of thinking. It’s also a Torah way of thinking. The Torah tells you, yes, there is going to be Ger Toshav.

Sruli Fruchter: And Ger Toshav being the biblical category.

Yishai Fleisher: Ger Toshav is literally translated as resident alien. That’s an American. When I lived in America, at some point I was a resident alien. I became a citizen.

That’s America. America is a full democracy for anybody that lives there.

Sruli Fruchter: Would critics be incorrect in saying that you want non-Jews in Israel to be second class citizens?

Yishai Fleisher: I don’t want them to be citizens. I want them to be residents.

The word second class citizen is a purposefully derogatory phrase. It’s purposefully negative to try to show you as being, not caring about other humans and not caring about equality. But the fact is, the Jewish people, this is a reservation. This is an Indian reservation.

It’s a small enclave in the Middle East, surrounded by Arabs who have no concept of equality whatsoever. We don’t have equality in any of their lands. And therefore, we’re like a small little place that tries to protect itself. Regular Americans don’t have the same rights inside an Indian reservation.

Because that place is meant to protect them from that outside influence. And so is Israel. It’s a nation state. It’s not meant, it’s not designed to give equality for all.

On the other hand, the Torah is like, yes, of course you’re a nation state. You’re not meant to give equality to all. But then there’s this category of people called resident alien Ger Toshav who want to live amongst you. Give them every right and every opportunity.

Not every right, every opportunity. And give them decencies and rights and obligations. We never talk about obligations. We’re always talking about what we’re supposed to give the Arabs.

Where’s their damn obligations? To serve in the army, to serve this country and to not be jihadists. Where’s the obligations? We barely ever talk about that. We have them running amok around here. The Negev is full of protection rackets.

Every Jewish business pays protection money to a Bedouin tribe. Everyone, I’ve literally asked them myself, businesses, I’m like, do you pay protection money? They’re like, yeah, we pay 5,000 shekel a month so they don’t burn down this place. So we’ve allowed the majority of this region to run amok inside our minority country. So yeah, I don’t believe that Israel is meant to be a country of equality.

It’s meant to be a country of decencies and opportunities. And Ger Toshav, yes, you love our country. You will have great opportunities to live, to build a beautiful house, to have great medicine, to have your kids go to great schools. But don’t you dare be jihadist or anti-Israel.

And yeah, respect our laws. And that, by the way, what I’m saying now, the issue of equality, that is an issue that’s completely Western. It’s a Western concept, not a Middle Eastern concept. No Arab around here thinks about equality.

Sruli Fruchter: So not to be provocative, but…

Yishai Fleisher: You can be provocative. It’s your show.

Sruli Fruchter: I try not to be provocative.

Yishai Fleisher: It’s your show. Also, not to be provocative is just to be provocative with a proviso.

Sruli Fruchter: It’s a preface that probably the question may come off that way, but that’s not my intention or desire. What you seem to be describing is what many critics of Israel say when they say that Israel is an apartheid state and that, you know, the vocal large majority of the vast majority of pro-Israel voices say that’s not true.

Israel is a democracy, equal rights. It’s a Jewish and democratic state. But you seem to not be using the A word, if we may, but essentially saying that you want a nice apartheid. Where there is two different systems for Jews and non-Jews.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean that non-Jews won’t have nice houses or get certain privileges and have obligations and however you want to frame that. But it does seem to be leaning into that. Is that a contradiction that you think is correct or incorrect? And if so, why?

Yishai Fleisher: I think that my colleagues in the Hasbara world, they fall into traps too easily. They think that the way that you deal with criticism is by being like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we’re nothing like you’re describing.

Instead of being like, actually, let’s look into what you’re saying and make it clear what we’re actually offering.

Sruli Fruchter: So you’re not saying no?

Yishai Fleisher: I’m not saying no. But I’m also saying, first thing is, what you’re saying is hyper-Western. It makes it look like there’s only two things in this world.

Radical equality or apartheid. But that’s just not true. You go around the world and you see there are many nation states that favor their national peoples. Okay.

Around here, every country is a nation state. They give privileges to their people as opposed to other minorities. Go to the UAE, go to Saudi Arabia. And then what does the Hasbara people say? They say, oh, but we’re not Saudi Arabia.

Why not? Calm down. I don’t mind being a Middle Eastern people. I don’t mind being a Middle Eastern country with certain democratic principles. But it’s right.

I’m not here to give away the farm. I’m not here to give total equality to the Arabs that are the vast majority of this region. How many Arabs are there in this region? 400 million. How many Jews are there? 7 million.

So we have a little enclave to defend ourselves. To give them total equality would mean that they would wash us out. And if you read the League of Nations mandate that was given to the British called the Mandate for Palestine, i.e. a mandate for Jewish Palestine, it’s clear that they want us not to take away the local people’s civil rights and religious rights. But nobody’s going to grant them total political rights.

You can’t grant the minority inside of you that’s the majority outside of you total equality and political rights. It’s just absurd. It’s stupidity. And my friends in the Hasbara, they get nervous about the questions that you ask.

And then they start saying stupid things like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re willing to give total equality. That’s stupid. It’s stupid. It undermines the premise.

Sruli Fruchter: Essentially, a more forward way of saying what you’re saying is that Israel can be apartheid, but apartheid isn’t always bad.

Yishai Fleisher: I am not using that. That is a word.

Sruli Fruchter: I agree.

Yishai Fleisher: Apartheid was a word. Apartheid was white people that came, Europeans that came into Africa, took over a chunk of land and then made the group of people subservient.

Sruli Fruchter: So you might say that Israel wants a system.

Yishai Fleisher: It’s not an apartheid.

Sruli Fruchter: I’m saying, so Israel wants a system in which Jews…

Yishai Fleisher: No, but see, you’ve used that word about 10 times now.

Sruli Fruchter: I’m trying to recharacterize what you’re saying.

Yishai Fleisher: You’ve used that word about 10 times now. But I refuse to use that word because that word is a ma’ous. What’s the word I’m looking for in English? It’s a…

It’s a, yeah, it’s a horrific word of subjugation. I’m not talking about subjugation.

Sruli Fruchter: So we can take away the label. I mean, I’m trying to…

Yishai Fleisher: The label is very important because the label is used as a cudgel by the enemies of Israel to try to paint it as something bad. There are many nation states in this world. There are many states that favor their ethnic group as opposed to other groups. Look at the…

Do you think the Kurds that are hated by the Iranians, the Turks, and the Syrians should give equality to all these people inside of autonomous Kurdistan in Northern Iraq? Of course not. Because they’re trying to protect themselves. We are a persecuted people. We’re the ones that need protection.

Why are we talking about rights for them? What about rights for us? Do we have any rights in their countries? No. No, we have no rights. We barely have rights to be there. It’s still illegal.

You know what I mean? It’s like barely rights for us to fly over their countries. So what are we talking about here? So that we want to protect our peoplehood and we want to give people decencies, but not to let them take the country over. It’s reasonable. It’s reasonable.

And if Americans would know a little bit more about comparative democracy and how other countries do it, they would calm down. Americans all think that there’s only one way, which is the American way. America is an amazing and special country. It’s not like that all over the world.

It’s far from that. Far from that. And by the way, even in great United States, do Puerto Ricans have a right to vote for president of the United States? No, because they’re a territory. Do they have a right to vote for congressmen and senators? Well, kind of, but they’re non-voting congressmen and senators.

So basically, and there are 2 million of them, Puerto Ricans. And so people say to me, well, it’s different. I just say, look, even the United States has an alternative system for whenever it’s comfortable for them. So let’s calm down and not use labels that are there created by our enemies for us to say stupid things and to let the enemy in through the back door.

Let’s kind of open our eyes and realize what do we need to govern and keep this place safe, which is the first priority of the Jewish state. And then afterwards, let’s talk about how we incorporate people more. But the Torah says to us there is a way, but it is limited.

Sruli Fruchter: Now that Israel already exists, what’s the purpose of Zionism?

Yishai Fleisher: What does that mean?

Sruli Fruchter: You tell me.

Yishai Fleisher: Zionism is the building of the Jewish state. Zionism is not defined. I like the term Zionism, but if a Haredi person doesn’t like that term, I don’t mind speaking in a different way. Called Shivat Tzion, called the return to Zion.

I’ve had many arguments, and when it turns out, it comes down to like nomenclature. You don’t like that nomenclature? I don’t care. I’m not trying to like, you don’t have to wave the blue and white flag. I don’t care.

You don’t have to say the word Zionism. You don’t have to like Ben Gurion. Zionism, the way I understand it, is Shivat Tzion. It’s the ingathering of the exiles.

It’s building of the Jewish state. Is it finished? Of course not. Is it finished? No. Do we have a well-running Jewish state? Not yet.

Is it totally defended? Not yet. Is Yerushalayim totally built? Not yet. Do we have a Beit HaMikdash? Not yet. Is everybody in a God consciousness? Is Israel, Jerusalem, the spiritual capital of the world? Not yet.

So there’s plenty of work for Shivat Tzion, the building of Yerushalayim, and this process of ingathering the exiles. Happens to me, by the way, that I live on a street called Shivat Tzion.

Sruli Fruchter: Oh, yeah?

Yishai Fleisher: Yes.

Sruli Fruchter: You’re living in the future, you might say.

Yishai Fleisher: Well, or in the past. Shivat Tzion was the term used by the Second Temple, by Ezra and Nehemia. It’s a beautiful term.

You don’t like Zionism because of associations? I don’t care. I don’t need you. I always tell people where I work in Hebron, I always tell them, you know, we can be blue and white, but we also have to know how to talk black and white. I can talk secular, I can talk, you know, the Sanhedrin, every member of the Sanhedrin was supposed to speak 70 languages.

I think it means 70 kinds of Jews that you got to know how to talk with. You want to talk Breslov, you can talk Rabbeinu. You want to talk Rabbeinu, you know, you want to talk Shlomo Carlebach, you know, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. And you want to talk, you want to do whatever.

I could talk to any Jew and get him and her to sense that. The project of Israel, in short, is far from finished. We have a lot to do. We have a lot to do.

And it’s actually very exciting. I can tell you about my personal life is that I have a lot to do. Like, I’m busy. I’m busy.

I’m very, very busy. Like taking whatever HaKadosh Baruch Hu was put in my hands to do and to move it forward. Not to mention bringing American Jews closer. Not to mention I work in Hebron.

It’s far from finished. I mean, the place is like, you know, it’s like after Dresden, after the bombings. You know what I mean? It’s a place that the place needs a lot of work to turn it into just a city, let alone a Jewish city. So there’s just a lot of work to do.

Not to mention Gaza. You know, I just took recently a tractor course. I have a tractor license now because I hope that they’ll send me to help dig out the rubble of Gaza so that we can make that beautiful land beautiful again. By the way, I tweeted out one point, make Gaza beautiful again.

And then like three hours later, like Rubio tweeted out, make Gaza beautiful again. I don’t know if he read my tweet. But the point is, is that my point is there’s a ton of work to do. Yerushalayim is being built.

There’s children to educate. There’s Abraham Accords to make. As a Jewish Israeli nationalist, I’m the number one fan of relationship with the Arab countries around us. A proud Jewish state surrounded by proud Arab states working together.

So yeah, gosh almighty, the project is far from over. And I don’t quite understand the people who say things like that, like the Zionism is over. I don’t know what they mean by that. They must not be in the fray.

They must not be in action. I’m involved in action. That’s my favorite part of what I do. I’m involved, you know, like I’m a YouTuber and a social media person, but like that’s like a third of what I do.

The rest of the time I’m involved in building.

Sruli Fruchter: Is opposing Zionism inherently antisemitic?

Yishai Fleisher: Probably, you know, you can probably judge it. You know when you see it. But most likely if you encounter anti-Zionism, it’s anti-Judaism.

But what does it matter? Because like by that question, are you saying that antisemitism is a real bad, but anti-Zionism is not a real bad? It’s like if you’re anti-Zionist, that’s bad enough for me. Like I don’t need to equate that to antisemitism. What does it matter to me? If you’re anti my country, my Jewish state, that’s like saying anti-American. Do you also have to be anti-Christian or something? Like who cares? The minute you’re anti-Israel, that’s bad enough.

I don’t need to find a way to prove that you’re also anti-Jewish. So what? So that the haters are like, well, I’m not anti-Jewish. I’m just anti the Jewish state. Like who cares? What am I giving you a pass for that? Oh, he’s not really an antisemite.

He’s just anti-Israel. What points do you gain for that?

Sruli Fruchter: Should Israel be a religious state?

Yishai Fleisher: Well, first thing, Israel should certainly not be an anti-religious state. That’s first and foremost.

Sruli Fruchter: Meaning what?

Yishai Fleisher: Meaning to say that it has to, you know, have a kosher army, keep the Sabbath, and respect Jewish tradition, and certainly not do stupid things like giving away our land to our enemies, our holy land.

Like that’s part of religion also. Like giving away Hebron to the Hamas is stupid, and anti-Jewish, and anti-historical, and anti-security, and anti-Middle East. So don’t do stupid things and anti-Jewish things. That’s first, you know? Like first is like, don’t do harm to Judaism.

Like don’t do harm and don’t do harm to our land. And then we want a process. Of course, we’d like to see a process of people becoming more observant and the Jewish state to be promoting that. It should promote the Bible.

You know, China’s got these Confucius centers that they have around the world. They teach Chinese culture and Chinese language, and we should have the same thing. Like Hebrew is holy. The Torah is holy.

We have an amazing thing. The Jewish state should not coerce people to be observant, okay? Certainly not in the constellation that we have today, but it certainly should not coerce people to be not observant. It should teach them the basics. It should foster a love of Yiddishkeit, a love of Israel, a love of the Land, a love of Yerushalayim, and not do stupid things that undermine and not fund our enemies, that certainly anti-Judaism.

And it should not favor a kind of either neutral or hostile approach. You know, it should love the Bible. It should have a museum of the Bible that is in love with it, as opposed to not loving it and having this kind of scientific old approach. So yeah, it should foster Yiddishkeit.

The Jewish state does that when it provides electricity to a yeshiva. It’s already teaching Judaism in that sense. And it does a lot of that. And the fact is that Judaism flourishes, and it’s flourishing in the Land of Israel.

That’s a fact. But it could do more. And it could definitely, like, for example, let Jews pray on the Temple Mount. Don’t, you know, establish a synagogue there like some rabbis wanted.

Like, don’t protect them. Don’t shut our mouths up in favor of the jihadist conception that we shouldn’t pray on the Temple Mount. Don’t do that.

Sruli Fruchter: If you were making the case for Israel, where would you begin?

Yishai Fleisher: I don’t know.

That’s a very broad question. You’re gonna have to limit that for me. I don’t know. What do you mean?

Sruli Fruchter: You tell me.

Yishai Fleisher: Where to begin? There’s different ways to begin. I guess one way to begin is by…

Sruli Fruchter: Where do you tend to begin?

Yishai Fleisher: It depends on the crowd. It depends on the people.

But I think if you’re talking politically, the first thing to remember is it really depends where you want to start.

Sruli Fruchter: You can start where you like. I’ll give you the freedom.

Yishai Fleisher: Well, it depends.

But I would say one simple conception that everybody has to have is to remember that Israel is a tiny country in this region. That’s a baseline thing. I think a lot of times when people forget that, one of the enemy’s great successes has been to change Israel to the Goliath and to the Arabs as a David. That is a falsity that needs to be righted, which is that we’re a tiny country trying to survive out here.

That’s a basic. Once you get that in your head, Israel’s a tiny country trying to survive in a very tough region. That’s one. Another thing that you have to know is the Bible.

The Bible’s a great place to start. The Bible’s where a lot of stuff started. But let’s say, sadly, to my dismay, the Bible has been very undermined in the last 100 years. Very undermined.

If you went to Harvard 100 years ago and even 200 years ago, people knew the Bible. Some of them knew the Bible in Hebrew. Today, young people don’t know the Bible at all, not to mention their own classics as well, of Western literature or European literature. Right now, I would love to see a campaign in Israel and around the Jewish world of the Book of Bereshit.

I think the Book of Bereshit, you ask where to begin, the Book of Bereshit in the beginning. It’s a great place to begin. I recently spoke to almost 100 kids in Young Judea, and I asked them, how many of you can honestly say you have read the Book of Bereshit? And seven, eight kids out of 100 raised their hands. And I’m not sure that they’re holding, as we say.

So I think that if you know the Book of Bereshit, you understand, you may not agree with, but you understand Abraham. You understand that we’re a family, that we’re a nation, we’re a peoplehood. And you understand that there’s a land associated with it. You understand that there’s a God that you talk with.

It’s a very basic concept, Book of Bereshit. If you can get through the Book of Bereshit, you got everything. Agree or not agree, you’ll get it. You’ll get even our branding and our stuff, you’ll get it.

And without it, you won’t get it. That’s another part of it. I think maybe one more thing is to know that the Jewish people are eternal. That’s a very core concept.

You have to know that the Jewish people, come what may, we will survive. Even if, God forbid, the Jewish state and the Beit HaMikdash falls again, God forbid. I don’t believe it will. But we have to know that Am Yisrael continues.

We are linked up with God. One thing that I would recommend outside of the Book of Bereshit, that famous passage by Mark Twain about the Jewish people, about how they endure throughout time. What is their secret? That they have seen all other great empires come and go. That should be basic reading.

Every kid should know that. Every kid should know that. They should know that Am Yisrael is eternal and that it’s a mystery and that there’s only one way to explain it. So I would say those three things, the eternity of the Jewish people, the Book of Bereshit is key to having basic conceptions and remembering on the political level that at the end, we’re small people trying to survive in a tough region.

Sruli Fruchter: Should all Israelis serve in the army?

Yishai Fleisher: I have a very thought out answer for that. And here’s the answer. Okay, all I mean to say is this is not off the cuff. This has been thought out a lot.

And here’s my answer as opposed to some of my colleagues. My answer is simple. Every Israeli should serve for two years. Every Israeli.

Girls, boys, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Hilonim, Datiim, Arabim, Druzeim, Cherkesim, wherever you are, all the various groups that we have in Israel should serve for two years. But what does service mean? It could mean a very broad thing. It could mean national service. I would broaden the national service concept much bigger.

And so you’re a Haredi, you wanna teach Yiddish? So there’s a Yiddish Amutah 501, you know, not-for-profit company. Great, work there. They have a right to two boys every year in their organization to have national service because they’re a not-for-profit. Fine.

You wanna go to Zaka, Mada, police, firefighting? Fine. You’re an Arab? You wanna teach Arabic? Fine. You wanna help with kindergartens? Fine, I don’t care. But you will come out with a card that says, I served my two years.

Now the army, army has preference. It will pay more money. It will give you more kavod. And if you’re gonna be in a special unit, you gotta sign in for a third year, fourth year.

Fine, you sign, that’s your department. We will incentivize the army. But you don’t wanna do the army, it’s fine. But you will have to serve for two years.

There is no super citizenship like the Arabs have today. There is no super citizenship where you get everything, but no obligations. You’re gonna have to serve for two years. Everybody equalize it.

Is there some people that will learn Torah? Absolutely. Learning Torah is a high value. So there’ll be a certain amount, 20,000 people who learn Torah, but they’ll get that card. I served because I did that great and important job of continuing the learning Torah for our country.

I got no problem with that. I believe that there should be people learning Torah all the time. But everybody’s gotta get under some kind of rubric. Now, here’s the key though.

It’s got to be in the branding that people like. The ultra-Orthodox like their branding. They like their branding. They don’t like the Zionist branding.

They don’t like that brand. They don’t like blue and white. They don’t want that. They want their media, their fonts, their way.

Give it to them. Give it to them in their way. Let them feel like they’re the bosses of that thing. But everybody will come out serving, doing a national service.

And there will be no exceptions. And this way you’ve gotten rid of all these fights. Everybody’s got these deals. Everybody’s got these side deals.

No more side deals. Just equalize it. Make it simple for people to understand. Just decide what kind of national service you’re gonna do.

You wanna do the army? Gazinta hait. We’re gonna be very happy. And we’ll pay you more. You wanna go three years? Go for three years.

But the baseline will be equal for everybody.

Sruli Fruchter: Can questioning the actions of Israel’s government and army, even in the context of this war, can that be considered a valid form of love and patriotism?

Yishai Fleisher: Well, I think we’ve done that on this podcast so far, right? I’ve made some claims that there are things that the state of Israel does that I’m not happy with. Could be done better. I mean, we come from America where that democratic principle of challenging your country is considered patriotism.

I am a patriot … I am a patriot through and through. But I will not also at the same time, therefore, make kosher all kinds of ridiculous actions that are not kosher.

And I’ll call them out as a patriot. But I’m not an Israel hater. You know it when you see it. Where does it come from? What’s the source of that critique? You’ll have people that critique Israel feigning patriotism, but in fact, they are Israel shrinkers and Israel destroyers.

They just feign that they’re Zionists or that they’re pro-Israel, whatever it is. I’m pro-Israel, but I’m really, you know, but really they’re really trying to shrink and destroy Israel and undermine its people and its army, et cetera. So I don’t come from that. But to answer your question directly, sure.

You have every right to continue to help steer the country in the right direction.

Sruli Fruchter: What do you think is the most legitimate criticism leveled against Israel today?

Yishai Fleisher: I think that the real criticisms are barely leveled and the fake ones are constantly leveled. The biggest criticism should be that we’ve done a great disservice to the Arabs and to the Jews by creating the Palestinian Authority and paying these terrorists money. And these men, these people, they are, these bullies, these thugs, they do the most harm and evil to Arabs.

So by creating the Palestinian Authority, we gave away our land, we empowered jihadists, we empowered people who subjugate their own people. We’ve done a great evil. That is an evil and that should be rectified. That evil has taught the world jihadism and terrorism and has, you know, when we allow them to build up those terror tunnels, and I barely hear that.

I barely hear a critique being like, what the hell happened? How did you allow your enemies to under your nose build up a military infrastructure to attack you? Like October the 7th is just a manifestation of that awful failure. And it could happen in Judea and Samaria as well. It could happen in the North as well. It could happen in the South as well.

So we’ve allowed our enemies and people detractors of our country to really have built up a serious infrastructure and then a global consciousness. Israel’s weak hasbara, weak brand, weak branding has allowed an alternative narrative to seep into the minds of millions, including the TikTok generation. So there’s a lot of critique that can be leveled against the state of Israel. I mean, really, the world hates us.

And that is, in my mind, that is 100% the fault of weak policy.

Sruli Fruchter: Do you think the state of Israel is part of the final redemption? I thought this would be your easiest question.

Yishai Fleisher: Well, it is an easy question for me, in the sense that it’s easy for me to say yes. But I have reservations about that way of talking.

Because I…

Sruli Fruchter: Okay, so can you first explain why you say yes and then explain the reservations?

Yishai Fleisher: I think here’s the simple answer. God said that he’s gonna gather the Jewish People to the Land of Israel in the final days. And that’s happening.

I th nk that Jerusalem is being built. And I’m certain without a shadow of a doubt that within 100 years, there’ll be a Beit HaMikdash. I have no doubt about that. There will be a Temple in Jerusalem on the same spot.

It’s just, it will not… There’s nothing that could stop it. It’s a juggernaut. It’s a giant juggernaut.

It’s just going its way that is not always understandable, its path. But it is heading in that way. And there’s just no stopping it. There’s 7 million Jews today in the Land of Israel.

When I was a kid, there was 3 million Jews. I have no doubt that we’re heading in that general direction. That being said, I have a bug inside that doesn’t like messianism as a language. Okay? Because I find that people that engage in messianic style language, oftentimes stop being involved in actually get it done action on the ground.

They become … Mashiach will fix it …

They start to talk in these ways that I’m allergic to. You know, these ways that basically… Passive.

They throw off responsibility and free agency. And they start talking in this way as though something other than their own, you know, agency and responsibility will take care of business. And I abhor that. I think that Hashem abhors that.

I think that Hashem wants us. And I think that the advent of the Jewish state in many ways, the reason that the hilonim, that the secular were the ones that built up the state, was to inculcate back into Jewish consciousness the midah, the characteristic trait of action. We are meant to take action. When in Egypt it says, Hashem ilachem lachem v’atem tacharishun, that God will fight for you and you’ll be silent.

That’s because they were slaves coming out of Egypt. That’s a negative. Later on, when we come to the Land of Israel, we’re like Joshua. We’re fighting and God is helping us.

But we’re meant to fight and to do things. We’re meant to take responsibility and take agency. And so therefore, I think that Israel has to do things that are right and good and smart and to protect every Jew. And I think that there is a consciousness that will come forth from Jerusalem.

I believe that Jerusalem is the spiritual capital of the world. And I think that Israel should be teaching that, should be teaching what I call the Abrahamic faith, which is a way for Gentiles, non-Jews, peoples of the world to follow Judaism for non-Jews. There is a way like that that’s being developed. And I do think that it is redemptive.

And I do think that it is the goal of this world that Hashem’s dream is coming to fruition. But I chafe at language that will make it not physically real, dreamlike, and does not call on every person to take a step. In my speeches that I give to people, I always say, take a step, take a step. What is your step? And I give people examples of steps.

For example, around the world, I’ve spoken from Australia to Europe, to around the world, I’ve spoken. I’ve said, Friday night, drink a bottle of wine from the Land of Israel, buy that bottle of wine, show it off to people, take that little step, say, here I am, I want to imbibe the waters of the Land of Israel, the wine. And people have taken that suggestion throughout the world. Take a step, I always tell people, take a step.

And then I have a range of other steps, leading all the way to Aliyah and army, whatever it is. You know what I mean? Take a step. Sometimes, by the way, it’s just learning the halachot of Eretz Yisrael. The Avnei Nezer talks about the fact that his father did a kinyan on Eretz Yisrael just by studying the halachot of Eretz Yisrael.

But sometimes, sometimes, like, yearn for it. Take a step, do it, take, don’t relegate it to some kind of Disney-ish, dreamlike, kind of, you know, foggy thing, you know what I mean? No, no, no, no, no, it’s action-based. Take a step, take a step towards Yiddishkeit, take a step towards Israel, make sure that you come here once a year, et cetera, et cetera. Take that step and don’t, that’s why I chafe at messianism.

Sruli Fruchter: So actually, this is into our next question. Is messianism helpful or harmful to Israel?

Yishai Fleisher: It depends how you use it. It depends how you use it. If you’re like, heck, I think there’s a messianic process and I better darn get on that boat, be part of that.

I want to be part of that. And then you say, Hashem, please, please let me be part because I know that if I’m born in this time, you chose my soul to be in this body at this time, that means that you want me to be part of this process. And so just, this is what my perush is, V’tein Chelkeinu Be’toratecha, give me a role. Let me have, you know, one officer stripe and do something.

I just want to be an officer in your efforts, in your armies, please. Let me have a touch of it, a zechut to be part of it. You know, if that’s what you want to think is messianism, if you’re like, Israel is great. This is a moment in time.

I want to be part of it. Then that’s fine. But if you think, you know, Hashem’s doing it really, like … That’s crazy. This government’s crazy. These things are crazy. There’s nothing to do. Hashem‘s got to take care of everything. That is a type of passivity, which I think is reprehensible, is wrong.

I don’t know if reprehensible, I take that word back. It’s wrong. It’s a mistake. It’s a wrong way of thinking.

And I want to tell you about goyim, people from the nations. I deal with also. And oftentimes, they just say to me, like, God is doing great things. That’s my Southern accent.

Okay, God is doing great things. I hang out, and my wife is a Texan. I hang out in Texas a lot. So it’s like, these people see that God is doing great things.

The promises of the Bible are coming to fruition. And that is what the reason why there’s so many non-Jews that are so into Israel, because they’re just like, that thing that my mama taught me about the Bible, that’s happening. I see it. I see it with my own eyes.

So be part of it. Be part of it. Find a way to plug in. You know, there’s stories of Israeli generals who are like in wars or like dejected until they get like a role.

Like, they’re like, they’re like, throw me, you know, put me in, coach. Put me in, right? Winners want the ball when the game is on the line. One of the football movies said, you know, I want to be in, coach. Put me in.

I don’t want to be passive. So that’s, you know, listen, there were great Jews from the Arizal to the Gra. And this podcast is called 18Forty.

Sruli Fruchter: Yeah, the company.

Yishai Fleisher: Yeah, right. This is 18 Questions, 40 thinkers. But 18Forty is the, and that’s, and I, and I guessed that correctly.

Yeah, you did.

Sruli Fruchter: The first I’ve heard someone intuitively say it.

Yishai Fleisher: Right. And that is because the Gra envisioned that 1840 was a messianic year, that there was going to be a, and he was right.

He was not wrong. It’s, I don’t know if exactly 18Forty, but that whole period, I think he was right. But basically the period of redemption. What did he do? He sent his people to the Land of Israel to build it, to build it.

And the Talmidei HaGra, they built Yerushalayim. They built these places … And also the Hasidim and the Baal Shem Tov also saw it. And so I’m of those people.

I sense that there is a, let’s call it messianic moment or a godly moment of the Land of Israel. And you want to be part of it. Just the other day, I was with dinner with some people and there was one guy talking and I could see. And I said to him, you have it.

You feel the call of the land of Israel, don’t you? And he’s like, yes. I’m like, what are you doing about it? Did you buy that apartment yet? That’s when, by the way, what I say to all Jews outside of the land of Israel, buy that apartment. Take that step. It’s good for your money as well.

Take the step. Be part of it. Yearn to be part of it and ask Hashem. Rabbi Nachman style, ask Hashem, be like, help me.

Please let me have a small role in your great plan.

Sruli Fruchter: Do you think peace between Israelis and Palestinians will happen within your lifetime?

Yishai Fleisher: Absolutely. It could have happened a long time ago. I think the Abraham Accords is already the beginning of that.

Sruli Fruchter: What do you mean a long time ago?

Yishai Fleisher: Had Israel acted properly and with clarity. After the Six Day War, we could have had total, we had a kind of peace, but they spurned it. They wasted it. The Israeli leadership.

They wasted the opportunity. First thing is I must say that the word Palestinians, I say in quotes. That is a created identity, more like a sports team that I’m a fan of. There is no historical Palestine.

It never existed. There is no group of people called Palestinians, except for a group of people now that self identify as being part of a team called Palestine, which is really an anti-Israel brand and narrative. And there is no historic Palestine. Never existed.

There is no coins, Palestinian coins. There is no Palestinian king. It didn’t exist in history. We had two commonwealths here 3,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago.

There is a thing called Israel. It’s a nation. It’s a people. There was a land here called Judea, Israel, whatever.

It has a deep history. There is no history of Palestine. They never had a commonwealth here. They never had a capital here.

So the thing is a recent creation. It is mostly an anti-Israel brand. I don’t deny that there are people who self identify as Palestinians today. There is a group of people who would call themselves that.

But I would liken them more to people who follow a sports team, you know what I mean? Not in a national sense. They’re now part of this team. Will there be peace with these people? Absolutely. If you would give them clarity.

Sruli Fruchter: What do you think it takes?

Yishai Fleisher: It takes clarity. Clarity means I will tell you what is legal and what is illegal. How you can matriculate and live in a Jewish state. How do you do it? You have to follow the laws, respect the laws.

You have to have the flag of Israel in your village. Okay? You have to have a Mukhtar that we can, you know, head of a tribe that we can talk with. You have to make sure that you have to understand that if jihadism comes out of your village, your village will be exiled. You will not be able to, we will not abide that kind of stuff.

You cannot teach it in your mosque, in your schools or in your social media. You can’t teach it. If you teach that kind of stuff, you have no place here. And those that will accept it, which are many, they will be able to live here with upward mobility and they will be happy.

And if you’re not happy to live in a Jewish state because it offends your Arab, Muslim, whatever identity, then leave. But basically, interesting, I just remembered that somebody was telling me that the problem with the Jews is that they don’t always understand the difference between strength and violence. They think that strength and violence is the same thing. Like a suppression of jihadist instincts is through strength.

And only the very end of it doesn’t need to be through violence. But asserting governance … lishlot, is a key way to work in the Middle East. If you don’t have the gumption, the kind of wherewithal inside to lishlot, to control, then you’re not going to make it here in the Middle East. If you’re willing to lishlot, to govern, then the Arabs will line right up without a problem.

They’ll be like, absolutely, we understand the rules. And those that don’t will be exiled, fought, whatever it is.

Sruli Fruchter: In 2017, I don’t know, I seem to recall, you wrote an article in The New York Times. I believe it was called “The Jewish Settler’s View of the Future of Israel” or something like that.

Do you feel-

Yishai Fleisher: You know, you said that so lightly. Like you wrote an article. That was a, I had a published article in The New York Times.

Sruli Fruchter: Yeah.

Yishai Fleisher: Of which later on, there was an article about how they fought in the newsroom, in the opinion.

Sruli Fruchter: Oh, I hadn’t seen that article.

Yishai Fleisher: About just how, it was an article about a few different things that they fought over. But one of them was over that article and how it was hard for them to publish it, but they published it.

Sruli Fruchter: I hold it in such high regard, in my mind, it’s like …

Yishai Fleisher: What’s that?

Sruli Fruchter: No, no, I was joking. I said, I hold it in such high regard. I didn’t even take it as such a-

Yishai Fleisher: It’s a big deal to get that published there, for them to let something like that through.

Sruli Fruchter: And so I was curious if you see, because I don’t remember the article by heart. And I’m sure you’ve written many things, so you may not remember it by heart either. It does seem as if- Oh, you do remember. Okay, yeah, I assume so.

Yishai Fleisher: It was about five alternatives to the two-state solution.

Sruli Fruchter: Yeah, so what I am curious about is if you feel as if, or if you think that your view, if you would have changed anything that you’ve written at that point, given everything that’s happened in the last seven years. Because it does seem as if, and it could be that you changed your tone a little bit for the audience and curating it for the New York Times. But it does seem as if there’s a different attitude you feel toward what the next steps in peace or in that messianic process is. Do you think I’m right or wrong? You tell me.

Yishai Fleisher: Yeah, no, I think that you’re, I don’t know. Look, I’m older now.

Sruli Fruchter: No, no, I’m not saying that’s right or wrong.

I’m making an observation and asking a question.

Yishai Fleisher: I’m older now. I’m raising three children. I had a big surgery recently, which was also a spiritual, physical experience.

You know what I mean? A life experience. Oh, wow. You know, there was this war, I was in the army, I was called back into reserve duty. But the basic ideas about how to deal with Israel have not really changed.

So really, the truth is, vis-a-vis that article, I have it on my wall. I could read it right now to you, and it will be practically the same. I gave alternatives to the two-state solution, including Jordan, which Jordan is Palestine, gave that option. I gave the option of other intellectuals that I read.

I put them together. I wasn’t trying to make my own argument. You know, there’s other ways to do it. I still think that the answers are simpler than people make them out to be.

For some reason, there’s become complexity worship. There’s this great need to complexify things. And when you offer up plans that are straightforward, not so complex, people just reject them because they just think it’s impossible. But the truth is, and by the way, Trumpism is also a return to certain kind of basic principles, straightforwardness, as you said.

I like that. I offered up, and I still offer up, that Israel controls Judea and Samaria and other lands, Gaza, whatever it is. I hope the Sinai as well one day. And it asserts sovereignty over these places, gives residency to people, and gives them a decent life, fights jihadism, and has an Abraham Accords relationship with the Arabs around us.

It’s all so simple. It’s really not tricky. All you have to do is want to govern. Lishlot.

That’s all you have to do. And if you do that, it’s fine. You root out jihadism, which is not hard. It’s not hard.

You kick out… By the way, do you know that in Azerbaijan, there was a group of Armenians living there for like 700 years? And they never really got along with the Azeris. And Russia became a little bit weaker because of its Ukraine war. And one day, about two years ago, they made it public that they want to see the Armenians leave.

And within 48 hours, 200,000 Armenians left Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. Okay, people know how to rule when you need to. People know how to govern. They’re like, no more, I’m sorry, you’re out.

And they left without a bullet fire. Because there’s a difference between strength and violence. My point is, bad guys got to go, good guys can stay. Here’s the framework of what you’re allowed and what not allowed.

You could choose it if you want. Believe me, you’re going to get better health care and better roads and better decencies and better fiscal opportunities, financial opportunities than other places. Yes, yes, no, no. We rule this land.

We’re not taking over other people’s lands because we’re nationalists, not colonialists. We’re here to take our land, not other people’s land. Arabs live next door. We should speak Arabic.

We should know their language. And we should help create a railroad that crisscrosses this region. And we should help the Iranian people get rid of the Iranian regime. We should be a force of good and a force of strength and a force of stability in this region.

And we have to make it clear that Jerusalem is our holy city, not other people’s holy city. You want to come pray at our Temple? It’s a house of prayer for all nations. But the Temple Mount is Jewish. And people will accept that.

The Israeli left has no sense of what Arabs will respect. They have no sense of it. They’re so obtuse about how to talk with Arabs. Arabs will respect it when you’re strong and clear and forthright.

They will not respect when you’re wishy-washy and wimpy. That’s the message we broadcast, and that’s a shame.

Sruli Fruchter: Where do you identify on Israel’s political and religious spectrum? And do you have any friends on the quote-unquote other side?

Yishai Fleisher: Well, I am a Religious Zionist, but I am not a Religious Zionist by birth. I’m a religious Zionist by belief system that I’ve come to.

But I mean by that is that I’m not from the Bnei Akiva, Rav Kook stream. I don’t come from there. I don’t come out of that. I have adopted parts of it.

But I also have adopted that within streams of Hasidut and Chabad and Gra and Sephardi type stuff. I’m really a kind of… One time a Knesset member who passed away, Rabbi Ravitz, said to me, I know what you are. You’re Chabakook.

Chabakook stands for Chabad, Breslov Carlebach, Kahana, Kook, right? Don’t forget that also. And so it’s Chabakook. And so I’m like, yeah, I really feel connected to those streams of Eretz Yisrael, a sense of mysticism, a sense of a love of Judaism, a love of Torah.

Politically, so the question is, who do you vote for? So I voted for and worked for Mr. Ben-Gvir last time.

But that doesn’t mean I’m totally satisfied with that. There’s many people. There’s great people in the Likud, like Amit Halevi, who I like a lot. I thought that the ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, was very good.

I think that Netanyahu is sometimes good, sometimes not.

Sruli Fruchter: And do you have friends on the other side of your political and religious identity?

Yishai Fleisher: I definitely have people that are interlocutors, but it’s hard to be friends in a real way with people that you see as endangering the Jewish state. So what do you mean by left? Do you mean other side? Do you mean people who are anti-Israel? Or do you mean people who are, you know, secular?

Sruli Fruchter: It’s pretty open. There’s no…

Yishai Fleisher: Well, that’s what I’m saying. But no, it’s not so open because you said the other side. Well, what is the other side? I find myself not… There’s very few people who are on the other side.

The other side are people who are anti-Israel. So people who are anti-Israel are not my friends. I don’t have any…

Sruli Fruchter: So let’s say the Israeli left.

Yishai Fleisher: Well, what do you mean by Israeli left? Because Israeli left could mean… Because it could mean…

Sruli Fruchter: In any of the definitions, are there people you’re friends with?

Yishai Fleisher: Yes, because if you’re like a… Secular, but Zionist, kibbutznik type, you know…

Yes, I have acquaintances like that. But if you’re like a… You know, if you’re like a flaming anti-Netanyahu, anti-Ben-Gvir, anti-Smotrich, anti-Haredim, and that’s all you’re screaming all day long, it’s hard to talk with people like that. It’s hard to talk with people like that. And I, you know…

Sruli Fruchter: And the other religious side?

Yishai Fleisher: What do you mean?

Sruli Fruchter: I guess let’s say secular and…

Yishai Fleisher: Secular is easier than politically left. Because secular, we could always…

You know, I find that God is invisible. And that it’s not always easy for everybody to get on the same page. But giving away your land to your enemies, that’s just stupid. So therefore, it’s harder to deal with somebody who believes those kind of things.

God is like, let’s talk about it. And maybe that secular person will put on tefillin or this and that, you know what I mean? The truth of the matter is that human beings and certainly Jews are a big spectrum. I am a fun person to be with. I speak with Arabs all the time.

I have a good and easy rapport with Arabs. I don’t… I naturally have an affinity for Middle East people. We have a certain language and a certain cadence that we can communicate on.

And the same thing with the average person that you’re going to meet in Israel. Israelis are great folks. The people of this country are gold. You know, but is it easier to talk with somebody who shares with you Parshat Shavua and the Daf Yomi and a love of this Land than somebody who’s going to talk with you about sports and about, you know, I don’t know, the latest TV show or something like that? I don’t have a great frame of reference for those other things.

So it’s easier for me to deal with people who have what I have to share with. But look, the bottom line is we have a mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael. We have a mitzvah to love fellow Jews. And I think that’s also true about humanity.

We have a mitzvah, really … We’re meant to be an emissary and a minister onto peoples of this world to bring them closer. So my job isn’t to try to find differences. When I meet people, I don’t try to find a way how I could argue with them and disagree with them.

I try to find common ground. And there are millions, if not billions of people who could love Israel and be part of this great story.

Sruli Fruchter: So for our last question, after…

Yishai Fleisher: Was this actually 18 questions?

Sruli Fruchter: There are a lot of follow-ups. Hopefully, people don’t always…

Yishai Fleisher: So it’s 18. It’s a Jewish 18.

Sruli Fruchter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It used to be a strict 18. That’s why we want more follow-ups. So now those are like the fine print.

Yishai Fleisher: 18 headings. Okay. And is it really 40 guys? 40 men and women?

Sruli Fruchter: Yeah, you’re 30th. Ten more after you.

Yishai Fleisher: I can’t believe it. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Sruli Fruchter: So for our last question, do you have…

Yishai Fleisher: Last full question?

Last full question.

Sruli Fruchter: Maybe a follow-up. Do you have more hope or fear for Israel and the Jewish people?

Yishai Fleisher: Oh, gosh. You know, my whole life is full of hope.

My whole entity is full of hope. But it’s also a love of action. And a love of action, I guess, springs from hope. Yeah, you know, I am ridiculously hopeful.

I am unreasonably hopeful. I just… I want to tell you again, I live in Gush Etzion in Judea, south of here. And I came in to Yerushalayim to film with you today.

And I’m telling you, I’m living here. 22 years I was born here. There’s not a time that I drive into Yerushalayim that I don’t get like a thing. That I don’t get like a zap.

And I got it just from a building that was being built not far away from here. And it said like new office building. And I was just like, I just get like, I get like, it touches me a lot. There’s not a day, and I mean this literally, not metaphorically, not a day goes by that I don’t have a moment in the day where I’m just like, this is something.

And it could be in shul. It could be from a pasuk. It could be a building that I see. It could be a flower.

It could be a sun. It could be a cloud. Could be a child. Could be Ma’arat Hamachpela and everyone.

Could be, you know, there’s always just something that is just like… No, it’s an endless sense of joy. With, from time to time, dread and disappointment and concern and fear. I mean, right now we’ve released, you know, upwards of 2,000 murderers, you know, murderers or would-be murderers.

I mean, you know what I mean? What are you doing, Jewish state? What the hell are you doing? Releasing these people, these murderers. And they will be future murderers. That is a statistical fact. And I have children.

And I have a wife. And I have myself. And I have my friends. And I, you know, do I dread? You know, am I out there, you know, with tremendous hope, but also with a gun on my side … to protect the children? Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. But like, is it a sense that this is something great? Even though you look up sometimes to Shamayim and you say, Hashem, why? Why do we have such grasshopper leadership? Mazzeh! You know what I mean? Why do we have such a, you know, bureaucratic, bumbling middle state? Why do we have that? Yeah, but with all that, you know, I know that Hashem‘s plan is happening. And again, I just say, please Hashem, give us just the tiniest little schut to be part of building it, part of touching it. And I, you know, I help buy tractors for hilltops.

I help, you know, Hebron. We have a project of the tomb of Ruth and Ishai, which I’ve spearheaded, the renovation of the last three years, just to see something become beautiful. You know, just when somebody tells me that they’re going to fix their garden in Eretz Israel, I’m like, you are doing such a mitzvah. Yishuv Haaretz.

What a zechut! It’s just, what a merit, what a merit to be part of it. You know, when somebody gives me, you know, I’m also a fundraiser. Somebody gives me $180, $1,800, $18,000. I’m like, you don’t know what you just did.

We’re like building the land of Israel in your zechut, you know, in your merit. Like, you just, you’re such a, you’re so lucky. So I am absurdly hopeful. And I think Hashem is absurdly hopeful.

I think Avraham is absurdly hopeful. I think David HaMelech is absurdly hopeful. I think Reish Lakish is absurdly hopeful. I think that, you know, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu is absurdly hopeful.

I think Rav Shmuel Eliyahu is absurdly hopeful. And I, and on and on and on. And there are great people in this generation. And we have, we have the greatest merit to be part of it.

Sruli Fruchter: All right, no follow-ups. Thank you so much for answering our 18 questions. How was this for you?

Yishai Fleisher: Great, really. Thank you very much, big zechut.

And I hope that, I hope Hashem gives us the zechut to keep being part of it.

Sruli Fruchter: Amen.

I really view this episode as the beginning of a much larger exploration for many of the ideas that Yishai was putting forth, whether in agreement or in disagreement. And as I said in the intro, I appreciated his candor and ability to confidently put forth his views, whatever someone’s feelings may be towards them, in support or in opposition.

Because I think that when we can have more communicative and honest dialogue and discourse, we can make much stronger progress in our national conversations. So thank you, as always, to our friends Gilan Brounstein and Josh Weinberg for editing this podcast and video, respectively. And as usual, be sure to subscribe and share with friends so that we can reach new listeners. And if you have questions that you want us to ask or guests that you want us to feature, please shoot us an email at info@18Forty.org and be sure to subscribe and share with friends so that we can reach new listeners.

Until next time, keep questioning and keep thinking.

This transcript was produced by Sofer.AI.