Opinion | From Tel Aviv to Riyadh

An old friend of mine, Uri Dromi, a former Israeli Air Force pilot, told me about an experience he had as he personally grappled with the necessity of live and let live in modern Israel. A couple of weeks ago, he and some Air Force colleagues decided to visit Bnei Brak, a predominantly ultra-Orthodox city east of Tel Aviv, which is strongly backing Netanyahu’s efforts to overhaul the court, given how it often intervenes to curb the power and perquisites of the ultra-Orthodox. Dromi has been mobilizing other retired airmen to oppose Netanyahu’s effort, and they went to Bnei Brak to try to understand how it can be “that under the same Israeli skies there are people who think so differently from me,” Dromi explained.

The night before the visit, Dromi called the kosher Hazvi Bakery there to arrange for dozens of challah breads that Jews often eat on the Sabbath, along with plastic bags for each one with the bakery’s kosher logo. He used the breads as his calling card, putting a note on each bag of challah: “Shabbat is dear to all our hearts. So is democracy.”

It triggered several conversations that made Dromi reflect. He recalled an ultra-Orthodox woman telling him, “You are pushing your liberal agenda on me, and I have to defend myself.” She added, “My husband studies all day, and I am a computer engineer.” When Dromi asked her why her husband doesn’t work, she answered, “Because after the Holocaust, we need big families, and someone has to keep the torch of the Torah alive.” To liberal ears, Dromi remarked, “that may sound like nonsense, but it is deeply believed by them.”

Dromi recalled how, as he sat on a bench, a young ultra-Orthodox boy approached him and asked, “What is democracy?”

“It touched my heart,” Dromi recounted. “I said, ‘In democracy everyone is equal, like you and me, and if something happens between us, we go to the court.’ He said he was told you should not go to an Israeli government court because ‘it was a goyim court,’” meaning it served gentiles.