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A ‘historic’ day in Israel ends with a political compromise — and big questions about the future
(JTA) — Like hundreds of thousands of her fellow Israelis, Kelly Breakstone Roth’s instinct on Sunday was to take to the streets.
The only wrinkle: She and her family have been in Brooklyn for the last two years, part of the diaspora of hundreds of thousands of Israelis living abroad. They couldn’t just walk out the door of their apartment and join the sweeping nationwide protest that ignited after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his defense minister, who had called for a pause on proposed changes to Israel’s judiciary.
So they bought one-way plane tickets, set to take off at 2 a.m. on Monday and land in Israel that evening. “It was a very spontaneous decision,” Breakstone Roth, an entrepreneur, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Sunday evening, as she ran errands to prepare her family of five for a trip of indeterminate length. “But the sensation that we have to be there has been building up for quite a bit now.”
She likened the experience to that of Israeli military reservists who receive an emergency call-up notice, known in Israeli jargon as a “tzav shmoneh,” Hebrew for “order eight.”
“This is a tzav shmoneh moment for anybody who wants there to be a Jewish and democratic state,” she said.
By the time Breakstone Roth landed in Tel Aviv Monday evening, conditions in Israel had shifted dramatically. Late-night protests on Sunday that shut down a main highway and riveted Jews the world over had been dispersed, but protesters convened again on Monday in Jerusalem, where the parliament was waiting to hear whether it would vote on a key piece of the judiciary legislation. The country’s labor unions had called a general strike, and everything from universities to McDonald’s franchises to some departures at the Tel Aviv airport had shut down.
The Breakstone Roth family poses with protest signs in New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport en route to Israel, March 27, 2023. (Courtesy of Kelly Breakstone Roth)
Meanwhile, Netanyahu had spent Sunday night negotiating with his coalition partners, trying to keep their government together despite a mounting sense that proceeding immediately with its signature legislation could plunge Israel into unprecedented turmoil — possibly even civil war. By the evening, even the justice minister who threatened to quit if Netanyahu delayed the vote said he would respect a decision to pause — one that Netanyahu made official only as night fell.
Netanyahu did not say what he had promised his partners to sign off on the pause, but a far-right minister said he had exacted permission to launch a civilian police corps.
Earlier, breaking his public silence, the prime minister had tweeted, “I call on all the demonstrators in Jerusalem, on the right and the left, to behave responsibly and not to act violently. We are brotherly people.”
Big questions loomed: What would happen when right-wing supporters of the judiciary reform — including a notoriously racist and combative group of fans from the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club — heeded a call to take to the streets, too? Would a delay satisfy protesters who have spent a dozen weeks articulating deep-seated grievances that, in many cases, go far beyond the particular reforms? Would Netanyahu and his coalition offer any meaningful concessions before resuming the legislative process in the future? What would be the cost of the promises he offered his most extreme partners in exchange for their acquiescence?
The answers to those questions will help determine what kind of country Israel will be after this crisis ends, whenever that is. But on Sunday night and Monday, the protesters and those watching them could be forgiven for taking a moment to bask in the sense that history was being made.
Thousands of Israeli right-wing protesters rally in support of the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul bills outside of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, March 27, 2023. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)
“What we witness in Israel is a historical revolution in the style of French, Russian, Iranian revolutions and the collapse of the Soviet Union,” tweeted Yossi Melman, a journalist who has covered military affairs for multiple Israeli newspapers.
“A historic night. Each of us will remember where we were tonight,” tweeted the journalist and political analyst Anshel Pfeffer. “And whoever was not in the streets will say that they were.”
The head of the country’s labor union, the Histadrut, also used the word “historic” to describe the general strike he was supporting.
Ahmad Tibi, an Arab lawmaker, tweeted in language drenched in history. He posted in Hebrew transliteration a slogan associated with the 2011 Arab Spring: “The people want to bring down the regime.”
It’s not at all clear that the Israelis who protested on Sunday and Monday will ultimately be satisfied. Revolutions don’t always succeed, as the Arab Spring and countless other examples in history make clear. Many of the social and demographic forces that brought Israel to this moment haven’t changed. Netanyahu has survived political crisis after political crisis before.
In addition, while a substantial majority of Israelis oppose the specific judicial reform legislation that is on the table now, many still say they believe some changes are merited. Israel’s far right, in particular, still views a disempowered Supreme Court as essential to achieving its vision of expanded Jewish settlement and control in the West Bank.
Supporters of the judicial overhaul were framing the stakes as historic, too, but casting the demonstrations as a threat to democracy. It is “inconceivable that the minority will force its opinion with violence and the creation of anarchy in the streets,” declared 17 leading religious Zionist rabbis in a joint statement calling on the government to push forward with the legislation on Monday.
Yet for Monday, at least, the politically diverse anti-government coalition that has solidified over the last three months could exult in the power of the people. And at a time when some liberal Israelis are so alarmed by the country’s political direction that they are packing up and moving away, the Breakstone Roths were coming home.
“This is a critical time in Israel’s history,” Breakstone Roth said before boarding. “In terms of our daughters, we felt it was really important for them to know that we’re doing everything that we possibly can to try to make an impact.”
She said she hoped to hear upon landing that Netanyahu was pulling the legislation, if only temporarily — then turned to realpolitik. “Hopefully If he does say it, he intends it, and … we’ll be able to say that the demonstrations were a success,” she said. “And if he’s just fooling, trying to do some sort of maneuver, then it’s going to be ignited once again.”
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The post A ‘historic’ day in Israel ends with a political compromise — and big questions about the future appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How the Israeli police’s first trans volunteer fought bigotry on the force
From the beginning of the biographical documentary The First Lady, Efrat Tilma makes it clear she has mixed feelings about the film, which details how she became the first trans woman to volunteer in Israel’s police department. When asked why she wanted to make the movie, she tells one of the directors, “I didn’t want to. You asked me.” This prickly demeanor persists throughout the film, although she later acknowledges that she wants “to show people that a trans woman is just like any other woman, like any other person.”
Tilma starts her story in 1964, the year she first tried living as a woman. Using archival footage, animation, and present-day interviews, directors Udi Nir and Sagi Bornstein present a moving portrait of Tilma’s life, unveiling how the burdens of her past have followed her into the present.
When Tilma was 14, she often wandered the streets of Tel Aviv to escape her abusive father. There she met another trans woman, Gila Goldstein, who introduced her to a whole network of trans women who taught Tilma about hormones and gender reassignment surgery. That same year, a man held her hostage in his apartment for a day and a half and sexually assaulted her. Not long afterwards, she says, an Israeli police officer threatened to kill her for dressing as a woman.
These experiences made her determined to carve her own path in spite of obstacles or the opinions of others, including the film directors. In one scene, as the team records her coming out of her apartment building, she strikes several poses.
“Natural, Efrat. We said natural!” a director reminds her.
“Kiss my ass!” Tilma responds, before strutting away.
But behind all the bravado is a vulnerable human being, who spends her first moment in the film nervously rehearsing the speech she is going to give at a 2023 Pride celebration in Israel. Tilma acknowledges that she’s not sure she’s been able to process her trauma and still carries it with her.
After leaving Israel in 1967, Tilma spent nearly four decades living in Europe, where she created a new life for herself as a woman. She performed in nightclubs, worked as an airline stewardess, got sex reassignment surgery in Morocco, married a man, and, nearly two decades later, divorced him. In 2005, she finally moved back to Israel and, on a whim, began volunteering with the Israel Police.
She wasn’t open about her gender identity at first, given the negative way she saw her colleagues treat trans women on the street. But when the police captain eventually discovered she was trans, the result ended up being positive: She began leading workshops on approaching the trans community with empathy and respect.
The film jumps between Tilma’s past and the present, as she reacts to Netanyahu’s 2022 re-election and the creation of a far-right coalition in Israel. Convinced that the world is reverting to the hateful days of her youth, Tilma leaves the police force and plans how she’ll kill herself if the government attempts to round up trans people. As protests start to sweep the country, however, she decides to channel her fear into activism. Shots of her among the protesters are mixed with recollections of her 1971 sex reassignment surgery and abuse she faced from a doctor in 1973.
Respecting Tilma’s boundaries while encouraging her to share her life story, the filmmakers capture both Tilma’s toughness and sensitivity, giving the film the honesty and heart that make The First Lady feel so intimate. They get Tilma to open doors into her life — literally.
Several times, the directors try to convince Tilma to bring the film crew into her apartment, where she says that no one else has been for a decade. When she finally lets them inside, they encounter piles of clothing, discarded plastic bottles, and other hoarded objects. The filmmakers tell her that the film crew will help her reorganize the apartment bit by bit, in much the same way they piece together her story: bit by bit.
Even if she approaches the whole process with a bit of attitude, Tilma remains determined to never give up fighting for a better life — or a better apartment.
The First Lady will screen at the New York Jewish Film Festival on Jan. 20.
The post How the Israeli police’s first trans volunteer fought bigotry on the force appeared first on The Forward.
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Exclusive: Israeli Officials Harshly Critical of Steve Witkoff’s Influence on US Policy on Gaza, Iran, i24NEWS Told
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – Amid growing disagreements with the Trump administration over the composition of the Board of Peace for Gaza and the question of a strike on Iran, officials in Israel point to a key figure behind decisions seen as running counter to Israeli interests: Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
The officials mention sustained dissatisfaction with Witkoff. Sources close to the PM Netanyahu told i24NEWS on Saturday evening: “For several months now, the feeling has been that envoy Steve Witkoff has strong ties, for his own reasons, across the Middle East, and that at times the Israeli interest does not truly prevail in his decision-making.”
This criticism relates both to the proposed inclusion of Turkey and Qatar in Gaza’s governing bodies and to the Iranian threat. A senior Israeli official put it bluntly: “If it turns out that he is among those blocking a strike on Iran, that is far more than a coincidence.”
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EU Warns of Downward Spiral After Trump Threatens Tariffs Over Greenland
European Union flags flutter outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on June 17, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Yves Herman
European Union leaders on Saturday warned of a “dangerous downward spiral” over US President Donald Trump‘s vow to implement increasing tariffs on European allies until the US is allowed to buy Greenland.
“Tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. Europe will remain united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Antonio Costa said in posts on X.
The bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said tariffs would hurt prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic, while distracting the EU from its “core task” of ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“China and Russia must be having a field day. They are the ones who benefit from divisions among allies,” Kallas said on X.
“Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity. If Greenland’s security is at risk, we can address this inside NATO.”
Ambassadors from the European Union’s 27 countries will convene on Sunday for an emergency meeting to discuss their response to the tariff threat.