There is a Future

We are currently working on a short video on several new Israeli MK's (Members of Knesset), for The Forward website (www.forward.com). Yes, that's the website of the Jewish Daily Forward, which began in 1897 in New York City, as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party. Fast forward to 2013, when a new Israeli political party, Yair Lapid's "Yesh Atid" ("There is a Future") surprised everyone and got enough votes to win 19 MK's in the new Knesset. The photo has a few of them. We've already interviewed Rabbi Dov Lipman (on the right in the photo, originally from Maryland), who gained fame last year by defending young girls from harrassment by ultra-Orthodox men in his hometown Beit Shemesh. Yair Lapid reminds us a bit of 2008 Obama: inspiring, lobbying for change and reconciliation, but (especially after four years of Obama), we're not quite sure how much backbone Lapid has. Nonetheless, the idea of an Israeli future is a bit radical: often it seems that the Israeli psyche, after so many wars and untold violence, doesn't quite believe that there IS a guaranteed future. We will focus on Lipman and one other Yesh Atid MK. Watch for this video to come out in the next two weeks.

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