Israel exists somewhere between hope and reality. Before 1948, Israel was an ideal place, a word that exemplified hope for a different and distinct reality from the thousands of years of Jewish exile and dispersion. In reality, Israel is a modern state that lives in an unbearable reality, swinging between a desire for peace, frustration, and trauma, choosing to live without peace. Telling the “true” story of Israel is impossible, yet many Israelis feel the need to have their own stories heard so that others understand their reality. Using the Hasidic storytelling tradition, one that seeks to preserve the tension rather than resolve it and one that concentrates on story rather than “historical truth”, the process becomes a way for both storyteller and listener to gain an understanding of and connection to one another.
March 2024
The Story of Israel Through Hasidic Storytelling: Bridging Reality and Hope
Learning to tell one’s own Israel story using the Hasidic storytelling tradition.
Dr. Yakir Englander is the Senior National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. Originally from the Ultra- Orthodox community of Israel, Englander obtained his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University in Jewish philosophy and gender studies. He is a Fulbright scholar and was a visiting professor of Religion at Northwestern Universities, the Shalom Hartman Institute and Harvard Divinity School. Englander’s books about body, gender and sexuality in the Ultra-Orthodox and Zionist-Orthodox communities have changed the discourse on sexuality and gender inside the Jewish religious societies in Israel. After leaving Orthodoxy, Yakir was drafted to the Israeli military, spending of his service in an elite unit tasked with the identification of human remains. As a result of his service, he joined as a director at Kids4Peace, an interfaith youth movement in Jerusalem and in North America.
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