Dear Professor Dan Shechtman,
I hope you get a chance to read this letter. I know you’re busy, but I think it will be meaningful for us both.
As a native Israeli, you were granted our state’s highest civilian honor – the Israel Prize in 1998. If this was not enough, your study of quasicrystals earned you the Nobel Prize in Chemistry back in 2011. Beyond academics, you and your wife raised a loving family of four children, each tremendously successful in their own right. Quite a resume!
I am writing to you because there are simply too many things that connect us both. You are I are both proud family men; husbands to wonderful wives who are mental health professionals (your wife is a psychologist, mine is a social worker) and parents to incredible kids. We both choose to live in the Jewish homeland; I moved here after completing my training as a psychiatrist and you returned after finishing multiple fellowships in my country of birth, The United States.
We are both academics who have worked hard to better the world through our work: you as a brilliant chemist and me as a clinician and a public health advocate. And while you identify as an atheist and I am easily identifiable from my long beard and black kippah as a haredi man; we are both Jewish.
The misconceptions around haredim
Prof. Shechtman, I’m writing because I heard a number of things in your name that were confusing to me. Apparently, at an event this past Shabbat in Beersheba, you made a few comments about your fellow Jews that were hopefully taken out of context.
“I’m deathly afraid of the haredim.”
Prof. Dan Shechtman (apparently)
I wasn’t there because I was spending Shabbat with my family, but you’ve been quoted by Arutz Sheva and Time.News as saying, “I’m deathly afraid of the haredim.” Apparently you also said that haredim are “milking the State of Israel,” and are “against education,” and “against work.”
Reading this made me sad because it reminded me of painful things that I experienced as a kippah-wearing, Shabbat-observing Jew at various academic institutions abroad.
MY COLLEAGUES in medical school would tell me that they were afraid of the way that my religion “makes women stay at home.” I would counter that my wife was supporting the family while I was completing my degree. During my residency training, I was told that I had, “avoided the hardest shifts by observing the Sabbath.” I would counter that I covered twice as many night shifts during the week as anyone else.
As an assistant professor in psychiatry at the medical school, I was told that I had, “milked the system” by taking off so many days in September for my holidays.” I would counter that I’d won multiple teaching awards and had volunteered for every December 25, January 1, and July 4 during my tenure.
For all of the difficulties my religious beliefs caused me, I never once doubted my faith and used it all to fuel my passion to live in Israel. I know that many people think haredim are “anti-Zionist” – as it’s reported you said – but while it’s complicated, my wife and I followed our life-long dream of making aliyah with our kids back in 2016.
The fights I got into as a kid because of my heritage and the challenges I faced as an adult pushed me to be a part of the greater Jewish destiny that one experiences on an unparalleled level here in Israel.
Since arriving, my wife and I have worked and volunteered both within the haredi community and outside of it. I’ve lectured for countless yeshivot here in Jerusalem, on behalf of The Israeli Ministry of Health and Ministry of Interior in multiple cities, and at your academic home of Technion University in Haifa.
For every hassidic rabbi I’ve treated, I’ve had the merit of working with an Israeli soldier. All have been special, meaningful experiences.
Professor Shechtman, the more I think about it, the more I see how much connects us. As fathers, Jews, and proud citizens of this wonderful country we call “home,” we share infinitely more than the handful of things that separate us.
And as for the differences, Am Yisrael has always been made up of different tribes who supported each other throughout this lengthy exile; it’s nothing new.
So I ask you, come and get to know me and the members of my community. We try our best to be good neighbors, and it’ll allow me to recall my perfect score in biochemistry back at university. My office is in downtown Jerusalem near the King David Hotel which has a delicious brunch. Or I can come to meet you wherever you like, as long as they have an equally tasty breakfast buffet.
Your new buddy,
Yaakov Freedman
The writer is a board-certified psychiatrist and business consultant based in Jerusalem. After completing his training as an award-winning chief resident at Harvard Medical School, he and his wife made aliyah with their family. He can be reached through his website: drjacoblfreedman.com