August 18, 2025 • 37 mins
Rotem Sella, founder of Sella Meir Publishing, shares his insights on Israel’s evolving political landscape, the role of books in shaping public discourse, and the power of non-fiction in today’s meritocratic literary ecosystem. He discusses how his publishing house is helping shape the future of Israeli society by providing a platform for new ideas and voices.
Sella also touches on the importance of a "silent majority" seeking meaningful change and the unique challenges of publishing in a fast-paced political environment. Tune in to hear more about his journey and the impact of publishing on Israeli culture and politics.
Sella also touches on the importance of a "silent majority" seeking meaningful change and the unique challenges of publishing in a fast-paced political environment. Tune in to hear more about his journey and the impact of publishing on Israeli culture and politics.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is JPO sits down with and today we sit
down with Rottenam Sella, founder of Salame Publishing House, which
published Prime Minister in Natanya Who's biography and most recently
Alisha Rabi's book Hostage.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
What Them? Sela Hello with Them? How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
What Them?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Is established and he's the owner and the head publisher
publisher of selami Il Press, a publishing house that's just
a bit more than ten years and started off a
bit on the margins and nowadays has become pretty much
I think, one of the biggest publishing houses in Israel.
(00:40):
No in nonfiction, nonfiction? Okay, how are you?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I'm good.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We were speaking before and I think at least three
times you said I'm optimistic. Yeah, why.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I put in jeopolitics aside. Everybody have the all opinions.
But first and for most, these are the people. Theseelists
are disillusioned since October seven. We don't see it in
the discourse, we don't see it within the political elite.
I think those kinds of changes happened last but I
(01:18):
think that the left has been disillusioned.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
No model, we're not going to hear about like.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Two states like that, and the people on the right
what you call used to be called the Jewish camp.
So the national part of the Jewish camp is disillusioned
from what I think was.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It worked for a time, an alliance with the community.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Alliance with the non non nationalist Jewish of of this
like Jewish camp. And I think that in the maybe
not in the general election, the ninety seventy for election,
I'm not going to see any change by the ninety
seventy seven election. Yeah, we're going to see some significant
(02:09):
change and maybe a new coalition, new alliance and alignment that.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Bring golden age. I can hope.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's interesting. You know, there's a very big disconnect between
as you said, right, the politicians nowadays, people in the media,
people in our generation as opposed to people younger. You know,
when I meet young Israelis that are twenty something, I'm
like blown away. Usually no matter what background they're from
(02:41):
or whatever, they're all more. I think, as you mentioned
before we spoke open minded. They don't fit in the
old boxes.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeh. I think it's an age thing. And it's also
people in the elite. They don't understand because what's the
little media politics. Well, people who are as an editor
of a newspaper usually meet fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Because they are part of the disalignment right, they are
clich of this world. If you're just a.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Citizen and you you've seen October seventh, you can't believe
the thing that you believed before. So if you're from
the left, you you got up and you fought for
the Jewish state and you are attacked because you are Jewish,
and you understand it being just like Israeli pushing against
like a fake Alaric state that you're going to have
(03:39):
is not going to be your banner. And if you're
on the right, you think, well, this alliance with a
doctor is I'm not believing in. I don't want to
pay the price because we thought when the shitty defend
the fact that they are Jewish, they are part of
the circle of solid They're not me anymore. So those
people that are looking for a new voice. And I
think this there is this take national sentiment, national sentiment
(04:03):
of like we need to the number one priory need
to be to preserve the Jewish state and to put
the national interest first. I think that this sentiment is
very strong. We just don't have a the layer above
a sentiment which is a world of ideas, public intellectuals,
future politicians, statements that are eventually echo this sentiment and
(04:30):
create new ideas and visions based on the sentiment. So
then we don't have above this and this is the
last thing that happened. New political parties, institutions established institutions
that eventually you.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Need a culture, you need books, you need you need
texts to learn from.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
We feel the sentiment because what we see where you
can say, because we're a political non fiction publishing house,
we're an ongoing campaign.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
I'm not get ballots.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I'm getting people clicking to you know, to see clicking
on the edge, right, and then buy the books and buy.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And what's a political what's a political publishing house?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
It means that in nonfiction we are dealing with with
ideas and we're dealing with sometimes with solutions and problems that.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Because in a sense, you know, I think it's you know,
some people would look at it as a business, and
I think you look at it as impact. Right, you
know what I'm saying, Like it's a business, but you're
you're in it to impact you know, Israeli society, the world, whatever, right,
Like that's why you're in this business. So I think.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
If you're asking a businessman, what is the metric that
he's aiming to? Okay, you can understand what what is
optimizing to? Right? So we are optimizing two number of
few units?
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Sort?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
How many books were setting?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Okay? Not what is the impact of American?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
You understand? And and this books sold, which is like
eventually conversation created. Let me tell you a secret. Not
other people that buy a book read it, right, and
not all.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
The people that write books wrote it.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Well, yes, that's also true.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, it's usually usually those people are aligned with the book.
So eventually when you start, when you have a book itself,
like it easily non fiction, political, non fiction, five ten
thousand people books, but sometimes even like twenty forty thousand books,
you know that you really made a huge impact on
the discourse. And by the way, books are in a
(06:35):
way much more influenza influential, much more influential than they've
been like twenty years ago.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Thirty Really why is that?
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Well we discovered it.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
By you know, a.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Chance, by chance, by just doing it.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, but thirty years ago there were institutions, media, politics,
unions and if you had a new book, which is
really a new framework of looking at reality, reality, you
needed to go to one of like twenty or thirty
people in Israel, and those people need to take your book.
(07:12):
And they have the invested interest already and friends and
their ideas and this is why they're there one of
the reasons. And maybe they will read your book and
they will talk about it in the radio show.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
TV or and social media.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
You don't have those filthy you have like five thousand,
and it's very manytocatic. Those people, most of them don't
know anything to anyone, you know, or those legends about
the boats funds, and eventually it's monetocatic, and people will
have an edge five in this ecosystem. So one you
(07:52):
have many, you have more players. Two people are addicted
to political commentary about how many people are like in
tweeted Facebook tweet the weeks.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, so israelis it's interesting israelis. So. For instance, so
a week or two ago, we had a memorial service
from my mother, late mother in law. It was a
year since she passed away, and my father in law
decided he wanted to bring a speaker. Okay, who is
the speaker a me seg Okay chief, you know, political
(08:27):
Analysts Channel twelve, most mainstream popular Israeli news channel, and
he spoke about politics, and I was a bit surprised.
And then he spoke and he said, he said, you know,
in any other country, you know, the most popular show
will be a reality show, will be I don't know,
it will be a non fiction fiction whatever, I don't know, whatever,
(08:48):
like I don't know, something exciting. In Israel, all the
top shows and ratings, not only the first, second, third,
fourth are all newss because we're in we're on.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Social media, something that you don't have.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Like in other countries, long form prevailed, like people can
write a thousand world piece on on Twitter weeks or
Facebook and to become viable, consume content. So in this
environment where people are addicted legal commentary, so many influences,
so the hiveg the intelligence of the hive of the
(09:27):
hive is like ten, fifteen, twenty IQ points higher they
used to be in the nineties because things just happen faster,
and those individuals in this meritocatic ecosystem, they take new
ideas books that we give them, and sometimes we see
those books. The frameworks become part of the conversation, not
in yours but in weeks.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
What was the first book you published.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
The first books, Maybe it would be good to talk about. Okay,
there is like our Civilizations Die by the David Peacock man. Okay,
it's the guy that's such a translation. It's a translationlation.
We started with Transtation. It's a book about the decline
in fertility in the Iran and Tuki.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Yeah, as I said, in the Europe.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
It took them two hundred years to go from six
to below two below replacement rate. In Iran and turky
it took them one generation.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
When the Shah came, you know the shower, when the
show was a circular, right, Yeah, So in ninety in
the end of the seventies, there was six kids for
a family in Tehran. Today you have like an ultra
orthodox religious states. Half really you had like this super
religious country which is really completely decadeent, huge also also
(10:40):
decadent from the inside.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So this book tried to explain it, and I thought
it's fascinating because we.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Because we're actually higher than.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
And this guy explanation dealing with like the theology and
Islam and win Islam is yeah, meeting modernity, what happened
with the modernity and why Judaism is eventually compatible to
modernity and that's why we live. Yeah, economically we are open.
I thought, these ladies, we want to read it. Yeah,
no publishing always want to publish it. So we published it.
(11:12):
That's so interesting and it's sort of it's sort of nice, okay.
And then become another guy okay, and that no one
wanted to publish, to be a tannanbomb okay.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And he can do Tenbaum for those who don't know,
he's an interesting guy, right, he's got he's a character.
Adyidish lives in German Austria. I don't know where he
lives now.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
He lived in New York and New York, Germany, and
he was a playwriter.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
He's one of those people that are very talented.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yeah. And also he came to his will as German.
Today he is a German journalist. Yeah, he's a German journalist,
is what we decided in Colanda. He came to Israel.
He speaks fluently Hibrew, Arabic, Yiddish, German, and he looked
like Joeman journalists and yeah, people spoke very open with
him on both sides, Palestinians, everybody. And he wrote the
(12:09):
book that we called Catch the Jew.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It was a huge right. So basically his thing is
he he he interviews people as an outsider, right, and
then people feel feel more open or more you know,
willing to share, right things that they would that are
not necessarily politically correct or not necessarily like.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
The setting that I was saying. Said as you know,
in the Gaza to tenant bomb.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
When he was a German journalist.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
German journals, right, the guy from Betzella and.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah told him like someone told him like we you know,
toned down the hologus thing. Like he said, like we know,
it didn't happen as they said, except exactly because he thought,
I'm talking to a.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Friend, right, right, someone from my Yeah, okay, right, and
I mean in general, and you'll find racism or whatever
or in any family at a Shabbat table whatever, right,
or you know, but when you feel comfortable right about
someone else, it's a different group. But you know when
you're yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
But yeah, I would say, we've been selling simple critical Yeah,
there are human I organization or you'll you'll you know
what you say, right, is that you all you want
to be your society be color blind, color blind. So
if you're not color blind, you just hate your group
and love the other group. I hate it come from that.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So one thing I think you guys really did well
and I think it changed Israeli society. One of many
is is Douglas Murray, okay, a British, a real British
journalist who really did not know right, how many books
of his did you publish?
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Five?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Five?
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Five? Okay?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
The people with directs malling with many.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Of the the autos that were translated to ev We
decided to go to published often book. Okay, there is
a bidding world some theme published a bid fully book.
You're not going to be there because there's just a
commercial extra. As you said, I can go and sell Cyde,
but like that O is yeah, so I won't be
there if it's a commersion.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
The stage de for fuel.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Douglas May book about imication, sold more than twenty thousand
books in his.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Letters, which is considered no one wanted to take and
Israel that's considered a lot.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Right, and that's considered don't considered.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Right okay, Okay, just New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
I think so it means that everybody it's like in
the discourse, it's right right, the main discs. So we
published him and Jordan Peterson and Tomas Sow and many
many names, many autos that you know in the world.
There's all millions of copies, and they they think very clearly.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And it's red but it is really know that it is.
Really Publishing houses turned them down some of these authors,
or they just didn't but they just didn't think of
them as an option.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
When you're outside of this game media, you can believe
in the conspiracyes.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
It's really it's not a conspiracy. It's like that for guys.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And they just happened to choose from like thousands and
book in the world, like a handful, and it's very personal,
booky personal point, a book that they like. And even
if there's something very successful, they think like, I don't
know why, but it seems like effect to me, or
don't like the guy. You just want publishers and just
(15:36):
created a huge opportunity because what you say, ideas that
are labeled as some of the conservative discourse of Italian
discourse or just right wing, vaguely white, those people just
no one, no one would publish them.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So I'm fast forwarding a bit, you published the book
of Promist and Yahoo and this is how many years.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Ago before the rest direction Okay, the end of twenty
twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Okay, how is that? That was because it was worked
on when he was in the opposition.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
That was that was a very interesting commander projects.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Okay because the book he wrote the book when he
was the opposition leader.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Ye had free time, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Position you're not running in the country, yeah, but you're
writing two hundred thousand Obama. It took like four years
to write it, like at ptobiography, like one.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Year when he was leader of a position successful one
because yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
So anyway, he wrote this book and then we had
this very short window to translate it and publish it
like together with like Simon Schuster with the American publisher.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And then it was an operation with.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Like tens of people and it was very interesting. And
also the reception of the book was the way it
was received was something that that was interesting. It was
the first time now every second that a book that
we published is like in the center of the discourse
and a book the center of the conversation. And I
(17:23):
believe it was very impactful I think it was impactful
so on the next last election, because when someone by
the book, the book is really the closest thing to
be the artiffect of the of the person.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You're engaged. You're engaged with them. You can't have you
bought a piece of them, or.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
You can't have a dissonance and cognitive brains after you
bought the book.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
It's more than buying the bb action.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Figure if there was something like okay, because when you
buy the book and you're really sitting down with the
guy reading first person, very personal to an intimate conversation,
you know, don't people don't see books as an advanced technology,
but it's the most advanced technology of communication because.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
It's well, it's one way.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
It's one way, and it's like to be old Blain,
right Blain. You you need to imagine you produce it
in something that is far more complicated and far more
advanced than any other than a newspaper. Yeah, no, the newspaper,
but yeah, magazine, Yeah, anything ex.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Except for our newspaper. So speaking of intimate and speaking
of you know, the discourse, what I'm really interested in
is uh, your the recent book by Elisha Abby.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
It's going to be published. Elisha Abby for those who
don't know, probably one of the most famous Israeli hostages,
released from captivity after more than a year, if I
recall correctly, And I think what was impactful about his
release was I think that that was the first time
when we saw men, right, it was mainly women at
(19:05):
the beginning, et cetera who came out, and they looked
in a sense like what we remember how Holocaust survivors
looked after the Holocaust, right, yeah, this is actually real hunger.
He published a book through you. How did you? How
did you get him to do it?
Speaker 3 (19:23):
We had we had we have a show friend, Shauan Maillan.
They spoke posing for apporting bank and she woke very
closely with fish. His mother also woke in the Ponting Bank.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And we live in such a small country. Shauana was
in the army with me.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's a it's a city, like people
don't understand. Yeah, a defense minis stand and a phone
mist so yeah, fight in big countries. People think, you know, right,
it's a country, but it's really more like a city council.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Okay, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
So she's great. She worked with him.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
She's she's like volunteered I think with them or whatever.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Yeah, she's a force of nature.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, as you know, yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
And she's really like behind the scenes doing good.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Very smart woman.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
People. She she spoke to them after he met Trump
and and then he spoke about the possibility of doing
a book and she she connected us.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
We sat with him in It's less than March.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Okay, so it's like, I think forty four days after
it was released, he was much fineler than today. Yes,
it was still like habilitation, but he was very, very determined.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
From his from the beginning. He was determined. Oh he was.
He wanted to do media. He wanted to make an impact.
He wants to get those who were with him out.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
You know, because you those like words all the time,
but also people who watches can imagine.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
I think the book is the heavier story.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah, from your mind for your soul.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
And he came to us and he said, like, first,
ask me anything in the process, like if there's something
I didn't try, if you want to know, like you know,
tell me everything everything.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
And second he said, I will do whatever it takes.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Now. When he said whatever it takes and you have
all those things that he's doing and went for what
he went for, We didn't know. It took us time,
it literally yeah, but when he took it militally, we
couldn't move slower than him. Okay, right, So two months
in two days after this meeting, we had the launch
(21:50):
event books.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Wow, yesterday you had a platinum.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Today well today, yes, there were a platinum which is
forty thousand, sort seventy five thousand already, which is probably
the fastest seventy five thousand, No one calls seventiounds. Yeah,
his gold book was the fastest book to get to
twenty thousand copies.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Wow, this was the gig the publisher. Gift said, and
it's one twenty six days ago.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
He was very he began working on the book.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Wow in this point, and what it taught me about
the place of a book in the discourse and the
importance of leaning forward as a publisher is that the
leaders they haven't gone anywhere. It's just weir the publisher.
We are not producing up to date stuff. Yeah, so
(22:47):
today publisher are pessimistic, reactive, and you know.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
But limit it's like it's like you read an academic study, right,
from it so you'd see you really act. They published
an academic study, but the entry views were like five
years ago exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
So a publisher, the publisher will do today.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Most of publishers in a.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Year or two will publish a book about the reactive.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
They're like, oh, something is happening in reality. Okay, let's
wait to someone to write something. Probably will come to
a CNA with a manuscript, then we edit it, we
publish it in two whels. But it's happening now. And
if you will do it now, time to market like
a newspaper is doing again.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And maybe maybe it's because you you always felt like
an underdog. Maybe, and then that's why you think outside
the box. Because if you're like a big publishing house,
the people are, you're used to people coming to you,
then you wouldn't have to be that creative.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
I start, I felt that we need to create a
discourse now, like close to what happened. And we started
to create like big editorial stuff and to build this
capability within a publishing house after October seven, because it
seems like things are changing very fast and we wanted
(24:05):
to be relevant, to make this above this like there's
this new healthy sentiment. So we want to bring their
public intellectual the up and coming people who need to
replace them. We want to give them the platform a
book that would be able to possible for them.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
What was the most impactful thing that he wrote the
book that influenced you.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Most when he went to the mouth of life with
marginal living, bunch of the living.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Sorry, so he said, what happened to me?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
It's not like the Holocaust, which is important, it was
important to that, but it's it's something about him. He's
not taking himself and it's often too seriously as a victims.
A victim he always and this is how he survived.
This is what comes out of the book. You need
to ask physicism that way, but it comes a book that.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
If you have.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
A cause outside of yourself that you are walking toward,
you can be like you know, you can do anything,
and you can always choose and you can always choose life.
Because he eventually the book is not just a strugget
to survive, so struggling to live ethical life within captivity.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Right, And let's just remind those who don't know his
wife and two daughters were killed on October seventh, and
he didn't know.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
He discovered it when he came out right, and that's
also in the book.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
And he's still just for force of nature.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Right. That's when we met him for the first time.
We asked him about the last day we interview about
the last day and less day of activity, when and
when they released, we met someone and if someone told him,
you're going to meet Tonut and your mother. It's also
in the book. It's not his big sister. And he said, no,
(26:00):
take me to my wife and kids first, and they
told him they will tell you already, and he said
then then he told us then stood they prepared them
to not to not expose it, and ask her, I'll
do fair because I have to ask, how do you
feel like because it is the book I'm trying to
(26:23):
So he said that at that moment I understood he
pittid the same thing and then ask another question because
I have to know, you know, we need to.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
So I asked the day was the released, Was it
a good day or a bad day? And he said,
you know, it was a good day.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
And then afterwards like he thought about it, and also
it's in the book, he hold it that he don't
he doesn't know why he reacted the way he reacted,
which is like he was composed. But the thing that
doing captivity, he somehow processed this is a possibility. Okay,
(27:08):
he prepared himself to this moment.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Wow, Wow, that's crazy. I want to connect to something
you said at the beginning about you're speaking about Israeli society,
new force, new streams or I don't know, right, groups.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
So disillusion. Yeah, the political camps doesn't walk anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Right, So you established I don't know if it's like
a sub publishing house, an imprint, that's what it's called, okay,
called the Day the day after Tomorrow and hebrewts time
and you launched it like a year ago, okay. And
(27:47):
what's the idea there, if I understand correctly, is to
really be a platform for that generation or these voices
right that are rebuilding or re the next The next
level was really society.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Let's say you're thinking, okay, right, thinking, we had paradigm,
they don't walk anymore, We had ideas, don't walk anymore
with political camps don't walk anymore. And first and for most,
you need people who give you paradigms. Because the people,
the voters, let's say, okay, they have a sentiment, they
feel reality different, but they don't come up with ideas.
(28:25):
They're waiting for a leader that will give them ideas
and aligned with a new way of feeling, feeling of you, or.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Give them something. They know that they're looking for something
or that they're lacking something and someone to give them
an answer to that.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
I believe that, Like it's a top down thing, right,
But the test is a public The public.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Know when it's fake, and it's fake, and you know, you.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Grind the idea for like the the social media and
the people, and people buy the book and maybe voth
for the party. But you need you need those ideas
and you need to build the platform. And today everything
is so fast. Sometimes those people in those public intellectuals,
those future leaders, they won't stop think deeply for themselves
(29:15):
and articulately those ideas and like in long form, well,
we think it's very important.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So the first book that was published was by Dan Roll, right,
who's expensive member. He's the former deputy Foreign Minister Fatid
and then he basically left the party and a day
later or the same day he published a book or
the same day he did yeah, same day Okay, Now,
of course I think it was a statement.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
It's his decisions, right, and I don't know, you didn't
force them out, but he seemed to have dissillusioned off
to otobout seven and and he said, yeah, he fits
this national sentiment and he understand that the field is
the important, the feeling, and he wants like a political
(30:02):
the political change. You want to lower the threshold so
more parties can get in, so that like a new
stream of new people and then new new ideas.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
I think I think it's the right card.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
And I don't know that you need to ask him,
but I think that when you hold the book, when
when it took the time to compose, you know, a
long form and think deeply, and that's what made him
maybe you know, yeah, maybe you know that's.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
What made him step down or whatever.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
It was very natural that this statement and this political
statement will come together, and for us it was like
an interesting book launch.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
But yeah, that's it, okay, And and anything else coming
out from that in print.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
In that field, okay. She's like very unspoken, I know,
like on Twitter at least.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
She's very she's very known. I think I think she's
more known outside of Israel than in Israel.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, even though it is also you know, she has
this like a special sauce. Yeah, just like she's just
a leader, right, and and.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
She's interesting because people who go through changes are interesting,
you know what I'm saying. And she was even though
I guess she would probably say that she always thought
these things. But she was ansant member for the Labor Party, right,
and nowadays she's.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
That's not and now now again she's not.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
She's really brave as an intellectional, she's really brave. She's
not books and she don't care, right, she's just really
the solution about the two solutions, and she's I think
with us.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
But she's written that as before it's over selling, I think, so.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, I know, but now she now we're working on peace,
not now okay, it's a new way of thinking.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Like could headline well, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Help, and it's a it's a good book, like she's like,
you know, she said people, well she said, I said,
I understand the manuscript, but.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
The right see land as.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
A holy thing, okay, and we need to grab it
on you know, take Dancelia and no matter what, and
she said, the least, for some reason also have the
same mystic view.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
We just need to get hide of it.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
No what okay, we just need to look at it
as my pix Okay, you know, as the people who
founded the.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Count found that.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Yeah, it's a strategic asset, right if you can put
juice on it, and it's not the demographically and it
said that this common sensical view of reality is something
that we I just need to come back to.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I just watched the documentary by Khan which is about
the disengagement from Gushkatif from the Gaza strip and you
see there an archive, you know, quote from from it's
a grabbin at the launch of one of the Kybosim
or mochevin in Gushkatif, you know, and he's speaking about
the significance of being there. So like the old school
(32:57):
labor was different than then nowadays.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
You can say or school label.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
By the way, the best way to sell a new
idea is to say it's an old idea. Okay, bring
it back to the table. It always be a bit different.
But it's very good that this new set of principles
is going she's outlining in this book is going to
come out in twenty.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Twenty five this year.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
It's very good that she's articulated again. And you know,
but I think about corent events and put something new
on the table.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Okay, who's someone that you haven't yet published and you
would love to publish?
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Well, maybe i'm talking to him.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Well, as you said, it's it's a small country, it's
it's a neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I thought you were going to see Donald Trump? Oh
oh talking about I don't know, you know what I'm saying, like,
who's like, who's someone that you like?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Well, yeah, you know, I feel a Trump like Connell
Reagan is a guy that I don't know if someone
will crack with an official autobiography or an autobiography right
to understand them?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, like Donald, it would be fascinating though.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
It would be fascinating and and it would be very
interesting to you don't need to I'm just you know, no,
I'm just saying. I'm just saying because I love tobiographies
and biographist or again it's considered someone that wasn't correct
by There is not a biography of a not that's
really dug deep in the mechanism, and I think I
(34:25):
I would really want to see how they will try
to solve the riddle of Donald Trump. Who is this person? Yeah, yeah,
because whatever going on in his mind, Like right, you
never seen any We're not.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Going to say you know what I'm saying. That would
be a good a good Yeah, that's.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Going to be a good sales speech.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I don't know. Okay, she's getting dead. You know, she
has an anger, she has an angle. I think that
I would want to hear someone like Valbek Michelle Balbeck
m hm, right about. I would want this kind of
auto is kind of like human being. It is just
like no bullshit filter and seeing things as they are
(35:10):
and care about any friendship, pointy things. I would want
to see someone like that. Right about is I don't okay,
we have big autos anymore. That right about dieslay in society,
not for like a political filter or anything.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
So I have an idea of someone, but I can't
tell it to you now. It will get me in trouble.
A lot of them. Thank you so much. This was fascinating,
and I think I think specifically, I think you know
your mission and like rethinking Israel or rebuilding or whatever
(35:45):
you want to call.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
It, or being a platform for people who do it yeah,
and pulling some people who we think.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
Have ideas, yeah, to give.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I think it's really important and I think that's what
we need. And you see it in people's eyes. They
just want something to to know, is is the future?
You know what I'm saying, or something that will make
them feel safe, or something that will make them feel inspired.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
People think feel disillusioned. Sometimes they are angry because of it.
Sometimes it makes them a bit pessimistic. But I think
that people have an open mind and open mind to
new propositions, and I think it's a very healthy place
to be as a society. Most of the people, they
(36:30):
are just silent.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
But the majority of silent majority, that's true.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Majority is silent because they don't know what to believe.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
In open, which is fine.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
You don't see.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Politics as a soccer game, and they just chose their team.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
Open And that's a very good place to be and
I believe that by future.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Okay, you're optimistic, as you said, taken, So thank you
so much for being with us, and I'm excited to
see Elie ravisb come out of English very soon. October Okay,
that's a date to remember. October seven, Okay.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Write it down in your Diary seven Don't Forget Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Thank you that.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
This episode was hosted by jpos's editor in chief, Speaker Client.
Editing and production were done by Yuval Barnea
This is JPO sits down with and today we sit
down with Rottenam Sella, founder of Salame Publishing House, which
published Prime Minister in Natanya Who's biography and most recently
Alisha Rabi's book Hostage.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
What Them? Sela Hello with Them? How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
What Them?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Is established and he's the owner and the head publisher
publisher of selami Il Press, a publishing house that's just
a bit more than ten years and started off a
bit on the margins and nowadays has become pretty much
I think, one of the biggest publishing houses in Israel.
(00:40):
No in nonfiction, nonfiction? Okay, how are you?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I'm good.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We were speaking before and I think at least three
times you said I'm optimistic. Yeah, why.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I put in jeopolitics aside. Everybody have the all opinions.
But first and for most, these are the people. Theseelists
are disillusioned since October seven. We don't see it in
the discourse, we don't see it within the political elite.
I think those kinds of changes happened last but I
(01:18):
think that the left has been disillusioned.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
No model, we're not going to hear about like.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Two states like that, and the people on the right
what you call used to be called the Jewish camp.
So the national part of the Jewish camp is disillusioned
from what I think was.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It worked for a time, an alliance with the community.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Alliance with the non non nationalist Jewish of of this
like Jewish camp. And I think that in the maybe
not in the general election, the ninety seventy for election,
I'm not going to see any change by the ninety
seventy seven election. Yeah, we're going to see some significant
(02:09):
change and maybe a new coalition, new alliance and alignment that.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Bring golden age. I can hope.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's interesting. You know, there's a very big disconnect between
as you said, right, the politicians nowadays, people in the media,
people in our generation as opposed to people younger. You know,
when I meet young Israelis that are twenty something, I'm
like blown away. Usually no matter what background they're from
(02:41):
or whatever, they're all more. I think, as you mentioned
before we spoke open minded. They don't fit in the
old boxes.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeh. I think it's an age thing. And it's also
people in the elite. They don't understand because what's the
little media politics. Well, people who are as an editor
of a newspaper usually meet fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Because they are part of the disalignment right, they are
clich of this world. If you're just a.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Citizen and you you've seen October seventh, you can't believe
the thing that you believed before. So if you're from
the left, you you got up and you fought for
the Jewish state and you are attacked because you are Jewish,
and you understand it being just like Israeli pushing against
like a fake Alaric state that you're going to have
(03:39):
is not going to be your banner. And if you're
on the right, you think, well, this alliance with a
doctor is I'm not believing in. I don't want to
pay the price because we thought when the shitty defend
the fact that they are Jewish, they are part of
the circle of solid They're not me anymore. So those
people that are looking for a new voice. And I
think this there is this take national sentiment, national sentiment
(04:03):
of like we need to the number one priory need
to be to preserve the Jewish state and to put
the national interest first. I think that this sentiment is
very strong. We just don't have a the layer above
a sentiment which is a world of ideas, public intellectuals,
future politicians, statements that are eventually echo this sentiment and
(04:30):
create new ideas and visions based on the sentiment. So
then we don't have above this and this is the
last thing that happened. New political parties, institutions established institutions
that eventually you.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Need a culture, you need books, you need you need
texts to learn from.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
We feel the sentiment because what we see where you
can say, because we're a political non fiction publishing house,
we're an ongoing campaign.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
I'm not get ballots.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I'm getting people clicking to you know, to see clicking
on the edge, right, and then buy the books and buy.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And what's a political what's a political publishing house?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
It means that in nonfiction we are dealing with with
ideas and we're dealing with sometimes with solutions and problems that.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Because in a sense, you know, I think it's you know,
some people would look at it as a business, and
I think you look at it as impact. Right, you
know what I'm saying, Like it's a business, but you're
you're in it to impact you know, Israeli society, the world, whatever, right,
Like that's why you're in this business. So I think.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
If you're asking a businessman, what is the metric that
he's aiming to? Okay, you can understand what what is
optimizing to? Right? So we are optimizing two number of
few units?
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Sort?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
How many books were setting?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Okay? Not what is the impact of American?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
You understand? And and this books sold, which is like
eventually conversation created. Let me tell you a secret. Not
other people that buy a book read it, right, and
not all.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
The people that write books wrote it.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Well, yes, that's also true.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, it's usually usually those people are aligned with the book.
So eventually when you start, when you have a book itself,
like it easily non fiction, political, non fiction, five ten
thousand people books, but sometimes even like twenty forty thousand books,
you know that you really made a huge impact on
the discourse. And by the way, books are in a
(06:35):
way much more influenza influential, much more influential than they've
been like twenty years ago.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Thirty Really why is that?
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Well we discovered it.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
By you know, a.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Chance, by chance, by just doing it.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, but thirty years ago there were institutions, media, politics,
unions and if you had a new book, which is
really a new framework of looking at reality, reality, you
needed to go to one of like twenty or thirty
people in Israel, and those people need to take your book.
(07:12):
And they have the invested interest already and friends and
their ideas and this is why they're there one of
the reasons. And maybe they will read your book and
they will talk about it in the radio show.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
TV or and social media.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
You don't have those filthy you have like five thousand,
and it's very manytocatic. Those people, most of them don't
know anything to anyone, you know, or those legends about
the boats funds, and eventually it's monetocatic, and people will
have an edge five in this ecosystem. So one you
(07:52):
have many, you have more players. Two people are addicted
to political commentary about how many people are like in
tweeted Facebook tweet the weeks.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, so israelis it's interesting israelis. So. For instance, so
a week or two ago, we had a memorial service
from my mother, late mother in law. It was a
year since she passed away, and my father in law
decided he wanted to bring a speaker. Okay, who is
the speaker a me seg Okay chief, you know, political
(08:27):
Analysts Channel twelve, most mainstream popular Israeli news channel, and
he spoke about politics, and I was a bit surprised.
And then he spoke and he said, he said, you know,
in any other country, you know, the most popular show
will be a reality show, will be I don't know,
it will be a non fiction fiction whatever, I don't know, whatever,
(08:48):
like I don't know, something exciting. In Israel, all the
top shows and ratings, not only the first, second, third,
fourth are all newss because we're in we're on.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Social media, something that you don't have.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Like in other countries, long form prevailed, like people can
write a thousand world piece on on Twitter weeks or
Facebook and to become viable, consume content. So in this
environment where people are addicted legal commentary, so many influences,
so the hiveg the intelligence of the hive of the
(09:27):
hive is like ten, fifteen, twenty IQ points higher they
used to be in the nineties because things just happen faster,
and those individuals in this meritocatic ecosystem, they take new
ideas books that we give them, and sometimes we see
those books. The frameworks become part of the conversation, not
in yours but in weeks.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
What was the first book you published.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
The first books, Maybe it would be good to talk about. Okay,
there is like our Civilizations Die by the David Peacock man. Okay,
it's the guy that's such a translation. It's a translationlation.
We started with Transtation. It's a book about the decline
in fertility in the Iran and Tuki.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Yeah, as I said, in the Europe.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
It took them two hundred years to go from six
to below two below replacement rate. In Iran and turky
it took them one generation.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
When the Shah came, you know the shower, when the
show was a circular, right, Yeah, So in ninety in
the end of the seventies, there was six kids for
a family in Tehran. Today you have like an ultra
orthodox religious states. Half really you had like this super
religious country which is really completely decadeent, huge also also
(10:40):
decadent from the inside.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So this book tried to explain it, and I thought
it's fascinating because we.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Because we're actually higher than.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
And this guy explanation dealing with like the theology and
Islam and win Islam is yeah, meeting modernity, what happened
with the modernity and why Judaism is eventually compatible to
modernity and that's why we live. Yeah, economically we are open.
I thought, these ladies, we want to read it. Yeah,
no publishing always want to publish it. So we published it.
(11:12):
That's so interesting and it's sort of it's sort of nice, okay.
And then become another guy okay, and that no one
wanted to publish, to be a tannanbomb okay.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And he can do Tenbaum for those who don't know,
he's an interesting guy, right, he's got he's a character.
Adyidish lives in German Austria. I don't know where he
lives now.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
He lived in New York and New York, Germany, and
he was a playwriter.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
He's one of those people that are very talented.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yeah. And also he came to his will as German.
Today he is a German journalist. Yeah, he's a German journalist,
is what we decided in Colanda. He came to Israel.
He speaks fluently Hibrew, Arabic, Yiddish, German, and he looked
like Joeman journalists and yeah, people spoke very open with
him on both sides, Palestinians, everybody. And he wrote the
(12:09):
book that we called Catch the Jew.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It was a huge right. So basically his thing is
he he he interviews people as an outsider, right, and
then people feel feel more open or more you know,
willing to share, right things that they would that are
not necessarily politically correct or not necessarily like.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
The setting that I was saying. Said as you know,
in the Gaza to tenant bomb.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
When he was a German journalist.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
German journals, right, the guy from Betzella and.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah told him like someone told him like we you know,
toned down the hologus thing. Like he said, like we know,
it didn't happen as they said, except exactly because he thought,
I'm talking to a.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Friend, right, right, someone from my Yeah, okay, right, and
I mean in general, and you'll find racism or whatever
or in any family at a Shabbat table whatever, right,
or you know, but when you feel comfortable right about
someone else, it's a different group. But you know when
you're yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
But yeah, I would say, we've been selling simple critical Yeah,
there are human I organization or you'll you'll you know
what you say, right, is that you all you want
to be your society be color blind, color blind. So
if you're not color blind, you just hate your group
and love the other group. I hate it come from that.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So one thing I think you guys really did well
and I think it changed Israeli society. One of many
is is Douglas Murray, okay, a British, a real British
journalist who really did not know right, how many books
of his did you publish?
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Five?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Five?
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Five? Okay?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
The people with directs malling with many.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Of the the autos that were translated to ev We
decided to go to published often book. Okay, there is
a bidding world some theme published a bid fully book.
You're not going to be there because there's just a
commercial extra. As you said, I can go and sell Cyde,
but like that O is yeah, so I won't be
there if it's a commersion.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
The stage de for fuel.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Douglas May book about imication, sold more than twenty thousand
books in his.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Letters, which is considered no one wanted to take and
Israel that's considered a lot.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Right, and that's considered don't considered.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Right okay, Okay, just New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
I think so it means that everybody it's like in
the discourse, it's right right, the main discs. So we
published him and Jordan Peterson and Tomas Sow and many
many names, many autos that you know in the world.
There's all millions of copies, and they they think very clearly.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And it's red but it is really know that it is.
Really Publishing houses turned them down some of these authors,
or they just didn't but they just didn't think of
them as an option.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
When you're outside of this game media, you can believe
in the conspiracyes.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
It's really it's not a conspiracy. It's like that for guys.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And they just happened to choose from like thousands and
book in the world, like a handful, and it's very personal,
booky personal point, a book that they like. And even
if there's something very successful, they think like, I don't
know why, but it seems like effect to me, or
don't like the guy. You just want publishers and just
(15:36):
created a huge opportunity because what you say, ideas that
are labeled as some of the conservative discourse of Italian
discourse or just right wing, vaguely white, those people just
no one, no one would publish them.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So I'm fast forwarding a bit, you published the book
of Promist and Yahoo and this is how many years.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Ago before the rest direction Okay, the end of twenty
twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Okay, how is that? That was because it was worked
on when he was in the opposition.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
That was that was a very interesting commander projects.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Okay because the book he wrote the book when he
was the opposition leader.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Ye had free time, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Position you're not running in the country, yeah, but you're
writing two hundred thousand Obama. It took like four years
to write it, like at ptobiography, like one.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Year when he was leader of a position successful one
because yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
So anyway, he wrote this book and then we had
this very short window to translate it and publish it
like together with like Simon Schuster with the American publisher.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And then it was an operation with.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Like tens of people and it was very interesting. And
also the reception of the book was the way it
was received was something that that was interesting. It was
the first time now every second that a book that
we published is like in the center of the discourse
and a book the center of the conversation. And I
(17:23):
believe it was very impactful I think it was impactful
so on the next last election, because when someone by
the book, the book is really the closest thing to
be the artiffect of the of the person.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You're engaged. You're engaged with them. You can't have you
bought a piece of them, or.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
You can't have a dissonance and cognitive brains after you
bought the book.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
It's more than buying the bb action.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Figure if there was something like okay, because when you
buy the book and you're really sitting down with the
guy reading first person, very personal to an intimate conversation,
you know, don't people don't see books as an advanced technology,
but it's the most advanced technology of communication because.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
It's well, it's one way.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
It's one way, and it's like to be old Blain,
right Blain. You you need to imagine you produce it
in something that is far more complicated and far more
advanced than any other than a newspaper. Yeah, no, the newspaper,
but yeah, magazine, Yeah, anything ex.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Except for our newspaper. So speaking of intimate and speaking
of you know, the discourse, what I'm really interested in
is uh, your the recent book by Elisha Abby.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
It's going to be published. Elisha Abby for those who
don't know, probably one of the most famous Israeli hostages,
released from captivity after more than a year, if I
recall correctly, And I think what was impactful about his
release was I think that that was the first time
when we saw men, right, it was mainly women at
(19:05):
the beginning, et cetera who came out, and they looked
in a sense like what we remember how Holocaust survivors
looked after the Holocaust, right, yeah, this is actually real hunger.
He published a book through you. How did you? How
did you get him to do it?
Speaker 3 (19:23):
We had we had we have a show friend, Shauan Maillan.
They spoke posing for apporting bank and she woke very
closely with fish. His mother also woke in the Ponting Bank.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And we live in such a small country. Shauana was
in the army with me.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's a it's a city, like people
don't understand. Yeah, a defense minis stand and a phone
mist so yeah, fight in big countries. People think, you know, right,
it's a country, but it's really more like a city council.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Okay, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
So she's great. She worked with him.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
She's she's like volunteered I think with them or whatever.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Yeah, she's a force of nature.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, as you know, yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
And she's really like behind the scenes doing good.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Very smart woman.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
People. She she spoke to them after he met Trump
and and then he spoke about the possibility of doing
a book and she she connected us.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
We sat with him in It's less than March.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Okay, so it's like, I think forty four days after
it was released, he was much fineler than today. Yes,
it was still like habilitation, but he was very, very determined.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
From his from the beginning. He was determined. Oh he was.
He wanted to do media. He wanted to make an impact.
He wants to get those who were with him out.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
You know, because you those like words all the time,
but also people who watches can imagine.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
I think the book is the heavier story.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah, from your mind for your soul.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
And he came to us and he said, like, first,
ask me anything in the process, like if there's something
I didn't try, if you want to know, like you know,
tell me everything everything.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
And second he said, I will do whatever it takes.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Now. When he said whatever it takes and you have
all those things that he's doing and went for what
he went for, We didn't know. It took us time,
it literally yeah, but when he took it militally, we
couldn't move slower than him. Okay, right, So two months
in two days after this meeting, we had the launch
(21:50):
event books.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Wow, yesterday you had a platinum.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Today well today, yes, there were a platinum which is
forty thousand, sort seventy five thousand already, which is probably
the fastest seventy five thousand, No one calls seventiounds. Yeah,
his gold book was the fastest book to get to
twenty thousand copies.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Wow, this was the gig the publisher. Gift said, and
it's one twenty six days ago.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
He was very he began working on the book.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Wow in this point, and what it taught me about
the place of a book in the discourse and the
importance of leaning forward as a publisher is that the
leaders they haven't gone anywhere. It's just weir the publisher.
We are not producing up to date stuff. Yeah, so
(22:47):
today publisher are pessimistic, reactive, and you know.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
But limit it's like it's like you read an academic study, right,
from it so you'd see you really act. They published
an academic study, but the entry views were like five
years ago exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
So a publisher, the publisher will do today.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Most of publishers in a.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Year or two will publish a book about the reactive.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
They're like, oh, something is happening in reality. Okay, let's
wait to someone to write something. Probably will come to
a CNA with a manuscript, then we edit it, we
publish it in two whels. But it's happening now. And
if you will do it now, time to market like
a newspaper is doing again.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And maybe maybe it's because you you always felt like
an underdog. Maybe, and then that's why you think outside
the box. Because if you're like a big publishing house,
the people are, you're used to people coming to you,
then you wouldn't have to be that creative.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
I start, I felt that we need to create a
discourse now, like close to what happened. And we started
to create like big editorial stuff and to build this
capability within a publishing house after October seven, because it
seems like things are changing very fast and we wanted
(24:05):
to be relevant, to make this above this like there's
this new healthy sentiment. So we want to bring their
public intellectual the up and coming people who need to
replace them. We want to give them the platform a
book that would be able to possible for them.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
What was the most impactful thing that he wrote the
book that influenced you.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Most when he went to the mouth of life with
marginal living, bunch of the living.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Sorry, so he said, what happened to me?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
It's not like the Holocaust, which is important, it was
important to that, but it's it's something about him. He's
not taking himself and it's often too seriously as a victims.
A victim he always and this is how he survived.
This is what comes out of the book. You need
to ask physicism that way, but it comes a book that.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
If you have.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
A cause outside of yourself that you are walking toward,
you can be like you know, you can do anything,
and you can always choose and you can always choose life.
Because he eventually the book is not just a strugget
to survive, so struggling to live ethical life within captivity.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Right, And let's just remind those who don't know his
wife and two daughters were killed on October seventh, and
he didn't know.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
He discovered it when he came out right, and that's
also in the book.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
And he's still just for force of nature.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Right. That's when we met him for the first time.
We asked him about the last day we interview about
the last day and less day of activity, when and
when they released, we met someone and if someone told him,
you're going to meet Tonut and your mother. It's also
in the book. It's not his big sister. And he said, no,
(26:00):
take me to my wife and kids first, and they
told him they will tell you already, and he said
then then he told us then stood they prepared them
to not to not expose it, and ask her, I'll
do fair because I have to ask, how do you
feel like because it is the book I'm trying to
(26:23):
So he said that at that moment I understood he
pittid the same thing and then ask another question because
I have to know, you know, we need to.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
So I asked the day was the released, Was it
a good day or a bad day? And he said,
you know, it was a good day.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
And then afterwards like he thought about it, and also
it's in the book, he hold it that he don't
he doesn't know why he reacted the way he reacted,
which is like he was composed. But the thing that
doing captivity, he somehow processed this is a possibility. Okay,
(27:08):
he prepared himself to this moment.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Wow, Wow, that's crazy. I want to connect to something
you said at the beginning about you're speaking about Israeli society,
new force, new streams or I don't know, right, groups.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
So disillusion. Yeah, the political camps doesn't walk anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Right, So you established I don't know if it's like
a sub publishing house, an imprint, that's what it's called, okay,
called the Day the day after Tomorrow and hebrewts time
and you launched it like a year ago, okay. And
(27:47):
what's the idea there, if I understand correctly, is to
really be a platform for that generation or these voices
right that are rebuilding or re the next The next
level was really society.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Let's say you're thinking, okay, right, thinking, we had paradigm,
they don't walk anymore, We had ideas, don't walk anymore
with political camps don't walk anymore. And first and for most,
you need people who give you paradigms. Because the people,
the voters, let's say, okay, they have a sentiment, they
feel reality different, but they don't come up with ideas.
(28:25):
They're waiting for a leader that will give them ideas
and aligned with a new way of feeling, feeling of you, or.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Give them something. They know that they're looking for something
or that they're lacking something and someone to give them
an answer to that.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
I believe that, Like it's a top down thing, right,
But the test is a public The public.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Know when it's fake, and it's fake, and you know, you.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Grind the idea for like the the social media and
the people, and people buy the book and maybe voth
for the party. But you need you need those ideas
and you need to build the platform. And today everything
is so fast. Sometimes those people in those public intellectuals,
those future leaders, they won't stop think deeply for themselves
(29:15):
and articulately those ideas and like in long form, well,
we think it's very important.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So the first book that was published was by Dan Roll, right,
who's expensive member. He's the former deputy Foreign Minister Fatid
and then he basically left the party and a day
later or the same day he published a book or
the same day he did yeah, same day Okay, Now,
of course I think it was a statement.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
It's his decisions, right, and I don't know, you didn't
force them out, but he seemed to have dissillusioned off
to otobout seven and and he said, yeah, he fits
this national sentiment and he understand that the field is
the important, the feeling, and he wants like a political
(30:02):
the political change. You want to lower the threshold so
more parties can get in, so that like a new
stream of new people and then new new ideas.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
I think I think it's the right card.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
And I don't know that you need to ask him,
but I think that when you hold the book, when
when it took the time to compose, you know, a
long form and think deeply, and that's what made him
maybe you know, yeah, maybe you know that's.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
What made him step down or whatever.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
It was very natural that this statement and this political
statement will come together, and for us it was like
an interesting book launch.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
But yeah, that's it, okay, And and anything else coming
out from that in print.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
In that field, okay. She's like very unspoken, I know,
like on Twitter at least.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
She's very she's very known. I think I think she's
more known outside of Israel than in Israel.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, even though it is also you know, she has
this like a special sauce. Yeah, just like she's just
a leader, right, and and.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
She's interesting because people who go through changes are interesting,
you know what I'm saying. And she was even though
I guess she would probably say that she always thought
these things. But she was ansant member for the Labor Party, right,
and nowadays she's.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
That's not and now now again she's not.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
She's really brave as an intellectional, she's really brave. She's
not books and she don't care, right, she's just really
the solution about the two solutions, and she's I think
with us.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
But she's written that as before it's over selling, I think, so.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, I know, but now she now we're working on peace,
not now okay, it's a new way of thinking.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Like could headline well, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Help, and it's a it's a good book, like she's like,
you know, she said people, well she said, I said,
I understand the manuscript, but.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
The right see land as.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
A holy thing, okay, and we need to grab it
on you know, take Dancelia and no matter what, and
she said, the least, for some reason also have the
same mystic view.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
We just need to get hide of it.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
No what okay, we just need to look at it
as my pix Okay, you know, as the people who
founded the.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Count found that.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Yeah, it's a strategic asset, right if you can put
juice on it, and it's not the demographically and it
said that this common sensical view of reality is something
that we I just need to come back to.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I just watched the documentary by Khan which is about
the disengagement from Gushkatif from the Gaza strip and you
see there an archive, you know, quote from from it's
a grabbin at the launch of one of the Kybosim
or mochevin in Gushkatif, you know, and he's speaking about
the significance of being there. So like the old school
(32:57):
labor was different than then nowadays.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
You can say or school label.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
By the way, the best way to sell a new
idea is to say it's an old idea. Okay, bring
it back to the table. It always be a bit different.
But it's very good that this new set of principles
is going she's outlining in this book is going to
come out in twenty.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Twenty five this year.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
It's very good that she's articulated again. And you know,
but I think about corent events and put something new
on the table.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Okay, who's someone that you haven't yet published and you
would love to publish?
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Well, maybe i'm talking to him.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Well, as you said, it's it's a small country, it's
it's a neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I thought you were going to see Donald Trump? Oh
oh talking about I don't know, you know what I'm saying, like,
who's like, who's someone that you like?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Well, yeah, you know, I feel a Trump like Connell
Reagan is a guy that I don't know if someone
will crack with an official autobiography or an autobiography right
to understand them?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, like Donald, it would be fascinating though.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
It would be fascinating and and it would be very
interesting to you don't need to I'm just you know, no,
I'm just saying. I'm just saying because I love tobiographies
and biographist or again it's considered someone that wasn't correct
by There is not a biography of a not that's
really dug deep in the mechanism, and I think I
(34:25):
I would really want to see how they will try
to solve the riddle of Donald Trump. Who is this person? Yeah, yeah,
because whatever going on in his mind, Like right, you
never seen any We're not.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Going to say you know what I'm saying. That would
be a good a good Yeah, that's.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Going to be a good sales speech.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I don't know. Okay, she's getting dead. You know, she
has an anger, she has an angle. I think that
I would want to hear someone like Valbek Michelle Balbeck
m hm, right about. I would want this kind of
auto is kind of like human being. It is just
like no bullshit filter and seeing things as they are
(35:10):
and care about any friendship, pointy things. I would want
to see someone like that. Right about is I don't okay,
we have big autos anymore. That right about dieslay in society,
not for like a political filter or anything.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
So I have an idea of someone, but I can't
tell it to you now. It will get me in trouble.
A lot of them. Thank you so much. This was fascinating,
and I think I think specifically, I think you know
your mission and like rethinking Israel or rebuilding or whatever
(35:45):
you want to call.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
It, or being a platform for people who do it yeah,
and pulling some people who we think.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
Have ideas, yeah, to give.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I think it's really important and I think that's what
we need. And you see it in people's eyes. They
just want something to to know, is is the future?
You know what I'm saying, or something that will make
them feel safe, or something that will make them feel inspired.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
People think feel disillusioned. Sometimes they are angry because of it.
Sometimes it makes them a bit pessimistic. But I think
that people have an open mind and open mind to
new propositions, and I think it's a very healthy place
to be as a society. Most of the people, they
(36:30):
are just silent.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
But the majority of silent majority, that's true.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Majority is silent because they don't know what to believe.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
In open, which is fine.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
You don't see.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Politics as a soccer game, and they just chose their team.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
Open And that's a very good place to be and
I believe that by future.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Okay, you're optimistic, as you said, taken, So thank you
so much for being with us, and I'm excited to
see Elie ravisb come out of English very soon. October Okay,
that's a date to remember. October seven, Okay.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Write it down in your Diary seven Don't Forget Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Thank you that.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
This episode was hosted by jpos's editor in chief, Speaker Client.
Editing and production were done by Yuval Barnea
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.