Rafael Castro is a graduate of Yale and Hebrew University. A Noahide of Italian-Colombian extraction, Rafael can be reached at rafaelcastro78@gmail.com
One of the most common and costly mistakes in diplomacy and international relations is self-projection—that is, expecting people from other nations and cultures to respond the way we imagine we ourselves would act under similar circumstances.
This curse of self-projection is especially painful for the Jewish people—a people in many ways unlike any other.
Many Jews, and Israelis in particular, believe that the world is just one more Israeli invention or Jewish Nobel Prize away from finally recognizing and appreciating their immense contributions. But this is a dangerous illusion. It reflects a form of self-projection: Because Jews traditionally revere intelligence, creativity, and moral progress, they assume the rest of the world does too.
It does not.
The world already knows you're smart. In fact, some are tired of hearing about it. Each autumn, Stockholm reminds us—yet again—that the Jewish people produce more Nobel laureates per capita than any other group on earth.
But more Nobel Prizes, more breakthroughs in medicine and technology, more masterpieces in literature and cinema—these are not what change hearts.
If brilliance and ethics alone were the keys to global acceptance, then the legacies of Abraham, Jesus, Marx, Freud, or Hannah Arendt would have done the job long ago. They haven't. Because most people do not form their judgments based on ethical rigor or rational thought, but on emotion.
And this, more than anything, explains the global success of Palestinian Arab public relations: not their facts (often lacking), but their ability to stir raw emotion.
If Israel—and the Jewish people—are to survive and thrive, they must come to terms with a hard truth: the winning argument in global opinion is rarely the most ethical or the most intelligent. It is the one that moves people emotionally.
The ancient Romans understood this well. Their formula for mass support was simple: panem et circenses—bread and circus. And it worked.
Jews have excelled at circenses. Johnny Weissmuller, Kirk Douglas, Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Amy Winehouse, Barbra Streisand, and Gal Gadot have arguably done more to generate affection for the Jewish people than all 216 Jewish Nobel laureates combined.
But when it comes to panem—to food culture—the Jewish record is modest. And this matters.
Why does the world love Italians? Probably not because of Pico della Mirandola, Luigi Pirandello, or Eugenio Montale—despite their genius. No, it’s because the world associates Italy with pasta, pizza, lasagna, Pavarotti and Sophia Loren.
Italy mastered the art of giving the world both bread and circus.
This isn’t demagoguery. Writers like John Mariani and Ian MacAllen have shown how Italian cuisine played a pivotal role in shaping Italy’s stellar reputation abroad.
The same is true for Mexico. Tacos and burritos have done more for Mexican-American integration than any think tank or political movement ever could.
It’s time Israel followed suit.
Israel leads the world in lab-grown meat. Imagine if Israeli entrepreneurs developed a kosher, affordable, handheld delicacy—tastier than duck and venison—infused with the secret spice blend of a Sephardic grandmother, wrapped in warm laffa or pita, and sold on every street corner from Tokyo to Toronto.
That dish should be named the Zioni.
Who could hate Zionism if they crave a Zioni?
Vegans will praise the Zioni for sparing the lives of cows and chickens. Environmentalists will applaud its sustainability. Everyone else will thank Israel for making great food cheaper, tastier, and accessible.
Bread and circuses still works—just as it did two thousand years ago.
The day the Jewish people realize that success in the global imagination depends not on philosophy and physics, but on food and feeling, is the day the relationship between Israel and the nations will begin to transform.