Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / #109: Ephraim Herschmann

Transcript

#109: Ephraim Herschmann · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

0:01
Welcome to another episode of Come Together.
0:15
We are back. I'm going to do a solo episode.
0:19
I've actually tried to do a couple of these in the last
0:21
couple of weeks and for some reason, it's been really
0:24
challenging for me. I just had, I just went 16
0:28
minutes and realized that none of it sounded good and it was
0:30
all just a bunch of incoherent rambling.
0:32
So hopefully on Take Two, I'll have my thoughts a little bit
0:36
more in order and can have a little bit better content for
0:40
myself and for you guys. So I haven't done a solo episode
0:45
in a long time. Like I just said, thank God the
0:47
podcast has been doing really, really well.
0:51
It's been busy. I haven't needed to do solo
0:53
episodes. I've really been stocked up with
0:56
guests and I'm really trying to make the most of that.
0:59
And I'm really trying to use that as an opportunity to, you
1:03
know, I mean, again, the, the reason why I wanted to pull back
1:07
on solo episodes a little bit is because I didn't want, I didn't
1:11
want the listeners to have to scroll through a ton of my own
1:16
solo episodes in order to get to the interesting guest episodes.
1:20
I consider my guest episodes to be way more interesting and way
1:23
more useful than my solo episodes today.
1:29
I mean, it's going to be kind of a stream of conscious episode, I
1:31
think. And those are always, I think a
1:34
lot of fun if as long as you're able to keep your thoughts in
1:39
order, you know, and kind of keep a train of thought for for
1:42
an extended period of time. And there's a lot of things that
1:46
I feel very emotionally strongly about that it's just going on
1:51
and the world is crazy. You know, the news is crazy.
1:55
I was just travelling for the last bunch of weeks in and out
1:58
of the country, Florida, NY, Israel, Amsterdam, Barcelona.
2:03
And, you know, I have a two-month old daughter.
2:07
I think that the last solo episode that I recorded was
2:10
prior to her being born. So, you know, just, there's so
2:14
much going on and there's so many different things in my
2:16
head, and I haven't really had the opportunity to kind of, you
2:22
know, articulate any of it and to really be eloquent about it.
2:25
And I've kind of just been living in and going through all
2:29
these motions, but I haven't been really able to kind of sit
2:35
and really soak in them and really try to, you know, feel
2:39
them out and talk them out. So I don't even know where to
2:43
start. I guess I'll start with the fact
2:48
that my, my, my family, my wife and my kids have been to New
2:53
York most of the summer for the last month and change a month or
2:58
so, I would say. And it's hard for me to be back
3:03
in New York. It's hard for me because the way
3:08
that I feel like my time is spent here is super different
3:12
from the way that my time is spent in Florida.
3:14
And, you know, and, and I mean, aside from the fact that I just
3:19
have to see that things are literally further apart from one
3:22
another, like my life in Florida, my, the circle of what
3:25
my life consists of is a much smaller, like actual physical
3:28
space. But I mean, in New York, you
3:33
know, New York is a mass, a massive state and we have family
3:37
and friends all over, right. So if I want to go to my sister
3:40
for a weekend, it's a four hour drive, you know, I mean, that's
3:43
the equivalent to go to Naples, you know, in Florida for me.
3:46
And I, and that's something I, I do very often because it does
3:49
throw apart my whole schedule and it's hard for me to, you
3:51
know, to kind of get back into things.
3:53
The other, the other factor, of course, is that I'm not in my
3:57
own home and I'm not in the and I think that all people, but
4:03
especially myself, are very, very much a product of their
4:06
environment. And different environments have
4:10
different associations within our own heads and with our own
4:14
selves, you know, And so for me to be in Florida, I have that
4:18
kind of association. I have my, my, the spot where I
4:21
sit, where I work, and I have the spot where I sit where I
4:23
record my podcasts. And I have, you know, I have XY
4:26
and Z in certain places in certain times.
4:28
I do this and this and this and I have a home routine that
4:31
allows me to kind of, you know, I, I, I work within the confines
4:34
of a routine in order to be the most productive of that routine
4:37
in that whole, in the whole schedule kind of gets thrown out
4:41
the window here. And instead it's just chaos and
4:43
I'm trying to navigate and be productive within the chaos.
4:47
That being said, you know, this is not the first time that I'm
4:51
having this issue and I'm having this challenge in my life.
4:54
You know, I've, I've periodically, you know, moved
4:58
away from home and then come back for different periods of
5:01
time. And every single time I come
5:04
back, it does take me time to kind of get back into the swing
5:07
of things and really kind of overcome that.
5:08
And one of the things that I always have to tell myself and
5:12
that I'm saying out loud now is the notion that, you know, is
5:15
the notion that if I'm really as productive as I think I am, and
5:20
if I'm really as disciplined as I think I am, then, you know,
5:25
my, my source of productivity can't come from the outside,
5:28
from where I am. It's got to come from the inside
5:31
from who I am, you know, which is why I'm doing take 2 after
5:35
talking for 16 minutes straight of another podcast that I will
5:39
hopefully go on for another about half an hour or so for 40
5:42
minutes or see, and I think there will be a lot to talk
5:45
about. But that was just one thing that
5:47
was that's on my head, that's on my mind.
5:48
That's always on my mind is, you know, kind of your environment
5:53
where you are and also the people that you're with too, the
5:55
people that you talk to and the people that you spend time with,
5:59
you know, and that's why at different points of my life,
6:01
depending on what I was going through, I've had to talk to
6:03
some people more and some people less.
6:05
And there's very few consistent friends that I've had that, you
6:09
know, that kind of stick with me throughout any kind of path on
6:12
life. The path in life from high
6:13
school to college to, you know, took my professional career to
6:17
living in New York or Florida, getting married or having kids.
6:19
And, you know, and I have, and I find different friends almost
6:22
based on like what aspects of life, what part of life that I'm
6:26
in. And I'm always looking for
6:28
friends that I look up to, not that look up to me, but people
6:33
that, you know, that I that I could really try to benefit
6:37
something from that. You know, try to benefit, learn
6:39
from their, from the healthy marriage or a healthy
6:43
relationship with their kids or a good, you know, or that
6:47
they're very driven in terms of work or creative.
6:49
And I like to surround myself with those type of people.
7:00
Yeah. So anyway, so one of those
7:03
friends is my buddy of Remy Krone, Charles Krough, as he now
7:07
goes by. And you know, he has been there
7:13
my whole life, not my whole life, but since my 7th grade in
7:16
high school. And he just got married.
7:18
And even though I just had a daughter two months ago and when
7:23
I went to his wedding, she was a month and a half old, I could
7:26
not not be there. I absolutely had to go.
7:31
So my buddy Zach and I, Zach Alexander, friend of the pod,
7:34
also been on the pod two or three times.
7:38
Zach and I flew together to Israel for the week to have his
7:42
wedding. And I have so many different
7:47
thoughts about, about the war and about what's going on in the
7:52
news and even about visiting there because I've never been to
7:58
a country that's been in a war, you know, And when 911 happened,
8:03
I was, you know, I mean, I, I was, I think 4, maybe I was four
8:08
or five years old. I, I, I literally have no
8:10
recollection of, of anything happening.
8:13
I don't remember my parents taking me home.
8:14
I don't remember the school talking about it.
8:16
Like certainly, you know, a lot of my friends remember
8:19
everything for some reason. I really don't remember much.
8:24
And I was too young and, you know, not conscious enough to
8:27
realize, you know, the kind of, you know, feeling that there was
8:29
in the country that the national mood of, you know, of, you know,
8:34
mourning and the national mood of wanting to fight back.
8:37
And the national mood of, you know, let's get those sons of
8:40
bitches that got us, you know, like they, you know, I, I wasn't
8:45
there for any of that. And so I've never really been in
8:47
a country that has that's been in a war.
8:50
And so, you know, it was really, really, really, really
8:56
fascinating. Before I get into that, I wanted
9:04
to, and I think, and I want to preface my take, I think, or my
9:09
opinion or my experience with a couple of different thoughts or
9:13
ideas. So right now it's I feel it's a
9:24
scary time to be Jewish and a supporter of Israel in today's
9:32
world. And part of the reason, and
9:35
there's a couple of different reasons for that.
9:38
There's the obvious first reason, which is blatant
9:41
anti-Semitism, which sucks. Obviously that's always there.
9:46
Then you have the second another reason, which is you know,
9:52
people that and you know that, that that have no skin in the
9:55
game that are let's say all American or all European or all
9:58
South American and have no relationship to Palestinians or,
10:02
or Israel or anything like that. And Israel has by far lost the
10:08
PR war since October 7th. And no matter and, and, and, and
10:12
people unfortunately, and the typical spokespeople for Israel
10:16
unfortunately don't haven't really been giving emotionally
10:23
satisfying answers to people that have no skin in the game
10:28
and that are only emotionally invested in the war.
10:31
So for example, right, you know, if someone does not care about
10:35
Israel, doesn't know anything about Israel, it does not care
10:37
about Gaza, doesn't know anything about the Palestinians,
10:40
and they're just tuning into the war.
10:43
You know, what you're going to, you know what they see what,
10:46
what, what, what objectively is happening is there's been a, you
10:49
know, there was an attack, a terrible, terrible terrorist
10:52
attack. And that attack was, was
10:54
subsequently responded to by two years of absolute demolition.
10:59
That's what they see, you know, and, and the two years of
11:03
absolute demolition has, you know, has, has been covered like
11:09
really almost no war before, obviously, except for maybe
11:12
Ukraine while it's going on. But you know, the, the, the you
11:16
know, some of the footage is real and some of the footage
11:18
isn't, but enough of it is. And enough of it is off putting
11:21
enough and scary enough to people that in this war you're
11:25
like, OK, there's nothing left to Gaza.
11:27
What are you, what are you still doing there?
11:29
And people like and people that have been representing Israel
11:34
have done, you know, the big public voices have been
11:37
representing Israel, I think have done a pretty terrible job
11:40
at stepping up and providing both emotional and intellectual,
11:47
political, whatever the word, you know, just whatever facet
11:51
you want to tackle this by. I don't think that the usual
11:56
crew of pro Israel people have been doing the job well and I
12:05
don't find myself very convinced by them either.
12:07
You know, and as someone that does support Israel and does
12:10
love Israel and is Jewish and you know, I mean, I, I love the
12:13
people, I love the place. And I, I don't know anything
12:16
about the I, I never knew anything about the government
12:18
until a couple of years ago. I didn't even know how it worked
12:21
until a year ago or so. You know, I mean, obviously I'm
12:24
not very invested in the government of Israel, but I'm
12:26
invested in the well-being of it.
12:28
And, and I, and I, and I really, really consider it a home.
12:32
It's a place that I would absolutely, I would absolutely
12:35
move to in my life and it's something that I actually hope
12:40
to do and to accomplish is to is to move there and live there.
12:45
That being said, we're doing a really, really, really bad job
12:50
in the PR war. And so you have anti Semites
12:56
that are just going to always be there.
12:57
And then you have people that are not anti-Semitic, they're
12:59
just not sure what to take what, you know, what the story is.
13:02
And they've had no history, no involvement, No, no, you know,
13:06
they've never been invested before.
13:07
They're just getting social media updates on TikTok and on
13:11
Twitter, on, on X and on Instagram, whatever it is.
13:14
And they are. And then and you get someone
13:17
who, and I don't even blame him for having his opinion, like
13:19
Theo Von or like Dave Smith or, you know, that, that, that are
13:23
that are that are openly, you know, talking about how, you
13:26
know, how terrible this is and, and, and making.
13:30
And unfortunately, people also have a hard time
13:33
differentiating, you know, between Israel and the
13:36
government and then the Jews around the world and the people
13:40
that live there and all. And, you know, and the rhetoric
13:43
and this and the slope starts getting slippery and the
13:45
rhetoric starts changing from the Israelis or the Israeli
13:49
government to the Jews or, you know, from Israeli government to
13:52
Israelis think this. And, and this becomes an
13:57
enormous danger that I think that we're all guilty of, which
14:00
is we when we label an entire country or a city or a town or
14:05
state as just a state as opposed to an individual name, it
14:11
becomes a lot, it becomes a lot easier to treat them as though
14:15
they're not humans. This goes both ways in this war
14:17
with Palestinians and with Israelis.
14:20
You know, and I've and, and I'm always making this point and I
14:23
always try to make this point, you know, which is like when you
14:26
hear a case about something about, you know, someone dying
14:30
and you say what happened, you know, and like, if the answer is
14:33
who cares? They're a Palestinian, That's
14:35
not a good answer to me, you know, And if the answer is who
14:38
cares and Israeli, that's not a good answer.
14:40
Or they're a Jew, that's a terrible answer to me, you know.
14:43
And so you always need the context.
14:46
You can't we lose the individual by the labeling.
14:50
What if the Palestinian was just a regular dad and daughter and
14:55
son and and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, and, and
14:58
they were just, you know, just trying to live their lives and
15:01
have a job and, you know, try to and just try to live regular
15:04
lives. And they don't have it, you
15:05
know, and, and they didn't have this.
15:07
And, and, and just because they live where they live or they're
15:10
born where they're born, they get blown out of existence.
15:12
That's a tragedy. That's a tragedy.
15:14
And the Israeli and, and then the Israeli soldiers and the
15:17
kids that you know, that the 18 year olds that have to get sent
15:20
to war and they come back and they never come home.
15:23
And you know, the country of Israel is so small that everyone
15:27
that they're related to like one out of every, or, you know, like
15:29
either personally known or related to like one out of
15:32
every, like four or five people on the street.
15:34
Every single death is a national tragedy.
15:37
And like it's, you know, my hands, like I see my family
15:41
feels that very strongly. My dad, my dad will take time.
15:45
He isn't, he's very invested. And you hear news about death,
15:49
you hear news about an accident, you hear news about something
15:51
like that. You know, you our immediate
15:55
response, unless we feel personally invested, is almost
15:58
to protect ourselves and to push aside that, you know, that that
16:04
thing you just say, oh, what happens in the world?
16:06
You know, I know that that happens to me, right?
16:07
I hear about a kid, God forbid, that died and, you know, was
16:11
left in a hot car in the summertime.
16:13
And, you know, God forbid, God forbid a million times, you
16:16
know, and like, I can't feel that too strongly, you know,
16:19
like you have to separate, like in order to, because there's so
16:22
much tragedy in the world and there's so many bad things that
16:24
happen. If we settled on every single
16:26
bad thing that happens to every single person in the world, we'd
16:29
never be able to function. We'd never be able to live, you
16:32
know, And so like we have, so human beings have, you know,
16:36
almost like a hierarchy of, of, of emotion of how much you're
16:39
willing to get emotionally invested in something.
16:42
And my dad gets emotionally invested, you know, and every
16:46
single time that he hears about an 1819 year old that gets, you
16:49
know, that, that that doesn't get to come home or you know,
16:52
that who, you know, hears about his family.
16:54
My dad thinks about it and talks about it for far longer than
16:59
anyone really around him is really comfortable talking
17:01
about, you know, and and that shows how it shows how I, I, you
17:07
know, how terrible, how sick, how awful war is.
17:12
It shows how, how careless we become when we start talking
17:16
about the death of people in numbers as though it doesn't
17:21
mean any, you know, as as, as though it's just a number and
17:23
it's not each in each one of these deaths isn't a best
17:27
friend, isn't a parent, isn't a kid, you know, from, from every
17:30
side of the conflict, from from every conflict.
17:32
And you know, you kind of hope and, you know, and almost like
17:36
what we dream for is this world. And, and obviously this is
17:40
romantic and obviously this is naive and obviously, you know,
17:43
you call this stupid, but I don't think that I don't think
17:46
that having a lofty goal is a bad thing.
17:49
I think it's a good, I think it's a really, really great
17:51
thing to have a lofty goal because then you could then you
17:54
never had, then you could really never stop working until you're
17:57
able to achieve it. And you're always trying to get
17:59
better and better than where you are now.
18:01
And I think that we could be any better off than, you know, the
18:04
answer is that's just what this is.
18:06
Does not really make me or anyone else, I don't think feel
18:10
better. A lot of the times it's just
18:13
what it is. Because when someone says that
18:15
like, well, how would you feel if it was your family?
18:17
Would you say that's just how it is?
18:19
You know what, if it was me, I know that I wouldn't be OK with
18:21
that. I know that I wouldn't be OK
18:23
with the fact that if Florida got blown up right now because
18:27
of this action, you know, that because of a war, let's say that
18:33
Trump started or that Biden started or, you know, if
18:35
something happens that that my politicians or someone else
18:38
decided and my family gets blown up because of that.
18:42
I don't want that, you know, I don't want any of that.
18:45
And unfortunately, I don't think there's been enough
18:47
representation on is on the Jewish Israeli side that says
18:53
this, you know, and, and instead a lot of the response is this,
19:00
you know, you're missing the bigger picture, you're missing
19:02
the context. You don't really get what this
19:03
is. And maybe like, I'm not even
19:07
saying that that the response is not right.
19:11
What I'm saying is that it doesn't help.
19:14
It doesn't help the argument. It doesn't help the case that
19:16
you're trying to make, and it certainly doesn't help you make
19:19
any friends. And, you know, and that's why
19:22
Dave Smith is wiping the floor with everyone that he argues
19:24
against. That's why that's why, you know,
19:27
people like Ben Shapiro are starting to, you know, like Ben
19:31
Shapiro is being forced to acknowledge Dave Smith at this
19:33
point because he's just rocket shipping in popularity because
19:38
no one has anything to respond to him and no one has anything
19:40
to say. And it's something that's so
19:42
dramatically different than the status quo because Israel and
19:45
America have always had such a great relationship as far as you
19:48
know, as far as I've seen. And, you know, and Ted and
19:51
Tucker Carlson making, you know, Ted Cruz looking an idiot, you
19:55
know, for two hours is like, that's a that, that that is not
19:59
good. It's not, I don't think it's
20:01
good for anyone. And, and I think that even
20:04
refusing to acknowledge that Dave Smith is winning arguments
20:09
and refusing to acknowledge that Ted Cruz sounds like an idiot,
20:12
that Lindsey Graham sounds like an idiot when they, you know,
20:14
when they talk about war if we don't acknowledge that.
20:18
Then we're losing, then we lose the favor of from what I've seen
20:25
a lot of my generation say the 45 and under, the 50 and under,
20:30
even the 40 and under. Let's just say because I'm, you
20:32
know, between 30 and 40 and the whole young generation, like
20:38
the, the, the, the, you know, the below 25 year olds have the
20:42
have a worse perspective on Israel than I think in the last,
20:48
I think ever, you know, I think in the last 50 years for sure.
20:51
But you know, like there's very so so I think it's a very scary
20:55
time to be Jewish and to be Israeli and to be pro Israel and
21:01
to be, you know, to support and love the lands.
21:05
Because I think that we're going through a lot of challenges
21:07
right now. And I hope that and you know,
21:10
and I hope that we can kind of get our act together and do a
21:13
little bit of PR repair. I think that it's really, really
21:17
terrible. And I think that the people that
21:19
are the current spokespeople are doing a bad job and I think that
21:22
they should be replaced. I think that if anyone if if a
21:25
couple of people, if a couple of people that no one had heard of
21:29
a couple of years ago, they have no political history or no
21:33
anything like that. And the podcasters that have
21:35
millions and millions of listeners together and they're
21:38
going and, and these are the same people that helped, you
21:41
know, kind of reshape not only the election, but the national,
21:46
like the the national mood in America.
21:48
IA podcasters had an enormous, enormous influence, far more
21:52
than far more than news outlets or typical corporate media.
21:55
If they're all turning on on Israel, we got to get new
21:59
representatives that are going to that, you know, that that
22:02
could say, hey, man, you know that, that that'll work with
22:05
that, You know that that will work.
22:06
Because I do think that because I love Israel, I love, you know,
22:09
and, and I want us to have a good relationship with America
22:14
for everyone's sake, you know, and for the people that say that
22:17
Israel doesn't provide anything to America, I would strongly
22:21
urge you to do just a couple of quick googles and just see what
22:24
Israel provides in terms of technology, in terms of
22:29
resources, in terms of what do you, I guess, research in terms
22:36
of even like they have a good relationship with Russia and
22:38
China too. Like it doesn't hurt to have a
22:40
mutual friends with other world superpowers.
22:44
So I think that I really would, I think that we just need to, I
22:52
think you have to be very careful as to what the public
22:59
perception, especially in America and Europe is of Israel.
23:03
And I think we have to be very, very weary and very, very
23:05
careful. And we really have to do a lot
23:07
of damage control, which obviously leads me to the next,
23:13
I guess topic on current events and that is this war with Iran.
23:20
And my take is this could be another potential, this already
23:29
is, but could be even more an enormous blow to the America
23:34
Israel relationship. And I know that a lot of people,
23:38
a lot of Jews, a lot of, you know, pro Israel people are
23:43
cheering on the fact that America got involved on Saturday
23:48
and and bombed those three nuclear facilities.
23:52
And maybe it is a good thing. I want, I hope and I pray and I
23:59
want to hope that that the legitimacy of the urgency of
24:08
this attack is whatever what everyone says that it is, or at
24:18
least what, you know, what Trump says it is.
24:21
I really, really want to believe that because if because right
24:25
now what, you know, what we're looking at is Iran has to
24:29
retaliate, retaliate against America.
24:31
In fact, I just saw just a minute before I started
24:33
recording this in America that Iran did retaliate.
24:37
But apparently it was only like a quote UN quote formal
24:40
retaliation that they actually called America and said, hey,
24:43
this is where we're going to bomb or send a missile and it's
24:47
going to be at this and this time.
24:48
So just get yourself ready for it because we do have to respond
24:50
to your attack. And hopefully that's considered
24:53
a de escalation and not taken by other people as an escalation.
24:58
And I think that the fact that, you know, it's being already
25:01
circulated around, you know, both online and on Twitter and
25:07
in the news media, I hope that means that everyone will accept
25:11
this to be kind of OK, now we're even and let things simmer down.
25:16
If that's not the case and Iran continues to strike at American
25:20
bases and ends up killing Americans or servicemen or
25:24
servicemen or women, it could obviously escalate and escalate
25:33
to the point of boots on the ground.
25:35
Once you get boots on the ground, we do.
25:38
The country as a whole, America as a whole does not have an
25:41
appetite for another Middle Eastern warrant.
25:43
They really don't. And if Americans now feel, which
25:47
they almost certainly will if boots hit the ground, if
25:50
Americans feel that this war happened strictly because of
25:53
Israel and there's no reason why America should be in it, then
25:58
that is going to completely fracture at least generations
26:01
worth of relationship with Israel, in my opinion of
26:04
America's relationship with Israel.
26:06
And it's going to do so much. It could do so much potential
26:10
harm. On the other hand, it could be,
26:15
and I'm praying and I'm hoping that this is the case.
26:18
It could be an amazing sign of legitimacy of Israeli
26:22
intelligence, you know, and one argument, you know, and I
26:24
actually been hearing it's so funny because it's funny how
26:27
like bits of information kind of comes together throughout your
26:30
life and you kind of realize and like you kind of start putting
26:33
things together on your own. When I was growing up, my Saba,
26:36
who is staunchly, staunchly pro Zionist as a, as a Holocaust
26:41
survivor. And I don't know anyone on this
26:43
planet that would not, that would not blame him or support
26:46
him in his Zionist or understand his Zionism for being a
26:53
Holocaust survivor. And you know, understanding
26:56
that, not understanding his perspective that, you know, the
26:59
Jews need a home in case something like this happens.
27:02
My grandfather used to tell me periodically for my almost I
27:06
literally for maybe 10-15 years now, he used to tell me he only
27:10
died two or three years ago. Sorry about that.
27:14
My wife just walked in with my baby.
27:17
I had to cut out. But I'm going to continue my
27:20
train of thought and say that this is an opportunity If I'm
27:26
praying and I'm praying and I'm hoping that Israel is able to
27:31
provide that. Oh, I'm so sorry.
27:32
So the context. And so my grandfather used to
27:34
tell me throughout the rest of the throughout my childhood
27:37
about the systematic attacks that that Israel has taken on
27:41
Iran's nuclear facilities and potential and capabilities.
27:46
And, you know, he used to talk to me about how great their how
27:50
great their intelligence was and how, how coordinated they were
27:53
and how incredible it is. And it is, you know, and so when
27:58
people like Dave Smith or, you know, people on X make the
28:03
talking point or Tucker Carlson, I think made this argument,
28:07
although I don't, I don't 100% remember.
28:10
So if he doesn't, if he didn't make that argument, I, I do
28:13
apologize then, you know, but I thought I heard it.
28:16
But you know, one thing they point to is that Bebe has been
28:19
saying since 1995, I ran his XY and Z close to nuclear potential
28:28
to create a bomb and we have nuke and we don't want that.
28:33
And they are right that he's been saying that all along.
28:35
But all along Israel also has been carrying out strikes
28:39
against scientists and at different locations.
28:42
And so it keeps on having to set them back.
28:45
So I think that that, and unfortunately, I don't hear
28:51
that, I don't hear that from Dave Smith or Glenn Greenwald or
28:55
anything like that. And, and, and as much as I do
28:57
appreciate that they, they, they usually do have excellent,
29:00
excellent points and really, really fair perspectives.
29:05
This particular, I think case and point, I think is not a
29:08
correct 1. And I don't think that it's
29:10
necessarily fair to say, Oh yeah, Bibi's been saying for 25
29:15
years that isn't that Iran can't have a bomb.
29:17
Bebe's been doing things about it for 25 years.
29:19
You know, I mean, Israel's been doing about it things like that.
29:21
And I just remember from hearing my whole life that, you know,
29:24
that that Israel's, that Israel's just going and doing
29:27
these operations. So I don't really know.
29:30
So you know what I really would love and what I think really
29:33
would be really super beneficial for America's relationship with
29:37
Israel and Israel's credibility in the younger Americans eyes is
29:41
to actually provide documentation and proof that
29:45
that they were intending on building a nuke and that they
29:49
were planning on, you know, using it.
29:51
And again, you know, the, the, the issue that most Americans
29:54
have right now is not whether or not Iran should have a nuke.
29:57
Most Americans think that Iran should not have a nuke.
30:00
But what they do think is that they that they don't want
30:04
America involved in getting rid of that because it does not pose
30:08
a threat necessarily to America at the moment.
30:11
Iran can't really shoot a nuke further than France at the
30:15
moment. So, you know, so it's not as
30:17
much of A threat to us, sorry to Americans.
30:22
But that being said, from from an Israeli perspective, everyone
30:25
understands that you can't have, you know, that having your
30:27
neighbor with a nuke that historically hates you for being
30:33
you and, you know, for being the the largest state sponsor of
30:36
terrorism, You know, with Hezbollah and Hamas and the
30:39
Houthis and everyone, you know, and, and, and just throughout
30:42
the years, you know, obviously everyone, I think everyone
30:46
understands that Israel can't afford to have that and can't
30:49
tolerate to have it. The big push back is not that
30:52
Israel should do it. It's that we don't want
30:53
Americans to get America to get drawn into another war.
30:57
You don't want American troops to die and we don't want, and we
31:01
want an end to, to funding current wars.
31:05
That's generally the degrees that like that's what people
31:07
cared about when Trump won and that, you know, people wanted
31:10
peace. People wanted people wanted the
31:13
Ukraine war to be over and people wanted the Israel war to
31:16
be over. And for some reason the deep,
31:20
you know, I mean, the forces that the forces that pushed this
31:24
war and that pushed war in general, I think are just far
31:28
more difficult to get rid of than I think anyone had
31:31
imagined. So all this is really a premise
31:36
to my trip to Israel because I've never been to a country
31:39
that had actually been through a war before.
31:41
And now again, I spent, I visited Israel a dozen times in
31:44
my life. I've spent a year and a half
31:46
living there. I have family there.
31:49
I have some of my best friends in the world there.
31:51
I have some of my best friends plan on moving there.
31:53
I hope to move there, at least buy property there in my life.
31:59
And you know, and when I went, I've never been to a country in
32:06
the middle of a war before. And there was something that was
32:09
really, really, really fascinating because.
32:17
You can really see, and I think Americans are missing out on
32:19
this. I mean you have such a small
32:22
country and 1500 people die. And I know this is a point that
32:28
people have heard a lot, especially right after October
32:31
7th, but almost everyone in Israel knew someone that gun
32:36
kidnapped killed her on October 7th because it's such a small
32:40
country that everyone is. So, you know, everyone's only
32:43
one or two steps removed from the other, you know, and I mean,
32:47
and, and you can go almost anywhere and find people in
32:52
common that you know, by one or two degrees.
32:55
And it's really, really cool that way.
32:58
But all over the all over the country, there's just, excuse
33:06
me, size and street art and posters that translate, you
33:10
know, it's English. Together we'll, you know,
33:12
together we'll be successful. Bring them home now, you know,
33:16
And there's a real sense of, it's so interesting.
33:22
There's a sense of soberness that even when you know that
33:26
even when people are partying and having a good time, it
33:30
almost feels like it's out of a state of defiance.
33:33
It's really, really fascinating. And maybe this is just my own
33:36
head. Maybe this is just me
33:38
misunderstanding and misinterpreting what I was
33:40
seeing. But I was all over Israel.
33:42
I was in Rehovoted, I was in Beit Shemesh, I was in
33:45
Jerusalem, I was in, I was in Tel Aviv.
33:48
I was on the beaches. I was, I was there for like 5
33:51
days. I was all over the place and we
33:52
had a car. And Israel's a really easy
33:55
country to get around when you have a car.
33:57
Public transportation just tends to get a lot, take a lot longer,
33:59
of course. And, and, you know, and so we
34:05
got to see a lot of different people in a lot of different
34:07
environments throughout the country at different points in
34:10
the day, You know, during the day, you know, at the
34:12
restaurants or bars or cafes and coffee shops and, you know,
34:16
little shooks or marketplaces. Then at night with the clubbing
34:20
scene and during the day, there's kind of a sense of
34:24
family, community and sobriety, it feels like.
34:28
At least that's what it felt like.
34:32
And then when people are having good times Thursday nights or
34:38
you go to a bar, you know, there's there's always a sense
34:43
and awareness in everyone's mind that a siren could go off, which
34:46
it did. You know, like I was in, I was
34:47
in Jerusalem with with my friend Zach and Novummy.
34:51
And you know, we're, you know, having a great time, had a bunch
34:55
of beers with a couple of, you know, I'm rocking bad vodka
34:59
shots and we're sitting down. That's # a, you know, a couple
35:04
of boxes of wings and poppers and, you know, we're having the
35:08
best time in the world and music's blasting and there's a
35:10
DJ and kids are, kids are dancing in the street.
35:13
And then a siren goes off. And, you know, there's obviously
35:19
2 reactions. There's one reaction is to go to
35:23
the nearest shelter. And then the other reaction is
35:26
screw this man. You're not going to, you're not
35:29
going to scare us into, into going.
35:30
It tends to be more of a younger person and older person's
35:32
perspective, I think, you know, the youth out of ignorance and
35:36
the elder out of defiance, I think.
35:39
But you know, you're not going to make me, you know, live XY
35:42
and Z live like this and run out of my bed every, you know, every
35:45
night of my life. But there's a sense of, it's
35:52
just, it was really, really fascinating to spend 5 days
35:55
living like a local among, among people that were in a country in
36:00
war. And, you know, and like, and,
36:04
and, and it's a topic of events. It's that, you know, I mean, for
36:08
example, the day of my, the day of Emmy's wedding, my, my buddy,
36:12
you know, that's, that's where I went to Israel for Dave, his
36:15
wedding. We went to get, we went to grab
36:17
brunch, grab a coffee. And on the way back, we saw
36:20
another car that was decorated for a wedding in Israel.
36:22
They just take any car that you have and just decorate it with,
36:25
you know, they paint on it and they put some ribbons and some,
36:28
you know, I forgot, they just decorate it.
36:30
And I was like, oh, and I said he because I speak Hebrew.
36:34
I was like, oh, that's for, that's for my friend over here.
36:36
And he's, he's like, ha, ha, I'm like, no, really.
36:38
He's getting married today. He showed her his invitation and
36:40
she was, you know, and she was giving, you know, and she was,
36:43
she was laughing and, and she was wishing the best.
36:46
And she, you know, and she was, you know, and she, and, and
36:49
like, and just the mood changed while she was talking, you know,
36:53
while, while we're talking to you, you know, just like, you
36:55
know, when you get married in Judaism, it's like you're
36:57
starting your life over again and you're starting with a fresh
37:00
clean slate. All your sins have been
37:01
forgotten. And when you pray, you're
37:05
praying as if you're a new person, a new human being,
37:07
because you're about to start a whole new life and a new entity
37:09
and a new family. And so you're starting from
37:11
scratch and she's like, and you should just pray that like all
37:14
our family comes back and no one else gets hurt anymore and that
37:17
this war should end. And, and it's, and that was just
37:20
one, you know, and, and everyone just got emotional and everyone
37:24
kind of, you know, and, and I, I, I'm never going to see her
37:28
again. And I've never seen her before.
37:30
But there was this real sense of like camaraderie and love and
37:33
sadness and, you know, and, and just a desire for, for peace,
37:39
you know, that it was really, it was really, really overwhelming
37:43
and it was really, really beautiful.
37:44
And I think that and, and I don't think that enough people
37:47
kind of hear that or see that or, or, or really feel or
37:52
experience that real depth of, of just communal and family pain
37:57
that a whole country could just feel at one time together.
38:00
It was really, really, really, really beautiful.
38:04
But enough about that, because that's a charge topic that I am
38:09
always, I always feel like I'm falling over my South when I'm
38:12
talking about it because I don't want to say the wrong thing,
38:14
upset the wrong people, even though, you know, I don't know
38:17
why I should be entitled to my own ideas.
38:19
But, you know, whenever you have your own idea, you end up
38:23
pissing off someone. So yeah, we.
38:26
So, you know, we flew actually. So the day before Israel
38:29
responded to Iran, Zach and I flew to Amsterdam for two days.
38:33
And I've got to say, man, they're doing something right
38:38
over there. I love that.
38:40
I love Amsterdam. You know, I've been to, I've
38:44
been to more than half the states in the country at this
38:47
point. I've probably been to like 6570%
38:50
of the states, if not more. And I've been to Italy, I've
38:54
been to Greece, I've been to Israel.
38:56
I've been to, I spent the day in Barcelona.
38:59
Granted, it was after Amsterdam, but I have never, I've never had
39:03
a place visited a place that just like resonated with me.
39:08
First of all, I think it's super underrated and no one talks
39:10
about the fact that Amsterdam is on canals and you know, and
39:16
everything there is just bridges.
39:18
And there's such a amazing poetic, romantic feel to the
39:22
place that you know, you everyone has, everyone goes
39:27
everywhere on bikes because the roads are extremely thin and
39:30
they're all cobblestone. And, and I don't think the
39:32
infrastructure was really ever built for car to support as many
39:36
cars as you would need for the amount of people that live there
39:41
and everyone just travel, everyone goes everywhere on
39:43
bikes. And so just the combination
39:44
between all these little bridges that go over canals every couple
39:47
of blocks and, you know, families biking together and
39:52
kids on the street by themselves.
39:53
And then you have all you have a ton of these little cobblestone
39:58
alleyways between these, between these cities.
40:01
It was just, it was just so magnificent.
40:03
It was so cool to go to. And that's all aside from the
40:06
coffee from the coffee shop scene, which obviously I had a
40:11
great time with the architecture I thought was beautiful.
40:16
And like as far as the city goes, it really did a cool.
40:20
It does a cool job blending the feeling of suburbia and being
40:27
like kind of family oriented or at least, you know, being
40:29
comfortable having kids walk around and being, you know,
40:31
being by themselves and and actually being a city.
40:36
I did take a river. I took a river tour, a riverboat
40:39
tour, whatever it's called is Zach.
40:42
And while we were on the tour, we were talking with, we were
40:45
talking to, I guess the tour guide who is a new university
40:48
graduate. And she was telling us a little
40:51
bit about Amsterdam. And one of the problems that she
40:53
was telling us that exists is that apparently housing is a
40:58
nightmare there in that there's really no more land to kind of
41:01
build on. And there's people keep on
41:02
coming to be there and, you know, there's wait lists for
41:08
apartments and there's wait lists for homes and, you know,
41:12
they're just an absolute fortune.
41:14
I don't really know what to think about that to really make
41:18
of that. I mean, I guess it's not too
41:22
different from like a place like Manhattan where just because
41:25
how, you know, it's not really due to a shortage of apartments.
41:28
It's kind of due to a an enormously expensive cost of
41:33
living, but that people are kind of forced to live together.
41:36
And I didn't think really that it works so well for people
41:41
living in Manhattan. I feel like it kind of makes New
41:44
Yorkers a little bit. What makes them crazy is part of
41:46
just like being confined to such a small place with so many
41:49
people around you constantly, but apparently on a little bit
41:54
of a smaller scale, it does not drive you all crazy.
41:57
And, and the, and the people from Amsterdam were so kind and
42:02
so nice and so friendly. You know, we went to a coffee
42:06
shop and got, you know, got a tea, got a, got a smoke.
42:11
And, you know, and I was like, she was, and I asked the, the
42:16
barista, should we smoke inside or she said outside.
42:18
He's like, he said whatever you want.
42:21
And I said to I said to Zach, oh, I'd love to go outside.
42:24
And the people outside heard and there's only one table outside
42:28
with four seats and there's two and there's two women there.
42:31
And the women heard and just moved over.
42:34
And then when he poked your head outside to see if there's any
42:36
place to sit, they're like, oh, we heard you say want to come
42:38
outside. You know, we just made some room
42:39
if you want. And that was it.
42:41
And I was like, that never. I mean, I don't know, maybe
42:45
maybe I'm crazy, but maybe I'm hanging out in the wrong places.
42:47
But that would never happen in the States, you know, So I'm
42:52
walking away with raving reviews about Amsterdam.
42:57
I love the place. People told me to be careful
42:59
about being Jewish there. I didn't really get that 50.
43:03
And the Heineken was awesome on tap.
43:05
Awesome, awesome, awesome. You know, obviously not the most
43:11
craft or you know, the most complex or complicated, you
43:16
know, beverages out there, but phenomenal on tap and everything
43:20
was pretty decently priced. Oh, except for these health
43:24
snacks that I bought. I bought like healthy chips.
43:27
That was with avocado oil and a pack of mixed nuts.
43:33
And I didn't even look at it because when especially so in
43:37
Israel, I think it's like 3.7 or 3.5 shekel to a dollar.
43:43
So everything. So, you know, you're paying 12
43:45
shekel for a Coke, even though it's really 3 bucks.
43:48
It just feels like you're giving a lot of money over for that.
43:51
And so I don't think my brain had completely finished
43:54
translating. They're trying to translate the
43:57
currency over from one cost to another.
43:59
And so I saw like 38, and I thought that was like, oh, wow,
44:03
OK, so it's like 1215 bucks. That's not bad.
44:05
And I realized it was €38. And I was like, oh man, what for
44:09
three? I don't know how it happened
44:11
exactly. And if you think that's crazy,
44:14
I'll have to get up with Zach, who wouldn't let me return it.
44:16
So that's just some thoughts for my newest, my most recent solo
44:23
episode. I kind of wanted to get this
44:24
stream of consciousness out. I wanted to get some of my
44:27
thoughts out. And we're going to have another
44:31
episode tomorrow. I'm really, really excited.
44:34
Super cool dude from what I can tell.
44:37
My buddy introduced me to him. He's an aviator, he's a martial
44:42
artist, he is a health nut and really excited to talk to him.
44:47
And a couple of more fun episodes coming up for you guys
44:50
this week. Hope you enjoyed and bye for
44:54
now.