Latest / Drawn of History / Rabbi David Wolpe _ This Past Weekend w_ Theo Von _520(M4A_128K)

Transcript

Rabbi David Wolpe _ This Past Weekend w_ Theo Von _520(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I got a few tour dates to tell you about Wallingford, Connecticut, Portland, Maine, Bangor, Maine, Moncton, Canada,
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• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your support. Thanks for tuning in.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Today's episodes are regarding the conflict in Israel and Palestine.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I've heard a lot about this issue, and I wanted
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to deepen my own understanding. I recognize that this is
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a sensitive topic, but the only way to learn is
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to seek knowledge. I decided to have guests from both
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: sides of the aisle, if you will, to help me
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: learn by sharing their views. I did it in separate
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: episodes because I'm not a debate moderator. I chose guests
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: who I thought would share their views sincerely, and I
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: think they both did. I'm very thankful to have the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: opportunity to learn something that they don't even have in
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: some countries. Today's guest has been called one of the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: most influential rabbis in America. Until recently, he led the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and has also taught at
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: UCLA and Harvard Divinity School, and more. He's written nine books,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: led numerous missions to Israel, and he's seen a lot
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: in his time. I'm really grateful for his time today.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Today's guest is Rabbi David Wolpe.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: My story Yeah, thank you so much for your time.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Sure, happy to do it.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really appreciate it. Rabbi David Wolpe.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no way you would know by looking at it. No. No,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: not at all. I got WOLP all the time.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, WOLP. The WOLP of Wall Street, was that ever?
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: It would be a different type of Wall Street probably.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a different kind.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: You just got back from Israel.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Yesterday.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Wow, welcome back.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I've never gotten to go. A lot of my friends
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: have gotten to go on birthright and that.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's really an amazing thing to do. I
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: recommend it.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I always hear great things. I would like to
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: get to go. Um, what was it like over there?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: What's the, like, what's the vibe? It's resilient, but depressed.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: You know, I met with, uh, the students at the Technion,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: which is like the science tech. It's like MIT of Israel.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: And they all serve. They like, they miss a hundred
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: days of school. Cause they all, they like literally when
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: you're in Israel, it's an hour's drive and you're at war.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: And then you drive home for the weekend and then
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: you go back. It's crazy. It's not like here, where
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: you have like Canada, Mexico, and two oceans. There, right
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: next door, are the people who want to kill you.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Just always in the heat. Does it feel like even,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like how close were you to Gaza?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: You could see it from where you are. I mean,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: it's very easy. It's not hard. You can see the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: West bank. It's just a bit, I mean, Israel's really tiny.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: It's like smaller than New Jersey.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So, Oh wow.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: It's yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Is there a general like sense of like, we are
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Israel going on? Is there people like that are on
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the fence about what's going on over there? Like what's
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: kind of the.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: The general sense is of course we have to defend ourselves. Um,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: The government is very unpopular there right now, like really unpopular.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Like the unpopularity of governments here doesn't compare to how
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: unpopular that government is right now. Netanyahu's government? They feel
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: like he's badly mishandled this. But the sense that there
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: has to be some– that Hamas has to be eliminated,
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  Speaker 2: to the extent that you can eliminate it, I think
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  Speaker 2: almost everybody in Israel agrees with that. Wow.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: So– How did he become so unfavorable, do you feel like?
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  Speaker 2: I think, honestly, I mean, this is too easy, but
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  Speaker 2: he stayed too long. It's like at a certain point,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: you have to say, I've done what I could. I'm
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: getting complacent and not paying attention and he's out of touch.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And he just, I mean, Biden visited some of the
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: families whose kids were taken hostages before Netanyahu did, which
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: is insane. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So- He gives me the GB sometimes, you know? I
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: don't know why exactly.
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  Speaker 2: They need someone new.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Yeah. 66% of Israelis want Netanyahu to leave politics. Yeah.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: And 85% support an investigation into what happened on October 7th,
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  Speaker 2: and he was prime minister.
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  Speaker 1: Do they believe? I mean, you hear rumors. You hear
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: people say that they... let their guard down on purpose.
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  Speaker 1: Do you believe that that would ever have happened?
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  Speaker 2: No, I don't believe that. I really don't. Because the
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: enormity of the destruction is far too great. And no
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  Speaker 2: government would ever... Let me put it the other way.
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  Speaker 2: Any government would know that if you do that, you
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: will go down in history as having failed your people.
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  Speaker 2: So I can't imagine they did. I think it was
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  Speaker 2: a monument. One of the things that just is true
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: in general is... I try never to attribute to maliciousness
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: things that can be attributed to incompetence because it's almost
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: always incompetence. People think, oh, well, that's so suspicious. Why
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: did they leave the shooter on the roof for Trump?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: And I think because it's so easy to get stuff wrong. Yeah.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: It's so easy. There are like a thousand ways to
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: get stuff wrong and only one way to get it right.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: And generally, it's not always true, but generally it's incompetence. Yeah.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: So. That's a good point. It's like, and we've become
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: in such a place like with media where people I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: think don't trust media or are uncertain. And there's so
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: many There's so much media now. Right. Like there's so
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: many– there's AI versions of things. There's animations. It's like
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: you don't even know if the voice you're listening to
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  Speaker 1: is really of the person that you're listening to. No.
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  Speaker 1: So it's almost impossible to– so I think that just
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  Speaker 1: creates even more option for fantasy.
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  Speaker 2: Distrust is going to grow. There's no way it can't grow.
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  Speaker 2: I mean it's– yeah. It's scary what AI– is doing
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  Speaker 2: and will do to people's perceptions of the world, for
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: all of us, you know? Oh, yeah.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: And it's hard not to, because there's so much stuff
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  Speaker 1: you do that you're used to believing on your phone
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and on your.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's hard not to believe your eyes. It's like,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: they're my eyes. Of course I believe them.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, these are them. Rabbi Wolpe, you were a professor
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: at Harvard, right? You've had a storied history, and I
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: could go into a lot of stats, and I'll put
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: those in the beginning of this episode so people know.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: You were working at Harvard?
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a visiting scholar at the Divinity School.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And you left after the October 7th?
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: I didn't leave Harvard. I left, what happened was, so
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: when I got there, I was visiting scholar at the
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Divinity School. After October 7th, the president asked me, would
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I be a member of the Anti-Semitism Commission? She was
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: really shaken up. This is Claudine Gaye. Would I help
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  Speaker 2: her understand what happened? Would I give her some books?
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  Speaker 2: Would I be part of the anti-Semitism committee?
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  Speaker 1: I said, of course.
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  Speaker 2: So I became part of the anti-Semitism committee. And to
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: make a long story short, it was clear to me
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: that they weren't doing anything.
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  Speaker 1: That Harvard wasn't?
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  Speaker 2: Harvard wasn't doing it and didn't really intend to do anything.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that the committee was kind of a
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: cover for it. And so I resigned. I was going
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  Speaker 2: to still teach my class next semester, and I still did.
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  Speaker 2: By the way, the kids were great. They were great.
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  Speaker 2: And most of the students at Harvard, like students everywhere,
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  Speaker 2: just want to get a job, want to finish their degree,
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  Speaker 2: but not all. But when I resigned, it became a
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  Speaker 2: giant public thing, which I did not expect because I
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: think people were so fed up with the idiocies and
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: the radicalism and the just thoughtlessness of the demonstrations, and
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: also of some of the faculty. And so we're still,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: as you know, we're still fighting this. I mean, there
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: are lawsuits now and testimony.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know that.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. It's an ongoing thing. And all of the
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: universities are trying to recover. I've never seen any institution
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: ever lose as much credibility overnight as Harvard. I mean,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Harvard was Harvard. It's like, I watched a season of
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: this show, Suits. I don't know if you've ever seen it.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen it. My friend used to be in it.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: She had a list, too, actually. Oh, really? Yeah, but
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter.
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  Speaker 2: And it's all about we only hire from Harvard.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Only hire from Harvard. And it's so funny because I'm
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: watching this and I'm thinking, wait, you have no idea.
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  Speaker 2: You would never say that now because their stock has plummeted.
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  Speaker 1: Do you mean just amongst Jewish– Families who would send
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: their children there or do you just mean overall? Overall. Overall.
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  Speaker 2: I mean there are law firms, major law firms, some
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: of them not Jewish law firms who said we're not
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: hiring from Harvard because we don't want kids who– part
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: of the issue is that they were not solely anti-Israeli. anti-Jewish.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: They were anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Western. And so they don't want
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: to hire- I mean, it's all part of the same complex.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Nobody's like, I really love America. I love freedom. I
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: love capitalism. I just hate the Jews. Yeah. That's really rare.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Certainly not on the left. Maybe it happens on the right.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Not on the left. Left anti-Semitism is America's bad. Israel's bad.
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  Speaker 2: Colonialism is bad. All the culture they've created is bad.
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  Speaker 1: Everything's bad.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Where are the Native Americans? Exactly. Burned the Israeli flag
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: and the American flag. They were cheering the Houthis. The
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Houthis have on their flag. This is the flag of
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: the Houthis. I am not misquoting it. You could see
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: it online. It says, death to America. Death to Israel,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: death to the Jews, God is great.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Dear God. So- Wow, and they put it in Christmas colors, too. Yeah,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: there it is. That's a reach. Oh, there you go.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: That's a reach. There's that beautiful flag. Oh, my gosh.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And that, the Houthis are- The Houthis are from Yemen,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: and they were blocking all the shipping in the Straits. Yeah.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And they were cheering them on Harvard's campus, and you
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: think to yourself, what are you, crazy?
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  Speaker 1: So you're saying on the campus, it didn't become like
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: a- pro-Israel or pro-anti-Israel or pro-Palestine or anti-it became all
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: this other stuff?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: It was much bigger. Much bigger than that. Yes. So
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: as a result and the fact that Harvard didn't other
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: places did take almost immediate action and guess what? If
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: you tell students you're not going to be able to
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: graduate if you don't stop protesting they stop protesting amazingly enough.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: But Harvard didn't do that and Columbia didn't do that
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: and Penn didn't do that and then also there were
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: outside agitators too. It wasn't just students. A lot of
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: the people who came onto campus were from the community
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: who saw an opportunity to, you know.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some people were looking for something to do even.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I remember somebody sent me, it was an Evite to protest.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is, they're doing Evites to it.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Did you feel, sorry, go ahead.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I was just going to say, I said to somebody,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: the secret of all this is that they're having the
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: time of their lives. They like, they were ordering all
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: sorts of, What's a nice way for a rabbi to
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: say this? Sexual paraphernalia to be brought into the camps
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: at all the different colleges.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: The condoms, other stuff. Because they were like, they were
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: basically camping out for, and they're college students.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they think it's a rave almost.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is kind of a rave.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: So anyway.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Watch next year. There are new, there's like protest raves.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, protest.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: It could easily happen. Did you feel like the students
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: had a right to get out there and voice their thoughts?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't have it. I don't know anyone who
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: was reasonable, had a problem with the students protesting. I
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: disagreed with a lot of what they said, but protesting
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: was fine. The things that I objected to were, one,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: when they broke the rules basically by interrupting classrooms, by
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: interrupting people at the library, by those incidents where people
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: were pushed or shoved or whatever. And also, like, I
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: have to say, like, when a kid walks by and
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: he has a head covering a kippah and you know,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: he's Jewish and you call him a baby killer. That's
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: not really like, if I were the head of the university,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: I would say, look, we have limits on the way
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: we speak to other students and that you can't, you
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: can't do that, you know? Um, so, but it's tricky
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: because college is supposed to be the place where you
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: can say whatever you want.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember we got in protest that they were
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: having the girls soccer team at, when I went to LSU,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: they were having them take different, like new, um, something
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: new had just come on the weightlifting and athletic market
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: with creatine, some advanced form of creatine. And they were
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: having all the girls take it. And some of my
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: friends were on there, but we got out and protested.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: It was ridiculous. But next thing you know, like the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: news was there and was like, we don't even know
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: exactly what we're doing. But yeah, college was a time
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: where you could do that sort of thing.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: A lot of backers, financial backers of the institutions also
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: pulled their finances, right?
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Yes. Oh, a lot of them did. And that was another,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: that was another example. So like, I would hear that
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: people got upset, why are the Jews pulling their money?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: And I would explain to them, it's not the Jews
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: pulling their money. What you call someone who gives money
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: when they like what a place is doing and takes
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: it away when they don't is a donor. Donors do
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: that all over the world. It's only when the donor
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: is Jewish that people go, oh, look, look at the
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Jews doing that. And that was part of a preset
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: prejudice that people had before that happened. I mean, These
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: guys who were pulling their money, they also were people
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: who originally were giving money to higher education. That's a
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: good thing to do. I think that that's very admirable.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: That's the only reason they were pulling it is because
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: first they were giving it. There are a lot of
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: rich people who don't give anything to anyone.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: It's a really good point. I didn't think about that.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I agree. If a school is doing something
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: that you don't support, if you're a donor to it,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you certainly have to.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: If I support your podcast and you get up tomorrow
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: and you say something that I really object to and
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I come to you and I say, look, I'm not
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: going to support your podcast anymore. You might be upset,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: but it would make perfect sense. Yeah.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I should be in understanding about it. Right. Yeah. Robert Kraft, billionaire,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: pulls funding from Columbia University to make protests. I remember that.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: It was Robert Kraft and Mark Rowan from Penn and
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Bill Ackman from Harvard. And all of them also felt
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: like this is a way to draw attention to. And
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: then they said, we're going to give to universities that
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: do protect students. It's not like they weren't going to
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: give to universities. We're going to give to different ones.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: So you don't think it was that people were protesting
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: one way or the other about the conflict. It was
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: more about how they were doing it and what the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: school was allowing.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: So it's complicated. I would say this. That was a
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: big part of it, what the school was allowing and
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: how they were doing it. Then there were two parts
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: to the conflict, and here, some of your listeners might
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: agree with me, some of them not, but I'll at
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: least tell you what I think. If you're protesting the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: war and you think Israel shouldn't be fighting the war,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be fighting the war that way, or you think
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: they're being indiscriminate and they're bombing, whatever, I may disagree
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: with you, but I totally get that. That is, I mean,
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: that's as legitimate a protest as you could have. As
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: soon as you say, therefore Israel shouldn't exist, That shades
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: into anti-Semitism. Because, look, I went to the encampments and
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I talked to the kids, the ones that would talk
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: to me. A lot of them wouldn't. And I said
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: to them, Assad in Syria killed a half a million people.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: The Chinese are putting the Uyghurs into concentration camps. The
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Myanmar is killing the Rohingya. Millions of people were sent
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: in refugee camps in Sudan. There's slavery, literal slavery in
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Mauritania and North Korea. I don't see you protesting any
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: of those things. I see you protesting when the Jews
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: do it, but not any of those other things. And
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: not only that, Germany started two world wars. I never
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: heard a protest there shouldn't be a Germany. The only
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: country I have ever heard people say shouldn't exist happens
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: to be the only country in the world where Jews
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: have a country. None of the 50 Muslim countries ever, ever,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: ever I heard shouldn't exist. And not only that- But
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: if there wasn't a 3,000-year history of persecution of Jews
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: that just happens to also coincide with the fact that
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: that's the one country that shouldn't exist, I would also
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: be a little less suspicious. But put all of that together,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: and I would say that's an anti-Semitic protest.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: There's enough proof of evidence for you to say that.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Wow. I hadn't thought about a lot of that stuff.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons that we're happy you're here
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: today is because we want to learn about the conflict
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and more about the history of it, right? Because there's
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of like, even there's me, right? I don't know.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know a lot. Like, you know, it's been
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: kind of tough because you feel certain things, but you
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: don't know a lot of the history. And so, yeah,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that's why we're just really grateful.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: It's really hard. It's really hard. I can give you
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: a sort of capsule history in this way. I mean,
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: obviously there were Jews in Israel for thousands of years
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: and thousands of years ago. nobody reasonable disputes that. You
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: can go and see biblical Jews. And also in the
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: time when Jesus, I mean, I used to say to
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: people who say Jews have no history in Israel, you're
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: about to sing about a Jew who was born in Bethlehem.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: How can you say they have no history? Somebody was
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: born in Bethlehem there. So Jews have been in Israel
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: for a long time. They got kicked out by the Romans, basically.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: In all that time, they always prayed to go back.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: And in the 1800s, Jews started to buy their way.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: They started to go to Israel and buy land from
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Arabs who willingly sold them land. And then the United
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Nations said, look, the Jews deserve a state, especially after
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: the Second World War, the Jews deserve a state. None,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: there were actually, sadly, there were some Arab groups and
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: families that said, okay, but the overwhelming Arab powers said, no,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: we're going to destroy the Jews, they don't get a state.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: During the war, there is no question that the Israeli
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: troops forced many Arabs out of their homes. Some fled
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: on their own. Some fled because their leader said just-
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: During which war? During 1948, the founding war of Israel.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: That's the Israel independence? Was that the creation of Israel?
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Israel independence war, right. Because what was the Balfour? The
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Balfour Declaration was long before that. That was when Britain said, basically,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: that both Jews and Arabs deserve a state in Israel.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: And then the United Nations said the same thing, but
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: the Arabs felt like, no, there's, there is, and, and
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: why they felt that way is, is dependent on who
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: you ask. There are, there is an Islamic law. If
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: you ever held a land, you're not allowed to give
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: it up. And if you give it up, you have
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: to reconquer it. That was part of the, the issue
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: with the Crusades. And that's part of there was part
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: of the, so for those who felt it religiously, it's
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: a religious issue.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Okay. So that's a religious element to it.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: That's a religious element.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: If you ever give up your land, sell it or whatever,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: you need to conquer it.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: And there are, by the way, people on the right
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: wing of the Israeli society who feel the same way
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: about the land. Like God promised it to us and
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: we get all of it.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Okay. So that is a religious element that's, That weighs
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: on some people on both sides.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: That one's hard. But then there is also.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Gosh, that's tough, dude.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is tough.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: When your HOA is God or whatever, you know?
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it, exactly. Jesus. You
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: sign the contract. I mean, what are you going to do?
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: But Israel has... I mean, first of all, in 1948,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: all the Arab armies attacked Israel. Israel won that war.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: And was Israel established at that point? Yes. Just so
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I'm super... So it.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Was a tiny strip of land that the UN gave them,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: but immediately all the Arab armies attacked and tried to,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: and said, even to some of the Arabs, leave your
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: home because we're going to wipe out all the Jews
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: and then you can come back.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: And that was in 1948. That was 1948. Can you
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: bring that up? I just want to see what it
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: looks like.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: That was Palestinian land in 1948 and that was Jewish land.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: That was 46. That was before the United Nations had
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: a partition.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Then in 1947, that was the partition plan that the
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: UN proposed, okay?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, so 47 was the partition plan the UN proposed. Right.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: What you don't see, by the way, is all the
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: bottom there that's Israel, almost all desert, almost all uncultivated land.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: All the best land is the green land.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Then all the Arab nations said, no, we will not
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: accept that and launched a war. Israel fought a war
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: and you see the results of that war from 49
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: to 67.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: And the war, they won parts of that war.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: And actually, again, the Arabs fought again in 56, and
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: then again in 67. And when you say the Arabs,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: does it just mean Palestine? No, no, no, no, all
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: the Arab nations. Jordan, Syria, Egypt was actually the most
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: significant enemy of Israel, the most powerful. And then in 1967,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: there was another war in which Israel conquered Jerusalem. And
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: then in 1973, which- We won the series at that point,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: kind of. Right. 1973, there was another war called the
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Yom Kippur War. And that's after that war, when finally
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Egypt said, we're not going to win. We're not going
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: to win. That's when Sadat went to Jerusalem and said,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: we want to make peace. And since then, Sadat was
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: the head of Egypt.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: The head of Egypt.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: And since that moment, since 1973, Israel has had peace
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: with Egypt and- then made peace with Jordan. Okay. Which,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to which I say, there's Sadat. Sadat was assassinated, unfortunately,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: by his own people after he made peace.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: But... Somebody Sadat him, huh? But... Sorry, that's silly. And
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't say it.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: He was actually, he was truly, he was a great man.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: He really was a great man. Was he? Yes, he was.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: And he was Egyptian?
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: He was Egyptian. He was the Egyptian leader who had
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: the courage to go to Israel and make peace.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And... And so who's left in the other part of
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the country at this point? So then it's just Palestinians?
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Like where are the Palestinians at?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: They live on the West Bank and in Gaza, those
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: two places you see.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: And there have been at least five, probably more, but
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: at least five separate peace proposals that Israel has made
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: to Palestinians. And they have said no each time for
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: a variety of reasons for each one. But I always
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: tell people, like every time somebody's serious about making peace
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: with Israel— Egypt, Jordan, now what are called the Abraham
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Accord countries, which is the UAE and Bahrain and so on.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Every time they have peace. The people that don't have
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: peace are people who don't make peace with Israel. Because
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I was just in Israel and I will tell you,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, what people in America don't
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: realize is they think that Israelis are aggressors, but Israelis
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: are sending their kids. Like you go to sleep at
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: night and you don't know where your kid is because
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: the army can't tell you. And you don't know if
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: you're going to get a knock at the door. And
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I know someone, when I was just in Israel now,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: someone told me that their friends have signs on the door,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: do not knock. If you come and visit them, you
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: have to call them. You have to let them know.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: You have to sing outside the door. They don't want
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: that knock because the knock means maybe your child is dead.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: So Israel doesn't want this war. Nobody wants this war
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: except people who do, unfortunately. And so what I have
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: said to many, many, many, you know, look, I've had
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: the very uncomfortable, I don't like doing it, position of
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: having to debate this with other people. I would much
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: rather be making peace than debate. I'd rather debate religion
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: and not debate politics. But I've asked every single one,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: every time I've had a debate about Israel and Palestine,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I've asked the same question and I've never gotten a
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: good answer. I said, if tomorrow the Palestinians had the
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: firepower of the Israelis and the Israelis had the firepower
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: of the Palestinians, how many Jews do you think would
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: be left in that country in a week?
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Probably not many.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing not many. And so until that day, answer
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: is different that is until the palestinians as a people
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: not i mean there are many many many individuals who
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: just want peace but as a people and as leaders
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: and people like hamas until they really want peace it's
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: impossible i mean if we took right now if we
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: took i don't know russia or iran and we put
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: them in texas how long do you think america would
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: let them stay there I'm you have to know the
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: people on your border. We go nuts about Mexicans coming
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: over the border and the vast majority of come over
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: because they want to work. And America goes crazy. Can
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: you imagine if it was a truly hostile population, how
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: America would handle it? It's very hard. Israelis live in
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: a very tough neighborhood. America has lucky enough to have,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: you know, Canada and Mexico and two oceans. Yeah.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, we certainly got it. I mean, we're sitting in, uh,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the dove's nest here. You know, we're in a very
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: special place.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: We are very lucky and very blessed.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: So, but is it understandable that Palestinians feel, because was
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Palestine a country?
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: No, there never was a country in Israel since the,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: it was a succession of, so what happened was after
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: the Romans called it, they're the ones that named it Palestine,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: the Romans. After the Romans took over, then there were
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: a succession of empires. There was the Roman Empire, and
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: then you had, among others, the Ottomans, the British, and
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: the British were the ones who controlled it until Israel
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: became Israel, and the Palestinian self-identification was in opposition to Israel.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: If you go back 200 years, you don't know the
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: difference between a Palestinian and other Arabs who live in
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: the area. I mean, they were people who lived in
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: the area and the identifications tended to be much more local.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I am from the village of this I am from
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: the village of that, but there wasn't a Palestine as
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: a country.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Having said that, anybody whose heart doesn't break for the
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: plight of the Palestinians, I mean, they are, first of all,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: for two reasons, my heart breaks for the Palestinians. One
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: is because nobody wants to live under someone else's rule.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter even how nice the rule is. You
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: don't want to. Although I will say what people don't
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: realize is 2 million Arabs live in Israel proper with
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: full rights. They vote. They're on the Supreme Court. They're
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: in the Knesset. Is it comfortable over there for them,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: do you think? Oh, yeah, very. Not only that, I
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: was just in the National Library of Israel, and they
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: talked about the classes they give. 30% of their classes
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: are in Arabic. So Arabs come to the National Library
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: of Israel. Yeah, they come to the National Library of
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Israel and take classes.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And they have representatives?
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: They have representatives in the parliament called the Knesset. No,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: the Arab people do. Palestine doesn't. Palestine... Those who are
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza, they have
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: their own self-governing rule, but they're definitely under Israel.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Now, Gaza doesn't, before October 7th, Gaza had no troops.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, Israel had no troops there. They'd completely withdrawn
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: from Gaza. But unfortunately, instead of spending the billions of
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: dollars in aid that Gaza got in building seaports and
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: restaurants and they built tunnels underneath so that they could
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: attack Israel, which is what they did.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Some people say that it's like a group, they feel
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: like they have no choice but to elect like a
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: dirty government, right? Or like, and excuse some of my question,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: like I'm not that great, like I'm not always the
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: best at figuring some of this stuff out. But some
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: people say that it's basically like the Palestinian people have
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: become like kind of a caged people. And so they're
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: at the point where, they feel like they'll elect the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: craziest element as their leader because that's the only chance
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: they feel that they have.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: All I can say is they have done that for
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: a long time and it hasn't worked. Right. And if
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: they would elect somebody who would actually make a deal,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: this would have been gone 50 years ago, 60 years ago,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: 70 years ago. There were so many times when all
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: they had to do was say, yes, look, I'll give
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: you an anecdote. Arafat, who was the leader of the
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Palestinians for many years, At Camp David, where he was
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: offered 95% of the West Bank plus land swaps to compensate.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And this was under Clinton. He said no. Why?
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Do you know?
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: And then he said to Clinton, you're a great man.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: And Clinton said, no, I'm not. I'm a failure. And
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: you made me a failure. I think I know why
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: he said no. I think he said no, because he
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: knew that if he said yes, he was in the same,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: he was going to happen to him what happened to Sadat.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: In fact, Clinton even said to Arafat, you and later
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: on Ehud Barak, You might get assassinated for doing this,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: but think of how many of your people you will save.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: And that's true of Sadat. Sadat got assassinated, but do
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: you know how many Egyptians are alive today because they
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: never had to go to war again against Israel?
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: But you have to have courage.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: The 2000 Camp David summit was a summit meeting at
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Camp David between United States Bill Clinton, President Bill Clinton,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: The summit took place in July 2000 as an effort
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to end the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The summit ended without an agreement,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: largely due to irreconcilable differences between the two parties on
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the status of Jerusalem. Its failure is considered one of
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the main triggers of the second intifada.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: What was the issue with Jerusalem?
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Do you remember?
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: The intifada. Both places wanted Jerusalem to be the capital,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: which eventually was able to be worked out. What couldn't
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: be worked out was what's called the issue of return.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: So there are two kinds of refugees in the world.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: There are Palestinian refugees and everybody else. And that's why
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: there are two agencies from the United Nations who handle refugees.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: There's one that only does Palestinians and one that does
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: everybody else. Palestinians are the only people whose refugee status
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: is handed down. There are great, great, great, great grandchildren
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: of the original conflict. Maybe not great, great. Great grandchildren
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: of the original conflict who are still called refugees. Wow.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: That's because they constantly cultivate that consciousness. We're going to
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: go back. We're going to go back. And also because
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: the other Arab nations never took them in. Jordan didn't
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: take them in, right? Jordan, which is more than half Palestinian,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: didn't say, come to Jordan.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they want more Palestinians?
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Because one of the things that anti-Semitism does is it
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: creates coalitions. And all these Arab nations, all of whom
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: had trouble at home, they all have dicey governments. Like
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: if I said to you, which Arab nation would you
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: want to live in? The answer would be, I'll stay
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: right where I am. Thank you. And this is because
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason, the Islamic culture, which used to be
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: during the Golden Age, the most advanced culture in the world.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: So it's not like Islam doesn't have in it to
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: be the most advanced culture in the world. For whatever reason,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: and I'm not a historian, I have guesses, but who knows,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: right now they're not doing well culturally. And as a result,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: they've used the Palestinians to unify their own governments because
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: look what Israel's doing to the Palestinians. And a mutual
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: hate is the best way to tie people together. So
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: you're saying it bridges them and Israel?
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: What do 27, 28, 29 Arab nations have in common?
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: What they have in common is they can all see
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Israel as hostile, so they don't have to say, what
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: is it that we're not doing with our people? I mean,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: because if you think about it, the biggest war by
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: far in the Middle East in recent years was the
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Iran-Iraq War. It had nothing to do with Israel. But
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: when people say, what would solve the Middle East? They
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: always say, oh, if Israel would act differently. It's not true.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: There are all sorts of local problems, but we do
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: the same thing in this country. You know what the
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: problem is? That other party and that other guy who's
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: messing everything up. I, on the other hand, I'm guiltless.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Like my people, we're great. And so it's a human tendency.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Wow. Do the Palestinians have lost more land over time?
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Like even when we're looking at that chart, was there
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: like a lease in the beginning? Like what did the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: original document say as far as what the land would
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: be like?
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, that is so complicated. It depends who,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: because it's, well, you can see what the original UN
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: partition was, but then what happened was the Palestinians launched
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: a war and lost land. And the only way you
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: get it back is by making peace. So Israel lost,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, Egypt, lost the Sinai to Israel. The Sinai
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: is about a third as big as the entire country
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: of Israel. When Egypt made peace, Israel gave the Sinai back.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: And that was a lot. It has oil fields, it
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: has resorts, but that's what you do for peace. I
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: think if the Palestinians made peace again and again and again,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: they've been offered, but even if they did now, they'd
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: get a lot of the West Bank back. And it
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: would be such a good thing for the world because...
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Economically what that region I mean you could have in
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: the Middle East what you have like in Europe or
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: you have you could have this huge economic engine Israel
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: has technology and so on and and a lot of
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: the Arab neighbors We want that like when I went
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: to the Technion there were Arab students there They had
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: nowhere to study really where they could study at that
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: advanced level, but just imagine if there was cooperation, but
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: But you have to want.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: It So you think one of the biggest issues probably
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: facing the– I mean obviously there's huge like actual physical
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: issues and emotional issues. But you think one of the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: issues facing the governments right now is that they– is
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: that Palestine doesn't want peace.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, because– and part of that, by the way, is
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: just downright anti-Semitism. Like when you hear– I mean– This
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: is unfortunately pretty endemic in the Islamic world. So I
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: don't know if you know.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: What does endemic mean? Just tell us.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Endemic means it's like they get it with their mother's milk.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: When Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who grew up in Somalia.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I spoke to her once. She wrote a book called Infidel.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: She said, when I was growing up in Somalia, I
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: didn't know a Jew. I didn't know anyone who knew
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: a Jew, but I knew Jews were evil. Now, when
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: you have that in kids, and that's true, that's Ayaan.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: When kids are taught that, and all through the West Bank,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: all through the Arab world, we know what children are
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: taught about Jews. They're evil. They control the banks. They
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: run the world. Everything bad comes sooner or later back
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: to the Jews.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: They can't drink milk. Right.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: So what do you do? I mean, how do you
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: make peace when people believe that you're subhuman and superhuman?
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: That is, you're vermin, but you control the world. That's
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: a really weird and strange kinds of prejudice. And you know,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: you grew up in Louisiana. So you know that people
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: still hold that kind of prejudice in the United States.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: It's not like that doesn't exist in our world. So
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: take that- and like toxify it a billion times in
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: the Middle East, and it becomes very, very difficult. Wow.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's a tough setting over there for Israel.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: It's a very tough setting.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Has Israel ever thought of just moving to a new place?
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: It's funny that you should say that. You know, originally,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, I don't know if it's a funny story.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a funny story.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: It's okay. Everything can have some humor.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So the first president of Israel was named Chaim Weizmann.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: And he was testifying in front of the Peel Commission,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: which was the British commission that was trying to decide
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: what to do with the... And one of them said, Mr. Weitzman,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: why don't we just give you Uganda? Just take Uganda.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: By the way, I'm not sure the Ugandans would have
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: loved that either, but that's... Because there's so much strife
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: in the Middle East. Why don't you just take Uganda?
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: And Weitzman said, that's like my asking you, sir, why
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: you didn't drive 50 kilometers to Why you drove, rather,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: 50 kilometers to visit your mother in the next town
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: when there are so many other old ladies on your block.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: And it's the same thing. Like Israel, I mean, three
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: times a day in my prayers, I pray for Jerusalem.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: And Jews have done that for thousands of years. That's
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: where David walked. You know, that's what Moses was leading
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: the people to. That's, I mean, that is the Jewish land.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: In three different traditions, it's the Jewish land. It's even
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: the Jewish land in Islamic tradition. It's why, you know,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Muhammad started out, he originally faced Jerusalem when he prayed.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: And then when Jews eventually rejected Islam, he turned towards Mecca.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: But Jerusalem is sacred to all three traditions. And it
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: just feels, not only that, but it feels to me like, honestly,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: you look, there are like 40 flags in the world
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: that have Christian symbols on them. And there are probably
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: 35 that have Muslim symbols on them. And there is
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: one that has the Jewish star. And that one country
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: is the one that the world's entire hostility is turned towards.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: And I just feel like, doesn't anyone see that? Isn't
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: that weird just by its nature?
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's certainly, I could certainly see how if
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: I was from there, I'd feel a real underdog mentality.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. You know?
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Yes. Um, Do you feel like we get fair coverage
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: of– like a lot of media folks– there's a lot
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: of Jewish media folks, right? And they've made a lot
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: of great stuff over the years. I like that movie
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Family Man. I like a lot of different stuff. But
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: do you feel like we get a fair coverage of
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the– war in Israel and Palestine or of the conflict?
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: It's really hard to fairly cover a conflict, especially this one,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: because reporters can say whatever they want if they're in Israel.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: But if you're in Hamas-controlled territory, you have to say
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: what Hamas wants you to say.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Really? Of course.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's no such thing as like, we're reporting
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: against what Hamas wants, because Hamas is a terrorist authoritarian group.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: So that makes it hard. So you have the Palestinian people, right? Right.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Are most of them good people?
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, of course. Most people, I think, everywhere in
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: the world are good people. But I will say this.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Good people can be made to do bad things by ideology.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: So if you say to me, were most Germans good people?
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: I would say absolutely. But they became Nazis. Yeah. And
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: not because they were any different than you are or
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: I am.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Um well it's like raiders fans i'm like what are
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: we doing here sometimes you know and that's just a
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: joke guys don't anybody freaking lose their.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Mind listen i go way back with the raiders i
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: remember max cosby fan i remember balitnikov oh wow i
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: thought he was a president of somewhere was he no
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: he was a wide receiver oh damn i failed that
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: so um but seriously it's like Yes, people are good people,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: but they can be made to do very bad things
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: if they believe bad stuff. And if you believe that
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: everybody over there is evil, then you think you're being
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: good by blowing up buses, which happened during the Intifada,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: blowing up cafes. I mean, look what Hamas did, deliberately
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: targeting women and children and so on. Why would you
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: do that? Because they're evil. And it's easier, unfortunately, than
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: people think. to persuade human beings to not see other
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: people as human. I mean, in war, that's what people do.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: It's like Judaism introduced this idea to the world that
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Christianity then spread to the world that every person is
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: in the image of God. It's really hard to hold
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: onto that when you think that person wants to kill
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: my family. But to me, that's the only salvation we
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: have is to sort of double down on that message.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Do you like support, or I don't know if that's
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the exact word, but how do you feel about the
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: way that Israel is dealing with Palestine now? Because it
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: feels like there's just so many more casualties, right? Like
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: if you look at charts or bar graphs or something,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: or even maybe- So.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: I'll say two different things about it. One is if
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: you ask experts in war, they'll say that the reason
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: that people are so surprised is because they never paid
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: attention to a war before. And in fact, the casualty
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: rate is roughly 1 to 1.5. That is one soldier
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: to 1.5 citizens, which is actually much better than almost
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: every war, certainly much better than our wars in Afghanistan
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: and in Iraq. But we live in a different age
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: where you can see the rubble and you can see
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: the bombs and all of that stuff. And it is heartbreaking.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, I see coffins of children and I
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: know that Israelis were responsible for that. Responsible in one
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: sense and not in another. And it's terrible. But I
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: also know that tomorrow, literally tomorrow, if Hamas said, okay,
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: we give up, that would be it. That would be it.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: The only one that, I mean, it's been in their
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: power since day one to stop this war. All they
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: have to do is say, okay, we give up. On
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: October 6th, there was a ceasefire. Israel didn't break the ceasefire.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: And then when they went in at any moment, if
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Hamas had said, you know what, since it was clear
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: that Israel was going to destroy Gaza, that would have
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: been over. And yet it's not. And so there are
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of ways of looking at the same conflict,
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: even while being able to hold the enormity of the
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: suffering and pain That is there.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Well, this says, is it really one-to-one? Is this a,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know what source this is.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Not one-to-one death of Israelis. One-to-1.5 death of Hamas fighters
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: to citizens. Of those, let's say it is 38, although
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: that comes from the Hamas Health Authority. Of those 38,
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: how many are Hamas terrorists? According to most estimates, somewhere
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: between 20 and 25. Okay. I'm not, between 15 and 20.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: So if it's 20, that means more terrorists than citizens.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: If it's 15, that means like one to 1.2. There's
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: a guy, John Spencer, who's the world's expert in this,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: who's gone on a bunch of podcasts and talked about
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: how he's never seen a conflict, even though what people
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: see doesn't accord with this, where in fact the degree
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: of civilian casualties has been as low in comparison to
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: the degree of fighters in civilian areas where, remember, Hamas
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: again and again and again has in houses, in hospitals,
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: in schools, in tunnels, all those places where you have
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: to kill citizens or you can't kill Hamas, and that's
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: a really awful way to fight a war. Another thing
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: I'll point out, just if people doubt this.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: If people are listening at home, just so you can't see,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: it says, this says Palestinians, 38,000, Israelis, 1,200, reported killed. Now,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: this is from... This is from the United Nations. Right.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: I wasn't saying 1 to 1.5 Israelis to Palestinians.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: You're saying of those Palestinians... Right.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: How many are Hamas fighters?
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: How many are Hamas fighters?
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: And here's the other issue. If you go to an
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Israeli home, which happens all the time and you hear...
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: like sirens above. You go to what's called a meymad,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: which is a shelter, which is a bomb shelter. Every
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Israeli home has a bomb shelter built into it, and
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: so do all the communities. Hamas built more than 500
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: miles worth of tunnels all through Gaza, and not a
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: single bomb shelter for its citizens. Not one. Which meant
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: that if Israel bombed, They were counting, and Sinoir, the
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: head of Hamas, even said this explicitly. We have him
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: on the record saying it. They were counting on civilians
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: dying because every civilian who dies is a success for
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Hamas because they know they're not going to win the
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: war militarily. They can only win it reputationally and politically.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: So they're counting on this type of information? Sure.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a terrible thing to say, but it
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: does them good to have citizens killed because it turns
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: the public opinion— against Israel, which is the only way
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: they can win the war.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Has Israel offered a, like, okay, almost like a Red
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Rover type of day where it's like, if you want
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: to come over here, you can come over here and
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: we'll take care of you.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: They had several, first of all, they had several weeks
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: before they started the operation, but also they have safe zones.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Now what has happened with the safe zones, and again,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: it's like agonizing. They just killed Mohammed Daif, who is
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: the number one or number two In, um, next to
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Sinoir in, uh, he's the one who, who planned right there.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: He is.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: He's the one who planned the October 7th operation. He
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: was like, he was like the most desirable target.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: And guess where they killed him in a safe zone.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: So they create safe zones and then Hamas fighters invade
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: the safe zones and people say, ah, you see, the
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Israelis are bombing the safe zones. You can't win with
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: people who don't care about their people. And I don't
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: want to say Palestinians don't. Of course they do. Like
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: a mother who's bereaved in Palestine is every bit as
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: bereft as a mother who's bereaved in Israel. It's not
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: like one mother feels more than the other. But the
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: leaders don't care. They care about getting what they get.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: And by the way, many of them aren't in Gaza. Instead,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: they are enjoying their billions of dollars that were given
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: to them in aid in Switzerland, in the Canary Islands.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Um, and whether it's emailing stuff to do like that
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: sort of thing.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Like, right. Because so it's a very, very painful situation
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: all around. And, and I wish, um, I wish on
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: both sides, um, That there were like visionary and courageous
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: leaders who would figure out a way to stop what
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: is this awful carnage. Although I must say, like every
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: time somebody, you know, feels like, first of all, it's
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: not true that it's going on forever. And also conflicts
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: that go on a long time, like in Northern Ireland,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: can be solved. I don't believe it's not true that
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: it can't ever be solved.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Like the IRA?
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: The IRA. And even countries that were hostile to Israel,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: like Bahrain, like the UAE, now it looks very soon
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: like Saudi Arabia and Israel and Jordan have made peace.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: So whenever someone says they'll never make peace, I think
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: you don't know. You haven't lived long enough to see,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: for example, like I did, that people said the Soviet
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: Union and the United States will always be enemies, and
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: then the next day there was no Soviet Union.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Things change and I can't help it. I have faith.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: And so do you pray also then for you? You
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: just pray for both sides.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Of the conflict? Oh, absolutely. I pray for peace and
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: I pray for the best outcome. And I mean, it's
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: like to see the images we've seen, how can you not?
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny, Rabbi, because like, yeah, I hear like,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I've been on the side like I don't
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: even know if it's the side, but you hear free Palestine, right? Yeah.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: And so I've always thought if you start to hear
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: the chant of free something, then that's the place that
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: needs the help.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, of course.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: And so I guess a lot of my like, yeah,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I think that's, and I guess you see more images
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: of damage from there. And so you're just, you're feeling...
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: can't help, but, um, you know, just, but, but hurt,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: I absolutely. And I think they, there's no reason why
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: they shouldn't hurt. I mean, like they're suffering terribly.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: And part of my head is like, and this is
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: why I think I don't, I may have a tough time.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: I just evolve in some of my thoughts that, um,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Israel is the stronger country.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. Right?
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: They have more of a culture. They have more like
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: charters and organization. And it feels like it's their responsibility, right,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: to help or to figure out– that's just– this is
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: a blanket statement, right?
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: It feels like they're the ones that should have to
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: figure this out, right? And now that might be delusional,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: but it's just like it might be emotionally motivated, a
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: lot of that.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: But I totally get that. And what I would say
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: to that is, first of all, it does you credit.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: There's no reason not to feel that way. There's only
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: so much you can do. It's almost like this is
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: not a great analogy, and I've just thought of it,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: and I hope it's not a terrible one. But it's
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: like a parent who has a kid who's a drug addict.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: And you say, well, look, it's the parents' responsibility. And
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: again and again and again and again and again, they
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: enable and enable and enable. And then they decide, OK,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: I'm going to cut them off. And then they enable again.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: And then they cut them off. And you say, actually,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: at a certain point, if the other side doesn't help,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: you can't do anything. A strong people can't. Look, Israel tried.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, America tried this. America said, OK, we're going
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: to impose democracy on Iraq. Look how well that worked.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: And we're much stronger than Israel is. Other people have
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: to want to be helped in order for you to help.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: And they not only have to want to be helped,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: but they have to not want to destroy the people
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: that are helping them. Because although Israel is stronger, that's true.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: There are 30 Muslim nations around Israel or 25. There's
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: one Israel. So there, you know how many, like before
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: the Holocaust, there were 18 million Jews in the world.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: That's like 0.1% of the world. Now there are about
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: 15 million Jews in the world. We're very tiny. There
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: are over a billion Christians, over a billion Muslims. There's 0.1%
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: of Jews in the world.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: So- I probably know 200.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: You probably do. But that's, I mean, really 15 million
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: is nothing. It's smaller than the population of LA, smaller
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: than the population of New York. And that's it, over
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: the entire world. So Jews feel frightened, I think, for
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: legitimate reasons. Yeah.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Well, yes, certainly I would think if there's strength in numbers,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: you would have to be as, um, you would rely
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: on so many other of your senses, you know? And
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: so many of my Jewish friends are so like, uh,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: they're complex. I never, I, Jewish people are super complex,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: you know, where the whole system is. It's really fun,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: like fun to joke around with a lot of my
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Jewish friends. If you think of a good joke, they
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: like it.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Um, I have a theory about why that's true. Okay,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: so here's my theory about why Jews are the way they,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: not all, but I mean, there's a variety always, but
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: there are two things about Jewish history that actually, I think,
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: gave Jews certain cultural tendencies. One is that our tradition
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: is very book-centered, right? If you go into a church,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: you see an image of Jesus. You go into a synagogue,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: you see a Torah, you see a book. We don't
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: have a perfect life in Judaism, we have a perfect book.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: That makes it different. So you have to know like
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: literacy was huge. And then the other thing is when
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: you have to wander from place to place to place,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: you have to start learning all sorts of different cultural
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: cues or you won't make it. And so you have
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: to be like intellectually agile because if you're not, the
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: host country is not going to have any use for
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: you and they're not going to be able to use you.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: So both those things Jews learned. And that's why you
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: have so many Jews in comedy and so many Jews
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: in music and so many Jews in literature. And so
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: they learned the cultural cues of wherever they had to wander, um,
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, good and bad, good and bad.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about antisemitism then. Yeah. If we can,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: is that all right?
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I talk about it all the time. Oh, you do?
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: I do. Yeah.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, because we had it. So we had an episode, um,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: what a fucking weird, let's talk about anti-Semitism. Is that
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: all right? We had, well, sometimes I'll be honest with you,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: you get scared to even say the word Jewish or
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: to say like Israel, like it's, you feel scared sometimes.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Like you feel like, well, we had a podcast like
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Roseanne Barr was on, right? And she said, she made
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: a sarcastic comment. She goes, yeah, she goes, yeah. And
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: 6 million Jews didn't die in the Holocaust, right? It
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: was obvious sarcasm, right? It was obvious. I think if
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: you and me listen- But YouTube, they banned us for
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: two weeks and they took our episode down because they
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: said that we promoted... Holocaust denialism. Something like that, right?
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: And so it kind of, it affected me. I was like, well, shit,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: you know, like she is Jewish. It was sort of like,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: you know, it made me kind of angry, kind of.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Not against Jewish people, but it made me angry that
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: there was this like, that felt like there was another
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: parameter where you couldn't speak about things, you know?
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: So look, antisemitism is a very, it's called the oldest hatred.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: It's extremely difficult and there are lots of factors why
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: I think antisemitism exists. But at least a big part
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: of it is because Judaism and Christianity, look, Christianity came
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: from Judaism. And so.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: So Judaism was first.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Judaism was first by a couple thousand years.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, damn. And they probably were then.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's why Jesus was born Jewish. Saul.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, he was Jewish.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Turned to Paul. Paul's original name was Saul.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Yes. He was Jewish. And what happened was the believers
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: in Jesus were all Jews. The early disciples were all Jews.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: And the other Jews disagreed with them. And I don't
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: know about you. But in my experience, family fights are
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: sometimes the worst fights. And this was a family fight.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: It was like they all knew each other. They all
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: grew together. It was a very small community. They were
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: all Jews together. And now they disagreed about this huge thing.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: It's like, you know, the fight over the Thanksgiving dinner
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: table between the Democrats and the Republicans. Unfortunately, the family
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: fight got put into a book called The New Testament
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: that lasts forever. And so for thousands of years, Christians
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: would read this, not with a sense of, oh, that's
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: my Jewish brother and I'm fighting him, but that's the
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: person who killed and denied the God that I believe in.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: And that's a very powerful thing to, I mean, the
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: history of Christian antisemitism is long and very ugly.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: They've had a lot of beef.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: And Christians and then Muslims have their own history of antisemitism,
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: not from most of history as bad as Christian, but still.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: And when you put that together and then Jews aren't
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: allowed to own land in almost any land in medieval.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Europe.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: So what do you do if you don't own land?
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: You become a money lender. It's the only other job
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: you can do. You can't farm the land. You can't grow.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: So Jews were money. Nobody likes a money lender because
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: then you owe them money. And Jews, every time people
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: owed too much money, you know what they would do?
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: They would kick the Jews out of the country. Then
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: they don't owe money anymore. And so Jews got kicked
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: from land to land to land to land. and because
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: they lived in all these different lands, it became easy
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: to develop conspiracies about them. That land, Spain, or not Spain,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: actually Spain kicked its Jews out in 1492, but let's
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: say that land X or Y that we kicked the
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: Jews out, now they're attacking us. Ah, it must be
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: the Jews that did it. And it's always, always great
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: to have someone to blame your own problems on.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, everybody wants an enemy. Everybody wants somebody to
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: point the finger at.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: So you put a lot of these things together and
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: you get, this enduring hatred and this very selective, like
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: people don't go on the internet and say, you know what?
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: Jonas Salk gave us the polio vaccine and Einstein gave
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: us modern relativity and Freud gave us psychology and Proust
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: gave us the greatest modern novel. No, they say Jeffrey
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Epstein gave us pedophilia. And You can do that with
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: any group. The difference is, of course, people don't do
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: it with any group. They don't look and say, OK,
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: what white Anglo-Saxon Protestants have done terrible things. Let's make
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: a huge chart of all of them and put it
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: on the Internet and say, you see, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: are terrible. No, but they do it with Jews.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting, man.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: That's one way of thinking about it.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's, it's unfortunate too. Sorry.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I say weird sometimes. It's like, yeah, I'd never thought
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: about it.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: No, of course.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: Why? I mean, it's not like, and I think some
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: of maybe like, I don't know if like, I don't notice.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up in a place that was
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: like racial division and stuff. We didn't have any Jewish folks.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: My mom dated a Jewish guy actually for a little
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: bit names. And he would drive so far to get gas.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: It was a little cheaper, but we just thought it
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: was funny. And he got us tickets to like our
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: first football game we ever went to. And, you know,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: nice guy. And he was black and Jewish. I didn't
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: even know that you could do that.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: And then- Well, that's the other thing is that Jews
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: are white to the left, but they're not white to
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: the right. It's weird. Like the Klan doesn't think of
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: Jews as white, right? But all those kids on campus
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: were saying Jews are white colonialists. Well, if you go
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: to Israel, more than 50% of the Jews in Israel
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: are what are called Jews of color. So from Ethiopia,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: the others from Arab lands.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: JOCs, baby. Yeah.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah, they got some beautiful Jewish ladies I've
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: seen on the internet. Probably men too. I haven't looked
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: at them, but I believe that there are some.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: We got to get you to Israel.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Hey, look, dude, I could end up over there. A
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Jewish lady asked me to marry her one time, but
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: she only gave me like seven hours to decide.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: And I was like, That's a little bit of a
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: deadline there.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, dude, I asked for more time, and she's like,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: I've had enough of you. I'm like, well, then this
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: is too much.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: I think that you probably made a wise decision. Anybody
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: gives you seven hours to decide.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, this marriage wouldn't last. Why do
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Jewish people have so much success? Is that a fair
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: question to ask you? Sure, sure. Because a lot of
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: my Jewish friends are successful. It's like, dude, the more
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: places I go where it's like, I see like, oh,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: this is a Jewish business owner or a Jewish thinker, facilitator.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like, sometimes I think of them
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: as like glue-ish, right? It's like, they're kind of the, like,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: they're just, they find ways to like create value, you know, like.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: So what I would say to you, yeah, I think
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: first of all, what I would go back to what
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: I said before about there's a tradition of literacy and
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: and they had to learn the cultural codes. But remember
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: that this is now. And yes, that's true that certain
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: Jewish groups in the past have had, but there are,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, like if you think about the Jews of
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: Eastern Europe, the ones who were killed by them, they
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: were poor as dirt. I mean, they lived on farms.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: They like barely eked out a living. They were, but
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: that's true. Even now, even now there's like, I think
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: 10 to 12% of Jews live under the poverty line.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: They're always– but the people that you know, of course,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: are the people who are successful. And there are a
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: disproportionate to our own proportion successful Jews. Like I think
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: it's like 20 to 22 percent of all the Nobel
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: Prizes in the world have been won by Jews even
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: though we're 0.1 percent of the world.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Damn, dude.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: Which is amazing.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: We got to fucking pull it. Somebody has got to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: start a comeback or something.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: But here's the question. In reaction to that, if you
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: knew that about another group, would you automatically think well
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: of them or think badly of them? The weird thing
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: is that people look at that at Jews and they
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: think badly of them. If I told you, for example,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: which is true, the highest ethnic or racial or religious
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: earning group in America is, do you know?
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Hold on, give me 30 seconds.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: The highest racial or ethnic earning group in America is,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I would probably say Persians.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: Nigerians.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: No way, because of this email stuff?
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: Isn't that wild? No, not the, I'm talking about in America.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Okay. Oh, living here. Living here. Wow.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: Nigerians, which is amazing. And yet nobody says, those damn Nigerians.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: They take all our jobs. They do all these– no.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: It's because there are these ancient prejudices that then people
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: turn against the Jews. I would think if people– I mean, look,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: the people who took their money from Harvard and Penn
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: and so on, their grandparents weren't wealthy.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, these are people who made tremendous success and
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: then turned around and turned philanthropic. And then people say,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: look at those dirty Jews. And I think, what do
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: you want? What do you want from us?
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: What do you want from the world? Right, exactly.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, nobody looks at Bill Gates again and says
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: dirty wasps. They look at Mark Zuckerberg and say dirty Jew.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: What does wasps mean?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, they do?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Wasps, yeah.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. It's interesting to think about. I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: appreciate you talking about it with me too, because it's like,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: I always just get afraid. Like sometimes I think in Hollywood, like,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: you know, like there's just a lot of Jewish folks.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: It's been, you know, and it's, I don't have any
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: thoughts about it, except that sometimes you like, so at
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: that point you build stereotype, you build like, you know,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: you wonder like, oh, well, do they have something against
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: me if I'm not having successes or so I can
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: see how some people's schools of thoughts are like, um,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: in Hollywood.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: Well, also we really, we have a tendency to group
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: groups together. So people will say this about the blacks
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: and this about the Mexicans and this about the Jews
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: and this about, on and on, about the hicks, about the,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't matter. Hicks, gays, people with freckles, Irish,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. I know. And so that's also something that
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: everybody fights against.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: Some of it is normal.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: Some of it is normal, but it's also, we know, like,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: We know that it's not really, that it doesn't really work. Like,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: do some groups loosely have characteristics? Yes, but not enough
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: that like, you know, this group is good and this
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: group is bad. And also those characteristics change. I know
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: that this shocks people, but when Jews first came in
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: the early 1900s, they didn't want to let them in
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: for immigration because they had low IQs.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: That was what they said. Because we don't realize how
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: quickly cultural stereotypes change. from one thing to another.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: It's interesting.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: And it's tough too, because I don't know a ton
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: of like Palestinian, you know, it's like, I have.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: More of a- Palestinians are amazing people.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: I have to say the Palestinians I know.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Tell me about that. Are- I don't even know. It's like,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: I have a couple of friends that are part Palestinian, maybe.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: There are now like a bunch of Palestinian poets and
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: writers that are getting translated into English that are just
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: like incredibly gifted, thoughtful, insightful people. And it makes me
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: that much sadder that, you know, they don't have a
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: leadership that they deserve. And, and like, that's what I
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: wish for very much.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: How do we get there?
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: To be, you know, and it can be vague, you know,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: we don't know.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: I think that you probably, you know, there is this, there's,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: there have to be sort of entrepreneurs of courage. Like,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: how did Egypt make peace with Israel? Because one guy said,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: you know what? I'm not going to do it. I'm
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: going to Israel. And Sadat went to Israel, and he changed.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: And people saw that, oh, my God, you can do this.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: So you need these people who are willing to stand
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: up and say, we've been doing this wrong. I mean,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: where has it gotten us for the past 70 years
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: to tell our kids we're going to one day destroy Israel,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: which is what the Palestinians have been telling their kids
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: for 70 years. We're going to destroy Israel just one day.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: When you grow up, you're going to fight. You're going
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: to destroy Israel. And where has it gotten you? I mean,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: you saw that chart. It's gotten you less and less
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: and less land and less and less and less happiness
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: and most tragically, fewer children. And when I say fewer children,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: by the way, when people say that there's a genocide,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: the two of the five fastest growing populations in the
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: world are the West Bank and Gaza. So if Israel's
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: actually prosecuting a genocide, they're doing a very bad job
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, that West Bank and Gaza are Palestinian.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: They're doing a very bad job of it.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: They're making love over there.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, because they, and there are millions of people and like,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: you just want, I mean, you want them to have.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: I'd be able to pick a blind too. It's like,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: we got about 40 minutes, babe. You know, let's figure
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: this out. What is Israel? What can Israel do? You
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: think differently. Are you allowed to comment on that kind
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: of stuff? Oh, sure.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think, I think Israel is. So there are
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: two things I'll say. One is hard to change and
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: one is easier to change. You know, when you get
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: out of high school in America, you go to college.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: And we all know college kids, even though they can
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: be very talented and very smart, they're also stupid. And
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: they're not only stupid because they're 17, 18.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: Naive.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: Especially guys. But both. Yeah. But when you get out
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: of high school in Israel, you go into the army.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: And you give a 17 or 18-year-old an Uzi, a
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: machine gun, and you put them at a border guard,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: he's still a 17-year-old. And then a 50-year-old Palestinian comes
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: and a 17-year-old should not be able to control the
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: life of a 50-year-old man or woman. But that's the situation.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: So first of all, the situation is messed up. And
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: that is like intrinsic to it and that's tragic.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: Messed up in the sense of the organization of how
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: they're running the idea.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: In the sense of that armies are young, and armies
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: control people who are not young, and that built into
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: that is this humiliation, and humiliation is the worst. Humiliation
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: is the worst.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Well, every 17-year-old wants to be Rambo.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And what Israel could do better, I believe,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: is there are lots and lots and lots of small
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: ways in which they could constantly make it clear that
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: they esteem the people and that they respect them and
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: that they want to help them. Now, it is true
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: that the people who did that most in Israel were
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: actually the people whose kibbutzim were attacked on October 7th.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: Those were all peaceniks on the border. They were some
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: of the people who were kidnapped and some of the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: people who were killed were people who ferried medicine to Gaza.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: But still, even so, I still think it is true
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: that it's incredibly important when you're in the driver's seat
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: To constantly turn around and say, I really want this
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: to be different. I hope for the day that it'll
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: be different. And I think that Israel has not done
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: that as much as it could or as much as
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: it should.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: The people or the leadership?
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: Both.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: Both. Because there's this great line from the poet Yeats,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: who after all was in Ireland and saw trouble, what
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: they call the trouble three years. He said, too long
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: a sacrifice makes a stone of the heart. And like
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: at a certain point, you just go, I don't care.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: I don't care. Those people, I don't care. And you
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: have to fight against that. You have to.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, things edify kind of in you. Edify, is that
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: the right word you think?
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: Solidify.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: Solidify in you. Like if they calcify kind of.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: Of.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: And like you can't stand your neighbor. When you first
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: met them, you brought them a cup of sugar, but
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: now you just can't stand or you're a landlord or whatever.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: And it's very human, but if we don't overcome that,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: we go the way of the grave.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: America and Britain after World War II, or is it
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: World War I, when they freed?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: World War I. Okay.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: After World War I, they helped create the space for
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Israel in the current space of Israel.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: Especially Britain. Yeah.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like they should help now? Is that
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: part of it? After World War II.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: Well, after World War II was the actual creation of
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: the state, after World War I was when Britain first
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: did all the initiatives to do it. They try, they
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: do try. America has tried again and again and again
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: to do this. They have. But also part of this
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: is that for a long time, the Soviet Union was
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: the ally of the Arab nations. And the Soviet Union
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: also was deeply anti-Jewish and deeply anti-capitalist and anti-Western.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of Jewish people in the Soviet Union.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: There were, but they all left.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: So- So now I think that there really has to
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: be like an ideological change, which is the kind of
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: thing that you see happening in Saudi Arabia. With MBS,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: he's really trying to change his country. What's the name?
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: His name is Mohammed bin Salim.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Mohammed bin Salim in Saudi Arabia.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Right. There he is. Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. He's like,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: for example, women can now drive in Saudi Arabia. I
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: know that that seems like. But that's a huge thing,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: which is the other part of it is that the
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: culture- Yeah, I would not want to be there the
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: first week, I'll tell you that.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: No offense, ladies.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: The culture in the West Bank and Gaza, to women is,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, women are very second-class citizens there, and LGBTQs
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: have no rights, quite the opposite. So I think that
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: there needs to be a general sort of reckoning with
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: the culture and an openness- That would allow people to
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: live in peace.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: So the responsibility really falls kind of 50-50, do you believe?
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: No. I know people will disagree with me. I'm going
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: to say 80-20. I really think if tomorrow the Palestinians said,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: we want peace, we don't want to destroy you, we
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: want to live in peace and we want to thrive,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: there would be peace and they would thrive.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Is there a way for them to even verbalize that
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: to the.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: Only if they have the leaders who promise it, because
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: nobody's going to believe it. I mean, there are many
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: people who say it, but unless the leaders promise it,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: it's not going to happen.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: Right. And the leaders are Hamas.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: Hamas... Is there.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: A president outside of Hamas? There is.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: There is Abu Mazen in the Palestinian Authority, but he's
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: in his 80s. He's thought of as corrupt and not good.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: What the fuck's he doing? Yeah, I can't imagine that
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: somebody would have a leader in their 80s. How could
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: that happen?
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: Right. What, is he just milling around a fucking bocce
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: ball court? Get a fucking microphone, homie. This is crazy.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: And what does he say about it? Well, this is
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: a guy who did his PhD in, I don't want
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: to get you canceled, but in Holocaust denial. So I
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: don't think that he's as sympathetic to Jews as he
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: might be.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: But he has been– I didn't know they had a
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: PhD for that. I think he has been okay in
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: the sense that he has done some cooperation with Israel.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: But is he a peacemaker? Has he really reached out?
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: Is he a courageous visionary leader? No, which is why
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: he's not– and the Palestinian Authority is notoriously corrupt. So
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: he is not somebody who– you know, is going to
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: be able to make peace. But by the way, the corrupt,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: I just want to say just, you know, one of
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: the presidents of Israel was put away for, was put
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: in jail for corruption. And it was an Arab female
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court justice that put him away. So it's a
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: very complex cultural picture over there. It's not so easy.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: So they rarely even have that. Is that what you're saying?
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: An Arab female Supreme Court justice?
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that could happen in Israel, but it could
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: never happen, you know, When people say Israel is an
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: apartheid state, it's kind of weird that you have Supreme
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: Court justices who are Arab and Arab parties in the Knesset,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: in the parliament, and on and on and on.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: The Knesset is the Israeli parliament?
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, cool. Yeah, it's cool to learn a new term
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: or something. Say if you are a Palestine supporter, right?
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: How do you just still be supportive of your Jewish friends?
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Is there ways that people can... manage that with their friends?
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: It's very painful. What's the difference between Israel, Jewish, Zion?
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: What is the difference between some of that?
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'll answer both those. I'll answer both those, Greg.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: First of all, Zionism is the traditional Jewish desire to
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: return to the land of Israel. It has different forms.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: It has a political form. It has a religious form,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: but it's the same basic thing. So in theory, some
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: Jews say they're not Zionists, but the truth is that
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: Zionism is sort of Part and parcel of being Jewish.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: It's the bread and the butter.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: What I would say to people who have Palestinian friends,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: have Israeli friends, and disagree is this. I was, until
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: last year, the rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: I had a lot of people who, in that congregation,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: I had a large Persian community and others as well
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: as the Persian community who love Trump. and other people
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: in the congregation who hate Trump, okay? And I have
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: to think to myself, like this is one congregation. I'm
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: not gonna take a political position, but I wanna try
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: to keep these people together. And the way to do
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: it is we always start with politics. But if you
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: start with, what do you like to eat? How do
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: you raise your kids? What do you care about in
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: your life? In other words, the things that are closest
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: to you, Then you know someone before. I buried their parents,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: and I married their children, and I went to visit
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: them in the hospital. And by then, when I found
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: out their political opinions, I really didn't care. Because most
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: of the things in our life that affect our life
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: are not what we see on the screen. People scream
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: about Trump all the time, but the truth is, whether
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: their kid is healthy or sick means much more to
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: their life than how they feel about him. So I
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: try to get people to live locally. You can care
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: about issues. You should care about issues. I do. Obviously,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: we spent the whole hour and a half talking about issues.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: But I also know that I'm not going to judge
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: you as a human being based on your disagreement with
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: me unless you hate. Unless you hate. Then I'll judge you.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: Then I'll judge you. But if it's a disagreement of
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: goodness and of love, then we can argue all day long.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: I got no problem with that.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: I wish you could find ways to do that more,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: Me too.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: It makes me sad.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: It is sad.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: It's painful in this country too. It's so painful because
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: it's like, it doesn't take, I mean, you know, it's
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: not the first time we've seen someone try to assassinate
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: a political figure, but it always like, it always reminds
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: you that, that The difference between chaos and civilization, it's
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: really thin. It's like a bullet away. And that's scary.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I've said that too. It's like, all that needs
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: to happen is a couple of police stations need to
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: get kind of commandeered. And then it's, the game could change.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: And you know, one thing I noticed the other day,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: Rabbi Wolpe was, when that happened with Trump, a lot
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: of people were like, it didn't even make them feel it.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: Like it made them feel like something. But if that
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: would have happened 20 years ago, but it's like almost
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: we've become so desensitized to, I don't know, pain. I
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: don't know what it is. It's true.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: And not only that, but don't forget, like in recent history,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: we've had other political figures, Gabby Gifford. I don't remember.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: I can't remember the name of the Republican senator who
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: was shot at a baseball game.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: Who was that? Don Mattingly or something. Who was it? Oh,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: Steve Scalise. Right.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: Steve Scalise. Right.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: Somebody popped off on that bad boy, dude. What was
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: he in? Shortstop? Shortstop this Sig Sauer, baby. They really,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: that's insane.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'm saying it's like, this is happening and
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: we have to be aware of it and it's pretty awful.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know. Why do a lot of aid goes
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: to Israel from America? People talk about that a lot.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like a point of like, why are
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: we giving money to Israel? You know, why are we
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: giving money to other countries? Why is there a bigger
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: connection that we have with Israel? Like, are they the
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: footprint in the Middle East? Or are they like the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: teammate in the Middle East? Or why is that? Because
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are like, well, shit, we have
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: people that are bleeding to death on our streets. But
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: we're sending billions of dollars to Israel.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: So there are two things to know, first of all,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: about foreign aid. Foreign aid is like 1%, less than 1%.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: I'd love for you to look this up, of our budget.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: We think we're spending so much money. It's nothing.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: It's negligible. That's a great question. Look that up, Nick.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: And we get what percentage of the budget? Less than 2%.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: U.S. government's foreign aid budget is typically less than 2%
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: of total federal spending. In 2022, the U.S. obligated $ 70. 4
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: billion in foreign aid which is about 1% of total spending.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: So that's first of all, when people say it's all
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: this money, if only we brought it home, that's not true.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: It's less than 1% of the budget. That's not going
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: to change everything. But you buy a lot of influence
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: around the world. And most of the money that goes
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: to Israel, we get in arms purchases back and also
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: in innovation back. I mean- Google has offices there, Microsoft
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: has offices there. Israel is called startup nation because your
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: nav system was built in Israel and a lot of
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: other technological innovations were created in Israel. So there's that.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: But also I think the reason America is tied to
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: Israel is not because there are Jews who lobby Congress.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: because there are lots of lobbies in the world. There's
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: a huge cigarette lobby, and yet at a certain point,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: people said, let's put warnings on cigarettes and cut down cigarette.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: And they had a lot more money to lobby that.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: It has to be a community of interest or people
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: won't care.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's like AIPAC, people talk about a lot recently.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: But the only reason people listen to AIPAC is because
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: AIPAC makes the case that here is a country in
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: the Middle East that shares your Western values, that supports America,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: that listens in. You need a local listener in in
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: the Middle East that can actually infiltrate these various countries. Look,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: if Iran gets a nuclear bomb, yes, it's terrible for Israel,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: but it's not good for America either, right? Iran says
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: we're the big Satan and Israel's the little Satan. So
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: our money to Israel is truly, I think, an investment.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: It's not just a gift.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: It's an investment. Yep. Understood. Do we give money to
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: Palestine as well?
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: Billions, billions of money. How many dollars do we give
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: to Palestine? as you will see, and yet, despite this,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: and this is just the United States, that's additional. We
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: give billions of dollars to Palestine.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: The United States. I'm going to read it. I'm sorry, Mr. Wolpe,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to interrupt you.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, but I was just going to say
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: this is just the past eight months, but I'm talking
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: about every year, how much money?
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: Since October 7th, a little over a billion.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: Since October 7th, a little over a billion. And for Israel,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: it's 13.5 billion. Right. And then also the UN and
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: other agencies give money. No one else gives money to Israel, obviously,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: but other countries give money to Palestine as well.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: So we're the only country that gives money to Israel?
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're not the only country that trades with Israel,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: but gives money to Israel.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, interesting. So there's a real allyship there then.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's very deep. In fact, Walter Russell Mead, who
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: is the foreign affairs columnist of the Wall Street Journal,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: just wrote a long book that I actually blurbed. and
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: I can't remember now the name of it. I think
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: it has the word Ark in the title. But it's
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: all about the Ark of a Covenant. There it is,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: the Ark of a Covenant. And it's all about the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: long history of Israel-United States relationship. And what he says
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: is basically what Kissinger used to say. Countries don't have friends,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: they have interests. And if Israel wasn't in the interest
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: of the United States, the United States wouldn't be supporting Israel.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it feels like Like, because there's so many successful
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: Jewish people in the U.S., it feels like that America
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: kind of has become just like a LLC or something,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: you know? Do you feel like that Israel, like, owns
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: America now? Is that a crazy question?
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, actually. Okay. I mean, there's never been
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: a Jewish president. There's never been a Jewish vice president.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: Have we ever tried to, have we ever, has any,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: have a Jewish president ever run? Did Bloomberg almost won?
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: Was he Jewish or not?
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: Bloomberg, yes, Bloomberg is Jewish.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: He didn't really run that hard.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: He ran, well, he ran as hard as he could,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: but the point is he didn't win. The majority of
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: people who own wealth in America are not Jewish. If
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: you look at the top 20 families, there are a
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: number of Jews on them, but the majority aren't. So
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: the idea, again, it's not a stereotype, it's conspiracy thinking,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: which is actually more dangerous in some ways than a stereotype.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: No group runs America. You hear all the time that
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: like this group does or that group does or those
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: kinds of conspiracies. No, no, no, no. I actually am
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: really glad you asked. I think it's really important. I
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: think it's really important. Conspiracy theories are almost always based
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: on some previous prejudice that people have.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: Or would you even say in the beginning, what was
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: the first thing we said? We've almost gone full circle here.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: Conspiracy theories are based sometimes on.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: Well, conspiracy theories are a desire to do two things.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: One is to explain a world that's inexplicable. Why do
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: these things happen? I know there are complex causes, but
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: I'd like a simple one. And the other thing is
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: it relieves you of any responsibility. Everything that's bad that happens,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: it's those other people that are doing it. But I
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: got to tell you, I've been a rabbi now for decades.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: I know many of the most successful and powerful Jews
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: in the world. Some of them I know very well.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: They haven't let me in on the conspiracy. And I
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: would love to know.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: Okay. No, that's cool to know. Because sometimes you're like, yeah,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: you just, I think, I think sometimes some of that's
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: Hollywood shit. It's like, you just feel like that since
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: so many people are Jewish, sometimes you feel like, oh,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: they all kind of work together and that you, if
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: you're not Jewish, sometimes you feel like they don't care
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: or that you're an outsider. And some of that could
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: be your own thinking.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: It could be. And there certainly is a function that
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: every group Works that way. But if you go to.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: Most of America- If you go to a farm and
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of farmers and it's a lot of
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: like Baptist farmers, the same type of behavior.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: Is going to happen. I say that a lot. Also,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: you see Jews if you go to LA, New York, Chicago, Miami.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: But you know, like growing up in Louisiana? Yeah.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: We had two, maybe two Jewish people maybe.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: And one guy, I don't even think he was. Somebody
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: just wrote Jewish person on his back or whatever. So
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: it's- But no, I think it's great, actually.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: It's much better to ask even the really difficult questions,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: the questions that might be offensive, and let somebody answer
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: them than to leave them unasked. Because then, you know,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: you think, ah, he had no answer for that one.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: That's why he didn't say that.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't ever think like that. I think like, okay,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: what am I maybe a little bit scared to ask
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: right now? Or what it was like?
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the other thing I was going to say
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: is when you talked about how it's hard sometimes to
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: talk about Jews, it's like every group. is so sensitive now.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: So sensitive. Yeah, you used to.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: Be able to make fun of things. I know. I
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: think it's coming back a little bit.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: Listen, Don Rickles, I don't know if you remember, he
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: was a member of my congregation.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: No way, you saw him there?
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he was merciless. First time he met me, okay?
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: I'm the rabbi. First time he met me, I was young,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: obviously the first time he met me. I've never, and
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: I'm introduced to Don Rickles, I'm like very intimidated. He
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: looks at me for a second, he goes, don't worry,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: your skin will clear up. That was the first thing,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: the first thing. And I just, of course I cracked up,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: but it's like, it's a shame that people can't. I
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: think we're getting back to it.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of it has just been, it's
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: just fucking some of society, sorry, some of society, sir,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: just like of, yeah, like every, like, I don't know.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: We got into this stuff. crazy stuff in the media.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: Things used to be able to be funnier. Now live comedy,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: I think is still very good.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: I think it's the stuff that you, you know, that
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: one person can object to and put on social media
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: or two people. I mean, obviously there are things you
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: can say that are truly objectionable. It's not, I'm like,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: I'm a rabbi. I take things seriously, but you have
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: to be able to laugh at yourself. You really do.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: If you can't, then you'll just find that other people
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: do it for you.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: And when it comes to like different, it's like, In
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: the end, your thought always has to be when it
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: comes to different groups, whether it's Jewish people, black people,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: illiterate people, Chinese or whatever, women, men. We all have
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: to live together in the world, right? And so it's
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: like– I think when I was younger, I was probably
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: maybe like a little more dumb about stuff or whatever.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: We all were. But yeah.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: We all were. Right.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: But then as you get older, you're like, well, the
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: only way this all– it either– Yeah. Goes left or
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: it goes like straight. It kind of conjoins more, you know?
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The world is a boat.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: And you know, you can't, you can't drill a hole
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: only under your seat. If it goes down, it goes
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: down for everybody.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's interesting. And that kind of keeps us all having,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: it should keep us all making sure that our neighbor
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: has a life vest in a way.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: Nice. You know, because that's really important. If it goes
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: down for one of us, it can go down for
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: all of us. Yeah. Um, You wrote a book called
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: Why Faith Matters.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: And after having some health issues.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me just a little bit about that?
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: I had a brain tumor and then I had lymphoma.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: So I had cancer, I had a couple of cancers. And,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: and afterwards there were all these, I mean, it's not
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: as popular now, but there were all these people who
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: were like professional atheists, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: a couple others. And, and, What they were describing about
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: religion wasn't at all the religion that I experienced when
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: I was sick. Because the religion I experienced when I
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: was sick was, like, people gather around you. They help you.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: They care about you. Like, people in my congregation, I
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: know they've been giving people meals for years and years
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: and years who are in trouble.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: It was a human thing.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: And it's a human thing, but it's done also out
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: of faith that this is what God wants you to
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: do and, like, that other people are in the image
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: of God. And so— I wrote this book, like, I,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, I talk about science and faith and other
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: questions that people have and why God allows bad things
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: to happen and so on. But essentially I want people
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: to understand, like, it's very hard to create that kind
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: of lasting community outside of a, of a house of
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: worship outside of a synagogue, a church, a mosque. Um,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: And that these are really the people who will, you know,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: one day your gym is going to close, but they'll
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: always be a house of worship. And if you come in,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: you get accepted and you belong. And so the book
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: is about the different ways in our lives that faith matters.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: And one story that I tell in there, which actually
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: is very apropos of everything we've been talking about, is
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: this guy, an old story. About a guy who looks
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: up at the heavens and he says, God, there's so
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: much trouble and there's so much pain and there's so
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: much war in your world. Why don't you send help?
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: And God says, I did. I sent you. And I
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: feel like that sense of personal agency, that's really important. Wow.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it also even makes you feel not some
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: responsibility a little bit, but the other part of that
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: is it makes you feel purposeful.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: You know, or like you were chosen.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, that's pretty cool. I did, I sent you.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: How do you put together a sermon? We're gonna wrap
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: up in a minute. I just, and if it's too big.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: Of a question. You just saw it. That's how. I
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: think of a theme and a story and then I
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: speak more or less spontaneously. I speak from- But you'll
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: start something maybe with- A note or two.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: And I'll get up with a note or two and
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: I'll just go. I don't know why, but from the
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: time I was young, there are a lot of things
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: that I don't do well But words don't fail me
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason. And I know if I have an idea,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: I can get up and I can give you my
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: 15 minutes on the idea and somehow it will tie together.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: And that's just I've just been very lucky to be
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: able to do that. And I love to do it also.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 2: I really do. So.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: That's cool, man. Yeah, it's interesting because I think I
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: think a lot of my thoughts have just been like
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: about like Israel. Palestine is just like you have feelings
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: so much for the Palestinian people, you know. And I
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: think that does you credit.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: And I would never say, yeah, I would never say
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: to somebody they shouldn't feel, I mean, how could you not?
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: When people suffer, you know, the first reaction should be,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: that's terrible that people are suffering. Then you get to
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: the causes, but the first reaction should just be, you know,
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: that's awful.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: Well, it's nice to have just some more, it's nice
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: to have more information. It's nice to have information from
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: a Jewish person, you're, you're fully Jewish.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: I am fully Jewish.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: It's nice to have information from a Jewish person. And, um, yeah,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: it's just nice to learn. Do you think Israel has
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: a preference in, uh, the presidential election? Hmm.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: I think it depends which Israelis you ask. Um, Trump
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: has been pretty popular in Israel though. He's gotten pretty
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: high marks in part because a lot of, a lot of, uh,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: presidents promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem and didn't,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: and he did. Um, and also because I think he
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: eggs on, um, some belligerence in Israel and that makes
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: Israelis feel like, you know, we'll be okay with him.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: So I think that that's probably true. But ultimately what
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: I always tell people, which I really deeply believe is
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: true is the best president for Israel will be the
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: best president for America. because Israel needs a strong America
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: more than it needs any particular policy. So I'm not
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: here to tell you who the best president for America is,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: but whoever it is, that's who I want for Israel,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: because Israel needs America to be strong and prosperous and
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: healthy in the world, because it's by far Israel's major ally.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: And so I want America to do well, not only
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: because I'm an American, but also because I think And
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: not only for Israel, but also I really, I like,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: I have a deep belief in America as, you know,
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: it's been called the last best hope of mankind. I
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: hope it's not the last hope, but I think it's
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: the best. And so when America is at its best,
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: it's really a beacon for the world. And for that,
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: I want the best leadership we can have.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: What is a rabbi? I know it's like a priest, right?
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: It's like a priest.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: Rabbi means teacher. Okay. So you do many of the things,
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: like you visit hospitals, you do weddings, you do funerals,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: you do bar and bat mitzvahs, you do all those things,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: you preach. And your central role is to teach, to
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: teach the Jewish tradition and to teach values and so on.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: And I was lucky enough that my father was a rabbi.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: His father, by the way, was a song and dance man.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: He was a vaudevillian. So maybe that's all the same thing.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I always wondered.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: Because sometimes people tell me like, man, one day you
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: should preach or pastor, you know, or get into that world.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: And I don't know really what God has in store
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: for me, you know, like, but I do really, there
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: are moments where I'll be on stage doing comedy and
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: I'll feel like I wish what I was saying was
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: the most important thing it could be. Not from me,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: but just whatever needs to be said. I wish that
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: whatever I was saying you know, like that God would
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: use me to just make it as important as possible.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: What I will tell you is you never know in
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: this life who you've influenced and how. Like, you know,
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden someone comes up to you, I'm sure,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: and says, you know, remember that thing you said at
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: a comedy show 12 years ago and you don't remember
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: at all, but they remember and they say, that changed
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: my life. Because you're like, you're in different places, different times.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: I know we're ending, but I'll end with a story.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: So there was a famous... He grew up to be
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: a famous rabbi, but when he was a kid, his
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: name was called the Seer of Lublin. And he used
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: to go into the forest. And one day his father
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: pulls him aside and he says, why do you keep
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: going into the forest? And he says, well, I go
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: there to find God. And his father said, that's beautiful,
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: but don't you know that God is the same everywhere?
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: And he says, well, God is, but I'm not. And
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: so you have to find the places in the world
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: where you are at the place where you can teach
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: whatever it is you have to teach. And Maybe the
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: comedy stage is the place where that you have found
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: that you have to teach. It doesn't have to be
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: a pulpit for everybody. Everybody has their own place.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes we all feel, yeah. Yeah, everybody has their
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: own place. And so does Israel and so does Palestine,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: and hopefully they'll figure it out. Amen. Amen. Thank you,
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: Rabbi David Wolpe. We appreciate you. Thank you. cornerstone Oh
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: But when I reach that ground I'll share this peace
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: of mind I found I can feel it in my
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: bones