Latest / The Breakfast Club / Jonathan Greenblatt On Combatting Anti-Semitism, Anti-Black Racism, Kanye West, Kyrie Irving + More

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Jonathan Greenblatt On Combatting Anti-Semitism, Anti-Black Racism, Kanye West, Kyrie Irving + More · The Breakfast Club

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  Speaker 1: Morning. Everybody is dj n V Charlemagne the guide. We
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: are the breakfast Club. We got a special guest into building.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, The CEO or the Anti Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblad. Welcome,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: good morning, Welcome, Thank you for having me. How are
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  Speaker 1: you man, I'm well. How are you guys? Yea blessed
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  Speaker 1: black and Holly Favor. They were pretty good. There you go. Well,
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  Speaker 1: let's start of what is the CEO of the Anti
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  Speaker 1: Defamation League? Well, the Anti What do I do? So?
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  Speaker 1: The Anti Defamation League? Lets just step back. It's the
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  Speaker 1: oldest anti hate organization in the United States. It was
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  Speaker 1: founded in nineteen thirteen after a Jewish man was lynched.
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  Speaker 1: He had been falsely accused of a crime, wrongly convicted
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  Speaker 1: and ultimately of The mob tore him from his jail
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  Speaker 1: and they hung him from a tree. And while that
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  Speaker 1: the corps were still hanging from the rope, they all
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  Speaker 1: gathered around the town. Did they had a barbecue underneath
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  Speaker 1: the body. They took pictures, and they turned the photographs
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  Speaker 1: into postcards. Sounds familiar. I was gonna say, like the
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  Speaker 1: lynchings happened to young black men and the black women
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  Speaker 1: very frequently in the South. This was the first high
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  Speaker 1: profile of a Jewish man and a bunch of Jews
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  Speaker 1: that we got to do something about this, and so
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  Speaker 1: they founded an organization they called the Anti Defamation League,
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  Speaker 1: and they wrote a mission statement that was pretty amazing
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  Speaker 1: because one hundred years ago Jews did not have, you know,
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  Speaker 1: economic resources to speak of, they did not have much
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  Speaker 1: social capital. And the mission statement they wrote in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirteen we still use it today, was that the purposes
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  Speaker 1: to quote, stop the defamation of the Jewish people and
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  Speaker 1: secure justice and fair treatment to all. Stop the defamation
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  Speaker 1: of the Jewish people, then not stop the defamation of
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  Speaker 1: Jewish people and maybe stop it and justice and fair
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  Speaker 1: treatment to all, which you know, we all talked about
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  Speaker 1: intersectionality today. We think struggles are connected today. But one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and ten years ago, when the Jewish community was
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  Speaker 1: vulnerable and they were weak, and they didn't have any
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  Speaker 1: kind of power or influence or anything, the idea that
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  Speaker 1: they would fight for themselves made sense. They did they
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  Speaker 1: would also fight for others. That was an audacious, outrageous idea,
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  Speaker 1: but it has animated this organization for well over a century.
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  Speaker 1: So whether it's you know, this organization made the country
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  Speaker 1: safer for Jewish people and safer for Black people, safer
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  Speaker 1: for LGBTQ people, safer for immigrants. You know, my predecessors
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  Speaker 1: filed the meekest reefs and Brownbey Board of Education put
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  Speaker 1: people on the freedom on the buses for freedom Summer
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  Speaker 1: March with Doctor King. Long before I mean today, we
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  Speaker 1: talked about doctor King. He's a hero and we got
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  Speaker 1: a holiday. He was a rabble rouser, he was a
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  Speaker 1: risk taker. And the when when ADL stood with him
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, like it pushed a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people away, but we thought it was the right thing
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  Speaker 1: to do. And I'm blessed, like really really blessed to
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  Speaker 1: stand on that legacy. Now, listen, let's go back to
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, right, because you know, a Jewish man got lynched,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm sure plenty of black people got lynched prior
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  Speaker 1: to that, So you know, why didn't you know, people,
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  Speaker 1: Jewish people step but prior to say hey man, this
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  Speaker 1: is wrong that all these black people are getting I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure Jewish people did, but the Jewish community didn't create
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  Speaker 1: an organization, you know, like ADL before then. So that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that individuals didn't speak out. There are many
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  Speaker 1: Jews who revolved in the abolition movement. There are many
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  Speaker 1: Jews involved, you know, in all aspects of the civil
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  Speaker 1: rights movement over the decades. Because it makes me think about,
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  Speaker 1: you know, when you don't how they say, you know,
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  Speaker 1: this happened to the Jews, and I remained stylent, what
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  Speaker 1: happened to this group? And I remain stylent. Just happened
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  Speaker 1: to black people, and I remain styland and then eventually
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  Speaker 1: they came came for us. That's what it makes me
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  Speaker 1: think about. It is a lot like that, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: like look, ADL has not gotten it right every time
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  Speaker 1: over the last hundred years, that's for sure, but on
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  Speaker 1: some of the most big and important questions of our time,
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  Speaker 1: when it really was a risk, I feel proud to
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  Speaker 1: be part of this organization. And what does the CEO
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  Speaker 1: of the ad So basically I do three things. Number One,
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  Speaker 1: we protect the community. We track anti Semitic incidents. We
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  Speaker 1: helped train law enforcements they understand what hate crimes are
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  Speaker 1: and how to protect communities black, brown, Jewish, etc. And
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  Speaker 1: we monitor the extremists. So I got a team of
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  Speaker 1: analysts who twenty four to seven are tracking right wing extremists.
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  Speaker 1: White nationalists are militia groups, hardcore a desigonists, radical eco fascists,
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  Speaker 1: all these kinds of extremists. Like just two weeks ago,
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  Speaker 1: we had a situation in Penn Station you may have
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  Speaker 1: seen where the FBI and the NYPD apprehended two men
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  Speaker 1: with bulletproof vests, guns, knives, swastick arm bands, and rounds
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  Speaker 1: of ammunition. That was based on a piece of intelligence
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  Speaker 1: that an analyst sitting at our Center on Extremism provided
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  Speaker 1: to the FBI. So last year we gave over thirteen
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  Speaker 1: hundred tips, again like making sure that white supremacists and
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  Speaker 1: other kind of sovereign citizens and radicals don't commit acts
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  Speaker 1: of violence. So Number one, we track incidents and I'll
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  Speaker 1: come back to the incidents. Number two we advocate. So
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  Speaker 1: the short term it's protecting the community. The medium term
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  Speaker 1: it's about improving the climate. And we lobby in Washington,
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  Speaker 1: we lobby state capitals, We litigate right now we're trying
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  Speaker 1: to bankrupt the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, and we
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  Speaker 1: speak out in the court of public opinion too. So
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  Speaker 1: advocacy is a big part of what I do. And
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  Speaker 1: then Thirdly, we educate because you know you can't. You
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  Speaker 1: sort of can't fight hate in the long run if
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  Speaker 1: you don't win hearts and minds. You can't arrest your
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  Speaker 1: way out of hate. You can't litigate your out of hate.
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  Speaker 1: So we are one of the largest providers in America
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  Speaker 1: of anti bias anti hate content in schools. We reach
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  Speaker 1: three and a half to four million kids in schools,
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  Speaker 1: middle schools, high schools every year. And so what will
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  Speaker 1: happen is like a black high school player will be
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  Speaker 1: hazed on a football team, or an effeminate teenager we
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  Speaker 1: bullied for being gay, or a Jewish student will have
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  Speaker 1: her a swastika carved inner her locker and a parent
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  Speaker 1: or a principle or whatever they will bring in ADL
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  Speaker 1: And our content is about fighting anti black racism, anti Semitism, homophobia,
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  Speaker 1: all those kinds of things. Let me ask you a question.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking to Jonathan Greenblaff. Everybody just tuning in. One
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  Speaker 1: thing that I always have a problem with with with
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  Speaker 1: any group of people is a lot of times we
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  Speaker 1: don't have the conversation, so we don't know what hurts right,
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  Speaker 1: We don't know what's bothersome We doesn't. We don't know
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  Speaker 1: what to say, what we can't say, what's inappropriate, what's
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  Speaker 1: defamation and all that. So, um, the first thing I
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  Speaker 1: just want to talk is what other terms that is?
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  Speaker 1: Shouldn't we say? Or what are the terms I think
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  Speaker 1: you're saying what exactly as anti simmatism? No? No, no, yes,
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  Speaker 1: well that's part of it too. So like you know,
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  Speaker 1: let's say Kanye says Jewish people have all them. Let's
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  Speaker 1: not use him, No, no, I would rather use me
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  Speaker 1: as an example. Okay, Well let's say people say Jewish
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  Speaker 1: people level all the power, or you know, Jewish people
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  Speaker 1: run Hollywood or Jewish people run the music industry. These
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  Speaker 1: are the things that we've been hearing recently. Explain to
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  Speaker 1: us what those terms mean to you? And is it hurtful?
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  Speaker 1: Is it painful? Is it not? Is it? You know? Like?
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  Speaker 1: What is it to you? Like if you ask me,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the N word, how does that feel? And
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  Speaker 1: this to any of them? We can define that, but
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  Speaker 1: how does that feel to you? And what can we say?
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  Speaker 1: What can't we say? What is foul? What is not foul?
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  Speaker 1: You know? D I'm really glad you asked the question,
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  Speaker 1: and like I'm just gonna share. You know, Charlottage and
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  Speaker 1: I have been talking for years now, and a lot
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  Speaker 1: of what we do is behind the scenes, and sometimes
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  Speaker 1: we do call things out, but I believe that you
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  Speaker 1: call people in before you call him out, absolutely, And
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  Speaker 1: I don't believe in cancel culture. I believe in council culture.
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  Speaker 1: So I know by coming on this show, there are
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  Speaker 1: people in the Jewish community are going to criticize me,
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  Speaker 1: But I think we've got to engage with each other
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  Speaker 1: and by learn, yeah, our community are gonna be like,
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  Speaker 1: why y'all got him on his own? I'm sure, I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure you're gonna here. There are a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: who don't like me, people on the far right, people
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  Speaker 1: on the far left, people in all kinds of communities.
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  Speaker 1: Because I think, you know, we call it out. Whether
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  Speaker 1: it's Kanye West or Tucker Carlson, or magor Taylor Green
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  Speaker 1: or sometimes ilhan Omar, we will call it out. That's
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  Speaker 1: or SNL or Amazon. We call it out. So that
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  Speaker 1: being said, what do we call out? So again, our
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  Speaker 1: core mission, if you will, is protect the Jewish people.
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  Speaker 1: That's our core purpose. So anti Semitism is the threats,
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  Speaker 1: So anti Semitism is kind of an irrational let's say,
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  Speaker 1: hatred of Jewish individuals or institutions because they are Jewish.
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  Speaker 1: And anti Semitism is interesting if you think about it
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  Speaker 1: relative to other forms of prejudice, because I think anti
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  Speaker 1: Semitism it's like a conspiracy theory, like it's about the
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  Speaker 1: way the world works. So the Jews did this to me.
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  Speaker 1: The Jews have too much power. The Jews are the communists,
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  Speaker 1: the Jews are the capitalists. The Jews control Congress. The
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  Speaker 1: Jews want to kill Christian people, Muslim people, black people, whatever.
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  Speaker 1: It's this warped kind of idea that shape shifts relative
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  Speaker 1: to time and place. I mean, it's described as the
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  Speaker 1: oldest hatred. It's been around thousands of years, you know,
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  Speaker 1: after the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem by the Romans
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  Speaker 1: and like, torn from their land, and they lived in
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  Speaker 1: diaspora as a small community in Europe, in the Middle East,
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  Speaker 1: in parts of Asia. And these Jews continued speaking Hebrew.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't assimilate into the mainstream population. They continue their
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  Speaker 1: own religion. They didn't adopt Christianity or Islam. They continued
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  Speaker 1: their own dietary rules. They didn't adopt what the mainstream did.
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  Speaker 1: Jews don't believe in conversion or propalyzation, so they stayed small,
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  Speaker 1: they didn't really grow. So the upshot of that is
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  Speaker 1: when the Church, like in Europe, needed someone to blame,
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  Speaker 1: blame the Jews, when the Kings needed someone to blame,
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  Speaker 1: blame those Jews, when the Caliphate needed someone to blame,
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  Speaker 1: blame those Jews, because they were always there, they were
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  Speaker 1: always different, they were always living on the margins. So
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  Speaker 1: flash forward to today. Anti Semitism shows up in different ways,
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  Speaker 1: often like characterized by a series of myths or tropes. So,
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  Speaker 1: for example, the Jews run Hollywood. Look, it is certainly
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  Speaker 1: true that there are a number of prominent Jewish people
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  Speaker 1: in Hollywood in the entertainment industry, but they did that
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  Speaker 1: the Jews run Hollywood. There's nuts, there's no ball of
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  Speaker 1: Jews who are manipulating things. But the idea that Jews,
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  Speaker 1: Jews and power shows up over history. Right, many people
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  Speaker 1: know about something called the Protocols of Zion, which was
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  Speaker 1: a forgery written Obo one hundred years ago, that there
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  Speaker 1: was a group of Jews who are trying to run
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  Speaker 1: the world. Hitler used that to justify, you know, the
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  Speaker 1: genocide of six million Jews. And so when you say
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  Speaker 1: Jews run Hollywood, Jews run the music industry, Jews control Congress,
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  Speaker 1: or sometimes by the way, it's the Jewish people. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: it's the Jewish state. Israel controls Congress, Israel, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the Zionists run the media. It's the same stuff. And
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  Speaker 1: why is it a problem? Like somebody, I would loved
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  Speaker 1: if people thought that my community ran Hollywood, but like
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  Speaker 1: this has led to harassment and violence. So earlier this
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  Speaker 1: year we have the hostage taken in Collyville, Texas. Do
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  Speaker 1: you guys, do you jump and remember that January a
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  Speaker 1: guy from the UK, mentally disturbed of South Asian descent
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  Speaker 1: Muslim had been radicalized by ISIS propaganda and came to
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  Speaker 1: the USS. He wanted to free an ISIS terrorist he's
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  Speaker 1: being held in a prison in Texas and thought the
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  Speaker 1: way he could free this woman was to go find
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  Speaker 1: a synagogue because the Jews control Congress. And he took
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  Speaker 1: four people a rabbi and three people hostage in a
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  Speaker 1: synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. There was an eleven hours standoff,
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  Speaker 1: which I know because as soon as I was at home,
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  Speaker 1: I had been to synagogue in the morning, I was
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  Speaker 1: at home and I got a call from my head
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  Speaker 1: of law enforcement who said, sit down. I hope you're
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  Speaker 1: sitting down. We just got worried about a hostage taking
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  Speaker 1: at a synagogue outside of Dallas, and we knew we
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  Speaker 1: got the call because the FBI called us because we
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  Speaker 1: track extremists, and one of my analysts was on I
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  Speaker 1: think a signal like in a signal chat that morning
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  Speaker 1: when someone said turn on the live stream because you
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  Speaker 1: could see it because the services were being live stream.
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  Speaker 1: This create person thought somehow that Biden would listen to
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  Speaker 1: the Jews. Now, as it turns out, after eleven hours,
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  Speaker 1: the hostage were able to free themselves. The FBI shot
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  Speaker 1: and killed this man because he came out with his weapon. Um.
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  Speaker 1: But interestingly enough, the next day, when the rabbi was
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  Speaker 1: on CBS and they asked him, what would you think,
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  Speaker 1: the first thing he said was, I just want to
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  Speaker 1: thank the FBI, law enforcement and the ADL for the
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  Speaker 1: training that I got that helped save my life. So
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  Speaker 1: when we talk about what is anti Semitism, it's a
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  Speaker 1: crazy radical isis radicalized person coming from the UK thinks
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  Speaker 1: that Jews have too much power. It's two white supremacists
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  Speaker 1: getting off a subway train at Penn station because they've
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  Speaker 1: heard that they wanted to go shoot up a synagogue.
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  Speaker 1: It's black Hebrew Israelites. This weekend, what today's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? Sorry,
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  Speaker 1: so it is over this past weekend. In Staten Island
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  Speaker 1: on Sunday, a Jewish man who he must have been
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  Speaker 1: Orthodox because you could identify that he was Jewish and
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  Speaker 1: his son were shot by a young man with a
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  Speaker 1: pellet gun as they came out of and so when
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  Speaker 1: he was asked by the police, they said it was
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  Speaker 1: a hate crime, he said, how could I be a
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  Speaker 1: hate crime if I'm a Hebrew. This is the kind
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  Speaker 1: of fiction that black Hebrew israel I'd say that white
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  Speaker 1: Jews quote unquote aren't really Jews. So anti Semitism can
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  Speaker 1: if you will show up as people thinking that white
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  Speaker 1: Jews aren't Jews, it can show up as white supremacists.
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  Speaker 1: It can show up as people saying like Kanye by
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  Speaker 1: the way, kind of got ejected by Elon Muskoff of
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  Speaker 1: Twitter last week, and Elan says because he put an
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  Speaker 1: image up of a Jewish Star of David with a
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  Speaker 1: swastick in it, I could tell you there are rallies
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  Speaker 1: anti Israel rallies every week where they say Zionism is Nazi,
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  Speaker 1: that Zionists are committing genocide. I've seen that image a
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  Speaker 1: million times. But these are all manifestations of what I
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  Speaker 1: will characterize as an irrational hatred of the Jewish people.
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  Speaker 1: And look, Jewish people are the most victimized religious minority
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  Speaker 1: in the country. Sixty percent of all the religious based
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  Speaker 1: hate crimes target Jews, despite the fact that Jews are
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  Speaker 1: just two percent of the population. There are only seven
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  Speaker 1: million Jews in a country of three hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 1: million people, but they're the most targeted, and the anti
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  Speaker 1: Semitism is up. In two thousand, We've been tracking anti
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  Speaker 1: Semitic incidents at adl OR forty five years. Twenty twenty
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  Speaker 1: one was the highest total we've ever seen. It was
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  Speaker 1: a thirty four percent increase over the year before, two
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  Speaker 1: seven hundred and seventeen incidents. Now every one of those,
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  Speaker 1: my staff investigated and verified everything that we report, and
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  Speaker 1: so that is triple the number of incidents that we
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: had in twenty fifteen. So think about that, over three
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  Speaker 1: percent more. And I mean, if you guys go to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: church or your listens go to church, you can ask yourselves,
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  Speaker 1: do you have armed guards in front of your church? No,
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  Speaker 1: we need to though. I felt that way ever since
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  Speaker 1: the incident happened in my hometown in cho To, South Carolina.
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  Speaker 1: So we should talk about that, about what ADL's doing
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  Speaker 1: about that. So let's come back to that. But literally
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  Speaker 1: every synagogue in the United States has an armed guard
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  Speaker 1: in it. Every synagogue in the United States knows how
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  Speaker 1: to do lockdown drills and you know, live shooter drills.
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  Speaker 1: We are very used to our synagogues being firing ranges,
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  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of fear that comes from the
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  Speaker 1: what's your name? The term Jews? Right? Is that a
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  Speaker 1: term that can be said because at one time, at
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  Speaker 1: one time you couldn't say that. I thought you had
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  Speaker 1: to say Jewish people. Yeah, you can say jew yeah.
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  Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting. Language evolves and changes relative like
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  Speaker 1: cultural norms. So I think of myself as an American
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  Speaker 1: Jew because my grandfather, who who was a Holocaust survivor,
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  Speaker 1: he was a Jew in Germany is the only country
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  Speaker 1: that he ever knew until one day, and my great
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  Speaker 1: grandfather fought in the First World War for Germany. The
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  Speaker 1: only country they ever knew until one day it turned
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  Speaker 1: on them, destroyed everything they ever loved, made them enemies
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  Speaker 1: of the state, and pretty much incinerated their whole family
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  Speaker 1: in Auschwitz. So that German Jew came here. Never would
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  Speaker 1: have guessed, by the way, that when he was a
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  Speaker 1: young man that one day his grandsons like me and
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  Speaker 1: my brother and my cousins would be born in America.
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  Speaker 1: My grandfather never could to guess that one his twenties.
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  Speaker 1: Flash forward, my wife is a an Iranian Jew. She
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  Speaker 1: came here as a political refugee in nineteen eighty eight.
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  Speaker 1: If you ask my father in law, I mean they're
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  Speaker 1: very Iranian. They're Persian speak Persian, they Persian food, they
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  Speaker 1: work with the Persians. It's a whole different Middle very
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  Speaker 1: deeply Middle Eastern kind of culture. If you had asked
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  Speaker 1: my father in law when he was a young man,
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  Speaker 1: he would have guessed, of course, his grandchildren will be
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  Speaker 1: born in Iran, the only country they ever Knewantal After
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  Speaker 1: the Islamic Revolution, the Jews became enemies of the state.
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  Speaker 1: They destroyed everything they ever loved, and they forced again
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: my in laws and my sister in law and my
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: wife to come here as refugees, which they did, like
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I told you, And so I don't take for granted,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: based on the experience of my Jewish grandfather from Germany
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: or my Jewish father in law from Iran, that my
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: grandchildren will be born here in America. As a Jew,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I can't afford that luxury if I want them to
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: be born here, and I desperately do. We got to
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: fight for what we have, so you can, So you
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: can say Jew now. I will also say that a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: lot of when we talk about what language matters, it's
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: all about context. So when you know Nick Fuentis, you know,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's dining companion, uses the turn jew, he probably
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean it in the way like when I say it.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And it's like you mentioned the N word before, like
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: when a black person says the black person has a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: very different meeting than when Nick Fuentish said dinner with
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So a lot of this is about context.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: If you call me Jewish, that's just fine with me.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: If you say Jonathan's an American Jew, that's just fine
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: with me too. So when we go back to the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: anti Semitic conversation, because a lot of the things you
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: named the blatant anti semitism. But I got labeled anti
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Semitic because I said, you know, after the Nick Cannan situation,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: this shows that Jewish people have power. And I can't
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: wait until black people have power, because we can't even
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: get the people who kill us fired in reference to
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the cops who at the time we're still who hadn't
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: been charged with killing Brianna Taylor. So why is that
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: considered anti semitical. That's coming from a place of reverence. Yeah,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I get that, and so I think that's the that's
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: some of the complexity of this. Now. Number one, I
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: tell you at ADL, like we are very, very very
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: hesitant to call someone anti Semitic unless there is a
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: pattern of behavior over time. You might say something that's
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: at semitic. You may say something that's offensive intentionally or not,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: but it's up to us to explain why. Like I
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: can't assume that you understand my pain. I got to
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: explain it. So like I don't know the specifics of
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: who said exactly that, but what I would say, no, no, no,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: but who who ascribed that to you and to Charles.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's right. And I think you've shown
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a willingness to engage and to be open. You're showing
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: it with me, and I appreciate that vulnerability, and I
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: hope I show it with you and with your listeners today.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Now all that being said, again, the trope of Jews
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and power. Simply when you said I want to have
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: that kind of power, you might not mean it in
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: some conspiratorial way. That may be how some Jewish people
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: heard it, because even a hip hop right, it's always
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: been you know, you got to have Jewish people in
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: your corner, you know, like you know, remember in a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: good way, in a good way, like you know, it's
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the thing to say, like, you know, I got I
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: got some very powerful Jewish people in my corner. I
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: don't know if it's we're saying, you know, we're saying
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: it because of the stereotype of Jews having power, just
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: that they're powerful. It happened to be Jewish. See, this
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: is what's tough about it. Context matters, intent matters. You
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: can there can be an offense even accidentally, like Kyrie Irving.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think was trying to be not at all,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I think it was just ignorant. Now with
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the Kyrie Irving situation, right. You know, Kye Irving got suspended,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: he had there was five things he had to do
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: before he was playing basketball again. But I also ask
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: about like Amazon for having that film on there. You know,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I don't feel like Amazon got much of that fire.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to tell you we are working on
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that because you're pointed something now, Djammy, that's incredibly important.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: It's it's not just about what the people say, it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: what the platform does. It's not just what Chappelle's that's
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: what SNL does or NBC does. It's not just about
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the what Kyrie tweets, it's about Amazon hosting it. So look,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: we've launched a whole campaign against Amazon. We announced on
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Monday we're working with the German government because Holocaust denialism
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and that movie is offensive in part because it says
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that white Jews invented the Holocaust, that it didn't really happen.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: That's not true. Let's just put that out there. I
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: don't think I really shouldn't even need to, but Holocaust
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: denialism is illegal in Germany. That movie is available on
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Amazon Germany. So we are now working with the German
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: government because Amazon is breaking the law. I also had
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: we worked with members of Congress, had about three dozen
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: members of Congress write a letter to CEO Andy Jassey
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: into the chairman Jeff Bezos. We're also worked with all
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: these different groups in the Jewish community to write a letter.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: We've sent tens of thousands of emails. So I'm not
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: going to let up on Amazon, not at all. And
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I was at a conference last week where Andy Jasson,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: CEO said, you know what, it's a slip we slope
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: if we take this down. I don't think so. We're
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: at a minimum. Maybe doesn't want to take it down,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and I think he should. He put it this claimer
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: on it to say the kind of things in here
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: are not true and here's why they're problematic. And like, look,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I've talked to Andy, I've talked to their leadership. We
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: will help them with that. Again, the goal here's that
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to cancel. It's the counsel. Now. You also didn't mention
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle, Right, Yeah, for years, comedians have made jokes
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: about everything under the sun. Right, if you watch a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: living color or whatever it may, it could be LGBTQ community,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: it could be black people, it could be white people.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: It's Asian people. When is a joke not funny anymore?
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Where it's a problem because some people find Dave Chappelle's
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: jokes funny. I'm sure some Jewish people find blaste jokes. Yeah.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: The criticism was he normalized anti sematism. As a person
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: who doesn't always know what is considered anti semitic, I
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: didn't know what he normalized. So let's talk about that.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: So first of all, I would say that I give
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: always as a head of ADL, a very wide birth
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: when it comes to comedy. I mean, and Dave Chappelle
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: is an equal opportunity offender right, white people, trance people,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: black people, as Jewish people. So there's a lot of
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: people Asian people for sure, and so is SNL. Like guess,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I was making fun of people all the time, white people,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Jewish people, black people, and I pretty much don't say boo.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: But what was problematic about what he said are a
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: few things. So number one, keep in mind, as you
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: probably know because it's been reported, he did a different
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: monologue in the rehearsal. I don't know if you know
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: that or not. He didn't do that, So right there,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: that's a little bit of a tell because that's that's
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: not what you are supposed to do. That's not why
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Lauren Michaels does the rehearsal, supposed to test it out.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And I think he knew that it was going to
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: be too hot or too controversial and they might tell
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: him not to do it, so right there, number one,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: number two, Look, he literally said the problem wasn't what
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Kanye said. It said. He said it out loud, that's
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: what he said. And on the heels of the stuff
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that Kanye was doing, and on the heels of all
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the kind of animus around the Kyrie thing when he
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: said that, you know, sometimes you don't know in comedy
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: whether it's going to be a whether it's a punch
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: or a punch line. This just felt like a punch.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: He did that thing where he pulled out the piece
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of paper and read it at the beginning. Y'all saw
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the monopology. Yeah, that he denounced his anti symatism, and
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: he said it in a flat like, you know, in
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: a flat monotone, and he said, that's how you buy
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: yourself some time. So that was kind of funny, but
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: it wasn't when again, it felt less like a punch
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: line and more like a punch. So by saying the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: problem was what Kanye said, just that he said it
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: out loud. That hit home again. The fact that there
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: are some Jewish people who are Hollywood executives doesn't mean
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the Jews run Hollywood, and this myth of power has
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: led to deep problems for Jews. But there was something
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: else that he said that also really I thought about
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: our conversations that really hit me. When He's based said, look,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you know, Jewish people have suffered, and he acknowledged that
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: towards the end, but he said, don't blame black people
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: for your trauma. He said a kind of like that.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing, like no one was doing that. I mean,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I've gone after Tucker Carlson, Marjore Taylor Green, Donald Trump,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: plenty of other people on the right who are white.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I've gone after plenty of people on the left who
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: are white. I've gone after I shouldn't say gone after
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: even but called out people like hannahs Owens and people
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: like Kanye and people like and others. I mean to
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: say that we're blaming black people for the trauma really
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: really hurt because I think it was really really wrong. Yeah,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I think I think sometimes people feel like a regard
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: of the anti semitism, black people get labeled but then
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: suffer more consequences for it than other groups. You know
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: what I mean. Nothing seems to happen to Donald Trump,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: nothing seems to happen to Tucker Carlson. But other black
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: people that get label to anti Semitic, they lose thing,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: lose everything. I hear you. I mean, I think about
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Myers Leonard last year or two years ago. Myers Leonard,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: you know, he was a forward for the Heat who
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: was caught. He was streaming on Steam playing like I
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: can't remember what game he was playing, and he used
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: a real pretty offensive term towards juice, which she was shooting.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Thinks I think it was like, yeah, like um call
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: of dude or something. Yeah, and uh, we called him out.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: The Heat dropped him. Hasn't picked up by another team, right,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: so he pretty much got canceled by the way we've
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: worked with Myers over the years. We worked them right away.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: After that, he's done some good stuff with us, calling
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: out hate on video games. Since then, is he black white? Okay,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: he lost whole career, But let me ask you, when
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: somebody does something like that and says something wrong and
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: disrespectful and he loses everything. That's kind of like cancel
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: cold it is, which is why like we called him
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: out when he said it, because it doesn't give you
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: a chance to apologize and to make good of what
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: you've done. And what's life and Chris dunk Man and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: what's really a shame about? He's a good guy. He's
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: a young guy who's tried really hard. And I look,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I don't want to speak to his talent on the court,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: like I don't know what the Heat front office thinks
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: or the other teams by the way, but it's sad
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: that he hasn't landed somewhere as far as I know. Again,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: we've worked with him. I think he's a genuine good guy.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: But sometimes people do get canceled and I don't I
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: don't think it's right. Do you have a look at
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: that and say, damn we did that, Like we took
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: this career, We took us Like even though it's something
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that he said, well, I was gonna get to that
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: because me and you had a conversation one time, Jonathan
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: about um Kyrie and it was after the list of
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: demands came up. What y'all what you said, y'all didn't
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: have anything to do and nothing to do it. And
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: one thing you said in that conversation was you were
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: going to call the next and tell them that they
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: should let Kyrie back place, which I did. So, like,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: so jump into Kyrie for a second. I mean, I'll
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: just say the answer your thing. But like, I think
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: a lot about the fact that ad else a deeply
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: respected organization. So when we say something, it has a
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: kind of resides, and I take that responsibility really seriously.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I do not do things lightly. I do not do
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: things flippantly. And again, I try to call people in
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: before we call him out now when there's something really
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: public like what Myers did, Like that's just objectively wrong.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: But I'm proud of the fact that we've worked with
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: him since then, featured him in programs, tried to lift
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: him up now as so that's what we've tried to do.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Because I do think a lot about what you said,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: you jan Van, it's real now you were asking me
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: about just now. I'm sorry I lost my Kyrie were
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: talking about it. Yeah, So like again, I think when
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I saw that movie, you know, Kyrie is not Myers.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Leonard Harry's one of the most well known players in
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the game. My boys have his jersey they wear are
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: the Nikes. So he is like a cultural phenomenon. So
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: when he did this and then didn't seem to show
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: any contrition or any interest in any contrition right away,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: that's problematic. But we work with the NETS and his
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: family and the Players Association and the league and his
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: friends to try to work this out. And then after
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: he said he had another pretty terrible press conference and
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the NETS suspended him. They said, they said this is
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: what I got a call from then and said this
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: is what we're gon. We're gonna have him do a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: bunch of things. Would you be willing to meet with him?
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I said, of course I will, And I've said that,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: by the way, since the very beginning, I still haven't
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: met with him, spoken to his dad. I've spoken to
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: his stepmom, who's his agent. I've spoken to his friends.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I haven't talked to him. But I would talk to
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: him today if he wanted to have that conversation, because
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I think he has since the whole kind of Tobaccle
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: demonstrated again and again that he's really sincere. And when
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Josi and Adam Silver say we met with him, and
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the man has never expressed an anti Semitic thought, and
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: he really wants to learn, like I want to help
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: him learn. Is anybody that you wouldn't speak to well,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Mel Gibson and I aren't I actually going to have
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: you know, coffee at any anytime soon. I mean, I
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: think people who are unrepentant, people who show no willingness
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: in a genuine way, that's a bridge that I won't
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: necessarily cross. Now, did you see the article in tablet
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: what they say when it comes to Jewish people, to
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: ADL does more harmed than good? What do you think
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: of it? There are people in the Jewish community, like,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: here's the ugly truth. There are people in the Jewish community,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: particularly those who I would characterize on the far right,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: who think ADL is too liberal. And then there are
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: people in the Jewish community what I'll call on the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: far left, who think we're too conservative. I get accused
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: of being an apologist for Donald Trump, and I get
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: accused of being like obsessed with Donald Trump. I just
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: like I've come to expect that. And so you know,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: when you call people out and you do it consistently
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and clearly, and you take no prisoners, but you do
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: it in a way which is about how do we
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: move forward? People are going to hate, hate on you,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and like, I just think that's part of the job.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: If I listen to my critics, Charlomagne, like, I wouldn't
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: get out of bed in the morning. Yeah, he said,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: he said that eighty l A is a partisan at
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: tech machine, fueled by corporate cash and oblivious to any
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: real suffering of that's Jewish people. That's great. I mean, look,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: tell that. Tell that to the rabbi and Collie Belle,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Texas who credits us with helping save his life. Tell
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: that to the millions of kids who we educate every year.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Tell that to the thousands of people who we help
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: after they've been victimized. I mean, I think that's bologny.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: But you know, although I'm going to be honest with you,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: like I'm accustomed to getting criticized, I take all the
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: criticism seriously. I think very hard, because like I don't
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: want to be on the right or the left. I
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: just want to do what's right, not wrong. So I
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: don't let these people distract me. I don't let them
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: daunt me. Like I said, never get out of bed
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: in the morning. But I always think there's room for improvement,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm always trying to listen to people that I
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: don't agree with so I can hear where they're coming from.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: What is your thoughts on private conversation? Sometimes right every
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: household to somebody's that's listening right now, said something foul
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: or racist, or something that they considered a joke might
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: not have been funny, but he stayed in their household, right, Yeah, sure,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: But sometimes those household situations get leaked and people lose
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: everything over a household situation, especially over something that I
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: know most of the people listening has said something or
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: something funny that they thought was funny that might not
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: have been funny. What is your thoughts on that? Because
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: it's nothing that necessarily wanted to say that they wanted
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: to get out, but it's something that could have been
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: taken out of hand. I think there was you have
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: a specific like example in mind. It was one situation.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was because so don't quote me.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I'll remember he was walking into his house and it
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: was on a neighbor's ring camera and it was released
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: and he just got everything he got was was taken
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: from him. But the individual I believe at the time
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: was doing things for different communities, but he just said something,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: what is your thoughts on things like that? Because I
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: still cancel culture. I mean, yeah, that's look like I
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: said before, I think you can offend people even if
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: you don't intend to. But that's why you got to counsel,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: not counsel. That's why you got to bring people in
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: rather than push them away. So there's been a lot
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of examples of this cancel culture where professors or business
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: people have lost everything because they made a comment or
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: they got maybe did something wrong, like legitimately wrong. But
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I just think, you know, in the Jewish tradition, we
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: have this concept called tshuva, which is about repents and
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: acknowledges the fact that, I mean, we're human, like we
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: may be made in the image of God, but we're
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: not God, and so all of us sin, all of
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: us air, and Tshuva means we can all repent for
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: what we get wrong. So that's pretty much wrong. Again.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: There are those you ask me, who would I not
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: talk to? There are the unrepentant, unwilling people, and I
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: don't want to deal with them. I just don't. But
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: that is a very small fraction that I have a conversation.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: I was asked what I meet with him, and I
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: answered my answer was yes, even now, yeah, Admitaly, that
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: was before and before Alex Jones, Like he seems unwilling
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: or uninterested in any kind of real sincere conversation. And
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: by the way, you ask about private conversations like I've
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: seen him post these text messages with his friends, right,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of hard for me to reckon with.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And so I think you look, I will say that
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: I typically approach people like it with the benefit of
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: the doubt. I assume people have good intention, not ill intention.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: So it's hard to go talk to somebody like that
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: when you know he has a pattern of behavior that
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: demonstrates ill intention. What about Elon Musk, Like you know
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: now that he says that his own Twitter is saying
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: that hate speeches shot up, you know it has per
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: sence against Jewish people, sixty against African American people. Does
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the ADL attack those him and his organization and things
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: like that, and how successful all you as we're doing it?
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk? So let's step back, So I would tell
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: you that we've been fighting hate for again over almost
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: one hundred and ten years. Facebook is the front line
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: of fighting hate today and social media is a super
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: spreader of anti black racism, anti Jewish hate, anti Asian hate, etc.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: So literally, we opened a center in Silicon Valley back
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, and the woman who runs it, she's
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: next Facebook executive. I have software engineers and data scientists
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: working at ADL. We're monitoring all this stuff, and we're
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: working with all the platforms, by the way, Google and
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: YouTube and Meta and Twitter and Reddit and Steam and Amazon,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: all these companies from like Apple to Zoom. We work
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: with all of them. Okay, that's relevant because we've been
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: working with Twitter now for since it was founded. We
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: worked with the old regime, working with the new regime.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: I wasn't a big fan of the management at old Twitter.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Like old Twitter has been like a hellscape for a
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: long yeah okay, yeah, like. And we work with his
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: staff on a almost a daily basis, certainly a weekly basis,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and oftentimes there are a lot of issues. Now Elon
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I think, I think Elon is somebody who wants to
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: do the right thing because he wants to make the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: business work and if it remains a healthscape. The advertisers
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: won't take part in it. They don't want their brands.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, brand safety is linked to user safety, right,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: so they don't want you know, Procter and Gamble and McDonald's,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and they don't want their brands up against like white
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: supremacist hate speech. Now, all that being said, so I
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: have been critical of some of the things that Elon
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: has done, and at the same time, like I'm talking
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: to Elon and we're trying to work with them. I
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: think I want him to look I want him to
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: get it right because whether we like it or not,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Twitter is the public square. That might change at some
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: point in time, but the public square cannot be again
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: a firing range where Jews and other minorities are targeted
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and victimized. To your question, DJV, we have seen in
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the past few weeks anti Semitic hate speech has gone up,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the number of takedowns has decreased as a percentage. We've
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: seen some really awful people get back on the platform,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: like neo Nazis and such. I'm hoping Twitter will take
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: them down. We're you know, we're working with them to
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: try to get to that outcome. And I hope that
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Elon will get it und It was a difference between
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: free speech and openly inciting hate and violence, well a lot,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I mean incitement and threat. I mean freedom of speech
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: isn't the freedom to slander people? Right? And if you
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: keep saying free speech, free speech, but all I see is,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: you know, it seems like hate speech. I mean, I
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: think I think there's a lot of room for improvement.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And even if hate speech is part of free speech
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: to a degree, like you make decisions right every day,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: who you bring on this show, you do. You make
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: a decision, and you do that because you respect your audience.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: You've got an integrity to this program, right, and you
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: don't want to give a platform to some of the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: worst elements. Like Twitter can do a much better job
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: make sure it doesn't platform the worst elements, because I
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: don't think we should confuse freedom of expression with the
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: freedom to incite violence against again black people, Jewish people,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: or any other money is anti hate, but it often
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: feels like the ADL seems to have it doesn't have
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the same passion for anti blackness as it does anti semitism.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: That's a fair question. I mean, we were created after
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: this lynching to protect Jewish people. That's why we exist.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: And so at a time when anti Semitism has reached
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: literally an all time high, it's fair we're putting a
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: lot of resources on that. We put a lot of
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: resources and fighting extremists, rightly extremists who want to kill
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: black people in Jewish people. And this is something I
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: think we should talk about because these right wing extremists,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: they're the ones who are rejoicing while they perceive Black
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: and Jewish people are fighting. They're the ones who want
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: to see Kanye in the adl or Charlemagne and who
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: am ever going at it? Because they deeply, passionately hate
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: both of us. So we have I think there's a
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: lot of shared values between the Black and Jewish community,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: and by the way, just shared people. There are plenty
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: of Jews of color. They're plenty of African American Jews
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that I know. But in addition, I think we have
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: shared values and unfortunately we have common enemies. But let's
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: let's come back to what you asked about. We do
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: a lot with groups like the NAACP, the Legal Defense Fund,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: the Urban League, Color of Change Lawyer's Committee, at the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: national level. At the local we have twenty five offices
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: across the country and all my offices. We're working with
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: black let organizations to fight anti black racism, to be
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: a part of legislation, to be a part of initiatives.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: And when we launched our campaign against Facebook a few
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: years ago, stop paid for Profit. I did it with
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Derek Johnson, the CEO the NAACP, and Rashad Robinson from
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Color a Change. But let's come back to on the
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: situe if are we doing enough finanti blackness? And what's
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: your expertise and how are you helping our community? As
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: you said before Charlemagne, you would like to see arm
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: guards and black churches. And that's actually not a crazy idea,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think so, not in is a day and age.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like that about schools do. And we saw
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the shooting in Charleston, like you mentioned twenty fifteen, we
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: had a shooting in Buffalo this year at the Top Supermarket.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: We've had arson attacks against the black churches. Really this
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: year we had bomb threats phoned into HBCUs. So this
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: past September is only a couple months ago. The ADL
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: and the Urban League launched a new effort called the
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Solidarity and Safety Coalition, and we included that like the
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Nationalciation of Baptists and a bunch and the United Grow
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: College funded a bunch of other groups. ADL is going
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: to share what we've learned about monitoring extremists and protecting
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: houses of worship and faith based institutions and kind of
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: other important kind of anti civic entities with the Black community,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: the Asian community, LGBTQ community. We're going to share what
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: we've learned. We can do more to fight anti black
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: racism and hate, and this is one very direct way
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: we can do that. I want to go back to
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: something you just said. You said, you know, you acknowledge
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: there are black Jews, there are African American Some people
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: think saying that that they're labeled anti Semitic. What are
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: the difference between saying, hey, which is a fact there
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: are black Jews and what y'all consider anti semitic in
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: that commisation. I don't know anyone could. I mean, the
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: fact they are black Jews is just a statement of truth,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and I yea, I think that's anti semitic. I mean,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: I think let's also acknowledge that judy is a wide spectrum, right,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: So you have orthodox Jews who speak Yiddish, who eat
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: strict Kosher and observe the way they do. And then
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: you have very reform Jews who like me like I'm
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: not I mean, I'm conservative Jewish. Actually I have a
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Kosher home, I go to synagogue on Saturday mornings. I
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: observe all the holidays, but I don't wear a keepoe
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: for example. And then there are other Jews who say
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I would never set foot in a synagogue, but they
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: feel culturally Jewish, they identify as Jewish because it's also
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: it's complicated. It's a religion, it's an ethnicity, it's a culture.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: It's just not something you can just say is about,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: you know, like showing up on a Saturday morning. So
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: with all that said, there's a range of practice and observance.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: So there are plenty of black Jews who go to
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: what you might call traditional Jewish synagogue. Then there are
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: other communities like the Black Hebrew Israelites. Now there's a
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: range of practice even among Black Heber Israelites. You know,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: it's a large community of them in Israel who identifies
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Jewish in a traditional way. And then you have the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: guys in Times Square who observe in a way that's
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: not so traditional. I would say they would they would say,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: y'all aren't Jews. They would say that. Would you say
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: white people are not the original Jews? Basically correct? And look,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: they're entitled to their beliefs until that justifies shooting Jewish
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: people with pelicans on Staten Island or like this is
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: December three years ago, December twenty nineteen, two black Hebrew
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Israelites went into a Kosher supermarket in Jersey City and
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: killed three people because they said they weren't real Jews. Wow,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: shot them cold dead in a Kosher supermarket. So again,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: I don't you're entitled to believe whatever you want. I
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: think we need to recognize that rhetoric can have real
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: world consequences. Can we talk about Hollywood again, because it
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: is true that Jewish people founded Hollywood, But there's a
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: reason they did. Some Jewish individuals like called the Jewish
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: entrepreneurs who couldn't get Look at the turn of the century,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Jews couldn't get hired at law firms. Businesses wouldn't hire Jews.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Jews couldn't buy homes in many places. You know the
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: reason why if so many of these medical institutions like
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Mount Sinai or whatnot is Jewish people founded them because
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Jewish people couldn't get treated. Medical institutions or hospitals wouldn't
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: treat Jews. So Jewish people had to create their own entities,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: their own subculture. Again, there's a lot of commonalities with
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: a black experience in this country in this regard. And
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: so when they couldn't get jobs, you know, entrepreneurial Jews
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: went to the West coast to build out this new
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: industry that now we call Hollywood, the entertainment industry, the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: motion picture industry, and so as an industry they helped
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: to some Jewish people helped to create it. They had
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: some success with it. But at the risk of stating
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: in the obvious, there are ten zillion people in that
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: industry who are not Jewish. I mean, the vast majority
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: are not Jewish, but they have had some great success there.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Where does I only got a few more questions, where
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: does the stereotype that Jewish people control media? Where did
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: that come from? It comes from these old tropes about
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Jews and power. I could show you white supremacist literature
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: that's like ten twenty thirty forty years older from today
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: that says Jews control the media? Are there some Jewish
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: media executives? Sure there are. Do Jews control the media?
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Not as far as I know. If they did, I
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: think I get much better coverage, you know, I mean really,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: I mean there is no cabal of Jews in an
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: organized way. I mean Jews can't even we can't hard
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: to run our own synagogues. I mean there's no cabal
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: of Jews running anything. Now, there may be Jewish people
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: who have had some success, but Jews don't run Hollywood
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: anymore than like black It's say Jews run Hollywood is
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: like making some stereotype or some generalization about black people
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: in sports, or you know, Latino people and something or other.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I don't even know. It's just it's not right, and
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: it may sound like a compliment. But the reality is
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: when you see Jewish people being taken hostage, Jewish people
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: being shot and killed, it doesn't feel like such a compliment.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: What do you say to people who say that, you know,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: y'all are proving somebody like Kanye right as Kanye says, hey,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Jewish people have all the power, and then he loses everything. Well, look,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the insidious, the insidious nature of anti Semitism and these
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: chopes about power is Kanye can say these things. Jews
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: have all the powers controlling everything. And if we don't
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: get him, you know, if we don't deal with that,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: the myth spreads and it takes root. If we do
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: address that, and there are consequences, proves my point. So
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a damned if you do, damned if
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: you don't scenario, and we're kind of stuck. We can't
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: ignore it because it has again consequences and if it
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: gets addressed, he says, c proves my point. But I mean,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: that's just the insidious and ugly nature of anti Semitists.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: How does the ADEO handle anti black racism from Jewish people?
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: For example, if somebody in Brooklyn calls you and says, hey,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I'm being discriminated against by my landlord, and the landlord
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: happens to be Jewish, how did the ADL handle it? Well, Look,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: I mean we addressed it head on. I think about
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: a situation in Boston a couple of years ago. We're
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: two young black girls had their hair in cornrows at
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: a private school. In the private school, sched you're in
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: violation of our dress code and expelled, suspended them, expelled them.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: So those young black girls, their mom or one of
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: the moms called the local ADL office. So what do
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: we do. We brought in the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: and together we took on that school. We filed a
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: lawsuit and we won. I was gonna ask, you know,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: at one time, especially in Brooklyn, there was a lot
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: of tension between Jewish people and black people, definitely a
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: city Jews at that I believe, how have you guys
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: calmed that down and created some type of piece in
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: it because I don't hear about it like I used
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: to when I was a kid. I think there's still
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of tensions there, to be honest, teach Envy.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I mean the issues in Crown Heights. I think that's
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: kind of what you're referring to. I mean that way
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: proceeds my time at ADL. I didn't even live in
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: New York. It was I think maybe twenty thirty years ago.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: But there's still a lot of tensions and that often happens,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean Van Jones has talked about this.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: I've heard him talk about this a lot of times.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: There's fighting and there's friction because we're together, and that's
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: what happens. We have communities living in close quarters. That
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: being said, you know, one of the things that I
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: want to do, and that the NETS announced was we're
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: going to create community conversations coming off the Kyrie thing.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: So the NETS are going to sponsor We're going to
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: start in Brooklyn and bring together young Black boys and
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: girls and young Jewish boys and girls and get them
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: talking to each other. I think so often our communities
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: don't interact, don't engage, don't hear one another, you know,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: and I think we can improve upon that. So these
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: community conversations that we do, I'm hoping we're going to
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: start in Brooklyn and then we'll expand other cities. Like
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: there's so again, our communities have such a deep history.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I am proudable similarity. We do differences, way more similarities.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: And there are those people who want to divide us.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: There are those people and to tear us apart. There
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: are those people who want to instrumentalize Black people against Jews,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Jews against black people, Like we cannot allow that to happen. Again,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: we have shared values and we've got common enemies. But
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: more than that, I think we have a legacy. Now, look,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Jews didn't come to this country on the wholes of
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: slave ships. Jews don't have the history of three hundred
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: years of enslavement, one hundred years of Jim Crowe. We
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: don't have that history in this country. Being a black
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: man in America has a kind of cost that being
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Jewish doesn't have. And Jewish people who have been able
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: to assimilate in a lot of ways. Absolutely, i can
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: walk down the street and you necessarily know that I'm Jewish, unless,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, I'm an Orthodox person and that
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: I am more likely to be assaulted just because you
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: can see that I'm Jewish than any other white person.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: And Jews have our own trauma, which is different than
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: American Black trauma or Black American trauma, but is real too.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: So I think there is so much that we've got
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: in common. And you know, I'm proud of the fact that, again,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: my organization has a legacy. I'm proud of the fact
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: that in a lot of ways, black people have stood
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: with Jewish people and they didn't have to. And so
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I think we got to move forward, and we got
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: to move forward together. What do you think about Jewish
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: people who support Donald Trump hard to explain. I mean,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: it is certainly true that Donald Trump has a Jewish
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: son in law and a Jewish daughter. He has Jewish
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: grandchildren like he does. I mean, he has a closer
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: relationship to the Jewish people than any other president in
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: the history of the United States of America. By the way,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: the Abraham Accords bringing together Israel and the UAE and
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: barring that was a great thing, not just for Israe
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Jews pefore, the whole region. And you know, he called
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: out anti Semitism in college campuses that hadn't happened before.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Those are good things. And yet he brought white supremacists
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: into the White House. He trafficked in the kind of
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: divisive language that not only alienated and terrified Jews, but
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: lots of other minorities. From the Muslim band, so it's
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: about latinos. He said about black people, he you know,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: from Charlottesville, when he said they were fine people on
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: both sides, to telling the Proud Boys to stand back
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: and stand by, to telling these these individuals who rampage
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: through the Capitol on January the sixth wearing Camp Auschwitz sweatshirts,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: like some of them had shirts that said six w
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: m E six million wasn't enough, and he told them
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: afterwards that he loved them, that they were great Americans.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: So so, how do you point hiss that level of
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: white privilege? That's a different levels. It's easy to point
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: his like the comedian or the rapper, but how do
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: you point his that level of privilege. I think the
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: whole country is still trying to figure that out. But
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean I have not hesitated to call
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: out Donald Trump. Oh yeah, you'll call for him to
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: be removed from office. We did. We called him removed
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: from office. We called him out starting on the campaign.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: And there's a reason why I never got invited to
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: a White House Hahnnaka party, you know, and Donald Trump
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: was in office. I wasn't exactly getting Christmas cards. But
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: you know what, I don't really care. Like my job
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: is to speak truth to power, regardless of who was
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: in power. And by the way, that cost me friends,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: that cost me influence. You know, I'll tell you something else.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: I you know, I work for President Obama. I spent
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: three and a half years in the West Wing, and
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I feel blessed. I've worked for President Obama and a
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: lot of people to your question about the tablet article.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: They just write me off. They say I'm some Democratic
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: operative because I worked for President Obama. I mean, entirely
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: untrue whatever. But I didn't agree with everything President Obama did,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: and I you know, I didn't agree with the Iran
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: deal that he was doing. And I called that out
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: after I left the White House, and I lost friends
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: in the Obama white House who said, why are you
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: being loyal to us? You know? And I lost friends
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: because I call it Donald Trump is why are you
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: being loyal to the Jewish people? I mean, my job
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: is not to be loyal to this president or that president.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: My job is to protect the Jewish people, is to
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: fight anti Semitism, racism, and hate of all kinds. I
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: got three more questions. I want to piggyback off that,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: how do you manage your own personal bias towards things
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: as Ceo Dadia? What do you mean? I got like,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: if you have like a personal bias towards something, a
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: personal feeling about somebody, like, how do you manage that? Yeah?
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: It's hard. I mean, I will be honest if you're like,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: I'm a human being and I get criticized a lot,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: and I try again to learn from it, not to
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: listen to it. That's my kind of my mantra. But
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: sometimes z can kind of get under your skin and
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: you just try to work through it and deal with it.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: I also, again, I try to give everybody the benefit
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: of the doubt. Sometimes that's hard, but that's my general approach.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: But look like my wife and kids keep me honest.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: They often remind me about all the things I get wrong.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: So that helps me to like mitigate my tendency to
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: go this way or that way because they're constantly checking
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: checking in with me. Can adl speak for a whole
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: community affair to ask the ad speak? I mean we
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: all we can do is our job. And sometimes I
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: think people think, you know that we represent the entire
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Jewish community. I'll tell you this, I do not feel
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: like I represent. I mean, I don't feel like I
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: really have the authority, the more aluthority to represent the
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: whole community. Look, I was in business for a long time.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: I was building brands, I was creating companies back in California,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: and then I went to work for the president, and
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: then I got recruited into this job. I'm not the
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: most observant jew. I didn't go to Jewish Day school.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not even a word civil rights. I'm not even
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: a lawyer, like I'm an MBA who knows how to
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: build things in ship software. So I say that because
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: I don't feel like I have the right to represent
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: all the Jews. But what I would say is that
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: although I don't have the right, I don't think I
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: have the I don't know that I have the moral
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: authority to represent all of our community. I work for
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: our community, and so it is my job to remember
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: that I am here, even these people criticizing me, even
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: these people that don't like me. If they are the
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: victim of a hate crime, I'll be the first person
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: to take their call. And you speak about the trauma
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: that Jewish people have experienced, right, And I hear a
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: lot of my Jewish friends they talk about that PTSD.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: Right do y'all do you really think another Holocaust could happen?
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Is that something that's in the back of your mind
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: when you see the current climate. I'll tell you what
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: you know. I feel kind of badly. I wrote a
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: book that I should have brought copies of this today.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: It came out in January. It's my first book it's
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: called it could happen here. It could happen here. And
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: I wrote that book. I started writing it after Pittsburgh
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: because I never would have guessed. I mean, maybe I'm
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: naive or I was naive. I never would have guessed
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: that one day I was in synagogue when that happened.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: I was in synagogue in my community here in New York,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: and my phone was buzzing, and in the middle of
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: the service on Saturday morning, and it kept buzzing, and
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: I don't look at my phone in service, and so
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: my wife was like, I gotta answer. Something's going on,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: and I was like, don't. I mean, I'm not getting
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: my phone. I'm in synagogue. But after the service was over,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: I went outside, I looked at my phone and it
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: was crazy. And by the way, one of the first
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: metches I had was from my friend, who at the
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: time was running the end of LASP legal defense phone
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: like checking it. And it was a hard, hard day.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: And I went down to Pittsburgh and there are a
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: lot of funerals and a lot of it was pretty awful.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: So those situations really kind of humble you. And I
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: started thinking about how am I going to deal with this?
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: As I started writing this book. And I started writing
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: this book because I was saying before my German grandfather,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: my Iranian father in law, now me, like Jews have
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: experienced trauma, not in the ancient past, like it's affected
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: my family again, the people that I know and love
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: and cherish. So I don't think another Holocaust will happen
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: where Jews will be systematically annihilated. But I do think
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of warning signs that suggest that
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: if we don't get our act together, history might not
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: exactly repeat itself, but it very well could rhyme. And
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: so when I say that, I mean if I had
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: said to you, I tell you something else. So when
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: I'm with my book, I do a lot of talks,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: and I'll go to a synagogue, I'll go to a bookstore,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: I'll go to some other place, and I'll talk in
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: front of a conference, large group people, three hundred, forty
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: five undred people, yes, the last questions. Afterwards, I'll do
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: a book signing. Well, they'll come up to the table,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: you know, And they'll come up to the table. And
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: this happened. This didn't used to happen. This happens now
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: every time someone will come up I can predict it
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: and say to me, do you think, well, where else
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: should we go? Do you think we should be thinking
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: about leaving? Have you heard about this golden passport program
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: or something like that in Portugal? Do you know what
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: what's required to immigrate to Israel? I get asked these
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: questions every time. So why do I get ask these
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: questions because Jews all over the country. I think Jews
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: because of our this kind of generational trauma. I think,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: and maybe as black folks you can you can relate
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: this in some way. We've had those same conversations about
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: where would we go to after the fascist take over?
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Autely about that. So we think about that, and I think, again, maybe,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: like you guys, I think Jews here at a different wavelength.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: I think, like ordinary people, we'll see what's going on.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I think, wow, that's pretty bad. Jews are like, we've
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: seen this movie before, we kind of know how it ends.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: And so I don't think, again, the Holocaust, the systematic
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: scientific annihilation of Jews across Europe, the obliteration of their culture,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: the incineration of all these people. I don't think that
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: quite is going to replicate itself. If Iran could do
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: what it wanted to do to Israel, they would probably
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: knook the country, to be clear, But here in this country,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to happen. But that doesn't
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: mean if I had told you six if someone had
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: said to me in twenty fifteen, Barack Obama's in the
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: White House, marriage equality has passed. We're feeling pretty good
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: about twenty Democrats been pretty good about twenty sixteen. Countries
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: moving forward, someone said, let me tell you something. In
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: six years, Semitic incidents will have tripled. There'll be a
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: series of mass shooting events at synagogues and kosher supermarkets
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: around the country. Jews are going to be beaten up
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: in broad daylight. They'll be Nazis on the biggest social
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: media platforms. I would have said, you're crazy, It's never
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: going to happen. I can't even imagine. That's inconceivable to me.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: So that was six years ago. So six years from now,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: if someone said to me, anti Semitic instance will have
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: tripled again. Synagogues will be shut down, Jewish day schools
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: will be closed because of the threats. Jews will have
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: left in large numbers. Tucker Carlson will be the nominee
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: for the GOP and we'll say we need to get
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: all the globalists out of there'll be no globalists in
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: my administration. That shouldn't sound so crazy. Yeah, yeah. My
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: last question, what would be the best possible outcome of
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: this present moment that we're all in. Because we know fascism, bigotry,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: anti black racism, anti simatism, it don't benefit nobody in
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: this room. So what's the best possible outcome of this
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: current moment that we're in. I want your grandchildren, and
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: your grandchildren and my grandchildren to be born in this country,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: to see each other as not just allies, but like
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: members of the same family. And I want a country
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: that treats all of its people, regardless of how they
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: look or where they pray, with dignity and decency and respect.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: So your son isn't afraid to go to black you know,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: let's go to NHBCU, so that my son isn't worried
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: if he chooses to wear it, keep up and walk
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: down the street. Like I don't think it's too much
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: to ask that our kids should be able to lead
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: the lives they want to leave as black, are as Jewish,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: as they choose, and I hope to realize that future
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: for your kids, for my kids, for our kids. That
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: will work together to create that and we won't let
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: our enemies tear us apart. We won't let ignorance get
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: in the way, and that will come out of this moment,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: as painful as it's been, because it's painful, it's hard.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: That will come out of this moment together, stronger and
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: united in the way that we haven't been in generations.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: All right, all right, well, Jonathan Green Black ladies and gentlemen,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. And we gotta practice what
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: we preach because you know people are gonna be watching,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: So we got to show up for each other, you know,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: like like you said on CNN, you said, Jewish people
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: have to show up for Black people when there's an
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: anti blackness, and Black people have to show up for
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Jewish people when they're an anti semitism. Yeah. Absolutely, Well,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: it's the breakfast Club. It don't be a stranger deal,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: all right, And I'm glad that we have a line
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: that we can call and ask questions and not afraid
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: to ask questions any time. All right, Jonathan Greenblatt, It's
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club. Good morning,