Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is actor, producer, activists Noah Tishbi, author
Speaker 1: of the book Israel, A Simple Guide to the Most
Speaker 1: Misunderstood Country on Earth. What's the number one thing people
Speaker 1: misunderstand about Israel? Oh? God, how long do we have?
Speaker 1: A lot? A lot? I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that I found so disturbing, and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that I wanted to write this book and do the
Speaker 1: work that I do, is because people have started to
Speaker 1: paint Israel as the big bad wolf of the entire universe,
Speaker 1: and I, as a liberal, as somebody that's been an
Speaker 1: entainment industry of my mentire life is somebody that's been involved,
Speaker 1: my family has been involved in the establishment of the
Speaker 1: country for many generations that was highly bothered by that.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if there's one thing, but I'll
Speaker 1: give you, you know, ethnic cleansing, genocide, country, apartheid state,
Speaker 1: I'll give you all of those as as one of
Speaker 1: those things that a lot of people perceive as truths,
Speaker 1: which are not at all. Okay, we're jumping, We're literally
Speaker 1: jumping right in. Are we Your audience have no idea
Speaker 1: who I am. But you know, I thought about that,
Speaker 1: but this is the way we're doing it, So speak
Speaker 1: to genocide, this is okay. The answer to that is
Speaker 1: so simple that it's almost comical, because if you say
Speaker 1: that to do ethnic cleansing, to do to create genocide,
Speaker 1: you have to have numbers that actually are reduced, right,
Speaker 1: And if you look at the numbers at the establishment
Speaker 1: of the state in nineteen forty eight, or about one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand Arab Israeli Palestinian citizens of the
Speaker 1: State of Israel, now there's two point one millions. So
Speaker 1: if you think of it as like a genocide, it's
Speaker 1: literally the worst genocide in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: That is. That is one of the things that infuriates
Speaker 1: me the most, because there's there's no it's almost it's
Speaker 1: almost upsetting to even start with this because of how
Speaker 1: not true this is and how much I've had to
Speaker 1: fight against this. And the thing is that this is more.
Speaker 1: It's more. These things are more than just misunderstanding. There
Speaker 1: are actual national security for America's best ally in the region,
Speaker 1: for the single consistent democracy, and the entire at least
Speaker 1: for the only country the charis of values the only country.
Speaker 1: But it's not a perfect country. There are no such
Speaker 1: thing as a perfect country. But what's been happening specifically,
Speaker 1: sadly around what I call polite circles, is this demonization
Speaker 1: of one state and that it just happens to be Jewish.
Speaker 1: So so my home's homeland. So I took it personally.
Speaker 1: I took it very personally. And you know, look, we're
Speaker 1: both both based in La And there's a story that
Speaker 1: I tell in my book that's kind of like the
Speaker 1: funny version of it, right, the funny version of like
Speaker 1: Israel's and the cleansing Street. Okay, the fight version is
Speaker 1: I was, it was just when I moved to LA,
Speaker 1: I was in my early twenties. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: roaming around kind of like in Aprove. Okay, this is
Speaker 1: going to come up later. I don't want to have
Speaker 1: to get your exact age, even though someone could just
Speaker 1: look it up at Wikipedia. But how many years ago
Speaker 1: did you move to the US? Over twenty years ago?
Speaker 1: Over twenty years ago? Started coming back and forth, Okay,
Speaker 1: and I there's this girl that we were hanging out with,
Speaker 1: and she was already famous, she was already very well known.
Speaker 1: She turned she ended up being one of the most
Speaker 1: famous actresses in the world. Every single one of the
Speaker 1: audience knows who she is. If you're read between ages
Speaker 1: of twelve and ninety, you know, you know who she is.
Speaker 1: She was lovely and she came up to me one
Speaker 1: day and she asked me. She's like, oh, so I
Speaker 1: heard you from Israel. I said, yeah, I am, and
Speaker 1: she goes, so, how does your family feel about you?
Speaker 1: And I was like, what what do you mean? And
Speaker 1: she goes, you know that you're modern and everything, that
Speaker 1: you don't wear all the head gear. And that was
Speaker 1: when asking me about misunderstanding. That was the first time
Speaker 1: that I realized that people have no idea about what
Speaker 1: Israel is because this here was this woman who's young,
Speaker 1: well educated, successful, well meaning, lovely, and she thinks Israel
Speaker 1: Afghanistan like legit. So that was probably the first time
Speaker 1: that I encounter that, and from then on it was
Speaker 1: just over and over. Literally every week I would hear
Speaker 1: somebody say something that is not true. I would have
Speaker 1: to jump in and jump in again, jump in again,
Speaker 1: until here we are it's what I do. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: so you've been here twenty years, so you've seen the
Speaker 1: rise of the BDS movement. You've seen this wave certainly
Speaker 1: on the left of support of Palestinians. What do you
Speaker 1: think is going on here? First of all, let me
Speaker 1: just make one thing clear, and Prosraeli and pro Palestinian.
Speaker 1: So this trying to create this it's false equivalency or
Speaker 1: trying to create this this it's not they're not it's
Speaker 1: not mutually it's not mutually exclusive, right, So you don't
Speaker 1: have to be either pro Israeli or pro Palestinian. There's
Speaker 1: not a single person that I know in Israel that's
Speaker 1: against Palestinians. Okay, there are people on the French right
Speaker 1: that are against Palestinians, but that's the slight that's not
Speaker 1: a majority by any stretch of the imagination. Right, So,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's not either war. The way that
Speaker 1: it's perceived in those polite circles is that you're either
Speaker 1: pro Israel or your pro Palestine. That is not true.
Speaker 1: The question is the question what to be done is
Speaker 1: not a question that I can obviously answer in a podcast.
Speaker 1: But what's been going on in the past since since
Speaker 1: we've identified this since two thousand and one, So this
Speaker 1: kind of originated at the Durban Conference for Against Racism,
Speaker 1: which turned out to be so anti Semitic that the
Speaker 1: US and Israel pulled out. That was when the language
Speaker 1: of to brand Israel an apartheid state was originated, and
Speaker 1: this is where BDS kind of took their language from.
Speaker 1: So the BDS movement, which is the boycott, divestment and
Speaker 1: sanctions movement, is trying to portray Israel as South Africa.
Speaker 1: So if you which is it's it's it's offensive to
Speaker 1: South African, it's offensive to actual apartheid warriors, anti apartheid warriors.
Speaker 1: So BDS movement is trying to create academic, financial, intellectual
Speaker 1: boycott on the state of Israel completely. They're trying to
Speaker 1: turn it into pariah state, and they're trying to, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, destroy Israel. So they're trying
Speaker 1: to dismantle the only democracy in the release. And this
Speaker 1: is one of those things that I'm not it's not
Speaker 1: hyperbole and I'm not making this up. This is what
Speaker 1: their leaders are saying. They're not afraid of it and
Speaker 1: not ashamed of it. It's all out there. It's on
Speaker 1: videos on the Internet for everyone to see. But what
Speaker 1: they do and what they've done throughout the years. Is
Speaker 1: they cloaked it in a very kind of sophisticated language.
Speaker 1: So they'll show up, for example, on college campus. Okay,
Speaker 1: they'll set a table on college campus, and on the
Speaker 1: table they'll talk about justice and freedom. Right. They're not
Speaker 1: going to sit at the table and say we are
Speaker 1: here to destroy democracy. Please sign up, all right. So
Speaker 1: they're literally trying to hide what it is that they
Speaker 1: are about. But this is what they are about. No,
Speaker 1: BDS movement is against peace. Abdias movement was against the
Speaker 1: abram Court. How there's no there is no, there's not
Speaker 1: going to be peace lasting piece between the Israelis and
Speaker 1: the Palestinians. If there's going to be less collaboration and cooperation,
Speaker 1: there needs to be more than that. There needs to be.
Speaker 1: BDS was against the abram A Court. Okay, okay, so
Speaker 1: give us give us a little bit of the history
Speaker 1: of BDS. So well, let me let me give you
Speaker 1: first the history of boycotting Jewish goods. Okay, so boycotting jewishness.
Speaker 1: This is why we say BDS is an anti Semitic movement.
Speaker 1: It's not about um, it's not a political movement. It's
Speaker 1: an anti Semitic movement. It's not a progressive movement. It's
Speaker 1: a hate group basically. So the origination of boycotting Jewish
Speaker 1: goods started in with the first This was the first
Speaker 1: decision that the Arab League made when they were established,
Speaker 1: before the establishment of the State of Israel, So it
Speaker 1: was either nineteen forty five or nineteen forty six they
Speaker 1: had their first decision was to boycott Jewish goods. Okay,
Speaker 1: Now why I say the reason I say so this
Speaker 1: is the origination of BDS concept. So there was an
Speaker 1: incarnation of this throughout the year. So there was the
Speaker 1: Arab boycott in the seventies that we didn't have Pepsi
Speaker 1: in Israel because of the Arab boycott, and now again
Speaker 1: BDS trying to boycott, to boycott Israel, to boycott Jewish goods. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing about BDS, the people in the in the
Speaker 1: West and on the left don't understand is that it's
Speaker 1: a movement that hurts Palestinians. So the Palestine, this is
Speaker 1: not it's not a grassroots movement of the in the
Speaker 1: like that's like actually coming from the West Bank. The
Speaker 1: people on the West Bank want more opportunities, they want
Speaker 1: more jobs. They want to be able to eat ice
Speaker 1: cream the way that you know, I'm referring to Ben
Speaker 1: and Jerry's boycotting, boycotting Israel. So this is this is
Speaker 1: a movement that's actually damaging Palestinians. I wrote in my book,
Speaker 1: I quoted this letter of a guy, a Palestine guy
Speaker 1: who's working at the soda stream factory in the West Bank,
Speaker 1: and BDS went after the soda stream factory and the
Speaker 1: workers there. There were about fifteen hundred workers there, but
Speaker 1: eight hundred of them were Palestinians, and he wrote this
Speaker 1: letter two arts and he said, don't close the factory.
Speaker 1: I'm working here with Israelis and Palestinians and Ethiopians and Russians,
Speaker 1: and we're all working together. I get paid three times,
Speaker 1: I get benefits. What are you doing? Stop this? This
Speaker 1: is what's happening. And it's BIDS on campus, and it's
Speaker 1: these well intentioned justice warriors that don't understand what it
Speaker 1: is that they're supporting, and they don't understand that it's
Speaker 1: actually damaging the Palestinian people. Okay, you know you mentioned
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's and we talk about the woke left
Speaker 1: being pro Palestine. I didn't mention that word yet. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's my word. What do you think is the generation
Speaker 1: of this? Why is this happening because it didn't happen
Speaker 1: prior to the last twenty or so years. This is
Speaker 1: again my chapter in the book about BDS is the
Speaker 1: chapter that the legal department at Simon and Schuster was
Speaker 1: most concerned about, and they went through every single one
Speaker 1: of these words with like, you know, fine, fine, fine fine.
Speaker 1: I kind of like went through this very thoroughly because
Speaker 1: I talk about the origin and the funding of BDS
Speaker 1: and who's behind it, and I'm quoting two congressional hearings
Speaker 1: that happen on the subject of BDS, and there needs
Speaker 1: to be investigation about the sources of funding and who's
Speaker 1: behind it. Let me just say that it's not happening
Speaker 1: by accident, it's by design. There's a nefarious intent to
Speaker 1: destroy the state of Israel. And I believe the FBI
Speaker 1: needs to actually open an investigation against them, and also
Speaker 1: the Department of Education should not allow them on campuses.
Speaker 1: Probably the IRS should look into their funding as well. Okay,
Speaker 1: let me use a specific example. I'm I'm being again
Speaker 1: careful just because it's all in my book worded very carefully,
Speaker 1: but it's let me put it, No nobody came after
Speaker 1: me because there was nothing there that was not the truth. Okay,
Speaker 1: let me use a specific example. There is highly reviewed
Speaker 1: series on Amazon Pride called Trent's Pairing and it's got
Speaker 1: a Jewish underpinning and a lot of people involved in
Speaker 1: the show are Jewish. And then one of the later
Speaker 1: seasons they go to Israel and they make a big
Speaker 1: point of going to Palestinian areas and how the Palestinians
Speaker 1: were just peaceful people and they were being mistreated by Israel.
Speaker 1: What is the genesis of this sentiment by left leaning
Speaker 1: liberal Jews? Why do you think this is suddenly you're happening.
Speaker 1: First of all, everybody loves a perceived underdog, right when
Speaker 1: you look through history and I'm coming I'm talking as
Speaker 1: as a liberal Israeli right and a liberal Jew, And
Speaker 1: in my opinions and my kind of like leaning, it's
Speaker 1: very confronting to look at the history of the conflict
Speaker 1: and to realize black on top of white, how many times,
Speaker 1: like written down right, how many times there were peace
Speaker 1: offerings to the Palestinian leadership, and how many times they
Speaker 1: were turned down from literally nineteen twenty two onwards. So
Speaker 1: when you look at that and you think to yourself,
Speaker 1: what do they want? It's a very confronting feeling when
Speaker 1: you know history well to realize that as a political movement,
Speaker 1: the Palestinian people need to figure out what it is
Speaker 1: that they're after, because every single action that they have
Speaker 1: taken throughout the years was rejectionism, was a no to
Speaker 1: whatever was offered. And when you see people like Beljadid right,
Speaker 1: bless her heart, chanting in demonstrations from the river to
Speaker 1: the sea Palestine will be free, that is a call
Speaker 1: for ethnic cleansing of the Jewish people from their ancestral land.
Speaker 1: That's what that is. Because there's a country between the river,
Speaker 1: the Jordan River, and the sea, the Sea of the Mediterranean. See.
Speaker 1: So it's a very confronting feeling as someone who's more
Speaker 1: on the liberal side to look at that and go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what do we have to work with?
Speaker 1: What do they want? What do they want? However, the
Speaker 1: left eats it up in America when somebody comes over
Speaker 1: and use fake intersectionality, perceived Jews as white people and say,
Speaker 1: see the poor Palestinians, they're just like the blacks. They're
Speaker 1: just like you know, it's it's white on brown oppression.
Speaker 1: It's kind of easy to believe that in America if
Speaker 1: you don't know the facts. And it's a very and
Speaker 1: I'm saying this so lightly because even the notion of
Speaker 1: intersectionality in Israel is wrong. Can you define intersectionality please, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: the sure so intersectionality in the context of perceiving everything
Speaker 1: to the prism through the prism of skin, color, right,
Speaker 1: and ethnicity. So there's an attempt to paint Israel as
Speaker 1: this white nation that's oppressing brown people. And all you
Speaker 1: need to do is go to Israel and see that
Speaker 1: that's not the case. Because right now in Israel, only
Speaker 1: thirty one percent of defining themselves of Eastern European descent.
Speaker 1: The rest are of the region, So either Jewish of
Speaker 1: you know, Jews of North African descent, or Palestinian, Arab,
Speaker 1: Israeli whatever it is, that's it's not a white country.
Speaker 1: The majority of American Jews are of European descent, but
Speaker 1: that's not the case in Israel. So there's no this
Speaker 1: is something that's based on that isn't based in reality,
Speaker 1: but it because of the world that we live in
Speaker 1: today because of this trying to you know, you said woke.
Speaker 1: I don't want to even use that word that much,
Speaker 1: but because of the people are trying to be holier
Speaker 1: than the pope and they the perceived underdog is not
Speaker 1: the underdog. It's just not the case. And again, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying this when people to get upset. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that Israel is perfect by any stretch of the imagination,
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to pull us back from the brink
Speaker 1: of Israel shouldn't exist, because that's the thing. Is this right?
Speaker 1: The people don't understand that Israel is the only country
Speaker 1: in the world that her existence is being questioned. It's
Speaker 1: the only country. It's the only country in the world
Speaker 1: that has its own Wikipedia entry the legitimacy of the
Speaker 1: State of Israel. No other country has that. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: start with that concept. You and me both know that
Speaker 1: the goal of the Palestinians and the other people in
Speaker 1: the area is for Israel literally not to exist. Why
Speaker 1: and howard st say that? Yeah, say that again, that's
Speaker 1: the thing, But a lot of people don't actually get that.
Speaker 1: Well of a lot of countries in the region, and
Speaker 1: a lot of I'm not saying everybody and not saying
Speaker 1: all the Palestinian people. I'm just saying the goal is
Speaker 1: to throw the Jews into the sea and Israel seased
Speaker 1: to exist. That's what we're dealing with here. Okay, you
Speaker 1: and mean, how come that concept gets no traction? It's
Speaker 1: a great question. I wish I had the answer to it,
Speaker 1: the only thing that I can think of, right when again,
Speaker 1: I've done a deep dive on this for like decades. Okay,
Speaker 1: we all carry around subconscious biases when it comes to
Speaker 1: different ethnicities and different races and different the other. Right,
Speaker 1: and people carry around subconscious biases around Jewish people. They
Speaker 1: just do, right. I always joke, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: Jews have all them, and the Jews have all them.
Speaker 1: You know when I say cabal, you say, people just
Speaker 1: carry around these subconscious biases around the Jewish people, and
Speaker 1: they do necessarily know that they carry them. But when
Speaker 1: they hear something about Israel, it falls smack into that
Speaker 1: subconscious bias. And if they don't stop and be like, wait,
Speaker 1: is that true or is that automatic? Then they believe it.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people's opinion about Israel is based
Speaker 1: on feelings not in fact, and it's very frustrating. And again,
Speaker 1: by the way, just so you know, I was born
Speaker 1: and raised in Israel, so I was not raised with
Speaker 1: anti Semitism at all. Like I was raised with zero
Speaker 1: anti Semitism. I didn't even know that that's still a thing, right,
Speaker 1: but I came here and I'm like, whoa, that's very
Speaker 1: much a thing. Okay. One thing you do very well
Speaker 1: in your book is you talk about the history of
Speaker 1: the land. Who was there, who owned the land? Why
Speaker 1: do you give us a short version of that? Well,
Speaker 1: the short version of this And I'm going to say
Speaker 1: something that's again going to be very confronting. When I
Speaker 1: say this to people, you just look at their eyes
Speaker 1: and they go there's just like a disconnect. Okay. There
Speaker 1: has never in the history of humanity as we know
Speaker 1: it has been a Palestine. There's never been a Palestine.
Speaker 1: I know, I know there's never been a not that
Speaker 1: there shouldn't be, but there just never has been. So
Speaker 1: I go quickly through the history of the land from
Speaker 1: the time we know it right from like to you know,
Speaker 1: whatever the biblical time is more or less where we
Speaker 1: you know, can have writing, and that piece of land
Speaker 1: went through it was. It was quote unquote owned because
Speaker 1: the land can't be owned, but it was. It was
Speaker 1: a sovereign Jewish state in the Biblical era and from
Speaker 1: then on two thousand over two thousand years ago, it
Speaker 1: just swapped hands from one hand to the next to
Speaker 1: the next, from the mamlukes to the usual rights of
Speaker 1: the disco where the caliphet was there for the Crusaders
Speaker 1: came and took it, and then four hundred years of
Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire and a few years of the British Empire,
Speaker 1: so it was never anything other than a Jewish state, okay.
Speaker 1: And in seventy four a d after the Great Roman
Speaker 1: Jewish War, the Romans took over and gave the land
Speaker 1: the name Palestinia in order to disconnect the Jews from
Speaker 1: their homeland from Judaea essentially, and that's where Palestine comes
Speaker 1: from from the Romans. I know, this is something that
Speaker 1: is it's something that is very difficult to talk about
Speaker 1: because a lot of people are get this is upsetting
Speaker 1: and confronting and triggering to them. But this is where
Speaker 1: the concept Palestine was in reference of a geographical location,
Speaker 1: not a country, not a state, not a nation, not
Speaker 1: a people now it's different, but it never was. So
Speaker 1: they were the Jews of Palestine and the Arabs of
Speaker 1: Palestine and the Christians of Palestine. Right, So it's never
Speaker 1: a peoplehood up until nineteen sixty four, where the PLO
Speaker 1: kind of created it to be so and great. Every
Speaker 1: people deserve self governance and self determination, but historically that
Speaker 1: land was only ever Jewish. And when we hear calls
Speaker 1: today in America and around the world for the Jews
Speaker 1: to go back to where you came from, and you
Speaker 1: ask people where where's that and they go go but
Speaker 1: to Europe, it's very upsetting because we know how that ended.
Speaker 1: And the Jewish people are its own ethnic group. It's
Speaker 1: not a religion, it's an ethno religion that is originated
Speaker 1: in Judea. So it's a it's an indigenous group of
Speaker 1: people that has a religion and traditions that are connected
Speaker 1: to a land. I mean, think about it, every single
Speaker 1: Jewish person that's listening to this right now. Passover is
Speaker 1: about moving to a land. Chavot is about the land,
Speaker 1: you know, taking the bequelium from the ground, whatever was grown.
Speaker 1: Suquot is about going to the land. It's all about
Speaker 1: it's indigenous, it's indigenous tradition. And for people to now
Speaker 1: say you're colonialists on your land, it's very confronting because
Speaker 1: as a people, every generation we hear something like this.
Speaker 1: This is why anti Semitism is such a tricky thing. Right,
Speaker 1: It changes in morphs, it adapts it just like it
Speaker 1: sounds differently different in every generation. And now this is
Speaker 1: what it is. So you swamp the word Jew with
Speaker 1: the words Zionist, and it's a blood libel. And you
Speaker 1: tell me, you look me straight in the eye, and
Speaker 1: you tell me that the Israelis, the Zionists are killing
Speaker 1: Palestinian people, posting in children, and I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: the blood liabel from the you know, the Crusaders. It's
Speaker 1: the same. So this is what we're dealing with. And
Speaker 1: I'm on the front line of this. This is what
Speaker 1: I deal with every single day. It's hard when you're
Speaker 1: talking to people when when people don't understand that that
Speaker 1: it's this is it's hate. It's just hate speech, that's
Speaker 1: all it is. This is not political, This is not
Speaker 1: it's not about any political personality that you like and
Speaker 1: you don't like, Like, this is where you're dealing with.
Speaker 1: You dealing with subconscious bias about the Jewish people. That
Speaker 1: is then affecting your opinion, and it's very dangerous. It's
Speaker 1: very dangerous for the State of Israel. Okay, you go
Speaker 1: through what happens in nineteen forty eight where the United
Speaker 1: Nations gives the Jews their land Israel. But you will
Speaker 1: also talk about their offer to the Palestinians, which is
Speaker 1: never accepted. Yes, So in nineteen forty seven, there was
Speaker 1: a UN Resolution one eighty one, which was the resolution
Speaker 1: to divide the land between the Jews and the Arabs
Speaker 1: they will call the Arabs at the time, because again
Speaker 1: there was no Palestine and identity as we know it today.
Speaker 1: The Jews said yes, the Arabs said no. And the
Speaker 1: day after the night of the declaration of the State
Speaker 1: of is they started a war. And it wasn't a
Speaker 1: surprise because they said they're going to start a war,
Speaker 1: and they said that they're going to wipe the Jews
Speaker 1: off the map and killed all the Jews. Now remind you,
Speaker 1: this was three years after the Holocaust, so the Jewish
Speaker 1: people were in no mood to be slaughtered again. So
Speaker 1: this was literally either we establish a land or we
Speaker 1: all die again. Whatever whoever has left is going to die.
Speaker 1: This was a war in nineteen forty eight that Israel
Speaker 1: did not want. It was a war that Israel did
Speaker 1: not start, and it was a war that Israel won.
Speaker 1: Yet here we are in twenty twenty three and we're
Speaker 1: still litigating that war. So despite the fact that there
Speaker 1: were a lot of refugee Palacini refugees, there were between
Speaker 1: seven hundred and seven hundred and fifty thousand refugees at
Speaker 1: the time, they were not resettled in other countries. They
Speaker 1: were kept in refugee camps and they were told weight up,
Speaker 1: you can return, You'll be able to return soon. Now
Speaker 1: I talk in my in my book about the house
Speaker 1: that my family had a templets in Jenoslovakia at the time.
Speaker 1: This is it's not just a ridiculous concept because now
Speaker 1: we're three or four generations later. So now there's millions
Speaker 1: of people that are considered Palestinian refugees that are stuck
Speaker 1: in limbo, and this is something that's horrible for the
Speaker 1: Palestinian people. That's something that should not have happened to them, right,
Speaker 1: But nobody, nobody would tell our family that was kicked
Speaker 1: out of here and there and everywhere. Oh wait, you'll
Speaker 1: just be you'll be able to return. But there were
Speaker 1: nations that actually told this to the Palestinian people and
Speaker 1: perpetuated this state of victimhood, which is now a real problem.
Speaker 1: But it's a problem that's laid at the doorstep of Israel. Basically, Okay,
Speaker 1: are of the well respected journalists who had a downfall
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago because of sexual peccadillo. He
Speaker 1: wrote a book called My Promised Land, The Triumph and
Speaker 1: Tragedy of Israel. And if you read the book, there
Speaker 1: were Palestinians that had land that now no longer have
Speaker 1: that land. What would your response be to that? I
Speaker 1: it's obviously horrible, there's no question. Look at the fog
Speaker 1: of war. Things happen that are terrible. They do. And
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that there were Palestinians that were kicked out,
Speaker 1: and I don't doubt that there were Palestinians that lost property.
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that this happened on the Jewish side
Speaker 1: as well. So around the same time, from every single
Speaker 1: Arab country there was an equivalent nakama right of all
Speaker 1: the neighboring Arab countries kicking out the Jewish residence to
Speaker 1: the tune of eight to eight hundred fifty thousand people,
Speaker 1: and they lost everything that they had. I have friends
Speaker 1: from my friend, my friend zo Are from Fez Morocco,
Speaker 1: kicked out out, left everything there, houses, property, everything, and
Speaker 1: kicked out. I'm not saying there's no excusing any of this,
Speaker 1: but that's what happens. And right now what people are
Speaker 1: doing is we're going to take this against Israel and
Speaker 1: we're going to legitimize its existence. And that is something
Speaker 1: that I'm just not willing to accept. Okay, So you
Speaker 1: go a little bit deeper to the point you just
Speaker 1: made about the Palestinians and the refugee problem, which is
Speaker 1: exploded exponentially over generations. So after the War of Independence,
Speaker 1: after nineteen forty eight, there was an agency established in
Speaker 1: the United Nations called UNRA, which is a agency for
Speaker 1: Palestinian refugees. Okay, until this day, it's the single There's
Speaker 1: there's one agency in the UN for Palestinian refugees, in
Speaker 1: another agency in the UN for every single other refugee
Speaker 1: from every other country in the world. So all the
Speaker 1: other refugees are under one agency, and the Palestinian people
Speaker 1: have their own agency. Throughout the years, they tried to
Speaker 1: dismantle that agency because they found out that it's corrupt.
Speaker 1: It teaches in the schools, in the schools, in school books,
Speaker 1: it teaches about terrorism and about becoming Shahid's and all that.
Speaker 1: They were unable to dismantle that particular agency. I forgot
Speaker 1: the exact number today, but it's over five million people.
Speaker 1: So in UNRA, it's the only agency in which you
Speaker 1: are automatically second generation, third generation, you're registered as a
Speaker 1: as a refugee unless you asked to be removed from
Speaker 1: that agency. Okay, So it's the only agency like that.
Speaker 1: Usually in the other unchar As, the other agency, you
Speaker 1: have to you're being removed, you're not if your second
Speaker 1: generation in another country, you're not considered a refugee anymore.
Speaker 1: Not like that with UNRA. So essentially, from seven hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty let's say thousand refugees Palestinian refugees of nineteen
Speaker 1: forty eight, they're now I think the number is five
Speaker 1: point nine million, but I'm not entirely sure. Five point
Speaker 1: nine let's say million refugees that are quote unquote to
Speaker 1: Palestinian refugee problem. And when you read material by BDS.
Speaker 1: When you read about those organizations, they use that number
Speaker 1: as if that number is the truth. There were five
Speaker 1: point nine million people kicked out of you know, Palestinian
Speaker 1: territories when Israel was established, so they use this number,
Speaker 1: and i'm that number is wrong to begin with, because
Speaker 1: how would you inherit a refugee status? What if you
Speaker 1: are already settled in another country? What if your children
Speaker 1: are already settled in another country. Okay, So it's a
Speaker 1: highly corrupt body. There's been you know, it's a political
Speaker 1: football in America. But I definitely agree that the funding
Speaker 1: for UNRA needs to be booked at very carefully because
Speaker 1: it does some good things, but it does some horrible things.
Speaker 1: And again it's perpetuating this problem that is not helping
Speaker 1: the Palestinian people. So of this approximately five point nine
Speaker 1: million Palestinians, where exactly are they now? It's a good question.
Speaker 1: There a lot of them are. They're either in Jordan, Lebanon,
Speaker 1: some of them are around the world. You know. The
Speaker 1: other problem is, for example, in Lebanon, they're not allowed
Speaker 1: to integrate into society, so they're still in refugee camps.
Speaker 1: So the notion in the UN and the United Nations
Speaker 1: at the time, including this guy Ralph Bunch, who's an
Speaker 1: amazing person who I've kind of went down a rabbit
Speaker 1: hole on him, who was a black diplomat who helped
Speaker 1: the creation of the State of Israel on behalf of
Speaker 1: the UNIT, on behalf of the United States at the time.
Speaker 1: The notion was that they're going to be fine because
Speaker 1: that's the same people, and it's the same culture, and
Speaker 1: they're going to be integrated into the society. And again,
Speaker 1: there was no Palestinian identity as we know it today, right,
Speaker 1: But they were wrong because the Jordanians put them in
Speaker 1: and refugee camps, and the Lebanese put them in refugee camps,
Speaker 1: and they bade them from actually participating in the country
Speaker 1: and integrating into the country. So this is if you're
Speaker 1: a second or third generation in a refugee camp, you
Speaker 1: are pissed, and rightfully so rightfully so, so how come
Speaker 1: the people who were generations removed their lives are not
Speaker 1: being re established in they're living like refugees because those
Speaker 1: countries don't allow it. Those countries don't allow it. And
Speaker 1: here's the other thing again, the question is to why
Speaker 1: is there no Palestinian state should be asked of the
Speaker 1: Palestinians as well, Why is the no Palestinian state? Yet
Speaker 1: it's been offered many times, why is the no Palestine? Okay,
Speaker 1: let's move to a slightly different topic. Please define Zionism. Oh,
Speaker 1: what a great question. So when people hear the word Zionism,
Speaker 1: they often get annoyed because the word Zionism was turned
Speaker 1: into a bit of a curse word. So Zionism, in
Speaker 1: its simplest form, is the Jewish people's right to have
Speaker 1: a state. That's really what it is. So in a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a sophisticated way, it's a Jewish
Speaker 1: people's right for self determination and self governance in some
Speaker 1: parts of their ancestral land in a Jewish not an
Speaker 1: exclusively Jewish state. So Zionism was never about having an
Speaker 1: exclusively Jewish state ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever. It's
Speaker 1: just about the Jewish people's right to have a state.
Speaker 1: And I I'm a proud Zionist. I think listen, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden is a prize proud Zionist as well. And I
Speaker 1: think that if you are a person who believes in
Speaker 1: human rights, then you shouldn't be a Zionist. And again,
Speaker 1: Zionism is not against Palestinian self determination. Zionism is not
Speaker 1: an exclusivity of Jews in the land. Zionism is about
Speaker 1: the Jews being allowed to own the state. Okay, how
Speaker 1: about people Roger Waters being the prime example who say
Speaker 1: I am not anti Semitic, I'm just against Israel's policy.
Speaker 1: First of all, I kind of don't even want to
Speaker 1: give Roger Water. I know that you're you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's the music, the music spot here. But he's
Speaker 1: Germany just canceled his performance because he's so anti Semitic,
Speaker 1: like he's he's his band came out against him because
Speaker 1: he's so anti Semitic. He's also always on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of history, like he's supporting Putin, Like you know,
Speaker 1: he really knows how to pick him. Because it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, if Aga Waters is against something, we should
Speaker 1: all support that because that's the right, the right thing
Speaker 1: to do. Look, anti semitism and anti Zionism are the same,
Speaker 1: and what do I mean by that? You can be
Speaker 1: against the Israeli government's policies, against the Israeli government, against
Speaker 1: Israeli Prime Minister. You can be against Israel's policies in
Speaker 1: the West Bank or in Tel Avion. Right, But if
Speaker 1: you're against Israel's right to exist, that goes into a
Speaker 1: different direction. Because if you are against a lot of
Speaker 1: other countries right to exist, if you don't like borders,
Speaker 1: that's fine, you're not anti Semitic. But if you're against
Speaker 1: one country's right to exist, then that country happens to
Speaker 1: be Jewish. There's a name for that right. So that,
Speaker 1: to me is the difference. The difference is not about
Speaker 1: being upset about Israeli government. God knows, I'm upset about
Speaker 1: Israeli government policies for years, as I am in America. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm nobody. I always give this example. Right, nobody likes
Speaker 1: whether you left, right, as center, whatever. Nobody likes the
Speaker 1: American policy of kids in cages, right, nobody, nobody, nobody.
Speaker 1: But nobody's also talking about dismantling America. And that's where
Speaker 1: the line crosses, in my opinion, between being against Israeli
Speaker 1: policies and being against Israel's right to exist. And that's
Speaker 1: where Roger Waters is. He's against Israel's right to exist,
Speaker 1: he's anti Semitic, he is full of blood. Liabel he's
Speaker 1: full of sh We love to curse on your podcast,
Speaker 1: of course, guys, full of shit. He really is, like
Speaker 1: in a massive kind of way. He's a grumpy old
Speaker 1: man who's on the wrong side of history, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad that a lot of people are not just not
Speaker 1: giving him the time of day anymore. He's just the
Speaker 1: energiz of bunny of anti Semites. Okay, but there's also
Speaker 1: the issue of Roger Waters and people who agree with him,
Speaker 1: who will say people should not play concerts in Israel. Okay,
Speaker 1: we see branded Roger Waters is an internationally famous person.
Speaker 1: But how come we see one side so large and
Speaker 1: we see the other side defending Israel where the right
Speaker 1: Israel's right to exist so small because it's not a
Speaker 1: cool cause anymore. It's not a cool cause. Israel is
Speaker 1: not perceived as the underdog. Israel's a superpower, technological superpower,
Speaker 1: it's a strong military. It's you know, if there's one
Speaker 1: one of the best brands in the world would be Massad. Right,
Speaker 1: you just say Massad to somebody and like, oh my god. Right,
Speaker 1: So Israel is not perceived as the underdog, and people
Speaker 1: forget that it's literally under threat every single day, there
Speaker 1: were fourteen people that were murdered in Israel since the
Speaker 1: beginning of the year. We're three months in, point blank,
Speaker 1: just just murdered. So people in Iran is running to
Speaker 1: create a nuclear bomb in order to dismant destroy Israel.
Speaker 1: So people forget that Israel, as powerful as it is,
Speaker 1: is still constantly under threat and it's just not a
Speaker 1: cool cause. You know, if in working in Hollywood for
Speaker 1: so many years, and every time I would try to
Speaker 1: get some celebrity to speak publicly for the state of Israel,
Speaker 1: I get a no, no, no, Like we love Israel,
Speaker 1: we get it. I'll get phone cause we're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, we support Israel. Is such a great state.
Speaker 1: I've been there. It's amazing. It's so liberal, it's so great.
Speaker 1: Would you say something publicly? No, So you know this
Speaker 1: is it's just not a popular cause anymore. It used
Speaker 1: to be because people was they were It was after
Speaker 1: the Holocaust and after the Wars and after what it
Speaker 1: was just people try to overtly destroy it. So many
Speaker 1: times there was this like Jewish heroism that came out
Speaker 1: of the destruction of the Holocaust. But it's not the
Speaker 1: case anymore. It's not the case anymore. And I'm just
Speaker 1: concerned because we don't want it to get too far.
Speaker 1: It can be very it can be very dangerous. These
Speaker 1: things are slippery slopes. As a Jewish person, right, we
Speaker 1: get extraordinarily triggered because we carry around an epigenetic fear
Speaker 1: of being rounded up. And I know you know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Yeah, I know you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. And I know every single Jewish person knows
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm talking about. And every person who's not
Speaker 1: Jewish that's listening right now, please consider this to be
Speaker 1: the truth. Everyone of you Jewish friends have an epigenetic
Speaker 1: fear of being slaughtered. So we have general not everybody
Speaker 1: understands that term eigenetic. Let me explain it, Okay, let
Speaker 1: me explain it. So we have people do understand generational trauma.
Speaker 1: So we have generational trauma in our DNA. That's every
Speaker 1: single generation there's been some sort of a disaster that
Speaker 1: has befallen the Jewish people for thousands of years. Right.
Speaker 1: Epigenetics EPI is above genetics is genetics, and epigenetic is
Speaker 1: the memory basically that goes down in our genetic memory
Speaker 1: that is above the like it's memories and generational memories.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to get into it that much
Speaker 1: because it's go go, go dig about it. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1: But when I when I went down the rabbit hole
Speaker 1: of the epigeneticism, I was floored because nobody talked about
Speaker 1: the Jewish aspect of it, and I was so obvious
Speaker 1: to me that we carry this around there. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: around la with my friends right now that are well
Speaker 1: to do and successful and have families, and we're sitting
Speaker 1: down and having conversations about taking down the mazuzas and
Speaker 1: your doorstep at your door front, like at the front,
Speaker 1: at the front of the house, the side of the
Speaker 1: of your doors, and where are we going to go?
Speaker 1: And I'm stopping them. We're literally sitting at a bar
Speaker 1: on Bohemia and I'm stopping everybody. I'm like, do you
Speaker 1: see what we're doing? And they're like what. I'm like,
Speaker 1: we're talking about escaping again. And this is happening for
Speaker 1: the Jewish people. If there's no we have this thing
Speaker 1: of we have to run, we need to run because
Speaker 1: every few years we get slaughtered. So this is bringing
Speaker 1: it all up right now, What's happening right now between
Speaker 1: Kanye West and Kyrie Irving and the hate that it's
Speaker 1: against Israel. This is bringing up generational stress for all
Speaker 1: of us. And again, because the Jews are not perceived
Speaker 1: as the underdog in the world, because Jews are not underrepresented,
Speaker 1: actually overrepresented in a lot of areas, people don't think
Speaker 1: that the Jewish people are under distress. And they're like, well,
Speaker 1: you're white passing, you should be fine. And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're white passing, but I'm walking around with a Star
Speaker 1: of David and that's considered to be risky. So being
Speaker 1: Jewish right now in America, it's kind of like being
Speaker 1: gay in the sixties. It's ask, don't tell. If you
Speaker 1: can pass is not Jewish, then you're fine. But if
Speaker 1: you're visically Jewish in New York City, you get beaten
Speaker 1: up on the streets. That's the world we live in
Speaker 1: right now. So this is this. Yeah, let's go back
Speaker 1: to Israel for a second. So again, if anybody's hearing
Speaker 1: this right now and they're not Jewish, like all the
Speaker 1: non Jewish, trust us right that this is what's happening.
Speaker 1: Kanye Jewish friend, ask them how they're doing let's talk
Speaker 1: about the settlements, because there are a lot of liberal
Speaker 1: Jews Wus support Israel and they feel the settlements are
Speaker 1: just one step too much. They will say, as we're
Speaker 1: speaking right now, there's big issues with the government and
Speaker 1: the settlements. Describe the history and your take on what's
Speaker 1: going on. So my take is pretty clear from my book. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into two into the weeds
Speaker 1: about this, but the settlements are basically the new kind
Speaker 1: of like settlements. So we're established in the West Bank
Speaker 1: and Gaza when Israel won the War of sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Again the word that she didn't start nor wanted, but one.
Speaker 1: They were created initially in order to create some kind
Speaker 1: of physical buffer zone and protection, and they turned into
Speaker 1: something that's more of a religious kind of fervor because
Speaker 1: they sit on a land that's historically indigenously Jewish. There's Hebron,
Speaker 1: which is the barrier of the fathers and mothers, so's
Speaker 1: it's a land that's indigenously Jewish land. It's pretty clear
Speaker 1: what I think about the settlements from my book. I
Speaker 1: don't think they're helping. But I also want to caution
Speaker 1: people about them as well, because I think that to
Speaker 1: some extent, there are a red herring within the debate
Speaker 1: about the piece let's say, two state solution, right, which
Speaker 1: arguably I'm not even sure if it's viable anymore, but
Speaker 1: that is arguably the best solution that we can imagine
Speaker 1: right now. Hopefully we can imagine something else, but this
Speaker 1: is what we can imagine right now. There's always a
Speaker 1: debate about the settlements, right, So it's like two point
Speaker 1: nine million Palestinians, about four and fifty thousand Jewish people
Speaker 1: in the West Bank. So what I like to propose
Speaker 1: and bring up all the time is why do we
Speaker 1: even talk about the settlements as something that has to
Speaker 1: be dismantled? Right? I mean, there are twenty one percent
Speaker 1: Arab Israeli's in living in Israel having the same rights.
Speaker 1: Why would't they be some Jewish people in a Palestinian state? Right?
Speaker 1: Why do they have to be dismantled? And this is
Speaker 1: obviously a rhetorical question because the answer to anybody who
Speaker 1: lives in the region or been to the region, that
Speaker 1: knows anything about the region, the answer is very clear,
Speaker 1: and the answer is because they'll be slaughtered within two
Speaker 1: and a half seconds. But that is something that I
Speaker 1: I always like to bring up That's why I don't
Speaker 1: support that operation, the Dish vote. I don't think it's helpful.
Speaker 1: But I also think that to some extent sometimes it's
Speaker 1: a red herring. If there was willingness to create a
Speaker 1: Palestinian state on behalf of the Palestinian leadership, the settlements
Speaker 1: would have been, they would have figured out what to do. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about you specifically. So you have a long
Speaker 1: history as an actress and as a producer. So what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is a singer as well as an artist. Okay.
Speaker 1: I was like, a we going to talk about that?
Speaker 1: Because yes we are, but we're going. I got it,
Speaker 1: I got it in my mind. Don't worry about it, right,
Speaker 1: We're getting there. So how much of your time is
Speaker 1: spent on activism at this point in time, whether it
Speaker 1: be speaking, writing, posting on social media? Give me an
Speaker 1: understanding of that, all of it, all of it. Well,
Speaker 1: that was the question of how do you have time
Speaker 1: to be an actress, a singer of producers. I don't
Speaker 1: know all of it is on all of it, That's
Speaker 1: that's the thing. I So I started acting when I
Speaker 1: was around eight years old. UM got my first scholarship
Speaker 1: when I was fourteen years old and been I had
Speaker 1: I remember the first moment that I was on stage
Speaker 1: that I'm like, I had this magic of you know,
Speaker 1: the zone that they talk about and everything goes quiet,
Speaker 1: and I just knew that it's my spot right um.
Speaker 1: And I've been extraordinarily passionate about this and I did
Speaker 1: well in some areas and great in other areas, specifically producing,
Speaker 1: which which worked out really well. But I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to communicate. That was my biggest thing. I just needed
Speaker 1: to communicate in various ways, and it just kept changing
Speaker 1: throughout my life. And when I sat down to read
Speaker 1: to write my book in twenty nineteen, it became very
Speaker 1: clear to me that this is what I'm going to
Speaker 1: be doing from now own. And not just that, it
Speaker 1: became very clear that this was I was just like
Speaker 1: I said down I started writing, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's why I went through everything, Like everything that I
Speaker 1: went through had led me to this, like this is
Speaker 1: not you know, And it was incredible how everything everything
Speaker 1: changed for me from that minute onwards. And I I
Speaker 1: have I signed with a new agency last year and
Speaker 1: I told them very specifically that I'm not interested in
Speaker 1: going to auditions and I'm not. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: want to do anything that doesn't have meaning anymore. So
Speaker 1: I feel I I feel like everything that I did
Speaker 1: led me to led me to this, led me to
Speaker 1: be able to be a spokesperson on behalf of you know,
Speaker 1: making the world a better place in my own kind
Speaker 1: of in my own kind of way. And I just
Speaker 1: am so disinterested in acting. I'm never saying never, right,
Speaker 1: but it's just not something that I'm interested in. I
Speaker 1: advocacy and diplomacy and writing us so much more interesting
Speaker 1: to me. It just okay, But we we all need
Speaker 1: money to live. So how are you supporting yourself now?
Speaker 1: I do speaking engagements, I do. I'm I'm I'm good.
Speaker 1: I'm able to support myself through this work. And it's extraordinary.
Speaker 1: The book is doing great. I mean, the who knew
Speaker 1: a book about Israel would do, would do so well
Speaker 1: and get such great reviews from such amazing people, and
Speaker 1: it's still people are still responding to it. I knew
Speaker 1: that there's a constituency out there. I knew that there
Speaker 1: isn't a book about Israel that tells that story in
Speaker 1: a way that's fun, funny, easy to understand, relatable. I
Speaker 1: just knew that it exist. Also, it's the first book
Speaker 1: about Israel written by a woman, by the way, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. You were born in Israel,
Speaker 1: growing up in Israel. One very interesting thing is you
Speaker 1: talk about your service being in the army and that
Speaker 1: you did that service by being a performer. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us more about the obligation to serve in what
Speaker 1: varying people do. Yeah, So, first of all, it's so
Speaker 1: it's mandatory to serve in the military in Israel. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if you really don't want to serve, they have a
Speaker 1: lot of people that you can get out of it
Speaker 1: if you really really don't want to serve. But it's
Speaker 1: mandatory to serve. I actually think it's a great thing
Speaker 1: for a person to do at the age of eighteen,
Speaker 1: because you're in a system that's bigger than you and
Speaker 1: you've got to do things that you don't necessarily like.
Speaker 1: And I don't think when I moved to America and
Speaker 1: I realize that people go to college and just get drunk,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, that the difference between like an
Speaker 1: Israeli nineteen year old and American nineteen year old is
Speaker 1: quite striking. So I wanted to sing in the military,
Speaker 1: sing and act. There is something in Israel called La Katswit,
Speaker 1: which is a military performing troops, which is essentially a
Speaker 1: USO tour, that's what it is. And you have to
Speaker 1: audition to get in, and it's like months of auditions basically,
Speaker 1: and you audition would like been sketch comedy and acting
Speaker 1: and singing and whatever all of it. And I got in.
Speaker 1: I was very excited. It was my dream for years
Speaker 1: and years and years to do and I did that
Speaker 1: for two and a half years. So it's basically you
Speaker 1: do a USO tour, meaning you're on a bus, you
Speaker 1: come to base every morning, you get a note of
Speaker 1: where you're going that day. Remember Israel's size country the
Speaker 1: size of New Jersey, so it's a very tiny, tiny country,
Speaker 1: so you can travel throughout the country basically one day.
Speaker 1: And I got a chance to perform for soldiers every
Speaker 1: single day. And it's a very it's a It gave
Speaker 1: me a couple of things. First of all, it gives
Speaker 1: me great experience in terms of standing in front of
Speaker 1: an audience because it's like the toughest situations that you
Speaker 1: can imagine. So one day you're performing in front of
Speaker 1: like the Prime Minister and it's like a puge of
Speaker 1: thousands of people in a stadium or whatever. And the
Speaker 1: next day you're literally in a military kitchen in Hebron
Speaker 1: on a box of tomatoes and you get three soldiers
Speaker 1: in front of you and you have to entertain them.
Speaker 1: You're like, hey, okay, let's do this right, so you
Speaker 1: get as a performer, it's one of the best training
Speaker 1: grounds that you can imagine. So once you get out
Speaker 1: of that, and I've done this between and a half years,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I can stand on any stage. You don't
Speaker 1: scare me. Like nothing is worse than seeing, like, you know,
Speaker 1: being a girl showing up in a guy's base that
Speaker 1: I haven't seen a girl in like three weeks, and
Speaker 1: they can get rowdy and you need to calm them
Speaker 1: down and in all of that. So that's the first
Speaker 1: thing you gave me. The second thing is I was
Speaker 1: I saw the country and I saw the military first firsthand.
Speaker 1: So I saw every single military base that you can imagine,
Speaker 1: and I saw how soldiers live, and I saw the commitment,
Speaker 1: and I saw the difference between like Air Force and
Speaker 1: like you know, yoking like the Greenforces, and it was.
Speaker 1: It was extraordinary. It's obviously gotten old. So I was
Speaker 1: very excited to do it. I thought it's going to
Speaker 1: be very glamorous and fun, and instead you realize that, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm on the bus where five of us and you're
Speaker 1: also the performer and the roadie, like I know, to
Speaker 1: build a stage and like you know, like with the
Speaker 1: might of the things, set up this down system and
Speaker 1: everything and carrying everything ourselves and all of that. Um.
Speaker 1: So it gets old. It's not it's not as fun
Speaker 1: at the beginning. Beginning gets fun, but afterwards it gets
Speaker 1: it gets a little. But it was an amazing, amazing
Speaker 1: experience and it taught me a lot. The other thing
Speaker 1: it was that coming to America, people here that I
Speaker 1: was in Israeli military and they think I was so
Speaker 1: cool and I was. I was a massad agent, and
Speaker 1: it's quite disappointing for them when they were realized I
Speaker 1: was just a singer. My son even laughs at me
Speaker 1: as he was like, but you are, but you are
Speaker 1: a singer and militarium shut up, Okay, you were a
Speaker 1: singer in the military. Was there anything in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind saying I want to go down this
Speaker 1: path of the in my year of quote to USO
Speaker 1: although this is audio, because I don't want to be
Speaker 1: in combat and I don't want to die. Oh not
Speaker 1: even a little bit. I was like, I want to
Speaker 1: do this because this is what I want to do
Speaker 1: for a living. It wasn't for a second I don't
Speaker 1: want to be in combat. I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 1: It was very much. There is a movie in Israel
Speaker 1: called The Lack the Troop, right, It's a movie from
Speaker 1: the seventies, and it follows one of these troops, right
Speaker 1: the USO tour, and we were all it's like black
Speaker 1: and white, it's super old, but we all grew up
Speaker 1: on it. It's super famous, and I grew up on it,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh my god, that would be so cool,
Speaker 1: Like that's what I want to do. So it was
Speaker 1: never because I wanted to avoid dying. It was just
Speaker 1: because that's what I wanted to do. Okay, But speaking
Speaker 1: of dying, you talk about your mother's first husband. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to Columbia. This one's almost ten years ago,
Speaker 1: and literally everybody interacted with had had a family member assassinated.
Speaker 1: So to what degree do you feel that, do you
Speaker 1: feel the military presence, do you feel the have an
Speaker 1: essence of life or is it like living in New
Speaker 1: Jersey in America. Absolutely not, not even a little bit,
Speaker 1: not even close you. There isn't there's there's not a
Speaker 1: single family in Israel that hasn't suffered a loss, a death,
Speaker 1: a wounded, an attack. There's not a single family. So
Speaker 1: one of the biggest differences that I saw that shocked
Speaker 1: me when I moved to the States was a Memorial
Speaker 1: Day because in Israel, and I talk about that in
Speaker 1: the book as well, Memorial Day is a devastating day.
Speaker 1: It's twenty four hours. It starts in the morning and
Speaker 1: it ends in the ends in the next day. It
Speaker 1: starts in the evening and it ends the next evening basically,
Speaker 1: and then we moved straight to Independence Day and it's
Speaker 1: a day of mourning the people who fell, the soldiers
Speaker 1: who fell, and the terrorists victims who died. And I
Speaker 1: can't describe the feeling because it's it's the entire country
Speaker 1: is in mourning. There's there's sad music on the radio,
Speaker 1: and TV only plays documentaries about the fallen, and every
Speaker 1: single person mourns in their own way, and you go
Speaker 1: to ceremonies and it's just you cannot escape it. You
Speaker 1: cannot escape it because because everybody serves in the military,
Speaker 1: and everybody has a friend or a family member of this,
Speaker 1: like everybody knows somebody. So this is something that really
Speaker 1: unites the country for a day and then it goes
Speaker 1: straight into Independence Day to remind us that there was
Speaker 1: a reason for all of that. And when I moved
Speaker 1: to the States and the first Memorial Day came, I
Speaker 1: asked my friends, like, what are we doing? And they're
Speaker 1: like what, I mean, what are we doing. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what are we doing? They're like, We're doing a barbecue.
Speaker 1: And I was blown away. I was blown away, and
Speaker 1: I I'm I have maybe two friends who are veterans,
Speaker 1: and I'm the only one. You know, I'm the only one.
Speaker 1: I'm a veteran, and I don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: friends who are veterans. And it's it's unfortunate. There's a
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a disconnect, I think within
Speaker 1: the American people in the military because it's a because
Speaker 1: it's a it's a paid military. It's not I wish
Speaker 1: we had more of an ownership around it and more
Speaker 1: kind of like pride. And I actually say thank you
Speaker 1: for service when I see military service, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: I find I find it adorable because I know it's
Speaker 1: necessary sadly. So what kind of kid were you growing up?
Speaker 1: And what was your growing up experience? I um, I was.
Speaker 1: I was very determined. I was extraordinarily determined. I was
Speaker 1: very driven and very determined and wait, wait, wait, determined
Speaker 1: to do what as soon as I got the stage bug,
Speaker 1: that was all I wanted to do. That was all
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. So I was. I was a
Speaker 1: good kid. I was like, I was the youngest from
Speaker 1: my mom I had. My parents got divorced when I
Speaker 1: was about eight years old. I had three older sisters
Speaker 1: that were kind of more rebels than me. They grew
Speaker 1: up in like the eight seventies eighties, and they were
Speaker 1: smoky pot and hitchhiking to sign I and causing a
Speaker 1: little bit more trouble. So when I came around, I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm just gonna be a good girl. I
Speaker 1: don't want to rebel. I don't need to rebel. I
Speaker 1: was going to do my thing. So I was very
Speaker 1: I was good like that. But I always ended up
Speaker 1: doing what I wanted to do very quietly. So as
Speaker 1: soon as I as soon as I went on stage
Speaker 1: for the first time, which was when I was around
Speaker 1: fourteen years old and drama school, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is all I want to do. And I became
Speaker 1: so focused, like so and being a mom today my
Speaker 1: son is seven years old, I'm seeing I'm kind of going.
Speaker 1: This was actually quite extraordinary because I knew what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. I would go to sleep early, I
Speaker 1: would go to rehearsals. I didn't smoke, I didn't drink.
Speaker 1: I didn't I was very very focused on being successful
Speaker 1: and being good at what I do. I worked on
Speaker 1: my singing, I worked on my dancing. I worked on
Speaker 1: you know, I took acting classes. I got my first
Speaker 1: scholarship at with a Television Museum of Arts. And I
Speaker 1: was very very focused and very determined. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: I created my first format, television format when I was
Speaker 1: twenty years old. So I was that was that was
Speaker 1: kind of the kid that I was. I was a
Speaker 1: good girl that ended up doing what you wanted to do. Okay,
Speaker 1: So when you were growing up in today, what is
Speaker 1: everyday life in Israel, like compared to everyday life in
Speaker 1: the US. It's a great question. Um. So on the surface,
Speaker 1: it's the same, right, it's the same. It's the same
Speaker 1: TV show, it's the same music, it's the same food,
Speaker 1: better food in Israel. Actually, by the way, I always
Speaker 1: say to people that go to Israel, I challenge you
Speaker 1: to find a bad meal, because the food is so
Speaker 1: good over there. So on the surface it's the same.
Speaker 1: It's it's like, it's exactly the same. You think of
Speaker 1: yourself as like a citizen the world, exactly the same
Speaker 1: as the US, kind of like a little sister of
Speaker 1: the US. But it isn't. Because every house has a
Speaker 1: bomb shelter, Like every apartment building has shelters, and every floor,
Speaker 1: every office building has to have a shelter. When you
Speaker 1: walk around in a neighborhood, you see shelters, shelter shelters
Speaker 1: every few blocks. You see a bomb shelter every couple
Speaker 1: of years. You sit around at a restaurant somewhere and
Speaker 1: suddenly the sirens go off because Hamas decided to throw
Speaker 1: a couple of rockets because they're not happy about something.
Speaker 1: So this is something that's ongoing in the Israeli experience
Speaker 1: that I don't think anybody understands this. So when people
Speaker 1: complain about Israeli actions, the Israeli attitude can and should
Speaker 1: be to some extent. You go live thirty miles from
Speaker 1: Hamas and then we'll talk, right. So there's an undercurrent
Speaker 1: as an Israeli of danger, of danger. So I remember
Speaker 1: this as a child. There was a terrorist attack one
Speaker 1: time and they were very close to my house and
Speaker 1: Tel Aviv, and we all had to go into the
Speaker 1: houses and close the doors. They got on a bus
Speaker 1: on a road near the beach and they were roaming
Speaker 1: Tel Aviv. Basically nobody could find them. I remember as
Speaker 1: a as a in high school when or as a team,
Speaker 1: like an element of whatever. It's like a I can't
Speaker 1: remember the age, but I was maybe middle school. The
Speaker 1: golf war happened and suddenly were their sirens and like
Speaker 1: Saddam says, throwing rockets on us, and we have to
Speaker 1: go to school with gas masks. So I'm walking around
Speaker 1: with a gas mask and I had to box. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like a cardboard box that had a strap
Speaker 1: on it. And I was very creative child, and I
Speaker 1: basically decorated it with like lace and red and like
Speaker 1: glitter and whatever, and it's a it's a gas mask
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm a thirteen year old taking to school.
Speaker 1: That's not right. So but underneath and above all of that,
Speaker 1: there's a very strong like knageoideviv In Israel, people are
Speaker 1: people have a very strong not just will to live obviously,
Speaker 1: but also just like will to enjoy life. To you
Speaker 1: know that people go out and they celebrate, and they
Speaker 1: take their babies to restaurants, and you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a very lively society because there's a constant threat. So
Speaker 1: when you live with this, this concept of tomorrow might
Speaker 1: nut come. Do you want to enjoy life? You really
Speaker 1: do and appreciate your life? Okay, So would you ever
Speaker 1: as a an individual, someone say well let's go to
Speaker 1: this area and you say, well, that's sort of a
Speaker 1: dangerous area or something happened there. Would you ever check
Speaker 1: yourself or would you say, I'm alive. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: live my life to the fullest. The risk is inherent
Speaker 1: and I don't care. We're going to live our life
Speaker 1: to the fullest. So what you do, basically, we're so
Speaker 1: used to it, so something happens. There's again Hamas throwing
Speaker 1: a rocket into television. Right. So you hear the siren,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, snap, okay, you go into the safe
Speaker 1: room or the shelter or whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: have in your house. You wait for it to pass.
Speaker 1: You hear the bombs, you hear it falling around, you
Speaker 1: listen to the news. They say it's okay. Military goes
Speaker 1: in taking care of the launchers, and you're like, all right, great,
Speaker 1: let's go back to coffee. That's just the way you do.
Speaker 1: People just go immediately snap back to yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: we have to keep on living by the way. That's
Speaker 1: true for a lot of places in the country, not
Speaker 1: so much to the region in the south, because the
Speaker 1: southern towns of Israel and the children are traumatized because
Speaker 1: they are constantly under attack. So it reaches Tel Aviv
Speaker 1: and like the rest of the country every now and then.
Speaker 1: But in the south, in like Otefaza, the circular kind
Speaker 1: of like cities and towns around Gaza, this happens so
Speaker 1: often that they have children there that can't sleep, you know,
Speaker 1: that are legitimately traumatized. And then standard of living, living
Speaker 1: in a homogeneous society we have great income inequality in America.
Speaker 1: What's it like in Israel? And to what degree? What
Speaker 1: is the standard of living? So it's not homogeneous, Like
Speaker 1: it's not Israel is not a monolith, right, There's like
Speaker 1: the Jews of every descent. There's like Christians and Arabs
Speaker 1: and Drews, and there's it's a very very very eclectic country,
Speaker 1: like super eclectic. And you see this on the street
Speaker 1: when you walk around and you see there with the
Speaker 1: food and you hear it with the music. It's like
Speaker 1: it's a very very eclectic. M It's a good question.
Speaker 1: I wish I had like a GDP kind of numbers
Speaker 1: for you on this, but I don't expense and inflation
Speaker 1: and rise of living expensive living is a problem in
Speaker 1: a lot of countries. So there's a lot of money
Speaker 1: in Israel and the tech companies and the tech industry
Speaker 1: and other industries, but there's also there's also income inequality
Speaker 1: that needs to be addressed. Not dissimilar to what's happening here. Okay,
Speaker 1: you came here because someone said if you want to
Speaker 1: be in the A level actress world, you have to
Speaker 1: go to Hollywood. But there are a lot of emigras
Speaker 1: from Israel. Why would people leave Israel? I mean, why
Speaker 1: would people come here from any other country? This is America.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of America. I don't think particularly
Speaker 1: there are more Israelis here than there are like French
Speaker 1: people here or Swedish people here. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think that. I just think that lack America is
Speaker 1: the shiny house on the hill and doesn't matter how
Speaker 1: screwed up our ticks are, it still is. So people
Speaker 1: want to come here. I don't think it's I don't
Speaker 1: think it's necessarily just specifically because Israeli's leave more. I don't. Well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't if that was implied, that was not my belief.
Speaker 1: But okay, with all the craziness. The other thing, by
Speaker 1: the way, the thing is this, right, it's a very
Speaker 1: small country over there. So the reason you you you
Speaker 1: don't you might not even know how many Israelis and
Speaker 1: like how many Israelis you work with or you meet,
Speaker 1: or you know or you use their products or you know.
Speaker 1: There're Israeli professors in a ton of universities and their authors,
Speaker 1: and there's their chefs. There's like Israeli cuisine in America
Speaker 1: that's exploding right now. All over the country. There there's
Speaker 1: a lot of the Israeli. Israeli designers are dominating in
Speaker 1: like the bridal dress, like bridal dresses right now. Well,
Speaker 1: the biggest designers are Israeli designers. So it's a very
Speaker 1: small country. So I have a feeling that a lot
Speaker 1: of people feel like they need to branch out of
Speaker 1: the country in order to expand their business, but they
Speaker 1: don't necessarily leave. They sometimes will expand their business internationally.
Speaker 1: It's a very small country, obviously. That's what happened with
Speaker 1: the entertainment industry. That's what happened with like the format. Okay,
Speaker 1: so tell us about you're moving from Israel to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I I always wanted to live in America. I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure why I have. I described that in the
Speaker 1: book as well, in this. In this, I had a
Speaker 1: dream to move here. I had I wanted to live
Speaker 1: in America. I wanted to live in America when I
Speaker 1: was in high school, Like I had this. I saw
Speaker 1: myself as a high school kid with like a ponytail
Speaker 1: and speaking in English and all that. I'm not entirely
Speaker 1: sure why, but it was always appealing to me and
Speaker 1: I had no reason to do it. None of my
Speaker 1: family was ever born and raised or lived in America.
Speaker 1: My entire family uses really my mom grew up in Africa.
Speaker 1: And but but I just had this I just had
Speaker 1: this drive. So when that producer told me that line,
Speaker 1: just basically, if you he said, if you make watches,
Speaker 1: you need to live in Switzerland, if you make wine,
Speaker 1: you need to live in France, and if you're in
Speaker 1: the aintainment industry, you need to live in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: I just went, Okay, great, and I just moved just
Speaker 1: like that with two suitcases and didn't know anybody. I
Speaker 1: knew one person. So I'm not entirely sure why I
Speaker 1: had that drivers. Obviously, I came for the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: I came to further my career, but it shaped up
Speaker 1: to be so much more important and so very different
Speaker 1: to what I thought. It's yeah, I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like there's a there's a concept called the
Speaker 1: share it. Do you know the concept which is a
Speaker 1: Yiddish You know, it's a Yidish. It's it's usually referred
Speaker 1: to a romantic love, like you're meant to be. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the concept of meant to be.
Speaker 1: And when I see what I do now and how
Speaker 1: am I my life turned out, I know that I'm
Speaker 1: so much more valuable to the world from here that
Speaker 1: I really was meant to be, even though it didn't
Speaker 1: it did not work out the way I thought it
Speaker 1: was going to work out. Okay, at a record deal,
Speaker 1: I thought I'm going to be Britney Spears, but that
Speaker 1: didn't work out. But other things worked out in much
Speaker 1: better ways and much more exciting and important, most of all,
Speaker 1: being able to talk about being able to talk about
Speaker 1: anti Semitism all day long and talk about the state
Speaker 1: of Israel and make people see things differently and see
Speaker 1: where it is that they have blind spots and what
Speaker 1: it is that we can make to create unity in
Speaker 1: the world. This is extraordinary. I'm very likely to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. So how'd you get rid of
Speaker 1: your accent? I never had it. That's again for a second,
Speaker 1: I've never had it. I never had it. And that's
Speaker 1: the crazy thing, because if you ever met an Israelie,
Speaker 1: this is you know, you can be outside of the
Speaker 1: wisland for it is and you still talk him, you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: as well, just what my father took like all I
Speaker 1: need to do is a lot of a right And
Speaker 1: there was a lot of hand talking to to the
Speaker 1: people who are listening. Um, I don't know. It's a
Speaker 1: part of it's a part of that mystery that had
Speaker 1: me want to be here that I was in elementary
Speaker 1: school and we started started learning English and I kind
Speaker 1: of started speaking English with an American accident and not,
Speaker 1: and my kids in class were like laughing at me.
Speaker 1: I'd stand up in class and answer, give an answer,
Speaker 1: and they'd be like rah rah rah, like why do
Speaker 1: you have an accident? Like why don't you So it's
Speaker 1: also it's a it's a part of it's a part
Speaker 1: of this weird thing that I had, I guess pat
Speaker 1: to be here. But also because I'm a singer, I
Speaker 1: can pretty much imitate every accent as well. So wherever
Speaker 1: I'm at whatever however somebody's speaking to me, I imitated accidentally.
Speaker 1: So when I'm in London or in Australia or England
Speaker 1: or Australia, have to be very careful because I turned
Speaker 1: into very douche con person because I start imitating the
Speaker 1: accent that I hear. So you there were no special classes,
Speaker 1: no courses you didn't have to. I have never taken
Speaker 1: a single class like dialect class. Not a single one.
Speaker 1: Not a single one. Okay, So you you come to
Speaker 1: America to act. Your book says you had a certain
Speaker 1: level of success, but not at the level of your dream.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about that. Well, I came to
Speaker 1: America already very successful. So I started acting at a
Speaker 1: very young age, and I got I became successful around
Speaker 1: sixteen or seventeen, and super successful around the age of nineteen.
Speaker 1: And the television show that I did that became basically
Speaker 1: a national hit within one episode, to a point where
Speaker 1: we couldn't walk down the street. It was the equivalent
Speaker 1: of like a melrose Place. It was like a nighttime
Speaker 1: so opera, ridiculous but so fun. And it was the
Speaker 1: first soap opera in Israel. And we all became overnight sensations.
Speaker 1: So I by the age of twenty one, I was
Speaker 1: offered like the equivalent of the Tonight Show, like a
Speaker 1: nightly evening show. I was very, very successful. I say
Speaker 1: this like that because I've noticed that a lot of girls,
Speaker 1: especially young girls. I do a lot of college and
Speaker 1: high school talks. They try to they talk themselves down.
Speaker 1: They don't own their success. So I always say that
Speaker 1: a girl's like, own your success. You did amazing, So
Speaker 1: I try to do that myself. So I came here.
Speaker 1: I came here already famous, and I was certain that
Speaker 1: it's going to be the same. I'm gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you just are going to realize that I'm a very
Speaker 1: famous person from Israel and you're going to just hand
Speaker 1: me everything. And I'm like, oh, here's the most famous
Speaker 1: person from France, here's the most famous person from Holland.
Speaker 1: So I was a rude awakening and in that sense,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, I have to audition my
Speaker 1: living crap out of everything. I had a record deal
Speaker 1: as soon as I moved here with MCAM. I was
Speaker 1: traveling all over the world, recording with the best people,
Speaker 1: the best musician, best songwriters, like I went to Stockholm,
Speaker 1: I've worked with share on people, I work like everything.
Speaker 1: And then the label folded, basically disappeared where you know
Speaker 1: when it merged into Universal, and I was left with nothing.
Speaker 1: So it was a very challenging few years of getting
Speaker 1: very close to something but not getting it, and the
Speaker 1: label do like I'm getting this huge record deal that
Speaker 1: is a huge, huge thing, and then the label fold.
Speaker 1: So I had a few years of humbling that I
Speaker 1: appreciate now, I really do. I don't think I would
Speaker 1: have been able to handle everything that I'm handling now
Speaker 1: if I was successful at that level at that age.
Speaker 1: I was too young for it. That's one thing to
Speaker 1: be successful in Israel, but it's a whole story in America.
Speaker 1: But you do have acting credits, and you do have
Speaker 1: an acting career. I do, I do, and I did,
Speaker 1: and you know, all the trucks in the house say yay,
Speaker 1: said star trek. I didn't even realize it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: And I did it. Yes, I did. I did. I
Speaker 1: was working. I was a working actress. A lot of
Speaker 1: fans in the industry. The industry was lovely to me.
Speaker 1: It was never the breakthrough that I wanted. The biggest
Speaker 1: breakthrough actually came with producing. When I a part of
Speaker 1: you were asking what kind of a child I was,
Speaker 1: or what kind of a kid I was, and the
Speaker 1: driven and committed and all of that. That didn't stop
Speaker 1: when I moved to America. So I had ants in
Speaker 1: my pants even here. As a young adult. I was
Speaker 1: auditioning and getting roles and whatever. But I kept looking
Speaker 1: for projects to produce because I was like, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to just sit down and be quiet a bored.
Speaker 1: I'm annoyed, I'm not ful failed. I need to do more.
Speaker 1: So I was looking for projects to produce. I was
Speaker 1: working on a documentary format. I was creating a bunch
Speaker 1: of formats. And then I heard about an Israeli show
Speaker 1: that's called Mittipura, which was basically two people sitting around
Speaker 1: and having a conversation. So I was a therapist sitting
Speaker 1: with a patient in a room talking and I heard
Speaker 1: that concept and I'm like, oh my god, this is brilliant, right,
Speaker 1: And I, at the time was on a show called Coupling,
Speaker 1: which was a British format that NBC adopted. So I'm
Speaker 1: kind of going. I went to Israel for two days
Speaker 1: or a couple of days for my nieces. But Mitzvo
Speaker 1: and everybody, we're talking about that show and how brilliant
Speaker 1: it is. You have to watch it. You have to
Speaker 1: watch it. If you watch it. And I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: a car driving with my manager and she turns to
Speaker 1: me and she goes, oh my god, have you seen Battipoolia.
Speaker 1: You have to watch this show, and I had one
Speaker 1: of these aha moments again. I had like till like
Speaker 1: a light bulb went above my head. And I turned
Speaker 1: to her and I'm kind of going, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is it's a format. It has to be a format.
Speaker 1: And I turned to her and I said, do you
Speaker 1: know the creator? And she said yes, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: do you have his number? She said yes, so call him,
Speaker 1: call him right now. And mind you haven't watched the
Speaker 1: frame of the show, right So she calls him up
Speaker 1: and I pick up the phone and I go, Hi,
Speaker 1: this is no tice me. I'm leaving town tomorrow to
Speaker 1: go back to LA. We need to meet tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: And it's not about what you think it is, because
Speaker 1: I didn't want him to think that I want like
Speaker 1: a roll and a show right right. So then I
Speaker 1: hang up the phone. I turned to her and I'm like,
Speaker 1: cand you get me a DVDs of the show because
Speaker 1: I haven't watched it. But it was so clear to
Speaker 1: me that this was my format, because the idea was
Speaker 1: so simple and so brilliant, and the execution was clearly
Speaker 1: brilliant because everybody was talking about it. So she, of
Speaker 1: course I get the DVD that afternoon, I watched it.
Speaker 1: I'm floored. I'm like, this is this is it, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm gonna do. I'm going to bring the
Speaker 1: first Israeli television show from Israel to America and I'm
Speaker 1: going to sell it as a show. So I go
Speaker 1: and meet the guy and I said, what's going on
Speaker 1: with the show And he's like, oh, I started working
Speaker 1: on second season. I'm like, I stopped it. I go,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sell your show to HBO and he
Speaker 1: looks at me as if I'm insane because at the time,
Speaker 1: this never happened before, obviously, and it's so never happened
Speaker 1: before that there wasn't even a remake claw in the
Speaker 1: contract of the creators and the network. That wasn't even
Speaker 1: addressed like a remake or international format right sale. It
Speaker 1: just was not. It didn't exist at all in the
Speaker 1: reality of anybody. So he's like okay, and he I'm like,
Speaker 1: do you have a translated copy. It's like yes, I
Speaker 1: actually do, because I'm sending it to some Jewish festival
Speaker 1: somewhere and I'm like, great, can I get it. He's
Speaker 1: like sure, So he gives me a translated copy of
Speaker 1: the first five episodes, and again I'm a plane back
Speaker 1: to LA and I'm thinking, how the fuck do I
Speaker 1: sell a show to HBO? I don't know how to
Speaker 1: do no idea how to do that. I literally had
Speaker 1: no idea how to that. I knew that I have
Speaker 1: a brilliant concept, a brilliant show that needs to be
Speaker 1: an American show. So I come back to LA and
Speaker 1: I start making calls. My first calls to my lawyer
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I have a show from Israel, and
Speaker 1: he goes, good for you. I'm like, no, it's a format.
Speaker 1: It's like, what do you mean? And I'm like, the
Speaker 1: same way that we adopt shows from the UK, We're
Speaker 1: going to adopt this from Israel. Like it's a brilliant
Speaker 1: show we should do. Like I'm pitching people on adopting
Speaker 1: a show from Israel. Long story short, I brought the
Speaker 1: show to Stephen Levinson at leverage in Mark Wahlberg, and
Speaker 1: we sold at HBO and it did four seasons and
Speaker 1: over one hundred and forty episodes, fourteen Emmas, and Golden
Speaker 1: Globe domination, a Peabody Award, Like it did so well,
Speaker 1: And what happened as a result of that show was
Speaker 1: that it created a market where market didn't exist before.
Speaker 1: And that market is an Israeli television show in the
Speaker 1: US and television format sales in the US, and so
Speaker 1: many people don't A lot of people know like Fauda
Speaker 1: and shows like that, which are brilliant, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't know. So many of the shows that
Speaker 1: we love are actually based on Israeli format. It's like
Speaker 1: Euphoria is an Israeli show. So I have a tendency
Speaker 1: to do things first when you kind of look back
Speaker 1: in my history, and this was one of those things
Speaker 1: that I'm the most proud of because it just it
Speaker 1: changed the Israeli market forever, changed a lot in the
Speaker 1: American market, and it's it changed the perception of Israel
Speaker 1: within within Hollywood. It really changed that. And of course
Speaker 1: the show on HBO was called in treatment Um. One
Speaker 1: other element in your book, you talk about the Israeli
Speaker 1: personality that a woman wouldn't expect a man to open
Speaker 1: the card door restaurant and told offended. I was offended.
Speaker 1: I was offended. That's a true story. I the Israeli
Speaker 1: personality is it's what's called a saber, right. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people are like, oh, you're a sober if
Speaker 1: you were born at Israel. But the reason it's a
Speaker 1: sober is because it's spikey from the inside and sweet
Speaker 1: from the spikey from the outside and sweet from the inside. Right,
Speaker 1: there is an urgency to being in Israeli that can
Speaker 1: be translated into rudeness very easily. So if you met
Speaker 1: in Israeli in your life, you know that there's kind
Speaker 1: of like an abruptness and kind of like an aggressiveness
Speaker 1: and kind of and this comes from the pressure cooker
Speaker 1: that we live under. So there's no time for pleasant
Speaker 1: reason and politeness. The downside of it is that there's
Speaker 1: no time for pleasant reas and politeness, so it's a
Speaker 1: look rude. The good side about it is that you
Speaker 1: always know where you stand. You always know where you
Speaker 1: stand with in Israeliti. And it is something that, as
Speaker 1: in Israeli, was very difficult for me to decipher because
Speaker 1: I didn't understand when people were saying great, but they
Speaker 1: didn't mean great, they meant no thank you. Right, So
Speaker 1: I am the kind of friend and the kind of
Speaker 1: person that I'm straight up, I just find it to
Speaker 1: be easier. I had to tone myself down in a
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways and also allow men to
Speaker 1: open the door for me. I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: that now. But the story that you're referring to is
Speaker 1: my first boyfriend in la who is an Australian actor,
Speaker 1: and he is very kind of like gentleman in a
Speaker 1: in an old school way, and he came to pick
Speaker 1: me up and when we walked to his car, he
Speaker 1: opened the door and I looked at him and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing. He's like, I'm opening the door
Speaker 1: for you. I'm like, why, I can get the door.
Speaker 1: It's fine. I was offended. I was annoyed. It annoyed me.
Speaker 1: So I'm not like that anymore. Very much want people
Speaker 1: to open the door for me. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: Doesn't take away from my strength or right or my
Speaker 1: or anything else. But but yeah, this is the Israeli way.
Speaker 1: Is a lot more. It's a lot more in your face,
Speaker 1: but it's real. It's real. It's real. You'll know and
Speaker 1: if somebody is if somebody doesn't like you, you'll know it.
Speaker 1: But if somebody is your friend, you can count on
Speaker 1: that forever. Okay. You have a long history of knowing
Speaker 1: what you want seeing it and getting it being very agile,
Speaker 1: sometimes not getting it, by the way. But that's let
Speaker 1: me continue here. How does that affect your love life
Speaker 1: and your interaction with women someone who's so strong and successful. Okay,
Speaker 1: these are such great questions, but they're two very separate questions.
Speaker 1: I'm all about women. My girlfriends are the most important
Speaker 1: thing for me up and then my son. Obviously, I
Speaker 1: have four sisters, so I am a huge My interaction
Speaker 1: with women is amazing, and women actually they sense that.
Speaker 1: So the majority of my followers are women. I get
Speaker 1: I meet like kids when I speak in colleges and
Speaker 1: I can't in high schools, and I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many times they come to me and like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, my mom loves you. Like women get me
Speaker 1: down level. They know that I'm a girl's girl, through
Speaker 1: and through. There's no question about that. Every girl right
Speaker 1: now is listening to it if she don't know me,
Speaker 1: and she looks through my stuff, and I'm a girls girl.
Speaker 1: I have four sisters. Women camaraderie is one of the
Speaker 1: most important things in the world. When I had, like
Speaker 1: when I have meldowns in my life, I got like
Speaker 1: my girlfriend's showing up in my LA kitchen, sitting around
Speaker 1: and I mean, it's so important to me. It's I
Speaker 1: think it's one of the most important things in human
Speaker 1: interaction is the relationship between women. I think that if
Speaker 1: a woman does not have that, it's such a loss,
Speaker 1: and I feel for her. I think she should every
Speaker 1: woman that doesn't have that need to go out and
Speaker 1: seek it. I have extraordinary group of girls around me
Speaker 1: in La, in Tel Aviv, in New York, in Sydney,
Speaker 1: and I have my girls crew everywhere. And I also,
Speaker 1: I mean, I have a WhatsApp group with my two
Speaker 1: best girlfriends from elementary school, from fourth grade, but we
Speaker 1: still have what's up group like a carrying relationships for decades.
Speaker 1: And my girls are my tribe, like my tribe um.
Speaker 1: In terms of relationships, I I'm looking forward to my
Speaker 1: third relationship. I am. I was married, so I had
Speaker 1: I had two long term relationships and two you know,
Speaker 1: seven and a half eight year relationship. They were great relationships,
Speaker 1: but they didn't end up continuing. Well. Just to be clear,
Speaker 1: Just to be clear here for a second, people say
Speaker 1: that they broke up it's mutual. It's never mutual. I
Speaker 1: would think knowing you your personality that in both of
Speaker 1: these cases you were the one who blew the whistle, Bob,
Speaker 1: you would be so surprised. And right now, if my
Speaker 1: girls are listening all the way through, they're laughing their
Speaker 1: asses off right now, they really are. Look, I have
Speaker 1: a son, so I won't publicly talk about specifically, not
Speaker 1: the relationship with his dad where great co parents were
Speaker 1: working on raising raising our son together. And I'm just
Speaker 1: I think that I don't know, It's it's an interesting question.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize we're going to go there. Right. I'm
Speaker 1: a very couply person, so it's very bizarre that I
Speaker 1: didn't that they both didn't last. You know, I'm a
Speaker 1: very couply person, so it'll be interesting. They say third
Speaker 1: times a charm, right, Well, well, why why did the
Speaker 1: why did the two relationships not work out? What are
Speaker 1: we having this? What kind of a conversation is that? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I can talk about the first one because he went
Speaker 1: public with it. So the first one did not work
Speaker 1: out because he's a lovely guy. He was an addict,
Speaker 1: um And I didn't know he was an addict when
Speaker 1: we got together and we got married, and we we
Speaker 1: stuck through it as much as we could, but it
Speaker 1: destroyed the relationship. And again, the only reason I'm talking
Speaker 1: about is because he he's a he's a He wrote
Speaker 1: a book about it, and he went public. He went
Speaker 1: public with it, So I didn't. I didn't know to
Speaker 1: recognize the signs. I mean, in retrospect now I should
Speaker 1: have known, but I could I couldn't have known, right,
Speaker 1: But that's why that didn't work out. And the second one,
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't discuss this. I have a son.
Speaker 1: I can't. It was it was challenging, but it's not
Speaker 1: what you are alluding to her thinking. I will tell
Speaker 1: you once the mica is off. How about that, Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't need to press you. Okay, So I will
Speaker 1: just like I have a son. It's I have to
Speaker 1: be careful and everything that's out there for him to
Speaker 1: be Like what, Okay, So you're talking about this hypothetical
Speaker 1: third relationship. Yes, are you actively seeking it? I think
Speaker 1: that so. I we broke up about two and a
Speaker 1: half years ago, almost two and a half years ago,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm only I was not interested in
Speaker 1: one up until now. I needed to sort things out first.
Speaker 1: I was a bit dramatic and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of things that were happening. So I was not open
Speaker 1: to it. I think I am. I am open to
Speaker 1: it now, so yeah, well let's see what happens. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, are you know, would you be set up
Speaker 1: with friends, or you meet people through life, or would
Speaker 1: you go on a dating site or any of that.
Speaker 1: I don't go on dating sites. I've never been on
Speaker 1: a dating site. I'd like to keep it that way.
Speaker 1: I get introduced to people, people are interested in setting
Speaker 1: me up. I'm not. I'm in a great place in
Speaker 1: life for a woman, not for a woman, just generally
Speaker 1: for a human being. I think that we need to
Speaker 1: be in a place in which we're happy with ourselves
Speaker 1: and happy like I have a great son, I have
Speaker 1: a great life of incredible friends. I'm a very couply person,
Speaker 1: and I want somebody that would compliment me and I
Speaker 1: would compliment him, like I want to be able to
Speaker 1: find my share it, to find my lobster, my ride
Speaker 1: or die the friend. The person's going to enjoy all
Speaker 1: of it with me, you know, and we'll see if
Speaker 1: they're out there. It's so bizarre. I have never Bob,
Speaker 1: can I tell you something? It's only in Israel that
Speaker 1: I get asked these questions. In America, I never get
Speaker 1: asked these questions. And Israel they know me for so
Speaker 1: many years and they've been through like the media has
Speaker 1: been with me since I was a teen, so they
Speaker 1: always ask these questions and they're like about children in
Speaker 1: marriage and divorce and all that. This is the first
Speaker 1: time I'm ever talking about this in America. I'm so confronted,
Speaker 1: Like well, as I say, I'm already asking as a person,
Speaker 1: this has got more to do with my identity asking
Speaker 1: these questions than your fame. But just I love talking
Speaker 1: about It's not about fame, It's just about I'm in America.
Speaker 1: My work is so overshadowing my personality and my personal life.
Speaker 1: I didn't even talk about I only recorded like a
Speaker 1: video that talks about me being a single mom or recently,
Speaker 1: and I haven't posted it yet, so I don't even
Speaker 1: talk about it publicly. It's pretty clear from my social
Speaker 1: media that I there's a son, but there's no husband.
Speaker 1: So but it's yeah, it's interesting. I think people think
Speaker 1: that I'm like a lot more of a ballbuster. I
Speaker 1: always say about myself that I'm a Labrador and a
Speaker 1: leopard skin. That's the truth. Wait to say that one
Speaker 1: more time. I'm a labrador in a leopard skin. I
Speaker 1: look like I'm this ball but whatever, But I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm not so you know, somebody can see through that. Then,
Speaker 1: going back to the initial question, are men intimidated by
Speaker 1: your success? Personality, beauty, etc. Um. I'd like to say no,
Speaker 1: but it's I don't know. Are you intimidated by it?
Speaker 1: Do you think it would be intimidating for a guy? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm dead straight. I mean this is not
Speaker 1: only you specifically. You know, this isn't all the immediate
Speaker 1: at this point that you have these successful women and
Speaker 1: there's a limited pool of successful men and should they
Speaker 1: date down? And then you have all these successful men
Speaker 1: who want to date down and you're successful in a
Speaker 1: way beyond just career, And I was wondering how that
Speaker 1: would affect dating prospects with a certain people would say, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to date someone that successful, or would you
Speaker 1: comminently say I don't want to date someone that unsuccessful.
Speaker 1: I don't say anything to me. It's about the people
Speaker 1: I've never dated in my life. I've never I've never
Speaker 1: I've had opportunity to date very big people, famous and
Speaker 1: successful and rich and whatever. I never cared about that.
Speaker 1: The joke among my friends that I didn't and they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're like, just could you date a billionaire now?
Speaker 1: And I'm like no, because it's never been a parameter,
Speaker 1: so it's not going to be now. I don't know
Speaker 1: what to tell you in terms of if men are
Speaker 1: intimidated or not. Maybe maybe not. I'm not entirely sure.
Speaker 1: I don't see myself like that, but that's why I
Speaker 1: asked you, would you be intimidate? Are you into is
Speaker 1: it intimidating? I'm not the regular guy, you know, the
Speaker 1: regular guy who has big on image and has his
Speaker 1: check book whatever, and that's you know, I would think
Speaker 1: generally speaking, men would be. Then there's an elite level
Speaker 1: of people who are billionaires and very successful like that,
Speaker 1: and that's they have different criteria. But the average person
Speaker 1: is earning a living and doing well, driving a German
Speaker 1: car or a tesla. I think that they might be intimidated.
Speaker 1: But moving on from this, the conventional wisdom is that
Speaker 1: the Israelis and the Danes make the best television forgetting
Speaker 1: the Danes. Why is this? Rayleigh television so good. It's
Speaker 1: such a great question invention, like necessity is the mother
Speaker 1: of all invention. That's legitimately why the reason Israeli television
Speaker 1: is so good, and it really is so good, is
Speaker 1: because number one, there's no money. There's no money in
Speaker 1: the industry. There's only nine million people to sell the
Speaker 1: product too, so to begin with, there's no budget, right,
Speaker 1: and those people are extraordinarily sophisticated. So it's a sophisticated
Speaker 1: audience that doesn't take bullshit and would not stick around
Speaker 1: if the show is not good. And when you create
Speaker 1: a show, you cannot rely on explosions, helicopters, special effects, monsters.
Speaker 1: You can't. You have to make sure that the show
Speaker 1: is great. It's written really well, like a song that's
Speaker 1: written on a guitar and you can play it and
Speaker 1: it's brilliant without all the productions in the rigor moole.
Speaker 1: That's what Israeli television is. That's why in treatment is
Speaker 1: so great. That's why Homeland with such a huge success,
Speaker 1: That's why You four is so great, because it's characters
Speaker 1: and its stories and its people, and that's what Israeli
Speaker 1: people like. And because Israelitis, there's so much like Americans culturally,
Speaker 1: whatever works there can work here. So it's it's just
Speaker 1: there's no it's almost like there's no miracle to it.
Speaker 1: When you know the Israeli culture and you know American culture,
Speaker 1: you know why the television there, why it works. Okay,
Speaker 1: other than in treatment, name your three favorite Israeli television shows,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Okay, Well, honestly, it's a show that
Speaker 1: you're never going to hear about because it's called is
Speaker 1: a sketch comedy show that's never going to be able
Speaker 1: to be adapted because it's so specific. But it's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 1: It's the most biting political commentary that you have ever seen,
Speaker 1: way harsher than America. So what they'll do there, Like
Speaker 1: you think SNL is biting, it's nothing compared to what
Speaker 1: they do there. They turn politics into a circus in
Speaker 1: the cleverest of way. So I would say this is
Speaker 1: probably my most favorite show. It's been going on for
Speaker 1: twenty years or something. It's it's absolutely brilliant. That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two. I think the show is now. This show
Speaker 1: is now in Hulu, but I'm not one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 1: It's called Rehearsals. And it was a show that was
Speaker 1: created by the public broadcaster con eleven. And it's again
Speaker 1: very small show about a couple that used to be
Speaker 1: a couple and they wrote a play about themselves and
Speaker 1: then the play becomes they buy the theater, buys a play,
Speaker 1: but their relationship breaks apart. So very small, relationship driven,
Speaker 1: brilliant show. It's called rehearsals. Look it up. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: That's two. That's two a third do we need a third?
Speaker 1: Can I get back to you on them? I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're amazing ones. Don't let me think I mean, i'd
Speaker 1: say foud up. Let's say found up because it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Everybody can watch Fouder on Netflix. It's brilliant. If you
Speaker 1: haven't gotten addicted yet for it, I would go with
Speaker 1: Prisoners of War and True Gear. Oh my god, stop, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm changing my mind, and I'm putting Prisoners of War
Speaker 1: there number one. First of all because it's the best
Speaker 1: Israeli television show of all time, and second because the
Speaker 1: creator is my best friend and he's going to kill
Speaker 1: me rightfully, so I can't believe it didn't think Prisoners
Speaker 1: of War. I'm so sorry. Prisoners of war number one. Okay,
Speaker 1: so all these people I've I've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: Israeli television and you tend to see the same actors
Speaker 1: and actresses. You know, So what kind of economic life
Speaker 1: would those people have? Not easy? It's not. A television
Speaker 1: show in Israel does not. If you're an actor, you
Speaker 1: need to do everything. So in Israel, you if you're
Speaker 1: an actor only doing a TV show. I'm like in America,
Speaker 1: if you do one TV show here that's successful, you're
Speaker 1: set over there. You need to do TV. You need
Speaker 1: to do theater. You need to do voiceovers and campaigns
Speaker 1: and live shows and stand ups and commercials and a
Speaker 1: lot of different things. So it's again there's no budget,
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a tough life in that sense.
Speaker 1: You have to do a lot of things in order
Speaker 1: to actually make a living as an actor in Israel. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to you. So what does an average
Speaker 1: week or an average month look like? Now? They vary. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, I travel all the time, So there's
Speaker 1: I do. I started a college campus tour now, so
Speaker 1: I travel, I go to speak on college as I
Speaker 1: started with Berkeley, or as we wait a little bit,
Speaker 1: a little bit slower. How did this get set up?
Speaker 1: And do you get compensated? I do get compensated. I
Speaker 1: mean there's a there's a it's a discounter price for colleges.
Speaker 1: So I and I do a lot of high schools
Speaker 1: as well for you know, nothing basically, but but it's UM,
Speaker 1: I travel a lot. I travel a lot. How do
Speaker 1: you get those gigs? I have a speaking agent and
Speaker 1: they contact him and he reaches out and now they
Speaker 1: know to talk to him if they if they want
Speaker 1: to book me to go and to go and speak.
Speaker 1: But the college campus store for me is one of
Speaker 1: the most exciting ones because because of what's happening with
Speaker 1: BDS on college campuses, because anti Zionism and anti Semitism
Speaker 1: on campuses is so extreme. I love going to college campuses.
Speaker 1: I started with Berkeley or as let's let's slow down there.
Speaker 1: Berkeley is uh is a hotbed of political activity. He
Speaker 1: who hosted your speech? In two? How many people came?
Speaker 1: Great question? So, first of all, I wasn't actually a speech.
Speaker 1: So I went to Berkeley because, um, there was an
Speaker 1: article that came out a few a couple of months
Speaker 1: ago about the fact that at Berkeley Law School, some
Speaker 1: student groups have outlawed in their by laws, basically in
Speaker 1: their constitution. They outlawed any speaker to come and speak
Speaker 1: to them if they support Israel or Zionism, effectively creating
Speaker 1: a what the article was referring to as a Jewish
Speaker 1: free zone. So the campus university try to say it's
Speaker 1: only nine groups in the campus, but the problem is
Speaker 1: that these groups were the women's groups, the LGBTQ group,
Speaker 1: the Asian Pacific us of big, big groups called student groups.
Speaker 1: So the kids on Berkeley have been feeling alienated, discriminated against,
Speaker 1: marginalized for a very long time. And this was kind
Speaker 1: of like the straw. The broke their backs and they
Speaker 1: reach out to me and they asked They asked me
Speaker 1: basically if I want to go, and I said absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'll go. And I just asked them, what do they need?
Speaker 1: What do they want me to do? So they asked me,
Speaker 1: that's the Jewish groups, the Jewish groups on Berkeley, jew
Speaker 1: students groups on Berkeley. They said they wanted me to
Speaker 1: first of all, come and hang out with them and
Speaker 1: have dinner. So I came over and I hung out
Speaker 1: at the hilll and sat with the students and chatted
Speaker 1: to them and to see how they're doing. They're not
Speaker 1: doing well. They're very concerned and feel alienated. And I
Speaker 1: heard some horrific stories about that. And then the next
Speaker 1: day they wanted me to do what's called the tabling event.
Speaker 1: So and that's what they wanted me to do. So
Speaker 1: they didn't want me to come and speak at the
Speaker 1: hill El. They want me to be out there on
Speaker 1: the main plaza and put a table and have conversations
Speaker 1: with people. And I said, okay, great, I'll do that.
Speaker 1: And they said, you put it basically, put a sign
Speaker 1: above the table and you just kind of reach out
Speaker 1: to students and have conversations. So I said, sure, I'll
Speaker 1: do that. And I said, I'm going to have the table.
Speaker 1: Sign above the table say anti Zionism is anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: Let's have a chat. And I did that and it
Speaker 1: was horrible. It was absent, horrible. I was there for
Speaker 1: four hours. The video is on my Instagram and or
Speaker 1: my social media and on YouTube. Is well, I think,
Speaker 1: but it's I was attacked. I was yelled at, I
Speaker 1: was harassed, I was ignored, I was ganged up on.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to bring security because I don't want
Speaker 1: to change my life because of the work that I do.
Speaker 1: But the people that I was going with basically ruled
Speaker 1: out and said at some point, like a day before
Speaker 1: that I can know overay, just gonna have security there
Speaker 1: for you. So there was playing clothes carrying security guy,
Speaker 1: and I was very happy that he was there because
Speaker 1: I was scared, like legitimately scared. I was. I was
Speaker 1: attacked so badly. Well a little bit more, a little
Speaker 1: bit more specifically, what happened enough with the yelling, the
Speaker 1: blood on your hands and you're enough with the killing,
Speaker 1: and you know, I had people ganging up on me
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to have conversations and they don't want
Speaker 1: to have conversation. There was demonstrations, there was yelling those
Speaker 1: you know you should just you can check out the video.
Speaker 1: It's it's extreme. It's extreme. And I walked out of
Speaker 1: there after four hours, and I'm thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted. This is terrible. And this's just me for
Speaker 1: four hours. What are the Jewish kids on campus are
Speaker 1: going through? How did they feel? And the answer is
Speaker 1: they feel terrible. College campuses right now, in terms of
Speaker 1: anti Semitism and anti Israel sentiment is a hotbed. It's horrible.
Speaker 1: We hear reports that student Jewish students on campus only
Speaker 1: feel safe in Jewish spaces. It's to what to the
Speaker 1: point that I was saying before, it's like, you're Jewish,
Speaker 1: don't ask, don't tell. As long as you're not telling anybody,
Speaker 1: as long as you're not out there visibly Jewish, proud Jewish,
Speaker 1: then you're fine. It's horrible on college campuses. So I
Speaker 1: do a lot of that. It was a Duke class week,
Speaker 1: which was incredible. I went to the University of Miami.
Speaker 1: I've got I'm doing UCL. Okay, you have those bad,
Speaker 1: bad experience at Berkeley, So what happened like a Duke
Speaker 1: in the University of Miami. Duke was university I was great.
Speaker 1: It was Florida Atlantic University actually, and the University of
Speaker 1: Miama did both of them. Those two experiences were great,
Speaker 1: and Duke was also great. Duke was intense because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of anti Semitism and antisignism the Duke and
Speaker 1: they had a huge turnout in terms of the students
Speaker 1: and local people from the community, apparently the biggest that
Speaker 1: they had for a very long time. Because a lot
Speaker 1: of students at Duke d students at Duke are very
Speaker 1: concerned about what's happening. And it was interesting because the
Speaker 1: professor that was interviewing me was not it was throwing curveballs, like.
Speaker 1: He was asking me very harsh questions that I disagreed
Speaker 1: with and I had to set my foot down. And
Speaker 1: basically he was you know, nobody puts baby in the
Speaker 1: corner rights And he was saying all these things or
Speaker 1: like the cleansing and the genocide, and I'm like, I disagree.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you why. And what I heard from
Speaker 1: the students afterwards, which is totally legitimate, by the way,
Speaker 1: we can definitely have a conversation about that. I got
Speaker 1: nothing against that, But what I was able to show
Speaker 1: the students is also how do you stand in front
Speaker 1: and stand in the face of these uncomfortable conversations, because
Speaker 1: a lot of people just recoil. They just kind of like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about it. It's too complicated.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to show people that it's okay to
Speaker 1: have these uncomfortable conversations. We have to have these uncomfortable
Speaker 1: conversations because otherwise what are we doing. So it was
Speaker 1: that's what I heard from the kids there that they
Speaker 1: it was very helpful for them to see me kind
Speaker 1: of like butt heads with a professor a little bit,
Speaker 1: because it showed them how to handle it when it comes.
Speaker 1: Because it comes, it comes a lot. It comes up
Speaker 1: a lot. So I do a lot of that. I
Speaker 1: travel to various places around again, around the country and
Speaker 1: around the world. And when I'm in La it's a
Speaker 1: lot of like reading, writing, working in the next book,
Speaker 1: posting on social media, doing videos, taking readings. It's very
Speaker 1: it's a busy time to be fighting anti semitism. Sadly okay,
Speaker 1: by times. Well, let's let's go back. When you do
Speaker 1: these speaking engagements, generally speaking, are you preaching to the
Speaker 1: converted or do the people who disagree with you show up?
Speaker 1: I wow? Okay, Oddly enough, other than Berkeley, I did
Speaker 1: not have people show up to protest, which is kind
Speaker 1: of surprising, honestly, because I don't we don't hide that
Speaker 1: I'm going to speak, So we're wondering why they didn't
Speaker 1: show up. I'm all about I've you know, I've been
Speaker 1: through these conversations many times. I can handle it. I'm
Speaker 1: please accost me, I'll be fine. Hackle the shit out
Speaker 1: of me. It's okay, you're allowed, but it hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 1: I'm not only preaching to the choir. I'm obviously talking
Speaker 1: to a lot of people in the Jewish community, but
Speaker 1: I have a lot of people that invite me to
Speaker 1: speak to their non Jewish friends in their workspaces. This
Speaker 1: is something that I really want to do more of.
Speaker 1: Like I think Google should invite me to speak about
Speaker 1: anti Semitism, and Apple and Coca Cola, and like these
Speaker 1: companies need Oh okay, but let's let's go back to
Speaker 1: the basic question, not just me just generally speaking out.
Speaker 1: Operations need to deal with anti semitism head on, right,
Speaker 1: But do the people who need their beliefs challenged? Did
Speaker 1: they show up? Yes? Yes, so one of the people
Speaker 1: that I like. So, for example, at Duke, I know
Speaker 1: of a few kids that were there that were brought
Speaker 1: in by their Jewish friends because they had an issue
Speaker 1: with Israel and an issue with anti Semitism. I know
Speaker 1: that people use these talks in order to bring out
Speaker 1: their community and bring out their friends when they need
Speaker 1: to be challenge or addressed. I also know that people
Speaker 1: use my videos for that, So they save my videos
Speaker 1: online and then they send them to people when something arises.
Speaker 1: So yes, definitely, definitely. And do I want to be
Speaker 1: more in more spaces where I'm not more spaces that
Speaker 1: are less preaching to the choir, of course, but again
Speaker 1: it's not easy because it's Hewish advocacy and it's people
Speaker 1: don't it's not as comfortable as other advocacies for people
Speaker 1: to kind of wrap their heads around. Is this a
Speaker 1: Sisaphian endeavor or do you think you're making a difference both?
Speaker 1: So I don't. We didn't touch upon that. But I'm
Speaker 1: also sometimes Israel's first special Envoy for combating anti Semitism
Speaker 1: and delegitimizations. I was appointed by then Foreign Ministry and
Speaker 1: a Pede to represent Israel when I'm asked on international
Speaker 1: stage as the anti Semitism envoy, And when we had
Speaker 1: this conversation, he offered me the position. He said, you
Speaker 1: know how the United States has a special envoy for
Speaker 1: anti Semitism in Canada and EU and a lot of
Speaker 1: other countries in the world, and Israel doesn't have one.
Speaker 1: I said, right, I didn't think about that, And he's like,
Speaker 1: would you like to be that person? And I said
Speaker 1: absolutely yes, And then I started laughing and he asked me,
Speaker 1: why why are you laughing? And I said, because you're
Speaker 1: setting me up to fail, like I'm literally never going
Speaker 1: to be successful in this. And he started laughing and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, he said, I expect you to
Speaker 1: end anti Semitism and then three months give me a report. Please.
Speaker 1: Anti Semitism is the oldest form of hate and discrimination
Speaker 1: that's still being practiced today. There's no reason for me
Speaker 1: to think that I'm going to be able to end it.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's never going to end fully. Am I
Speaker 1: making a difference? Yes, I know that for a fact.
Speaker 1: Okay that I'm making a difference. Sor right? Are there
Speaker 1: any other noah tissues out there? But we just don't
Speaker 1: know who they are. There are other advocates out there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are other people that are doing this. It's it's
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody, everybody is different. But I can definitely
Speaker 1: recommend people to follow an account named a white of
Speaker 1: Frame and a guy named Blake Flayton and Eve Barlow
Speaker 1: and Lizzie Savitsky is like a great advocate. There are
Speaker 1: people out there, but you know, the Jewish people are
Speaker 1: zero point zero two percent the world population or zero
Speaker 1: point two percent of the American population, we're less than
Speaker 1: fifteen million people. Around the world, it's a very small
Speaker 1: number of people. So when it comes to online, when
Speaker 1: it comes to we're kind of drowning. You know, our
Speaker 1: voices are drowned a little bit. What is your personal
Speaker 1: belief of the cause of the great resurgence? Anti Semitism
Speaker 1: never went away, but even statistically it's burgeoned in the
Speaker 1: last seven years or so. Why do you think that is.
Speaker 1: You know, here's the thing. Throughout history, every time a
Speaker 1: society was having challenges, the Jews were to blame. So
Speaker 1: when we look at in perspective of history, this is
Speaker 1: not surprising at all. When we look at what's happening
Speaker 1: now with like the modernization of anti Semitism again, whether
Speaker 1: it's Kinye West or anti Zionism, you kind of look around,
Speaker 1: you go, okay, we've been through a pandemic. So then
Speaker 1: of course they're going to be voices that say that
Speaker 1: the Jews created the pandemic, and we're sitting looking at
Speaker 1: it going really cute. So every time there's like economic challenges,
Speaker 1: they'll find the Jews. There's a plague, they'll the Jews fault.
Speaker 1: This has happened throughout history, and this is something that
Speaker 1: to some extent the Jews are to be blamed because
Speaker 1: anti Semitism is not simple racism, right, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory. So it says that the Jewish people
Speaker 1: are they're also like they're they're like the Nazis would say, right,
Speaker 1: the vermins of the earth, and they're lower race and
Speaker 1: they're like the scum of the earth. Right, But they're
Speaker 1: also controlling everything, and they control the banks, and they
Speaker 1: control Hollywood, and they control this and they control them.
Speaker 1: So there's this like duality of anti Semitism that isn't
Speaker 1: simple racism. That's why it's harder to decipher. And every
Speaker 1: time throughout history it just repops. So it's repopping. Society
Speaker 1: has been through a lot of stress in the past
Speaker 1: few years. And sure, lo and behold, blame the Jews. Yes,
Speaker 1: but everything you're saying is certainly true. But observers would say,
Speaker 1: there you can say things and there will be no
Speaker 1: repercussions in a way that never happened, certainly in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: You know, it's been legitimized, and and why do you
Speaker 1: think it's been legitimized Jews don't count. There's this book
Speaker 1: it's it's actually David Baddell wrote a book called Jews
Speaker 1: Don't Count and showing throughout like recent history how in
Speaker 1: every Jews don't count in like d im offices, Jews
Speaker 1: don't count as a minority. Literally, people don't look at
Speaker 1: the Jewish people and think of minority. Right, So there's
Speaker 1: this kind of like double standard when it comes about
Speaker 1: the Jewish people again, because the Jewish people are not considered,
Speaker 1: they're not underrepresented. The Jewish people have used the American
Speaker 1: system in a way like this is a blessing. Right,
Speaker 1: We're like, oh my god, we can actually achieve things great,
Speaker 1: and now it's held against us. Right, So it's it's
Speaker 1: a very it's they don't want to cry wolf, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to be like competing in the oppressed Olympic. Right,
Speaker 1: you can be both an oppressed minority and also do well.
Speaker 1: It's just that people need to notice that there are
Speaker 1: subconscious biases towards the Jewish people are affecting them, whether
Speaker 1: they know it or not, whether they acknowledge it or not.
Speaker 1: What would you tell you know, you speak at college campuses,
Speaker 1: those are developing people let's just talk adults. What would
Speaker 1: you tell adults to do in the face of this
Speaker 1: anti semitism. First of all, say something when you see something.
Speaker 1: In second, reach out to your Jewish community. This is
Speaker 1: something that's not a joke. If you see if you
Speaker 1: see like a rise in anti semitism online in your neighborhood,
Speaker 1: reach out to your Jewish friends, reach out to your synagogue,
Speaker 1: the neighborhood synagogue, see if they need help. Actually reach out,
Speaker 1: Actually reach out again. This is something we are walking
Speaker 1: around feeling like we're I'm creating a lot of ally ship,
Speaker 1: like reaching outside of our community and finding more allies
Speaker 1: because the Jewish community does have allyship in the way
Speaker 1: that we would like to have. So that's something that
Speaker 1: I would say to again to people who are who
Speaker 1: are not Jewish, who are listening to this reach out
Speaker 1: or reach out. We're under stressed right now. Every Jewish
Speaker 1: person that you know is like breaking out a little bit,
Speaker 1: pulling the lens back a little bit. What do you
Speaker 1: think about intermarriage, because certainly in the United States, there
Speaker 1: is a rising number, rising percentage of people who are
Speaker 1: marrying people outside the faith, and there's a limited number
Speaker 1: of Jews to begin with, do you have an opinion
Speaker 1: on that? I mean, the father of my child is
Speaker 1: not Jewish, so and my child has raised Jewish and
Speaker 1: his identity is very strong, and he is first language
Speaker 1: is Hebrew, but it didn't it's important to me to
Speaker 1: raise my child Jewish. But I wasn't that particular about
Speaker 1: the father in terms of religion or tradition. Also knowing
Speaker 1: that I'm the woman, so it goes by the mother.
Speaker 1: I look, I technically, I just I think we need
Speaker 1: more Jews, so I would loosen the acceptance bar. But
Speaker 1: that's just me. But the good thing to remember is
Speaker 1: that everybody is welcome to be Jewish, Like everybody is welcome.
Speaker 1: It's going to take some work, but everybody's welcome. So
Speaker 1: I would love to see as many more Jews as possible.
Speaker 1: I also think that with Jewish culture and Jewish people,
Speaker 1: the proof is in the pudding. So there's something about
Speaker 1: Jewish way of life the works, right, And as Jews,
Speaker 1: we instead of celebrating that, we sometimes kind of try
Speaker 1: to hide it. So we try to hide the bizarre fact,
Speaker 1: right that the Jewish people are zero point zero two
Speaker 1: percent of the world population, but we're twenty two percent
Speaker 1: of Nobel Prize winners twenty nine and like economics twice
Speaker 1: that can't remember the exact breakdown, but like twenty two,
Speaker 1: that's a crazy number. And that's not because of some
Speaker 1: cabal or some genetic like it's not right. There's something
Speaker 1: about the Jewish way of life that's really good that
Speaker 1: everybody should adopt as well. And that's something that I'm
Speaker 1: very as a secular Jew, I celebrate because I think
Speaker 1: culturally we get so much to contribute. Because just think
Speaker 1: of how great, how where would it be if the
Speaker 1: entire world would celebrate a bat on a Friday, just
Speaker 1: get together with friends and family and like stop everything
Speaker 1: and just relaxed and not talk about mundane stuff and
Speaker 1: focus about you know, focus on like what's what matters.
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: about the Jewish tradition that are magic that needs to
Speaker 1: be adopted by the entire world. How great would that be?
Speaker 1: So that's my attitude. My attitude is that we need
Speaker 1: to be more open in terms of acceptance and spread
Speaker 1: out that kind of like way of life more. That's
Speaker 1: not a bit of a secret, by the way, It's
Speaker 1: all out there. Just we can all live like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: although some of this stuff actually engenders anti Semitism. But
Speaker 1: moving the focus once again, what do you mean, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the same thing. I don't want to get
Speaker 1: deep into a discussion is because there's a lot of nuance,
Speaker 1: But this is the same thing Asians are combating at
Speaker 1: this particular point in time. There's a very people would say,
Speaker 1: I don't want to start getting em get in trouble,
Speaker 1: but there's a very strong family importance placed on education.
Speaker 1: So therefore there are people feel that the Asians are
Speaker 1: taking their spots in education, and conversely, their Asians believe
Speaker 1: they're being discriminated against. So there's a long history with
Speaker 1: Jews that people feel, well, you took my spot, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know this is all a thing together you
Speaker 1: speak a little Yiddish whatever, and I'm not including Okay,
Speaker 1: that wasn't at all what I was saying. And as
Speaker 1: long as America as a meritocracy, and that's great, we
Speaker 1: can this is all about achievements. I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I don't think this was not what I was you know, well, well,
Speaker 1: let me let me let me change a little bit.
Speaker 1: The world is not about facts. The world is about perception. Sure, Okay,
Speaker 1: and then you say, you know, as you said earlier,
Speaker 1: when times are tough, people are looking for a scapegoat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you and both you and me both know how
Speaker 1: hard it is to make it in Hollywood. People have
Speaker 1: no idea. You have to sacrifice everything and you still
Speaker 1: may not make it. But there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who don't make it or don't even try, who
Speaker 1: blame the Jews. Okay, So there are these examples and
Speaker 1: they cause the anti Semitism. But I want to move
Speaker 1: to a different topic. Let's talk about let me just second,
Speaker 1: Just at that point, i refuse to recoil to that,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to stay proud, loud, and proud you
Speaker 1: And because I know that historically if I go quiet,
Speaker 1: it's not going to stop anti Semitism, So I'm actually
Speaker 1: flipping it on its head. I'm going to be as
Speaker 1: loud and as proud and as open. I'm going to
Speaker 1: invite people for Shabbat. I'm going to be as open
Speaker 1: as I possibly can because either way, antisemitism is not
Speaker 1: going to go away. Does that make sense, absolutely, very
Speaker 1: very clearly delineated. But let's go to Israel today. You
Speaker 1: had a video you posted about, well, Israel's a democracy,
Speaker 1: and just like in the US, there are people, you
Speaker 1: know who have different opinions. There's protests in that shows
Speaker 1: a healthy democracy. Today, which is March first, Thomas Friedman
Speaker 1: has an opinion piece in the New York Times talking
Speaker 1: about Israel being on the precipice. This is one person's opinion.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that. I'm going to Thomas
Speaker 1: Friedman himself gets a lot of blowback, but talking about
Speaker 1: net Yahoo, talking about the Supreme Court situation, talking about
Speaker 1: the settlements, what is your take on what's going on
Speaker 1: in is Real today? My take on it is that
Speaker 1: Israel is such a flourishing democracy. It's virtually almost ungovernable.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that people need to understand.
Speaker 1: What's happening right now is very delicate because I mean, again,
Speaker 1: I don't want to this is inside baseball, So maybe
Speaker 1: people have no idea what we're talking about. But basically,
Speaker 1: the new government is it's the most right wing government
Speaker 1: that Israel has ever had, and they're trying to create
Speaker 1: these judicial reform very quickly, and the majority of the
Speaker 1: country is resisting them. And there are a lot of demonstration,
Speaker 1: like huge percentage of the population are out in the
Speaker 1: street demonstrating. So, first of all, that's beautiful, that's democracy.
Speaker 1: That's number one. My opinion about what's happening is that
Speaker 1: they need to slow down. That's my opinion. They have
Speaker 1: to slow down. But these reforms need to be taken
Speaker 1: very seriously and need to come to a wide agreement.
Speaker 1: They must know now that there is no wide agreement.
Speaker 1: The percentage large percentage of we could voters want to
Speaker 1: slow it down. Don't think that it's the most important
Speaker 1: thing right now to do. But again, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a flourishing democracy. Let's see, let's see what happens. Look,
Speaker 1: if every single one of these laws pass, and then
Speaker 1: they pass like that, every country can unplode. Right, and
Speaker 1: they took Row away from us. It's this is terrible,
Speaker 1: but it's not the end of the American democracy. So
Speaker 1: this is a part of the process. We're all concerned
Speaker 1: and we're all watching it carefully, but it's a part
Speaker 1: of the democratic process. What's happening there right now? Oh,
Speaker 1: let's talk to me in three months. Maybe my opinion
Speaker 1: would be different, But right now I'm kind of like,
Speaker 1: all right, this is it's happening, and it's it's the process.
Speaker 1: It's a moving it's a moving and every day there's
Speaker 1: something else that's exactly it's a moving picture. But also
Speaker 1: when you referenced this in the beginning, but let's look
Speaker 1: at it enough from the outside, but the inside. To
Speaker 1: what degree do the Orthodocs affect the perception of Jews
Speaker 1: in general? It's like we were talking about inner marriage, etc.
Speaker 1: One of the big stories in America now, and I
Speaker 1: know some people who are involved in a very religious
Speaker 1: traditional groups where they're having a lot of kids because
Speaker 1: they say, we have to repopulate the Jews. New York
Speaker 1: Times has done all these series about these communities are
Speaker 1: taking money and not really educating their kids. In Israel,
Speaker 1: you have the Orthodox, the ultra Orthodox, they don't have
Speaker 1: to go into the army, etc. So speak to this please.
Speaker 1: I always say about my book that left, right and center,
Speaker 1: you can pretty much tell where I stand, but I
Speaker 1: can explain everybody's perception, and I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: I was. The book was endorsed by the left and
Speaker 1: the right, both in Israel and in America. Right, but
Speaker 1: who is not going to be happy about that? Are
Speaker 1: the ultra Orthodox? Those are the only community that I
Speaker 1: was like, you, guys, I can't defend that, so, honest
Speaker 1: to God, and again, this is inside, this is full
Speaker 1: on inside baseball, right. I cannot defend not teaching core
Speaker 1: curriculum to generations of people within Israel or with our
Speaker 1: outside of Israel. I just can't defend that. I think
Speaker 1: that is abhorrent and it's disgraceful and it's terrible. It's
Speaker 1: it's abusive for the children, there's no question about that.
Speaker 1: And it's not sustainable. So the Orthodox population in israels
Speaker 1: about fourteen percent. They're growing, a lot of people are
Speaker 1: leaving the Orthodoxy, so it's kind of like balance it out.
Speaker 1: It's not going to take over like everybody, but it's
Speaker 1: like the entire country. But there's no world in which
Speaker 1: you don't need to teach corpora with Lim and that
Speaker 1: needs to change immediately. That's my opinion. What about Sorry,
Speaker 1: aren't the ultra Orthodox also behind the settlements? Not entirely
Speaker 1: the ultra It's not entirely the ultra Orthodox are A
Speaker 1: lot of the ultra Orthodox are actually not don't even
Speaker 1: believe in the existence of the State of Israel. So
Speaker 1: they believe that it's an abomination because there hasn't been
Speaker 1: the Third Temple yet, So it's not The settlers are
Speaker 1: more kind of There are a lot of Americans in
Speaker 1: the settlements actually, and it's more it's kind of like
Speaker 1: the more muscletem traditional muscle team munim, you know, more
Speaker 1: than that. It's less the ultra ulter Orthodox, the ones
Speaker 1: with the black hats and the and all of them.
Speaker 1: But I'm against not studying core curriculum. There's no nothing
Speaker 1: controversial about that. Okay. So the average American we're talking
Speaker 1: about the government and the settlements, etc. They're not thinking
Speaker 1: about that. But on a regular basis in the news
Speaker 1: there are actions and retaliations, and the Jews, the Israelis
Speaker 1: in this case, which you're both, are constantly criticized in
Speaker 1: these circumstances. Tell us what you think is really going
Speaker 1: on here. I'll tell you a story. A few years ago,
Speaker 1: I was in Israel with the father of my child,
Speaker 1: my ex was. We were there together at the same time, obviously,
Speaker 1: and we were sitting and having dinner in Hurzeleia on
Speaker 1: the beach, and there was tension. So before sometimes before
Speaker 1: these attacks. You kind of get intelligence and they somehow
Speaker 1: kind of They're like, all right, it's tense, mus might
Speaker 1: try something, so be on alert. And we're sitting and
Speaker 1: having dinner and all of a sudden, sirens go off.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting with my I'm sitting south facing south.
Speaker 1: The Mediterranean Sea is to my right, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: at him facing south and we're on the beach outside
Speaker 1: and the sirens starts going off and I start seeing
Speaker 1: missiles coming from the south, and the south of Hurtzelea
Speaker 1: and Tel Aviv is the Gaza Strip and we're like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, we're just looking at it. And I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: look behind you, here they are. Here are the missiles.
Speaker 1: And we get off and we go to the shelter
Speaker 1: and we wait for it to pass. An hour later,
Speaker 1: we are in the hotel room and heard Celia and
Speaker 1: we're watching CNN and the headline is Israel attacks in Gaza.
Speaker 1: And my ex, who is an American Southern Baptist from Tallahassee,
Speaker 1: looks at it and he goes, that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: They just threw missiles at me. Well, that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting and I'm looking at him and I'm
Speaker 1: rolling my eyes and I'm like, yep, welcome to Azrael.
Speaker 1: This happens all the time. There's a terrorist attack, they
Speaker 1: call it israelis were you know, people were murdered. They
Speaker 1: don't call it a terrorist attack. Israel retaliates, they call
Speaker 1: it an attack, and they don't say what preceded the retaliation.
Speaker 1: This is the bias in the media is so extreme
Speaker 1: that once you've seen it for the first time, you
Speaker 1: can't unsee it. And we do this all the time,
Speaker 1: and it comes up every time this happens. There's this
Speaker 1: whole thing with the activists. They're like, no, New York Times, no,
Speaker 1: the Guard and let me correct that, and we kind
Speaker 1: of x whatever they say and we say what actually happened.
Speaker 1: But this is what happens all the time. The bottom
Speaker 1: line is Hamas for that matter, is a terrorist organization
Speaker 1: that took over Gaza by force. Again, Israel does not
Speaker 1: control Gaza. Israel unilaterally retreated out of Gaza and handed
Speaker 1: it to the Palestinians, and then Hamas took over. So
Speaker 1: Hamasa is the one who's controlling Gaza. It's a terrorist
Speaker 1: organization that wants to enact shariel law, which is the
Speaker 1: embodiment of rape culture. Right, Sharia law, not Arab culture,
Speaker 1: not Muslims and not you know, this particular iteration and
Speaker 1: wants to wipe Israel off the map. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with here. And we're dealing with people that
Speaker 1: celebrate death. We're dealing with people that again I'm prefacing,
Speaker 1: it's the extremists of them, right, that are dragging the
Speaker 1: entire region into hell. We're dealing with people that the
Speaker 1: more casualties there are, the better it looks. And it's
Speaker 1: just it's horrible, and it's horrible for the Palestinian people. Look,
Speaker 1: I've been to demonstrations and I carried signs saying free
Speaker 1: Gaza from Hamas, Free Palestine from Hamas, not from Israel.
Speaker 1: If these extreme groups would have put down their weapons
Speaker 1: and would have agreed to accept the existence of a
Speaker 1: Jewish state, they would have been a Palestine and there
Speaker 1: would have been prosperity and collaboration and communication, just like
Speaker 1: look at what's happening with the Abraham Court, with the UAE,
Speaker 1: with Israel. Suddenly it's it's suddenly the region is acknowledging
Speaker 1: what everybody publicly basically what everybody knew privately, and that
Speaker 1: is Israel's not a big bed wolf of the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Iran is And if you want more tech and more
Speaker 1: advancement and more freedom and more democracy, Israel's your partner.
Speaker 1: So Drew, if you get out your crystal ball, what
Speaker 1: do you foresee as the future of Israel and the
Speaker 1: future of anti Semitism in America? Those are two different questions,
Speaker 1: but both the future look Israel is strong and Israeli
Speaker 1: people are resilient, smart and stubborn. So Israel is going
Speaker 1: to be fine. It's it's not going to be pretty,
Speaker 1: and it's not it's challenging right now, but Israel is
Speaker 1: going to be fine. There's also such extraordinary people there,
Speaker 1: with so much brain and so much innovation. And if
Speaker 1: it's the country, if the country is not going to
Speaker 1: be changed, laws are not going to be changed to
Speaker 1: a point that it changes it such a we can't
Speaker 1: recognize it anymore, Israel is going to be fine. Anti
Speaker 1: Semitism is not going anywhere, actually, So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a Jewish mandate to make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: And it's our job to continue warning the world when
Speaker 1: the comes up. There was an article years ago by
Speaker 1: Jonathan I've got his last name, Oh my god, it's
Speaker 1: in my book. It's called basically he's the one who
Speaker 1: kind of coined the Jews of the Canary in the
Speaker 1: coal mine. The Jewish people. When society turned on its Jews,
Speaker 1: it's a sign that society is in trouble. So every
Speaker 1: country in the world that turned on the Jews, that
Speaker 1: was foreshadowing for something bad that was going to happen
Speaker 1: in society. So it's kind of like it's almost our
Speaker 1: role to stand there and be like, no, we're not
Speaker 1: gonna let you do this, because we don't want America
Speaker 1: in the world to implode and just notice that you're
Speaker 1: being anti Semitic. Let's just stop that. It's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: But I hope that in my lifetime at least it's
Speaker 1: going to go back and become unfashionable again, because that's
Speaker 1: the thing that we're frustrated a bad not that it
Speaker 1: came back, because again it's it never went away, but
Speaker 1: it became acceptable. That is a shocking proposition for all
Speaker 1: of us. Well, it would be hard not to look
Speaker 1: at the United States and not say the visibility of
Speaker 1: anti Semitism and the ability to verbalize it came in
Speaker 1: with the Trump administration, and you have a unique situation
Speaker 1: where the right wing always pledges fealty to Israel, support
Speaker 1: for Israel. There's issues as to whether that's because they
Speaker 1: see it as the Christian homeland or defensive whatever, But
Speaker 1: our country at large irrelevant of anti semitism. Most people
Speaker 1: on both sides of the FEDS don't think it's going
Speaker 1: in the right direction. Now, wouldn't that portend even more
Speaker 1: anti semitism. Yes, it does. That's why it's going up
Speaker 1: so much. And look, the thing to acknowledge is that
Speaker 1: right now we're dealing with anti semitism on the right
Speaker 1: and anti semitism on the left. This is one of
Speaker 1: those things that are hard for people to acknowledge. It's
Speaker 1: almost like it's easier to see the Jews will not
Speaker 1: replace us and the Marjorie Taylor Green Green of the
Speaker 1: you know Lewis Jewish space laser right, that's very easy
Speaker 1: to call out. But what about on the extreme left
Speaker 1: when they equate Israel to Commas? What about them the
Speaker 1: extreme left when they call when they call Israel a
Speaker 1: bloodthirsty country. This happens on both sides, and oddly enough,
Speaker 1: on the fridge light fringe right, on the fringe left,
Speaker 1: the one thing that they have in common is anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: So this is definitely something that I think we should
Speaker 1: look at as a society and be worried about. Um.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt the Trump allowed anti Semitism in America
Speaker 1: to raise its head on the right in a way
Speaker 1: that we never saw before. Um, which was shocking for
Speaker 1: all of us. But again, it's coming from both sides.
Speaker 1: It's radical left, radical right, and radical Islam is where
Speaker 1: anti semitism is coming from the most. And that's that's
Speaker 1: that's what unites them. But but I will never just
Speaker 1: call the right. I'm going to call the left because
Speaker 1: I'm obliver world that lives in Hollywood, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I'm going to call out the left and say, no,
Speaker 1: we need to look at ourselves as well, not just
Speaker 1: on the right where it's convenient, but also on the
Speaker 1: left where it might not be might not be that
Speaker 1: easy to look at. We still have to because anti
Speaker 1: semitism on the right, by the way, anti semitism on
Speaker 1: the on the left right now, the majority of it
Speaker 1: is anti Israel. Rhetoric anti Semitism online. Sixty nine to
Speaker 1: eighty four percent of online anti semitism is anti Israel rhetoric.
Speaker 1: It's the demonization of Israel. It's the double standard, it's
Speaker 1: the delegitimization of Israel. It's all these when you when
Speaker 1: you switch, when you switch the world due to the world,
Speaker 1: the word Zionist, it's anti Semitism. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: kind of cloaked and masked. Definitely. Okay. In conclusion, I
Speaker 1: think everyone on both sides of all these issues should
Speaker 1: read your book. So why don't you sell your book
Speaker 1: to my audience a little bit? Tell them, tell what
Speaker 1: they're what they're eating for if they read it. Wow, um,
Speaker 1: such a great pret question. So yeah, it's a It's
Speaker 1: a book that tells the story of Israel and the
Speaker 1: Middle East in a way that's that's easy and fun
Speaker 1: and funny. It goes in depth, but not too deep.
Speaker 1: It tells the story of my family that was establishing,
Speaker 1: very involved in the establishment of the state of Israel.
Speaker 1: And it was endorsed by both Bill Maher if you're
Speaker 1: on the left, then Ben Shapiro if you're on the right,
Speaker 1: and Aaron Sorkin and Eric Weinstein and raycourts While and
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are thought leaders that I
Speaker 1: admire that we're very gracious in reading the book and saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: we like it. It's good. So maybe your audience would
Speaker 1: like it too well. I think everyone should. Wed You're right,
Speaker 1: it is lighted. As I tell people, it's not a
Speaker 1: hard weed in any event. No, I think we've come
Speaker 1: to the end of the feeling we've known. I want
Speaker 1: to thank you so much for speaking with my audience.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having us. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Till next time. This is Bob left Sex