Unlearning With Rabbi Lex Rofeberg

[SPEAKER_00]: You'd I told a lot of lies about a cheap man Is it because you when they got you to believe in I'm a finger held to the forehead and an hell show Trapped in a cup of all the sales Gave lits my back and have some talks about class And the mass across the disaster brought to ashes And not spank at the box It's a thousand natural shocks A bad with money podcast Hello and welcome to a thousand natural shocks A bad with money podcast I'm your host Gabe S. Dunn

[SPEAKER_02]: And with me today, we have a highly recommended guest. [SPEAKER_02]: Highly recommended. [SPEAKER_02]: Highly recommended by a prior guest. [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean? [SPEAKER_02]: So you're a grand guest, kind of. [SPEAKER_01]: I love it. [SPEAKER_01]: The prior guest being Eric, my brother-in-law. [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm. [SPEAKER_01]: Amazing. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Hello. [SPEAKER_01]: Great to meet you all.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell my audience who you are and what you do? [SPEAKER_01]: Sure. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm Lex. [SPEAKER_01]: I use he-him pronouns. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in Providence, Rhode Island. [SPEAKER_01]: I work for a digital Jewish organization called Judaism Unbound. [SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot of on-prefixes and all the things we do. [SPEAKER_01]: We have a Center for Jewish Learning and Unlearning that is called the Onyashiva.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yashiva being a Hebrew word for basically place that one might learn about Jewish stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: So we're in on Yashiva to get at how we do in fact learn about Jewish stuff, but maybe in some ways different from other Jewish contexts. [SPEAKER_01]: We have a podcast on our own called Judaism and bound and it's been going for 10 years now and I know we talk about the past person future Judaism from sort of a change oriented.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lens both on the religious change front. [SPEAKER_01]: We believe that Judaism is kind of ours to shape and ours to reshape So we're pretty excited and interested in being able to say what Judaism might be now and in the future as opposed to taking for granted That it must be whatever it is in the past [SPEAKER_01]: And also political change. [SPEAKER_01]: So we have oriented very much as being a progressive podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have our eye on ways in which not only would the content of religious Judaism change, but the ways that Jewish life has an influence on our world would also change. [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's going to come up in this conversation, I think. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, as I was saying before, so I grew up Jewish day school, summer camp, youth group, all of that. [SPEAKER_02]: And I've [SPEAKER_02]: really grappled with in the last five years, even more so in the last three years.

[SPEAKER_02]: The political Judaism mixing with religious Judaism in a way that I think has become really detrimental, especially in progressive spaces. [SPEAKER_02]: So post October 7th, me coming to terms with the ways in which Zionism was [SPEAKER_02]: connected to everything in Judaism in a way that it shouldn't have been. [SPEAKER_02]: And now I don't know if you guys have this feeling too. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure you do.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where now I'm sort of in these progressive spaces trying to untangle. [SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, the actions of Israel from the word Jewish. [SPEAKER_02]: Is that part of your unlearning? [SPEAKER_02]: Is that part of what unkind of has to do with it? [SPEAKER_01]: Totally. [SPEAKER_01]: I think for a lot of us, the unlearning journey that has potentially been among the most important ones for us. [SPEAKER_01]: Jewish Lee is unlearning around the nation state of Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: I say the nation's state of Israel because the word Israel has multiple different meanings in Jewish spaces and it's present in a lot of prayers. [SPEAKER_01]: It's very confusing to folks seeing it for the first time. [SPEAKER_01]: The word Israel is a word referring to a particular guy in the Torah, Jacob, who changes his name to Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: And then it's also a name for the people group that is descended from. [SPEAKER_01]: him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's very confusing when you talk about Israel even in many Jewish left contexts and people are like, wait, do you why are you like, why are you talking about Jews as if that's Israel? [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I mean, but the nation state Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's it's all over the place in pretty much [SPEAKER_01]: all of our Jewish institutions globally and in the United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I had a it sounds like a similar journey to you in a similar journey to many people. [SPEAKER_01]: It's it's one of those stories where you can bridge it for some folks because it's so common among I'm going to say millennial and Gen Z Jews. [SPEAKER_01]: But a lot of us, we grew up going to Jewish summer camp, maybe going to Sunday school, Jews also have Sunday school on Sundays usually, but not always.

[SPEAKER_01]: And spending time in Jewish youth group, and like all of those places, and I was also part of them. [SPEAKER_01]: The way that they co-heared their communities was largely around Jewish nationalism. [SPEAKER_01]: And I say Jewish nationalism to start, and not, I mean, Zionism is absolutely a form of Jewish nationalism and it played a very central role in all of the context I was part of growing up.

[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, you grew up in Florida, like we're in different geographies that still was the case for both of us. [SPEAKER_01]: And I even grew up for me in a reformed Jewish synagogue that self-identifies as liberal to progressive.

[SPEAKER_01]: on this issue we could have a long conversation about whether that's true or not, but even in communities that saw themselves very much as not conservative to see Israel as kind of my place, even though I have no family in any recent generations, anywhere that I can trace, [SPEAKER_01]: that have lived there. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the unlearning journey was was big because I spent time in spaces being told like this is the place that ensures your safety without it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're not safe. [SPEAKER_01]: I went to a summer camp where as a camper, lots of my counselors were themselves as railways. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is the minute summer camps around the world. [SPEAKER_01]: that they bring Israelis to be counselors so that you can sort of put a face to the people that are otherwise not directly known to you. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a conscious effort to make you feel a kind of connection and sympathy towards Israelis.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't bring faces of Palestinians to do, whether in the flesh or in programmatic ways. [SPEAKER_01]: Once I became a counselor, I remained at this camp and I was a counselor and even at the beginnings of my own unlearning journey, I tried in some of our programming to bring in Palestinian narratives, even though my camp was never gonna have Palestinian counselors.

[SPEAKER_01]: We did some small things but nothing super big and literally like I had IDF is like is really Defense Force IDF boot camp obstacle course. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so did we.

[SPEAKER_01]: There would be capture the flag games We're like the bad guys were Arab terrorists trying to tag you and you were like trying to not be tagged by that like [SPEAKER_01]: I can't over the climbing wall at my summer camp was literally painted to be in the shape of Israel and each little wrong that you went up on the climbing wall had a city of Israel that labeled it. [SPEAKER_01]: Some of the geography was not very good, by the way, like they didn't match where they actually were.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in big letters on the tallest thing in camp that you could see from anywhere in camp, it's said three words. [SPEAKER_01]: Israel is real, which like what is that even like it's so not deep. [SPEAKER_01]: There's really not a lot of material anything to the content of this Jewish nationalism. [SPEAKER_01]: It's just we want people to be revved up around this nation state. [SPEAKER_01]: We want them to feel an allegiance to it and affinity towards it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we want to build communities where everybody in that community has that and shares that. [SPEAKER_01]: as one of their prime shared characteristics. [SPEAKER_01]: That was actually emphasized to me as much as the content of Jewish values, Jewish prayers, Jewish texts. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not that those things were irrelevant or non-existent, but they were equal and sometimes less of a subject than support for Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: So it took a while to get out of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: You and I had the same childhood, I think, yeah, it's interesting because there was a break mentally for me. [SPEAKER_02]: I have pictures in high school. [SPEAKER_02]: I was extremely progressive. [SPEAKER_02]: I protested the Iraq war. [SPEAKER_02]: I was very as far, I didn't really know that much, but as far as I knew, I was very supportive of democratic candidates before I could even vote. [SPEAKER_02]: I would have posters in school and stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: I was extremely.

[SPEAKER_02]: anti-military anti, like all this kind of stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: And then in those same instances, I'm wearing shirts and hats for the idea. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like kind of this wild blind spot where it was acceptable to me or had been beaten into my brain that will the Palestinians are different and the Israel has to defend itself and all this stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: But then meanwhile, when it came to the American military and Iraq, [SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was similar. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're just bonding in the ways like I don't. [SPEAKER_01]: I want to both emphasize that this is a bonding that many Progressive or leftist Jews have with one another and I do want to shout for those out there who are Jewish and had different childhoods that like it's not everybody

[SPEAKER_01]: there are people who grow up either not super connected to Jewish institutions at all or connected to families that might be more proactively secularist or part of like yiddishist communities that have that have had more questions historically about the state of Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: But that put in the side. [SPEAKER_01]: In my high school, we had like a mock election thing in 2008, so everybody can figure out my age. [SPEAKER_01]: And I played Dennis Kusinich.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to play the Democratic candidate of pretty much all of them that year that was actually positioning farthest left. [SPEAKER_01]: And within a few weeks of that, [SPEAKER_01]: I went to a school where I was one of the only Jews. [SPEAKER_01]: It was not a Jewish day school. [SPEAKER_01]: The history teacher at my school asked me, like, would you be comfortable giving a little talk at assembly about your connection to Israel? [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: And I, and I, like, truly, I was like out there. [SPEAKER_01]: And Kusinich also was pretty against the Iraq War. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's, there's many ways in which my politics should have steered me elsewhere. [SPEAKER_01]: But the ways in which my communities were, it wasn't even a question to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: wasn't even a question about as complicated like Jews have been victims and unsafe the way we became not that is by creating a homeland with an army and powers that we can go to from anywhere in the world and that others can't I mean like the right of return I can become a citizen you can become a citizen Jews around the world can become a citizen very easily and others can't. [SPEAKER_01]: And that wasn't complicated to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't complicated to most of the communities I was part of, but as I grew into high school and college and beyond, all of a sudden, some contradictions arose. [SPEAKER_01]: And for me, I never felt like I never felt uncomfortable with Judaism. [SPEAKER_01]: Like I never felt like, oh, this religious group, this civilization, this cultural group I'm part of, is primarily doing wrong in the world. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't actually don't think that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think Israel is a manifestation of what Judaism is. [SPEAKER_02]: It's the opposite, it's a complete opposite. [SPEAKER_02]: When you talked about the values not matching, the actual state of Israel and how you are taught these values and then they don't actually match, but you're taught them as if they're both equally as important and they somehow go together is maddening.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I like to remind folks that there are multiple instances in the Torah where it says basically it's Hebrew. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm translating and I'm it's not exact matches to English. [SPEAKER_01]: But basically people who are born as Israelites. [SPEAKER_01]: So here it's Israelites. [SPEAKER_01]: That's the group and that's confusing too.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like the group Israelites, they're not yet in Israel because none of the Torah takes place in Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: It's all in it's [SPEAKER_01]: Well, very little of the Torah, I should say takes place in Israel, almost all of it is wandering in the wilderness towards Israel and that it ends before you get there. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it says multiple times, treat those who are native born Israelites, like those who are familiarly bound to this group and newcomers. [SPEAKER_01]: The Hebrew word is gay, Toshah, a gay, like a stranger. [SPEAKER_01]: You should have one law for both native born Israelites and those who are not that are part of your society.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: To me, I look at that and it's like, transparently, there is a state calling itself Jewish that has one law, one status for Jews around the world, not even its own citizens, but it's own sort of potential citizens, quote unquote, where we could become citizens in order to maintain a Jewish majority in that place, and we have a different status for everybody else, which is you can't.

[SPEAKER_01]: To me, there are other things from the Torah that are absolutely heinous and terrible that people who are Zionists, point at and say, look, look, look, look, look. [SPEAKER_01]: We have an ancient text that says we should be violent with folks who are not us. [SPEAKER_01]: That's there too, so I can't say it's like fully baseless. [SPEAKER_01]: I just think we should be discerning human beings. [SPEAKER_01]: Look at our sacred texts and say, this fits our time and this doesn't.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's hard also. [SPEAKER_02]: being taught history in a way that portrayed. [SPEAKER_02]: Because even now, I still can be susceptible to like, well, what are we supposed to do? [SPEAKER_02]: We're supposed to just let them. [SPEAKER_02]: We're supposed to just let Hamas and all of these Islamic countries around. [SPEAKER_02]: We're just supposed to let them attack.

[SPEAKER_02]: a small little country and it's like, well, I think the framing of it as a small little country is disingenuous because that's the contradiction. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's just a small little country. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, but Israel is the best military in the world. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just this contradiction. [SPEAKER_02]: It's so hard. [SPEAKER_02]: It's so hard for me. [SPEAKER_02]: Why do you think people bend themselves into knots to justify what's happening right now?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because I have tried to talk to friends of mine who are not Jewish about what is going on in Zionism. [SPEAKER_02]: And I've watched it from, I have a burner account on Instagram where I watch these Zionist accounts. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a Darvo, like the narcissist, where it's like, it's not happening. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, if it is happening, they deserve it. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, if they deserve it, it's like, you know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think on some level, I want to speak for you, but I think I was in it. [SPEAKER_01]: I was in that, I don't want to say in that logic, because I don't think it's logic based, but I was in that form of sort of pre-concluded reasoning. [SPEAKER_01]: You're not asking questions. [SPEAKER_01]: with an open sense of what's my conclusion going to be?

[SPEAKER_01]: You're starting from no matter what, my conclusion is going to be that Israel is a positive actor in the world and providing safety and security as opposed to doing harm and inflicting oppression. [SPEAKER_01]: You start with that as a given. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, in math class and high school, you have like, given that the beginning of the proof or whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: Then whatever happens, you're actually fitting it into that presumption.

[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes you've got to work pretty hard. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: But as long as it doesn't break, you can play that game you described of. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, to start, no, no, no, they're not actually doing this. [SPEAKER_01]: There's no ethnic cleansing like that. [SPEAKER_01]: And then well, if there is here's why and here's why it's dessert. [SPEAKER_01]: And then well, if they like you, you can keep shifting the goal posts.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if they don't deserve it, it's because Hamas is hiding among them. [SPEAKER_01]: Something like that. [SPEAKER_02]: Just keeps going. [SPEAKER_01]: At a certain point, I think most people who don't already have that pre-decided logic operating their head. [SPEAKER_01]: They look and they say there are thousands upon thousands of dead children. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, Lex, they're going to grow up to be terrorists. [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the second you start to say that for me, when you're forced into a logic like that, that's where it breaks like that. [SPEAKER_01]: There's just no there's not any conclusion. [SPEAKER_01]: where infants, where young children are being regularly killed, where you can say either that they're collateral damage, which sometimes said, or like you just did, that they're, well, they're not a problem yet, but they're going to be in the future. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's preemptively good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's, there's no morals where that squares. [SPEAKER_01]: And so you have to back out and say, well, is this, is this just like a weird situation where this is option one?

[SPEAKER_01]: is this a situation where Israel, a nation state that is a good project primarily, is just like really going the straight, or is this a situation where actually the structure of this society, the very basis upon which it has been built, has always been likely to lead to this, and indeed might have even had people in designists in the early 20th century.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even some cultural Zionists, there were certain kinds of Zionists arguing against a nation state and arguing [SPEAKER_01]: Or might it be that the structural basis of this holiday was always likely to lead to this. [SPEAKER_01]: And so therefore we have to upend that structure. [SPEAKER_01]: And for me, I eventually landed on that second option. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that it's just about like, oh, we have a bad prime minister and I'm saying we like the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying that's like, there's a bad prime minister. [SPEAKER_01]: if we get a new prime minister, things are fine. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that. [SPEAKER_01]: I think there is no contemporary option of leadership in Israel that could overcome the structural inequities of that society, the ways in which in the West Bank there is a basic differentiation between the rights of human beings based on what ethnic group they're part of.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're Jewish and your family [SPEAKER_01]: lives in the West Bank and you're born, you can easily achieve citizenship immediately. [SPEAKER_01]: And with the increase of settlers, there's a lot of, there's a lot of choose in the West Bank. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're Palestinian, the next mile over and you're born, you can't.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's whether we call it apartheid, whatever language you want to call it, and I am comfortable with apartheid, it's, it's, on just. [SPEAKER_02]: But when people say, oh, oh, but, you know, any country has borders and any country has, [SPEAKER_02]: from anywhere is only given to one group. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not about borders or any country has the right to blah blah blah.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a fundamental difference, not based on anything other than ethnicity. [SPEAKER_02]: That's the problem. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and by the way, you, you asked before like, why how do people do this logic I think it's just fear based I I don't think it's I don't mean to distill a lot of issues to like, oh there's an obvious answer it's not just this easy, but I think it's fear based. [SPEAKER_01]: There is a psychological function that having an easy refuge for safety serves.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like being able to think in your mind, ah, I'm a person in the world living in uncertain life. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what direction my life's going to go. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know whether the government, and look, we understand this right now given the U.S. is myriad problems. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: We don't know with certainty anything about how we're going to fair in the future.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, oh, we can set up a nation state for our group, and that's where we go in case of anything bad happening. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like the emergency exit with the instructions in the booklet on the airplane. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I would argue the existence of a Jewish nation state whose purpose is to be a refuge for Jews globally. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not the first to argue this.

[SPEAKER_01]: There have been anti-signists for a long time, including before the state of Israel who have argued this. [SPEAKER_01]: I think the existence of Israel actually provides a way for the rest of the world to say, oh, we don't have to ensure the safety of Jews in our country. [SPEAKER_01]: Don't tell them to say, oh, like my job isn't to make sure Jews in the United States are safe. [SPEAKER_01]: My job is to make sure that they still have Israel to go to, in case we suck for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's a terrible thing. [SPEAKER_01]: That is not reasonable. [SPEAKER_01]: And also, by the way, I just read a wonderful book by Lathakhor when Berman called Who Is American. [SPEAKER_01]: And the fact of Israel being available as a potential place for Jews to become citizens, it shines a light on American Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: Already that group is seen as like disloyal potentially there's all these tropes historically and it makes the idea that Jews would be not actually loyalty to the United States even bigger It amplifies it because you can say oh well, they're literally already potential citizens of this other country So they buy definition aren't as fully loyal to our place. [SPEAKER_01]: So we're gonna [SPEAKER_01]: care less about on the others in our society.

[SPEAKER_01]: And out is that what happens all the time? [SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm thank God for from my perspective. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not, but more and more you have people on the Christian right that are saying stuff like that. [SPEAKER_01]: And what am I supposed to respond like on some level? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this place says that it's for all of the world's Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that means that the rest of nation states in whatever continent they are can turn their heads to the side and say, oh, it's not my responsibility. [SPEAKER_01]: It's that it's that state over there. [SPEAKER_02]: Yep. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the Christian right wants us all there so that the rapture can happen. [SPEAKER_02]: That's the other thing. [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, I agree with you because and I've I've written about this and I'm also not the first person to say this, but the idea that donating to a pack. [SPEAKER_02]: is going to keep us safe. [SPEAKER_02]: And okay, now the Jewish issue is taking care of. [SPEAKER_02]: We've shown you that we care about you go go go for it. [SPEAKER_02]: But I've been ringing the bell on NSPM7, which is an executive order that dictates who is domestic terrorist to the Trump put out in 2025.

[SPEAKER_02]: And part of that is it says anti-Christianity can be deemed domestic terrorism, right? [SPEAKER_02]: My big issue with the Jewish community and the Zionist community that I've been talking about a lot is you're worried about potential threats from propousing organizers and leftists and whatever against Jews. [SPEAKER_02]: which leads you to be more right-wing or to support Trump in some ways, but you're already on the chopping block here as a potential domestic terrorist.

[SPEAKER_02]: So these cries of anti-Semitism, like mom Donnie's anti-Semitic, and these commitments are anti-Semitic. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, do you not even see that there is a literal on the books anti-Semitic thing? [SPEAKER_02]: coming from this administration. [SPEAKER_02]: And so as long as they support Israel, you're fine. [SPEAKER_02]: But you don't realize that you're a Jew in the U.S. Also to be like, well, Israel's our only Jewish issue. [SPEAKER_02]: Jews are still people.

[SPEAKER_02]: We need healthcare. [SPEAKER_02]: We need, we need safe streets. [SPEAKER_02]: We need, we need the ability to have transportation infrastructure. [SPEAKER_02]: All of these things that separates a well, Israel's safe, so Jews are safe in the U.S. You're still a human being. [SPEAKER_02]: You still need these progressive and social safety nets. [SPEAKER_01]: I think what you're getting at there, if I'm understanding you right, is for decades.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's starting to change. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, we should say in these conversations, pro-Palestine sentiment is winning right now. [SPEAKER_01]: I think on the left, we have a tendency to breeze right past the ways in which we're actually doing okay. [SPEAKER_02]: a ton of change. [SPEAKER_01]: We have in the past few years, especially, but really over the past decades, shifted the overton window on Palestine in the United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the Wii is a very broad Wii. [SPEAKER_01]: It's Palestinian Americans and Palestinians themselves to start. [SPEAKER_01]: It's Muslim organizations. [SPEAKER_01]: It's Jewish organizations. [SPEAKER_01]: It's Christian, it's organizations that are not like the Christian, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's secular, like we're doing [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and you're right to say that historically the last few decades really the last half century.

[SPEAKER_01]: If a politician is talking to a room full of Jews from whatever Jewish institution, what they think that room full of people wants them to say and care about is support for Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: If they talked to their campaign staffers the day before or the hour before they went and did their talk, if they strategized around their relationship with the local Jewish Federation or the local synagogues or whatever it might be, what they think that support of their own candidacy stands on with Jews often has been whether they are supportive of Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: And what's funny is they've actually been wrong about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've been wrong about that even decades ago. [SPEAKER_01]: That's basically never been true. [SPEAKER_01]: There have been surveys of what American Jews vote based on in elections. [SPEAKER_01]: And Israel never is one of the top couple issues. [SPEAKER_02]: That's crazy. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it's never, like, when you look at all American Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when you look at people that are part of, that are the leadership of Jewish federations or other kinds of collective Jewish organizations, [SPEAKER_01]: They're walking around saying that they represent their cities or their regions or their nations Jews, but they don't.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's a disconnect between the majority now of American Jews who express real sympathy for Palestinians and institutions that are walking around saying they're for American Jews that are not saying that. [SPEAKER_01]: These are not elected people.

[SPEAKER_01]: the anti-deformation league or the American Jewish committee or the Jewish federations or like none of those are elected by the way, I'm not saying APEC because APEC funny enough has not identified as a Jewish organization for over a decade. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important to remind people that like they are not a Jewish identifying organization, they remain members of something called the Conference of Presidents of Jewish Organizations.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you ask them about that, they say something to the effect of, it's sort of a testament to our history, and there have been earlier moments in our work where we thought of ourselves as a Jewish artist, they give you whatever nonsense. [SPEAKER_01]: But their organization for the last multiple decades has mostly been working on building their constituency among non-Jews, because turns out, Jews have been moving away from APAD.

[SPEAKER_01]: certainly Jews on the left, but even Jews in the center now. [SPEAKER_01]: And they have realized that if they're going to have any success, they need to have bigger constituencies and they've they've done that. [SPEAKER_01]: They've they've gotten a lot of Christian support. [SPEAKER_01]: They have built arms of the organization on that. [SPEAKER_01]: They've become less bipartisan.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've become more embroiled in the Republican Party than historically they were trying to be fully bipartisan. [SPEAKER_01]: But there's these organizations that are not representative of Jews either because they're not Jewish organizations and don't say they [SPEAKER_01]: or they say they are, but your local Jewish Federation is not going around and asking, hey, everybody, what's your thoughts?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, let's get a straw poll because we're supposed to represent you and so we won't know. [SPEAKER_01]: They're not doing that. [SPEAKER_01]: They're their fundamental purpose above any other issue is to ensure dollars keep going to Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: And sure, they also do local program. [SPEAKER_01]: They also do some other things, but that is for sure what a lot of their donations rest on. [SPEAKER_01]: And so they emphasize it and it ain't great.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not great for Palestinians, it's not great for the world. [SPEAKER_01]: It's also not great for the healthy functioning of Jewish life because we have a massive percentage of our collective dollars going to an issue that most of us don't want it to. [SPEAKER_02]: It's very interesting to as someone who grew up learning Torah, having to learn the Torah over and over again every year of school.

[SPEAKER_02]: The disconnect between myself and Zionist that I come across is kind of strange because I will know more about Jewish life and history than oftentimes they do. [SPEAKER_02]: anti-zionist when their genos Jews in name only and I will say to them I've gotten an arguments, this is like me being an an asshole maybe, but I've gotten into arguments in my comments on Instagram [SPEAKER_02]: Well, someone will be fighting so hard for Israel and I am fluent in Hebrew.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I will then respond in Hebrew to them. [SPEAKER_02]: And then they're like, I don't know what that says. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, okay, then how tied are you to this country, really? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So the thing about you being an asshole, like I both love that and I do think there's an, and not saying like, you've sinned in like, on your own territory. [SPEAKER_01]: But I want to start by saying, in general, [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the ways in which Jews point at each other and say you're not authentic. [SPEAKER_01]: You're not anchored in our tradition. [SPEAKER_01]: You're doing whatever you're doing in the world and then you're like backdoring the Judaism to make it fit your idea. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, people do this a lot. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I've been the target of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you have like people on the left are certainly the targets of that a lot often on this is you specifically. [SPEAKER_01]: But I also don't think we should be doing that towards people who are Zionists. [SPEAKER_01]: Like I think that the ways we should criticize them are that they're wrong. [SPEAKER_01]: And that what they support is doing daily. [SPEAKER_01]: It's that what they do is a daily nightmare and a moral catastrophe for Palestinians in the West Bank.

[SPEAKER_01]: in Gaza. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a nightmare for those who are still alive in Gaza and it's killed them for those who aren't. [SPEAKER_01]: I both love that you said that and I will say given that I've sort of pushed back a little bit that there's a logic to this that historically there's a reason why a lot of Jews who are not super connected to text and holidays and traditions have really buckled into support for Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: people love being Jewish people want to be connected to Judaism and if there is an easy pathway to do so that involves waving a flag and sending money to plant a tree in Israel or whatever, like that's kind of nice. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, I can be a committed Jew through a very small number of actual tasks. [SPEAKER_01]: and just through a general aesthetic of Ra Ra go Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: That serves a function of oh, this is a way for me to be Jewish that doesn't require me to be super into prayer or into holidays. [SPEAKER_01]: Some of these people have, there's a middle girl. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't want to suggest that that's everybody.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there are [SPEAKER_01]: Jews who are, there are Jewish scientists who absolutely can understand Hebrew, and absolutely are familiar with the flow of holidays, etc. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that the ways they interpret some of those are not certainly not how I do.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the movie Israelism talks about this, which I'm connected to the folks who may that and on the board of it, they point to the ways in which for an entire generation or couple generations of Jews, Israel was this proud, [SPEAKER_01]: The rest of the world was pointing at Jews and saying they're weaklings. [SPEAKER_01]: They're a feminist. [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, we can get into the gender politics of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not bad to be a feminist, but like people felt the lot of men felt that's not so good. [SPEAKER_01]: And this was a way to be like, oh, Judaism is strong. [SPEAKER_01]: Judaism is muscular. [SPEAKER_01]: We got burly people on kabutsis on agricultural farms, setting up an entire society. [SPEAKER_01]: We got people going to wars. [SPEAKER_01]: It's all a pathway to rebranding what Judaism is from week to strong.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, for people that aren't drawn to theology, that aren't drawn to the flow of holidays in the Torah, et cetera, this is a good way for them to still connect to Judaism. [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of organizations were like, oh, a lot of people are distancing from God and from how it is, whatever, maybe we should throw Israel at them, because that's a way that they'll still connect to Jewish stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're worried about whether Jews are gonna keep having babies and like exist in the world. [SPEAKER_01]: It all intertwines with what is talked about as Jewish continuity. [SPEAKER_01]: So we gotta get them on the easy path to loving Judaism. [SPEAKER_01]: Israel support. [SPEAKER_01]: Great. [SPEAKER_01]: Planetary on Tubish fat, a certain annual holiday in Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: Have a little bit of support to the box where you put money and to support Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in a passive, not super hard way. [SPEAKER_01]: You're checking the boxes of being Jewish. [SPEAKER_01]: I think Judaism should call on people for more than that. [SPEAKER_02]: My argument is, I see what you're saying. [SPEAKER_02]: My argument is, why are you so connected to this place? [SPEAKER_02]: And you don't even take the time to learn anything about it. [SPEAKER_02]: Or learn the language. [SPEAKER_02]: I've gotten in arguments with Zionists.

[SPEAKER_02]: They don't know where each city is. [SPEAKER_02]: They'll be like, oh, I got out into fight with one guy and he was like, well, Israel's mostly mountains. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, that's not true. [SPEAKER_02]: Not to say that you need that as you were saying. [SPEAKER_02]: I've been there three times. [SPEAKER_02]: So then I get into arguments with Zionists who I've never even been there. [SPEAKER_02]: This is so important to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is the number one issue for you as a Jew. [SPEAKER_02]: You don't think maybe you should learn some I even even not even go but look at a map. [SPEAKER_01]: I hear you. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a Jewish educator and I devote my life to trying to get people more revved up about Jewish learning in every respect. [SPEAKER_01]: And so part of that absolutely includes learning about a land. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not referring to just the staves.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm referring to the land in which lots of things in the Bible happened. [SPEAKER_01]: Like I want people to have more of a fluency with what that land is today. [SPEAKER_01]: What it has been historically. [SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of things would be better.

[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think that once the more learning you do, the more you learn about Palestinians, the more likely you are to come to conclusions, especially if you're already a progressive person that are good for the world. [SPEAKER_01]: And I really can't, I can't co-sign the act you're doing of like, [SPEAKER_01]: Well, can you read the book?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, like, my work is so much about noticing the ways in which Jews have systematically been kept from becoming literate in our Jewish traditions. [SPEAKER_02]: That's true. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's happened across the spectrum.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's happened to Jewish and design is that happened to Jewish sign is that happened to Jewish centrists, it's happened to [SPEAKER_01]: All sorts of people, and I don't think that the tack that we should take as we work in solidarity with Palestinians is to say that Zionists are Jewish leader it. [SPEAKER_01]: I think some of them are, I think some of them are really literate, and they just have horrifically offensive takes.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's people who know their text and know Hebrew, who will say, hey, it says in the book of numbers, [SPEAKER_01]: Moses says to a bunch of Israelites go to war with the Midianites, which by the way, Moses has married to a Midianite. [SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say he says go to war with the Midianites and then they do and they come back and he says, what's the deal, guys? [SPEAKER_01]: You didn't kill enough women and children. [SPEAKER_01]: This is in the Torah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a rabbi. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm interested in relating to this text and seeing it as sacred and that is immoral. [SPEAKER_01]: There is no defense of that. [SPEAKER_01]: If I'm going to be a person operating in Jewish life, I need to be able to look at that and say, that's terrible and there are people using it and texts like it today to refract their Jewish decision making in the world. [SPEAKER_01]: And I wish I could say they're being on Jewish in doing so.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yeah, they're not. [SPEAKER_01]: There are the people you're describing that [SPEAKER_01]: and there's people who, whether it's that text or others, they're like, look, the Torah says basically our neighbors are not our friends and we need to go to war with them. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, other sections of the Torah, they love the Midianites. [SPEAKER_01]: Moses gets married to one. [SPEAKER_01]: It says that he's friendly with them in the desert.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the beginning of the Exodus narrative. [SPEAKER_01]: He becomes friends with these seven Midianite women who he shields from wandering aggressive. [SPEAKER_01]: people in the desert, men. [SPEAKER_01]: And then, Jeff Rowe, the high priest, is like, yo, I really like you Moses. [SPEAKER_01]: Jeff Rowe, the Midian High Priest, is like you should marry one of these seven daughters.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's many stories of harmony where getting along with non-Israelites in the Torah or non-Jews today is absolutely what a tradition says. [SPEAKER_01]: Fascists on the right, like other texts.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I guess in a way, it lets them off the hook, but I think I just feel frustrated because yeah, I mean, I think the propaganda that you mentioned, so bringing Israelis as counselors, to camp, having us do IDF trainings, as games, a lot of the, the ways in which when I went for birthright, the huge concert that they throw at the beginning of birthright, [SPEAKER_02]: supporting Israel, everyone's there, cheering and chanting.

[SPEAKER_02]: I even, you know, you were talking about ways to feel connected. [SPEAKER_01]: The existence of birthright on its own, even forget it. [SPEAKER_01]: I know the concert you're talking about, but like the fact that the biggest collective Jewish investment by dollars of all time.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we could make a list of like, maybe the first temple, the second temple, 2,500, like 20 miles a year ago, like there are very few things that we have invested as many collective dollars into. [SPEAKER_01]: verses birthright which we decided to make this core project to get a bunch of people all around the world to spend 10 days in Israel primarily for two purposes one to meet other Jews and have the potential of having children with them.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's also kind of a a sli anti-intermarriage maneuver and it's about getting them to have a great time in Israel associate Israel with partying and fun and goodness and the soldiers they meet that come on their bus and not with oppression.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everything was so baked in that it doesn't let you think critically about how much you know about this place or get your information from anywhere else You might think you know a lot and you're only reading there was nothing in the desert and then the Jews showed up and made the desert bloom and there were no people there and [SPEAKER_02]: the, you know, every, every, all the countries attacked us and we survived. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a very biblical narrative.

[SPEAKER_02]: So there's no, it's, you're right. [SPEAKER_02]: There's no encouragement to look up anything or read anything differently. [SPEAKER_02]: Or a big part of, of studying Judaism is questioning. [SPEAKER_02]: Is saying multiple interpretations, questioning did this really happen? [SPEAKER_02]: Is this exactly what they mean?

[SPEAKER_02]: was it actually seven days of creation or our days measured differently in those, you know, it is a day, a hundred years in the Bible, like all of this stuff and then on this one issue, it's like, don't learn anything. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and people buy in large pickup on that inconsistency. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, this is why, again, we're moving in the positive direction when you pull them American Jews already are excited to say they're in solidarity with Palestinians.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, and that's even more true for younger Jews than older Jews. [SPEAKER_01]: It's also happening among older Jews, by the way. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like when we talk about, oh, all the old Jews are pro-Israel and all the young. [SPEAKER_01]: No, they're not. [SPEAKER_01]: There's actually a lot of boomers who themselves have moved in a very positive direction and we shouldn't be ages to about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: What to be hopeful for within American Jewish opinion as well? [SPEAKER_01]: And those organizations that are invested in [SPEAKER_01]: what I've heard it called ad vocation. [SPEAKER_01]: They're combining the words advocacy and education. [SPEAKER_01]: There's workshops and trainings around how do you do Israel ad vocation? [SPEAKER_01]: How do you blend Israel ad vocation and Israel education into one whole beast? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think good education is advocacy.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't. [SPEAKER_01]: Even on issues, I am a strong advocate for. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think the way to go about them is to teach emotion. [SPEAKER_01]: Jewish institutions, and they'll tell you this. [SPEAKER_01]: Like some of them will say, no, we want to teach emotion. [SPEAKER_01]: Like we want people to be taught. [SPEAKER_01]: They'll talk about Ahavas, Ahavas Israel, or Ahavat Israel, which is like love of Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, that's a complicated term, because in Hebrew, that means both [SPEAKER_01]: love of the place the state is real and it also means love of Jewish people descended from that guy named Israel so like this love of other Jews and they conflate those on purpose because it's not cool to say I oppose love of my fellow Jews right and so if you have to say that in order to say I oppose love of the state of Israel that's a complicated thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: but they absolutely teach through emotion and I'm an emotional guy. [SPEAKER_01]: Anybody listening to this kid tell that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't hold back much and I think the best, most passionate forms of Jewish advocacy on any issue emerge from a starting place of just learning basic factual information and you're right that whether certain people do or don't know where the cities are in Israel it is less important to a lot of Jewish educators [SPEAKER_01]: that their students know where a lot and where a hypha are, then that they love a lot in hypha. [SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it is more and by the way, a lot's in the very south tip of Israel, hypha, North, like there's less, like if you told them, you have to pick between people who can talk you through in a deep way, the structure of Israeli society, the geography, the demography, but they don't say that they love that nation state. [SPEAKER_01]: That's option one. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Option two is they adore the nation state Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: They give money to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: They encourage other people to support it But they don't know a ton about it too many people would pick the first one. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that's good education for getting the political influence of that choice. [SPEAKER_01]: Like I think that is a universe where people are less likely to learn much. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: I would prefer our institutions have less about flag waving and less about like [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: All the emotionally-laden activities that you might find in Sunday School, starting off each week with Hatikva, the Israeli National Anthem. [SPEAKER_01]: Not so into it. [SPEAKER_01]: I think we should do more of the work that is about the basic information. [SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of times things that I find normal, like, oh yeah, you start with the Israeli National Anthem. [SPEAKER_02]: People are like, what?

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how do you see this all having contributed to anti-Semitism? [SPEAKER_02]: things where someone was like, I heard every Jewish member of Congress has an Israeli passport. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, that's not true. [SPEAKER_02]: But it's getting really conflated and I had to work through going into progressive spaces. [SPEAKER_02]: I have to sometimes swallow my pride and work through explaining what you mean as Zionists. [SPEAKER_02]: You don't mean Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: The starting point of that answer is anti-Semitism right now, globally, and in the United States, is a massive problem. [SPEAKER_01]: It has been for a long, I mean, I don't know what to give the strategy. [SPEAKER_01]: Really, like we shouldn't talk about all anti-Semitism. [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of one.

[SPEAKER_01]: one trans historical thread, it manifests differently in different places, but like anti-Semitism's a big problem, and the last few years specifically, anti-Semitism has gotten way worse. [SPEAKER_01]: It is irresponsible for us to say that it has only gotten worse among those on the far right.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the primary place that [SPEAKER_01]: that anti anti-Semitism organization should be putting their efforts is on the far right because I believe the most transparently blatantly hateful and the most aggressive ready to go actors who are targeting Jews for harm are much more frequently on the far right. [SPEAKER_01]: I think there are structural systematic elements of far right thinking of fascist thinking that are built on anti-Semitism historically.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have time to go into all of that, but yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I do think that anti-andesemitism or auditions should be squarely focused there. [SPEAKER_01]: And the left has this problem. [SPEAKER_01]: Like we absolutely have people who are not distinguishing between harm done by Israel and harm done by Jews. [SPEAKER_01]: Now I will say, Israel calls itself a Jewish state. [SPEAKER_01]: Israel is the state of Israel has a Jewish majority of citizens.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now there are lots of non-citizens under its control that are not given the ability to be citizens. [SPEAKER_01]: So we can't say it's it's totally a separate thing like it's it's disingenuous of us to say that talking about is real is not talking about a part of Contemporary Judaism it is and we have to own that is Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why a lot of Jews feel like we're connected to this issue, but [SPEAKER_01]: The primary reason that any American Jew is, I don't know, complicit or connected to the actions of Israel is that we're in American taxpayer and that we're, and that our dollars, forgetting our Jewishness.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're like, that's true of Christians, that's true of Muslims, that's true of secular people, by being an American, [SPEAKER_01]: and having our government consistently send weapons and dollars to Israel, that is more directly what we are doing to cause harm to Palestinians than anything that happens by virtue of being Jewish.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, yes, there are Jewish organizations that also send those dollars that also are part of advocating for those weapons, but like I don't vote in elections for my Jewish Federation. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm connected to people in those organizations, but like so we got to be noticing when on the left shitty stuff is happening and I will say like specifically a recent trend.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean the right the far right included has started to have an awful lot of anti Zionists [SPEAKER_01]: who on this issue actually appear to not be so disaligned with the left. [SPEAKER_01]: When you actually look at what they say closely though, it's pretty dangerous for us to be sharing around what Marjorie Taylor Green or whatever says about it. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, Marjorie Taylor Green is saying a lot of stuff about how Palestinians are being mistreated.

[SPEAKER_01]: Leftists should not be sharing anything she says. [SPEAKER_01]: Even if it's a tweet that is on point in some respect, like she is not a, like this is somebody who is transparently blatantly anti-Semitic and the reasons for her Palestine support are absolutely embroiled in an outlook that includes hatred of Jews.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have to be discerning, we have to be able, and on the left, because that's the case, I'm seeing more and more people without realizing it, starting to use language that comes from some of those right-wing anti-zionists, and it becomes very confusing whether it's left, whether it's right, like what the deal is. [SPEAKER_01]: we can't do that because then the things people have said for decades about all the left is all antisemitic.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't distinguish between when they say Zionists, they really mean Jews. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, that hasn't been true. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm worried it's becoming true. [SPEAKER_01]: So we can't let it. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, or Candice Owens. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Mossad killed Charlie Kirk. [SPEAKER_02]: Now it's now you're making that Jews. [SPEAKER_02]: Now you're, yeah, it's, there's so much more I could talk about.

[SPEAKER_02]: What's like something that you [SPEAKER_02]: people with. [SPEAKER_02]: It's so hard for me to try to get Jewish people to to understand and also I will say like going into these spaces. [SPEAKER_02]: Do I have to correct people? [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, but do do the black people there have to correct me. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, like the black non Jews there have to correct me. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like I think.

[SPEAKER_02]: fear keeps us from solidarity, the nationalism keeps us from solidarity. [SPEAKER_02]: So what do you hope someone listening to this? [SPEAKER_02]: What do you want to leave them with? [SPEAKER_01]: What I'd leave them with, I don't know who's listening, hello listeners. [SPEAKER_01]: Some of you I presume are Jewish. [SPEAKER_01]: My guess is your minority of the listeners of this podcast, but maybe because this is the subject, there's a higher percentage than normal.

[SPEAKER_02]: I talk about being Jewish a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: I think there are a lot of Jewish people who listen to us. [SPEAKER_02]: To this, I think, over time, the Zionists who listen to this are mad. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that makes sense. [SPEAKER_01]: But like, hello, nice to meet you. [SPEAKER_01]: Send me an email at lexatjudismunbound.com if you have any fobs. [SPEAKER_01]: I think there's really great things happening in American Jewish life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's important for American Jews, especially American Jews who are progressive to know. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's important for American non-Jews to know. [SPEAKER_01]: I think because we on the Jewish left on the broader left talks so much about the ways in which many Jewish institutions, not representative of Jewish institutions, but like many Jewish institutions are absolutely spending all of their time rallying support for Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like people hear that and they don't know that there's a huge and growing by the day movement. [SPEAKER_01]: of whether we call it Jewish progressives, Jews on the left, et cetera. [SPEAKER_01]: Where I learned about a new Khabara, I learned about a new like small Jewish prayer group popping up in some city, some community, like every week. [SPEAKER_02]: There's stuff that's so lovely about Judaism that just doesn't get talked about.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and a lot of these communities, a lot of what's happening is people specifically building from a place of solidarity with Palestinians who are participating and helping plan for a Palestine solidarity actions. [SPEAKER_01]: There's, [SPEAKER_01]: huge movement happening. [SPEAKER_01]: And we need to stop calling that alternative Judaism or like the Jewish left. [SPEAKER_01]: I even just did that. [SPEAKER_01]: And start saying that's that's American Judaism today.

[SPEAKER_01]: The ADL, the Jewish Federation, they have convinced people that when they talk it is Judaism talking. [SPEAKER_01]: Judaism isn't a being. [SPEAKER_01]: Judaism doesn't say anything. [SPEAKER_01]: So if anybody ever says to you, our Judaism says X was, it doesn't. [SPEAKER_01]: If an organization is walking around implying or explicitly stating, they usually imply. [SPEAKER_01]: But sometimes they explicitly say that they are speaking for Judaism, for American Jews, they are not.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have to understand that when we do good stuff, when we're doing, when there's new communities popping up that are doing solidarity work all the time, [SPEAKER_01]: new takes on how to observe how it is and how to embrace text that inform Palestine Solidarity work and that come from it. [SPEAKER_01]: We need to notice. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, do I think that that's immediately changing things on the ground for Palestinians? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't.

[SPEAKER_01]: I struggle to have any hope at all about the future of Israel, Palestine. [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, that includes my concerns about Jews in Israel who are not living in a place that is safe for them. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not actually providing safety and security that it claims to. [SPEAKER_01]: That is a place where more Jews are targeted by violence than other places, it's not a safe refuge.

[SPEAKER_01]: But by primary concern is people in Gaza whose entire lives have been destroyed, whose homes have been destroyed, whose lives in many cases are ended. [SPEAKER_01]: And folks in the West Bank, who are similar and the small and the group of Palestinians who are citizens of Israel, who are second-class citizens. [SPEAKER_01]: That's not going to change necessarily by more hover odds existing in the U.S. and it matters.

[SPEAKER_01]: It matters that we are building a new sense of what it is to be an American Jew. [SPEAKER_01]: And that, like you said, it is grounded in real relationship, in real knowledge of our text, of our tradition, of our flow of time. [SPEAKER_01]: It matters a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: I love that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's sound, you said you don't have hope, but sounded kind of hopeful.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have hope about American Jewish life and about America's collective relationship to Israel. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it is likely that over the next 10 years, the amount of support in dollars in other forms that the United States of America gives to Israel will drastically decrease. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that a lot of things are happening that makes that likely.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of them I'm scared about, some of them is that they're our right-winging anti-zionists now, and they're weren't decades ago, and what they do with their right-winging anti-zionism scares me. [SPEAKER_01]: But in certain respects, support for Israel was once a cross, it was across the whole political spectrum, one of the least questioned things, it is now certainly not, and that will be good.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see if that actually shifts what Israel is and does and what they do to power [SPEAKER_01]: That's where I don't have a lot of folks. [SPEAKER_02]: It is interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: I will say that one of the biggest arguments and I get this with prison abolition and all kinds of things is, well, what is supposed to happen? [SPEAKER_02]: Where are they supposed to go?

[SPEAKER_02]: And my argument is, I don't know, but that's because there are decades of scholars who have written about this. [SPEAKER_02]: There's, if you really want to know, there's books. [SPEAKER_02]: There's people whose entire academic careers are about this. [SPEAKER_02]: There's dissertations. [SPEAKER_02]: That becomes a bad faith question to me because there is so much that you could look at to have that answer. [SPEAKER_02]: That isn't just saying it on the internet.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the threads of many, it's not one answer, but it's a whole system of answers is a binational state. [SPEAKER_01]: A state where both Jewishness and Palestinianness would be enshrined as [SPEAKER_01]: national cultures and we're like that's one answer. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not somebody who thinks that the future is one where all Jews leave Israel Palestine. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that is at all of interest to anyone involved in this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that a future where Jews and Palestinians live in a shared homeland in a shared binational state of some sort and there's different [SPEAKER_01]: Formulations, and that's where all the dissertations come in. [SPEAKER_01]: There's confederations. [SPEAKER_01]: There's this.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are places in the world, including the United States of America, that don't enshrine, at least officially, one religious group as being the core religious group of that society, Israel does. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that it would not destroy the existence of Israel or Israelis. [SPEAKER_01]: to say that Palestinians also deserve to also get a right of return globally.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like either there should be right of return for both Palestinians and Jews or there should be neither. [SPEAKER_01]: There can't be a situation where Jews get to do that and Palestinians don't. [SPEAKER_01]: Especially when Jews like me have no familiar connection to that land and Palestinians do.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that for sure reading about binational formations is a great thing to do, let's keep agitating and pushing for that to happen because I actually think that there are folks that are starting to do that. [SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's every conversation going successfully or just some, I do think that encouraging folks to look into that has an impact.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're not going to solve it here on this podcast and I get really annoyed when people say, well, well, what are how we're supposed to defund the police? [SPEAKER_02]: They've, [SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you so much. [SPEAKER_02]: Where can people find you and your work? [SPEAKER_01]: So Judaism on bound is where I live. [SPEAKER_01]: I also live in Providence, Rhode Island. [SPEAKER_01]: But Judaism on bound.com is our website.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Anyeshiva is, like I said, our Center for Jewish Learning and Unlearning. [SPEAKER_01]: We have lots of classes being taught all the time. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this one already started, so you couldn't sign up for it. [SPEAKER_01]: But like, a recent class is called Jews in Revolution, and it's all about Jewish Socialists and anarchists and radicalists. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: It's very far for the course for us to have classes like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have, I don't know when this is being released, but either soon or just started a clash a class on Yiddish Revolutionary folks song. [SPEAKER_01]: I like that I just said clash instead of class Revolutionary implies. [SPEAKER_01]: get a revolutionary folk song with a wonderful musician and educator named Kaya.

[SPEAKER_01]: Many other classes that listeners of this podcast, whether you're Jewish or not, would for sure be interested in, and some that are not an obvious connection. [SPEAKER_01]: But it might be that some of you out there want to become more familiar with books of the Bible or parts of the Talmud or whatever it might be, Jewish mysticism, and we offer classes on that too.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when we do, we tend to pretty proactively make them feel intertwined intersected [SPEAKER_02]: I love that. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, with the Jewish Revolutionary one is Jewish Socialists is so incredible to look into. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Tony Michaels, great professor at University of Wisconsin, Madison. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Judaism on bound.com. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're a podcast listener, Judaism on bound is where you find us in any of the podcast apps.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the Onyshiva, you and YESH IVA. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to a thousand natural shocks, a bad with money podcast. [SPEAKER_02]: This is a noted by sexual production, edited by Ali Mems. [SPEAKER_02]: logo art by Dakota Becker. [SPEAKER_02]: If you like this show, please consider subscribing to the sub-stack, a thousand naturalshocks.substack.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: The sub-stack has episodes of this show, ad-free, and also videos, and also my original writing. [SPEAKER_02]: It would mean so much to me if you would subscribe, even as a free subscriber, but a paid subscriber really allows me to keep doing this work, and I can't do it without you guys. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, love you, bye.