Episode 10 - Intersecting Identities - The Voice of Black Jews

CHOSEN, CHOSEN, CHOSEN WAITS CHOSEN, CHOSEN WAITS Welcome, everybody, to the next episode of Chosen Links. I'm Boaz Heppner, and this is my very trusted co-host, co-moderator, Nate Nathan Looney. This is actually the first time we've had a multi-part series, with the slight exception of my survivor thing. That's kind of an asterisk. This is actually a minimally three-part series that we put together.

about Black community, about Jews of color. And our first episode was a really great one that's airing as I speak. That's about the bridge, the divide, the bond between the Black and Jewish community. But we have a different, though connecting, topic to talk about this time, which is very specifically about the Black Jewish community. The Black and Jewish community. The Jewish and Black community.

How to actually say it does matter, words matter, labels matter, to the point where some people actually hate that we're saying it at all. I know we have at least one person on here who I definitely want to hear from, and that's Yehuda Price, who actually was saying, I'm going to be on this topic, but I actually don't even like being called a Black Jew.

Because I don't think of myself that way. And I said, great, that doesn't make you less good for this conversation. It actually makes you better for the conversation. Let's talk about that. But before we get to specifically talking about that or any other question. I'd like to introduce everybody. So Nate and I are going to take turns and we're going to go through everybody alphabetically. So thank you for each being here today.

Well, I'm happy to be back for round two of this. The last one was really fun to be a part of. And I feel like there was a lot of learning and really looking forward to getting into this conversation. So let's just jump on into it. So we'll start with Bigga, also known as Wise Words.

born in 1974 in Brooklyn, New York, married 20-plus years to his first-generation American-born Israeli wife. Father of three, was in security for over 30 years, did both private and and club security, also did hotel security as well. And he's been a peace and education advocate for over 20 years and really works strong as, you know, I say as a force of nature in the fight against anti-Semitism and Islamist extremists.

streams. One other thing that I'll mention here is that Bigga, we are calling him our honorary Jew, in that he's somebody that's so deep in this work, even though he is not Jewish. It's really important to him and bring him into this conversation. Thank you. And yeah, Biga, you're such an honorary Jew that you're honestly probably a better Jew than a lot of Jews I know. It's pretty spectacular what you do for us, which is why we just think of you as us.

So I'll go ahead and acknowledge the second person, which is Chaya Lev. Chaya Lev is a... Vibe maker, a movement coach from California and lives her best life in Jerusalem, Yerushalayim. If you are not familiar with Chaya Lev, you're missing out. She is another force of nature. To know Chaya is to love her. And she's going to bring it when we get into it. And let me just mention...

When I asked everybody to give me bios, I was just like, they don't need to hear about me. I'm like, yeah, they actually do. Everybody's going to have a bio. It can't just be, and then we're going to gloss over her. And she was just like, ah, and I never got a bio. That's why Nate was like, I'm doing this one because Nate literally calls her his sister. So, yeah. Welcome, Kaya. Thank you so much. I was like, they don't know? Kaya, that's it. That's all you need to know.

Oh, you need to know. That's it. All right. My turn. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Now we have Rachel Moon.

Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based social media influencer and Jewish pro-Israel activist. She's also the owner of Style Over the Moon LLC, a fashion and lifestyle blog. And let me also say she has the rare distinction of being... only my second repeat guest that's how good she is Don Samuels beat her to the punch in the previous episode because we had a whole episode about him trying to beat Ilhan Omar's ass unfortunately he didn't win but

Rachel now is on for a second time and she's a rock star and she's so enthusiastic. Thanks for being here, Rachel. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. So next we have, oh. And the next generation, this is part of the reason why we do this. So next we have April Powers. April Powers is a Black Jewish woman who has led DEI for some of the world's largest companies after experiencing virulent...

antisemitism that made international news. April now dedicates herself to combating antisemitism and building bridges in her role as vice president of DEI for Project Shema and co-founder of Juby and Princess. And I'm going to mention that Nate said we need April. It wasn't just like, oh, she's influential because she looks good on camera and she talks well about this.

April offers something that almost nobody in the world can offer, which is her insight and expertise into DEI. And let's be honest, when we're talking about issues nowadays, any issue and certainly any issue revolving race, religion or anything else, DEI is a...

hot topic that we're going to have to get into and people had questions. It is really invaluable that you're here today. I'm ready. She ready to quote our Tiffany. She was on the last one, right? Not the last one. She was on my first one. Sorry. My first one. She's hard to reach, but she was on the comedian one. That's what she's focusing on right now. All right. Now we've got Yehuda Price. Let me just tell you, there's a lot to say about Yehuda. He's the type of guy that you could...

I mean, I could have a two hour session just with him and I bet we'd only be scratching the surface. So let me give you a scratch surface bio on him.

Dr. Price is a licensed clinical social worker who previously was a full participant in street warfare with rival gang members. He was a gangster by choice, eventually making the decision to become a Jew by choice, a choice born with... within the confines of prison arrested as a teenager over 16 years completed of a 24-year prison sentence was the incredible prelude to his entry into an orthodox jewish conversion program

Since his release from prison in 2018, he completed his BA in sociology with an emphasis in social welfare, his master's in social work, and his doctorate in social work. I mean, I could go on and on. We need to get started. Unbelievable. He speaks at shuls around the country about his journey from juvenile delinquency to Judaism, as well as the power of tshuva, forgiveness and community, standing up against anti-Semitism, the importance of the unbroken chain of indigenous Jewish religious.

tradition as it pertains to his Jewish identity and Israel. And he resides in the Pico-Robertson area of LA with his wife and four kids. And just before this, he lived in the Irvine community with my brother. So by pure coincidence, Yehuda and his family are...

are friends with and have sat at Shabbat tables with my own brother. So it's kind of cool to have these connections interlinked. And I know I'm going to read the next one, but I just want to mention something about the Heppner family. And that is just a golden standard for the whole family.

and I got tight, I was being invited to his parents' house for events and meals. And then, you know, his mother was like, well, I'm inviting this cool farmer. And he's like, wait, that's my friend. Yeah. You know, so. There's a young man. is a young man from the farmer's market. His name is Nathan Looney. We'd like you to meet him. I think you'd get along. I'm like, Nate?

Like, I've known Nate. We've, like, played games together at our friend Noah's house. It's pretty. So, yeah, my family gets around in a nice way, and Yehuda's experienced that, which is lovely. So, next we have Elisheva Richon. Elisheva was born. and raised Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, who founded Elisheva Design, an identity empowerment brand, and the BJZ Squad, an innovative, comprehensive, warm...

that uplifts Black Jewish American Zionists daily. She has been published by AISH, Jews in the City. a Jew in the city and featured in Refinery29, Allure Magazine, Hey Alma, and more. She frequently discusses Orthodox Judaism and Black empowerment, Jewish empowerment, and anti-Semitism. Elisheva, you're a rock star and you're even coming dressed to the nines today, which I very much appreciate you doing without prompting.

People were very excited that you were going to be on when they saw you in the picture. They were just like, oh my God, we get to see her in motion. So very visual, but also very... strong opinions that we get to hear today that we want to hear today.

And then last but not least, Ashira Solomon, who I've been talking to for ages, been talking about multiple different episodes, including her show in Israel. I'm really pleased to see her. And she's in the state of California while we're talking. She's visiting her family up north.

So Ashira Solomon is a dynamic and inspiring international speaker and moderator whose talent for empowering others and fostering positive change has taken her around the world. As a senior public policy expert with a strong background in management and... communication. Ashira has been the co-host of the talk show, The Quad, alongside the deputy mayor of Jerusalem and previous Canadian ambassador to Israel, which is produced by Jewish News Syndicate.

Her professional background in strategic partnerships and cross-functional liaison enhances her exceptional moderating style in the presence of high-level public figures such as heads of state and CEOs. If you guys haven't seen the quad, it's really good. I'm actually going to have an episode dedicated to it where I'd like to just gather everybody from it past and present. I'm talking to their producer now. It's really damn good. It's a bunch of, it's think of the view, but less shitty.

So, yeah. Anyway, I don't think I'm losing any viewers. You know, we're just going to jump on into it. So let's start with, you know, we mentioned earlier to you all why we're doing this episode. Yes. This is going to be, I want Yehuda to jump into this one first, which means he knows what we're going to ask. What are we going to ask? No, we're not going to ask that yet. Oh, never mind.

We're not there yet. We're not there. You're jumping ahead. Essentially, you know, this episode is really important. There's this constant conversation between the Black community and the Jewish community as they're two unique separate things. And those of us that fit...

in the middle are just like, Hey, what about us? Like, how are you all talking about us and about doing this thing and not recognizing that there are people holding multiple identities. And so it's really important for us to show that in the first episode, we. focused on Jews of color and non-Jewish Black leaders. This episode is about focusing on the experience of Black Jews in particular. So with that, and get on to that first question you're about to go to. Why?

Are we calling this black Jews? Should we be calling this black Jews? Should it be any other title? Should we get rid of labels altogether? This is the whole idea about what are the pros and cons and people get into these arguments always ever since way before even affirmative. action in the 80s, I believe. It's all about do we want to add labels because it matters or do we want to remove the labels? And let's get into this specific label. This is an episode about Black Jews. It's on the poster.

what do you guys think about that and i want to start with you dr yehuda price because he had a very interesting response to me when he accepted the invitation for the episode Okay, thank you for the question. So one, I mean, my primary identity is a Jew, right? It governs my actions. It governs everything I do from the moment I open up my eyes to the moment I go to sleep, whole life cycle. And it's fundamental to who I am. I'm a black man as well. Black man.

do right black man because it's a social construct we're talking about black and white really came out of a sort of white supremacist ideology and i don't believe that jews who predated white supremacy, that's how far we go back, should graft America's color-coded social constructs onto our identity. I think it does us a disservice, right? Not only that, when we're thinking about where we come from, right, you might say the Ethiopian Jews, Moroccan Jews, but that's connected.

a specific Jewish community. It's not simply describing a skin color or simply a social construct. It's connected to Jewish minhag. If you ask me what my minhag is, I'm going to say Ashkenazi. I'm an Ashkenazi Jew.

You want to put a modifier on that. So that's one of the reasons I don't like putting this sort of modifier on my Jewish identity, right? It's about a neshama, right? When I'm talking about... what it means to be a Jew I'm talking about a soul right and you don't put a color on a soul you don't put a social construct on a soul It's a real thing. I deal with reality in America as a black man. As my time in prison, I dealt with actual racial wars, you know.

getting stabbed by skinheads, neo-Nazis. And so I know about that world. I know what it means to walk on a Shabbos night and people... go across the street, right? I know what it means to be a Black man in America, where sometimes you have to smile so people are not in fear, right? So I understand all that, and I'm definitely not taking that away as who I am. I'm just saying... being Jewish is something different. It transcends the sort of just simply ethnicity.

it's part ethnicity right but it transcends that and it breaks down really on this neshama soul level so that's why i took issue with this sort of modifying thing uh because i'm not into just doing it just for the uh just for the sake of doing it What I was going to say there is I really appreciate what you're pointing out here because there have been multiple times in my life where people have asked me to choose.

Are you black or are you Jewish? Which community are you going to stand up for? And I'm like, there's no separating out the different pieces of myself. It's all part of who I am. So I really appreciate that context that you're adding. April, go ahead. I'm going to jump on this from a DEI lens as well as sort of repeating and reaffirming what you both just said. Dr. Price or Dr. Yehuda, what do you prefer? You just call me Yehuda. It was good. You earned it.

Oh my gosh. You're a doctor. I'm just going to call you doctor. We are one of the oldest surviving civilizations in the world, right? The way that we define ourselves is outside the scope of modern constructs of race and racial identity, which means that most Ashkenazi, most Jews of color or multi-ethnic Jews in the United States. are Ashkenazim, right, do have that European background or heritage.

you know, based on our definitions. And I think it's really important to maintain and hold on to culture to use our definitions and other people. We have had to allow other minority groups to find themselves. You're going to hear me say this a lot today because in DEI, that's the rule.

You allow other minority groups to define ourselves. The other problem, though, is that the United States social construct does not apply in Israel. It does not apply to Israel, Israel, Gaza. It does not apply to most countries around the world. I have been the global head of DEI, and when we try to overlay these fake constructs onto other countries' identities,

peoples. It does not work. Let's go to India, for example. A lot of people have similar skin tones. We would see them all as Indian. India is one of the most diverse countries in the world. They do not have black, white paradigms, but they certainly have racism, classism, caste system, et cetera. And so, but, but.

Here's the thing. We are a minority group. Wherever we have gone, we are 15 million people. We do not control the narrative. Wherever we have gone, we have had to fit in to the social constructs of the places that we go. So if for those of us. who are based in the U.S. Unfortunately, these racialized constructs do have an impact on our lives and how we define ourselves. And the Black Jewish covenant that has made so much change in these United States of America and for the world is critical.

And so being able to define ourselves within that construct and have influence, impact and and language to provide. For that dynamic, I think it's important for us also to note that there are Black Jews. When you keep saying we, we, we were 15 million, I want to sound like an idiot here, but who is we that you're referring to in that case? Which of these labels, to be really blunt, are you referring to?

Thank you. The population of Jews in the world, and that's black, white, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and more. We are... in total in summation 15 million people in the world we are 0.2 percent of the global population which means most people have never met a jew but they all have opinions about us right um and so yes 15 million people think i do these

polls all the time in my classes and people think we're a billion we're 250 million we're 60 million and that's true of a lot of minority groups there's a perception that we exist more in space than we do in reality but for jews the the x on that the multiplier on how many people believe we're so much bigger than we are is outrageous. Yes, it is. Hey, Bigga, I don't know if you were waving to somebody or if you were trying to raise your hand. I was actually waving to somebody. Sorry about that.

You be friendly, but Elisaba, you're definitely raising your hand. Yeah. Go ahead and you say something because that's definitely not a wave to someone. Okay, so I'm going to try to be as quick as I possibly can. So I'm totally feeling what Yehuda was saying and April was saying. I'm going to say it, but it's in a different way for me. Primarily, I do...

In my mind, at least, I identify as an Orthodox Jew because I knew I was an Orthodox Jew before I knew I was Black, before I knew about everything else. And also because my earliest childhood memories were ones of trauma. that were of the Krasnites riots. And that was when I learned what it means to be a Jew. It literally felt like a freaking, it felt like it was a war zone. It was a war zone and I was very young and I was...

Wait, I just want to make sure that people catch that. You were saying that one of your earliest memories is the riots in Crown Heights? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Hello. I grew up in Crown Heights in Flatbush, and my family was living in Crown Heights during the time. And there were Black Jewish families living there, and we were... erased from the narrative but then again the crown heights riots in itself was erased from history so that's a whole other discussion they're only recognizing it now um but they didn't back then you know when were the crown heights riots for those who've never even heard of them

It was in like 91 or 92, one or the other. So very close timing to the LA riots. Yes, it was, except it was different in nature. There's a lot of misinformation surrounding what happened, who was involved in it, how it started. And even until this day, people have been putting out a false narrative, which is incredibly...

triggering and bothersome and infuriating to me, especially because I have a background as a historian. And I actually, my family was living there. So like, what do you tell, you weren't even there. Why are you giving an opinion on this? Shut up. Anyways. I, that was.

Because it went on for days. It wasn't like a one-off. It went on for days. You know, you know, you couldn't go outside and, you know, people were going to get very violent, you know. And I didn't even realize until I was older that I, like, I know I had PTSD from that, but there were certain things. that I do in my life that I started to do as a child that I remember doing, like grabbing a doll and a sitter and putting it into a bag for my to-go bag. Because I'm thinking in my mind, oh.

they might hurt us and I like I hid it from my parents because I wanted to be strong for my parents but I started that was the first what am I going to do with a doll I don't even know like it can't even feed me but I whatever I was like

this is what I need to take, the things I like, you know, just in case we have to run for our lives. I don't know. But I still do that to this very day. I didn't even realize that until I started going to therapy like a short while ago because I still to this very day have it to go back. Except now it's more advanced. My passport is in there. There's some money in there. There's like two pairs of shoes. I don't think that's a bad thing. Number one, we have earthquakes.

You never know when the zombie apocalypse might happen. I got two to go bad. All of us, Angelina. She's under the bed. I will also mention that we were both in LA for the LA riots. And so there's something about experiencing something like that at a young age that sticks with you. It's important to really honor that.

and recognize that that's a part of a lived experience. But I think that kind of what I was hearing from you is the fact that because your identity as an Orthodox Jew is tied to that early memory that kind of explains or sort of gives space to how you identify as a Jew, more broad stroke. um yes and in addition to that there's also a problem because uh once uh anti-blackness started to become known to me i um

was thrown into this world of nuance and complexity in which I wasn't supposed to exist because I was not being accepted as a black person or as a Jewish person. I was being told that I didn't belong in either way. So it wasn't even choose.

It was you don't belong here at all because of who and what you are. And I'm a dark skinned black woman. I'm not ambiguous looking. So I couldn't like float into like and like and just be on this side or that side. I am who I am. I look how I look. And unfortunately. That has led to my experiences, which is why I do the work that I do, because that experience.

In my childhood and everything I've gone through has led to me wanting to build bridges between the black American and the Jewish communities, you know, and I have to acknowledge that in America. My blackness is a big deal and it's often seen as a problematic thing, but I can't change it. You know, I was born black. I was born Jewish. I'm sorry. You know, and. Sorry, not sorry. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack in what you said.

curious about the trauma i'm curious about like if it turns you off of both communities or which one more but we'll we'll have to shelve that for now because that's a that's that's a big topic just like yehuda is a big topic of his experience you anybody catch the man the ramp

And I'm like stabbed by sin heads. Like, like just, just another day. There are so many topics to come out from each of these that like people, I tell people, this is going to be two hours. And they were like, you have no idea how fast two hours goes when you're talking to a bunch of people.

Also, we have a small group of folks on this call. There are so many different stories out there from Black Jews. And one of the things that I hope that comes from this is it makes people curious about who are the people that are in their own community and what are the...

lived experiences and how do that how do those experiences contribute to making our community stronger so i want to jump into this next question because at least sheva kind of was going there so so naturally and this is open for everyone and this question comes from dina left with a little bit of some modifier. Dino Leffert.

I know Diana. She's a friend of mine. She's a very big advocate for Israel in the stand-up comedy. And I kind of feel like one of the through lines is me screwing up people's names. But Dina sounds proper. To me, Dina... Yeah, we're good. So here's a question from her. What does it mean? And this is open for everybody. What does it mean to deal with both anti-Semitism and racism?

as as uh black jews um you can take it however you want but what does it mean to be bad holding both yeah you get two two punches on the punch card you're closer to getting that free starbucks I'd like to actually start this question with Rachel because last time we got to Rachel last. So I'd like to get to Rachel sooner now and not do her bad twice. This is a good question. I know Dinah too. She's a good friend. Well, what is it like? I think...

Probably everybody here has experienced both. I think now, especially post-October 7th, it's heightened. Sometimes somebody is coming at me for being Jewish. But when that doesn't get me, they always bring in race. And they always will make a racist comment about... Either like I'm not black enough, which I've heard that my whole life. You're too white. You're Jewish. So it doesn't make sense that you're black. Uncle Tom now is like a fan favorite.

So what is it like? It just, I think it's something that not a lot of people, unless you live it, understand. Again, it's something. completely exclusive to the United States because I don't experience it anywhere else, especially not in Israel. And I think there's just a. complete obsession with oh my gosh I'm sorry I don't know how to turn my notifications off um there's a complete obsession with race in this country. And it's weaponized against minority groups.

Interesting. And it's interesting that you bring up Israel, which makes me immediately want to see if they completely back up her statement. And they were nodding, so I bet they do. Chaya and Asherah. Asherah, let's start with you because you're not muted. You actually are from California. So you are American by descent. And now you're living in Israel. You are a black Orthodox Jew. I would like to know how does what Rachel just say play into your experiences, your lived experience?

I 100% agree with Rachel. So the comments usually are, like, say they say something anti-Semitic.

And then, like she said, that doesn't really get at you. So they have to follow it up with, you know, Black Zionists or Black Jews are the worst because they're not even accepted in their own community. So then they tried to attack us and make it seem like there's this huge rift of... us trying to be accepted by the jewish community and that is somehow connected to our zionism and we're selling out our black card so the jewish people will embrace us which is completely complete nonsense um

Speaking from the lens of Israel, though, everyone loves to bring up what happened to the Ethiopian Jews, this whole lie about sterilization, which we all know was not sterilization. And we can go into that topic another time. But in Israel, people will say, oh, you know, they'll spit on black people. I've never been spat on in Israel. You know, I can go into any shul in Israel. No one assumes that I'm not Jewish when I walk in. Like if I come to.

a shul maybe in California, their first is like, who are you? You know, because it's not familiar to them. Why are you here? Are you here? What's your story? What's your story? I'm saying we're Jewish. We all got a story. What's going on here? Right away, they just start talking to me. It's just natural for them to see someone of color and say, that's a Jew. Why else wouldn't they be a Jew?

you know they're in the synagogue why else wouldn't they be a jew in america not so much because of the racial construct we have going on here Now, we all love we all love Israel. And so I'm never trying to shut. I'm never trying to shit on Israel because that's the opposite of what this is about. But I also try not to whitewash, no pun intended, Israel or anything like that. So everything you're saying is not to say that.

There's no racism in Israel, though, right? It's not like this perfect utopia pleasant bill about... Racism in any country in the world? Right. What people don't understand about Israel, though, in terms of racism, like... Me and Chaya talk about this all the time. All the time. It's an equally like you Baharian. They got something to say about Baharians. You're Russians. I mean, Israeli Jews talk so bad about Russians. You know what I mean? The worst.

Everybody can get it. Because they bought the pig. Everybody can get it on. And it's not about skin color. It could just be about the region of... where your people descended to and came back to Israel and about, you know, the different menhogging you have now, or just like the culture that you're bringing to Israel. And so everybody gets talked about in Israel equally. I just want to add a little piece because I think this is what bothers me the most is that Americans live in a bubble.

You're the bubble. You're the bubble. You're the bubble boy that can't go outside because you have a snotty nose all the time. The rest of the world...

acknowledges that people don't like people. I would never say there's no race in Israel. But I know, once again, like this year, we both live in the same area. When I go into a big Knesset, it is... it's almost like I get it if I say I did your because they're like okay so what part of Africa it's like once again it's not like that they're not acknowledging I'm different it's like in America it's like

So people will say, so tell me about your mother. Tell me about your father. Like, it's a different ideology behind it. And so you take this entire, by the way, I want to say Yehuda Christ. I was in Baca and up comes Yehuda Price. And you guys don't know, I call him Nino, Jewish Nino Brown. He's walking through Baca. Now Yehuda.

I'm real big. Who does maybe have my size maybe? And he was walking through Baca like he was running the streets. I said, who the price? And the guy, this older Ashkenazi guy was walking with him and he said, How do you know him? Now it's Shabbat. So I wanted to be like, how do you know him? All black Jews know each other. I know Nino Brown, baby. I know Nino Brown. I need to know.

How you know Nino Brown, sir? What's going on here? Don't be asking me no questions. But it was Shabbat, so I couldn't get him good. But what I'm trying to say is... When Yehuda just said this, I'm like, who would even mess with him? Because he looked like he was ready. I want you all to learn from Chaya here. This is what the episode should be. Just chime in and talk shit and speak. It's amazing. I'm Ashkenazi. Amazing. You know what? I think Rachel kind of hit on this.

around this idea of like how people are pitting us, pitting our different identities against each other. And when they don't get a rise out of one thing, they hit it in another angle. And I've never seen that happen as much as since October 7th. whether it's like as soon as any of I mean I imagine this is the same for everyone on the screen as soon as you mentioned anything about

any sort of despair over the atrocity of October 7th, loss of followers, people saying, OK, well, now you're a white supremacist colonizer. And I'm like, since when? You know, so I mean. This is something that looks different this time around. You know, for those of us like that have non-Jewish Black friends that stopped talking to us post-October 7th.

Like, it's like, what? We were cool for decades. And now because of this thing that's happening that you don't even want to sit down and have a conversation and get a deeper understanding of, we're not going to be in relationship with each other.

I mention all that to say because I know that our audience is going to be very diverse and they need to understand the different layers of responsibility or pressures that Jews of color, Black Jews in particular, are facing in this current time and cycle. You know, I'm curious before we move on to any sort of other topic, you know, Big Eye. You as an honorary member of the tribe, you've taken on this completely masochistic mission.

I mean, I bless you and love you for it. And at the same time, I think there must be some level of mental illness for you to actually... A little bit of a screw. Who willingly volunteers themselves to literally walk through fire? Like the rest of us before... October 7th we're members of the tribe we just we're gonna we're gonna defend ourselves you didn't have to now I get it your wife's Israeli that might be the be all and end all but

There's a lot of people out there who are intermarried and their spouse is not doing anything close to what you're doing. I want to understand, joking aside, How have you been treated by the Jewish community, by the... Black community, and I'm talking about them as two different entities right now and separate from the Black Jewish community, because I got to imagine you've taken a lot of Uncle Tom type shit the way that that's been brought up.

The Uncle Tom thing is definitely one of the most frequently used slurs, and it's become one of my favorite because it shows me just how... uneducated people are because people haven't read uncle tom's cabin so they don't understand or recognize that he was actually the hero in that book in that story so when people say that to me the first thing that I do is say thank you which all automatically throws them off but they think that I'm just trying to

be a little funny with it, and then I go into the explanation of who he was, and then I tell him, you can't take that back. I am Uncle Tom. So that's one of my favorite things. But as far as the treatment, It has definitely been a mixture of hate from all sides, I will say that, from October 8th, which is the first time that I spoke on the subject, and I only spoke on the rape.

side of it you know and my thing has always been and i i just thought it was like a no-brainer anybody that is okay with rape is a piece of shit person so that's basically what i was saying and it just kind of snowballed and from there i decided to to kind of hold the mirror up and and let people see

what it is that they're doing and how they're doing it and kind of documents it all. When you say you've gotten it from all sides, I want to just make sure I understand, though, are you getting it from also negatively from the Jewish side as well?

I have, especially in the beginning, I got a lot of Jewish people telling me that I was just a grifter, that I needed to shut up because I shouldn't be speaking about things that I... i have no idea about or things that don't affect me and i never even approached it on uh as i'm on your side i just took it as okay that's how you feel we'll see how you feel you know in a few months and mind you at the very beginning

I had no idea that it would be 15 months later, almost, and we would still be here. I thought, honestly, that it was going to be maybe a month or two, you know. strikes and, you know, a lot of destruction. And then we were going to move on. I had no idea that we would still be here and people would still be as passionate as they are about the subject. This is our brave new world. For me, the most hurtful thing was getting it from people who've known me my whole life. I was canceled in 2021.

And I was told, you're not black, you're a white supremacist, tell me what a juicy word, just because as a global head of DEI was speaking about the antisemitism of that moment. Another DEI professional who happened to be Palestinian and Muslim said that I should never... have been allowed in DEI because India and Israel are my two favorite countries that I've been to. Yes, somebody who is a DEI professional from Montessori schools and writes children's books.

The most painful part for me, though, is people who have known me and my family, who've been invited to Thanksgivings and dinners in South Central, in West LA, for Jewish events and non-Jewish events, to come at me with some of the horrific...

um vitriol stereotypes and uh conspiracy theories blew my mind and and on top of it telling me i'm on the wrong side of history on this conflict um when so so for me that is you know above and beyond anything it's like when you're saying oh pick a side pick a side it's like

There's, you know, kind of like Biga just said, are you on the side of rape as resistance? Like, how is that? How are we picking a side here? And like I said, we're 15 million people. I'm one of very few black Jewish DEI professionals in the space. So we have a lot of... Black DEI professionals. We have some Jewish DEI professionals. And then there is me and a few other people, not all of whom are out as Black Jewish DEI professionals. And so, as Nate said earlier, there's a unique voice.

the space and i do have to call some of these things out from the from the space in which i am expert right um but i but in terms of choosing having to choose black and jewish and some of these other things um The worst has been the call-outs from people who know me well and who have completely ignored all reason and logic and continue to, you know, harass me with anti-Semitic tropes.

I want to follow up, too. I want to highlight that the writing was on the wall before October 7th. That was our Dreyfus Affair moment where... uh a lot of us thought oh we maybe you know we have a good thing going and it's all good and all of a sudden you you know

one day you look around and go, oh, my neighbors really don't like me, right? They really hate me. So it was a Dreyfus Affair moment. When I was doing my doctorate in social work, the framework for the program was diversity, equity, intersectionality. uh uh anti-racism and power analysis right so we were having these sort of discussions before that there was an issue before that which was people couldn't articulate what anti-semitism is so if you claim to be an anti-racist and you can't

even conceptualize what anti-Semitism is when Jews are the number one victims of hate crime in America per capita. There seems to be a problem when you use your anti-racist lens to deconstruct systems and only focus on white supremacy, anti-Semitism has been foundational in the Western society and not just the Western society, right? If you just look at the Hamas charter and what they call out to, right, it goes deeper.

So how can you honestly be in the anti-racism field and not be specifically addressing anti-Semitism? And I'm in these spaces, these social justice spaces. I'm a social worker. And there was no allyship. Allyship was super minimal, but it wasn't. And if you claim, I don't necessarily claim a banker or a real estate agent to be so concerned with anti-racism, right? Maybe they should be, maybe they shouldn't be, but a social worker, I do. And if we're in these spaces and people are trying to...

to tell Jews and define Jews what anti-Semitism is, right? Ain't a white person going to come up to me and talk about this is what anti-blackness is. You're not, you know, you've got it wrong. Like, bro, you know what I mean? But they do that. They do that with Jews. And so we're in this position, you know, tying it back to what you said earlier, where it's sort of a W.E. Dubosean triple consciousness, right? When he kind of formulated double consciousness as...

Black folks in America having to view ourselves through the dominant white society and also through the lens of Black society, right? And knowing, is this action, how does it affect us? uh you know in relation to the majority and to us and now we throw in this other sort of thing of jewish identity as well so it's a sort of triple consciousness so if you are

Black, if you are Jewish and you are dealing with this, right, particularly in America, but, you know, there's also the global component as well, right? You have to keep all this in your head and knowing that when you address this, it may affect. how others in this particular part of your identity view you or coming at you. But I also think there's potential in there.

Right. There's potential because of that. Right. It allows us to explain and connect with different sort of parts of our identity in a way that somebody was just. in one particular part of the identity can't do that, right? Because we see ourselves in other people. And so, so many people can see themselves in us. And so that gives us the ability to really get people in this space to be open to a different sort of message.

I love this concept of triple consciousness, and I'm just thinking about the reality of how taxing and exhausting it must be to triple think. at every moment in time, regardless of who we're engaging with. I just want to acknowledge that. I want to move to this next question. Can I just say something really quick? I think what Yehuda was saying about how this problem existed before October 7th is correct, because I think back to the friendships and the people that...

I'm no longer friends with, stop talking to me, whatever. There were red flags that were missed. in conversations way back to like 2021 with the spike of antisemitism in the United States and me being vocal then in conversations that were had that I kind of just dismissed. I think it kind of. comes down to we as Jews, especially American Jews, have done a terrible job at displaying to the world

that the Jewish community is diverse. And we were scrambling post October 7th to prove to the world that Jews aren't white. And so now. I mean, I know Asher and I have talked about this now. Black Jews are being included and welcomed in conversations where maybe we necessarily wouldn't have before. i don't know if it's because it's needed to fit the narrative to prove that jews aren't white but

It really is a problem. I've dealt with it my whole entire life in different spaces, you know, having kids, kids, you know, going to a Jewish preschool, all of these things. And it's kind of on us as a community. You're really getting to like, I mean, I feel like you're looking at our notes.

Perfect what you're saying because of what I was going to ask, but I know, but April, you wanted to interject, so interject. I'm going to interject with my last name, my mother's last name, and maybe some of our last names on this call. My last name should have been Powderotsky.

My father-in-law escaped Nazi Germany by the hair of his Tunisian chin. They forced all Jewish men to have the middle name Israel, and he changed it. As soon as he got here, I was like, that was such a beautiful middle name. Why would you change it? Because Germans... in order to identify Jews, because we all blended in there, had to have certain things. We still have his Nazi passport. I'm rambling on that, so we can cut some of that out. But we had a choice.

At some point, there was a choice. For most of Jewish history, we were not considered white. White is a social construct. For Italians, for Irish, for all these folks who are coming into these United States of America for whatever reason, Jews. we're fleeing persecution right and so we had some choices to make as we are blending into these societies and yeah if whiteness was a safe place to be jews

When we had the opportunity to blend into whiteness, we did that. I don't blame my father-in-law or my grandfather for changing his last name from Tisnovsky to Tisnov to Tisner. I don't. I don't blame Jews. And he was called Blackie. He was dark. a dark skinned Jewish man. I don't blame.

Jews for trying to blend into this, for changing our religion from being, you know, you get one variety of Orthodox, or now we've got multiple varieties and Conservadox, you know, Reform, all these different choices now.

to blend in with the christianity right um but and and films right we invented the film industry the the um the comic book industry and all these other things where we got to portray ourselves as white knowing that over half of israelis would not be considered white here knowing that my mother

but probably was not born a white person or recognized as a white person in the United States, right? And so we had some choices around our safety to make, and now we're having other choices to make around our safety. But white presenting Jews or Jews who have access to whiteness also have to look deep into their souls today, tomorrow and into the future and say, OK. If we are going to tap into our Jews of color to remind the world that we are not white and that our whiteness is conditional.

and our whiteness can be taken away at any time, then you need to also create spaces of belonging for us where we aren't just welcome, but we are a part of the community that you're tapping into us, not as a... as a tokenization, but as a... you know, legitimately that we are a part of the community. And I said this at my bat mitzvah. I just had a bat mitzvah this year. I didn't invite anybody because I was like not ready, but it was what it was.

I had the leper portion. I was like, dang. How fitting for this talk. Aren't we a leper? No, because I felt like a leper, actually. And I said to the crowd of mostly white-presenting Jews, I said, When my mother had a child with a black man, my grandmother didn't care. And I was the favorite. My uncle is black. All the cousins are bluish. But some of you get concerned. And I want you to know that of all the grandchildren, I'm the first to be bat mitzvah. And my son will be the first bar mitzvah.

I'm the person going out and combating anti-Semitism. you know we have to embrace the diversity look at all of us in in this zoo are in some way combating anti-semitism yet and still we can walk into some jewish spaces or any space and be denied access or a sense of belonging because of our skin tone or how we present or any of our other intersecting identities, right? Well, let me ask, because this is very specific to what you and Rachel have been saying.

Let me ask the following question from a close friend named Avi Kaplan. He said, with the anti-Semitic notion that Jews are white colonizers being pushed so hard, There's been a concerted effort to showcase Jewish people of color and get their voices out there.

Is there a concern that this is performative or a worry about being seen as a token Jew of color? I would like to start with Ashira because I know that she's going to have to leave for an unfortunate reason for a funeral. So I want to catch. her as much as I can before she has to leave.

I think it can be a tokenization. Rachel Moon and I were at an event in New York, and our dear friend Amy Albertson brought up and said, listen, she's an Asian Jew, and she said, we no longer want to just speak on the diversity. panel at Jewish events? Why aren't we included in all the other panels where we have expertise? Like, why can't I just be on the political panel, Rachel on, you know, social fashion?

fashion whatever the panels are why are we included only when it says Jews of color diversity panel and then you rock to talk about what is it like to be a Jew of color. Well, that's not really the center of my life, you know, to talk about what is it like to be a Jew of color. If that's the case, what is it like to be a Jew? Because all Jews are of color. You know what I mean? Like we're all of color. And I just think that.

Going back to the very first question of the label of Black and Jew, Mizrahi Jew, Ethiopian Jew, one, we have to stop identifying to the places that we were exiled to. Two, we do have to start reclaiming and re-embracing. Jewish terms and our identity within re-embracing our traditions, our values, and the names that the Torah calls us. There is no term the Black Jew. There is no term the Ashkenazi Jew in the Torah.

God calls us B'nai Israel. We are the children of Israel. We are Am Israel. We have all these names other than... the Ashkenazi Jew, the Mizrahi Jew, all these terms were made up for us. So I do think that the Jewish people have to come together and we have to work out like

how are we going to move forward this next generation? How are we going to teach this next generation about who they are and how to call themselves? I have a podcast called the Black and Jewish Podcast. I don't call it that because I'm a Black Jew. I call it that.

because I want to talk to Black people and I want to talk to Jewish people. But I understand that my audience is America and they work under this social construct. So yes, I do use the term Black Jew or Black and Jewish, you know, throughout different talks. with different people. However, I have to acknowledge that it's not correct. And I should be saying, I should be saying, I should be using the correct terms and we shouldn't have to bow down to.

the label in terms that others give us um but with the tokenization yeah it definitely is you need to include our voices in the area of our expertise and not in the area of oh we want to see Jews of color if that were the case I mean I always tell people when I'm speaking to Black people, I'm like, when you're calling Jews white, what did you think Hitler was killing the Jews for? You know what I mean? You know what I mean?

They were distinctly looking differently than the rest of Europeans, you know, and I really do. I always have to say, listen, I have to be critical of both the black community and the Jewish community and my criticism of. American Ashkenazi people is they do have to decolonize themselves.

from whiteness and this assimilation that they have taken on in America. Assimilation has hurt our people. Assimilation will continue to hurt our people. Assimilation does not move us forward. And they have to... They have to themselves distinctly say, we are not white. That it's not enough to just say, look, we have Sephardic Jews and we have black Jews. No, you need.

from Ashkenazi Jew, stand up and say, I may have light skin and some of us may have some blue eyes, but we are not Europeans. We are from Judea and Samaria. Period. Full stop. But not only say it, let me just interject. Not only say it, mean it. Because you cannot say we are not white Jews. First of all, this whole conversation sometimes living in Israel.

And I've only been living here eight years. It just really annoys me and it irks me. And it's just so low vibrational and so goofy, to be honest. You cannot say we are not this when I walk into the Bay Knesset and the first thing you want to do is ask me a question. So you are this. So at the end of the day, you have to make up your mind.

We want to say we really don't want to give. And I'm not saying we as in me. I'm saying we as a community in America. We don't want to give up. We don't want to come down. We don't want to. When you look at me, you know, and you say like, wow, she's in the same. It's like a rich person and somebody see like P. Diddy. Oh, not P. Diddy. Oh, that's horrible. That's P. Diddy. Oh, God. Not baby oil diddy. Not baby oil diddy. Oh, Lord.

Don't cut that out. Somebody on the boat, like the baby or something, and they go like, why is the baby on this boat? It doesn't matter how, what you look like, how do you get on this boat? And I think it's still this ideology that. You can't be because, you know, and I will tell you something like this. A lot of people will say, oh, where do you get your authenticity of being Jewish if you're Black?

I have an Ashkenazi father, or I have an Ashkenazi grandmother, or I have an Ashkenazi cousin. Oh, yes, that's where it comes from. No, the Jewish people have a story. We have a diaspora story and we've been everywhere. Some of us did yours, some of us did this. And so we have got to say in America, if you don't want the people to see you like this, you have to not see yourself like this.

You have to not ask me when I walk in the door 19 questions. Okay. 19 questions, because I'm going to tell you something. As Sherry knows, we go to, we live in Knock Low. We go to all these big kinesis here. And the person that was.

faking like they were jewish in nakla'ok that was lying and who was a whole christian and who was doing stefer stam doing brit milah doing hatunok like doing weddings which one nobody listen i'm not even going there we got a whole little section but nobody asked nobody asked some people were kind of like

not looking past his skin, but like he literally didn't know anything. He said, I don't know anything because I was reformed. So they were like, okay, he's reforming. That's sad too. But you can do a risk. But, but, but, but, but. I'm saying now let Yehuda walk in the door talking about let me do a breach me line. They're going to ask him 19,000 questions. Where's your grandma from? What's she doing?

So we have to also, so that's our tikkun anyway, because now look at you. You're sitting there talking about me pouring the wine. Look at here. You got Mary, Joseph, and Paul over here pouring your wine and giving the breathing line. And he's not even one of us. So come on now. So we don't have to.

Following up, Haya, do you think, so yeah, I think it's on both, right? But I think it's on us as well, right? Because if we self-segregate into an imagined Black Jewish community that doesn't exist, there's no Black, right? To me, Ashkenaz is our term, right? When we went to a diaspora.

right that it connects to men right like you're not coming over my house i'm not coming over your house for pesach if i don't know hey what's the food looking like based on there's a lot of different sort of things that connected to that so uh in a sense it's ours right but if we self Again, self-segregate. I like when I go into spaces and I'm treated as a Jew, not as a black Jew. When my kids go to Jewish schools, right? When they go to Jewish schools, if they can see representation, not...

Oh, now we're doing a separate section on Black Jew. No, I want the picture of the kid rapping to fill in to look like the diversity of what Judaism is. And then I'll just add, though, I think. I think even if we're talking about Zionism and I use it in the I have I have a religious reason connecting to Zionism, not necessarily secular Zionism, but we have something other people don't have. Right.

other people's culture. We have an unbroken indigenous tradition that came out of Eretz Yisrael and has been passed down meticulously from generation to generation in this unbroken chain, right? That's if you want to connect to something that's a decolonization movement is connecting to who we are in our essence and what. not only formed and created Jewish identity, but kept it stable for thousands of years, right? That's how you decolonize, right? Going back to Torah.

I know he's talking about because that's supposed to be our value system is that what makes you ask is the way you pray, right? But when most people say that, they mean that you've eaten good filtered fish and it don't have no salt on it. But I'm just saying. and you're going to have some hot sauce on your gefilte okay so i'm going to let's get into it

The biggest lie ever told is Ashkenazi food is Jewish food. We need to all know about diasporic food because we all got hoodwinked and bamboozled. I want to give Elisheva a moment because she's had her hand up for a minute. Just do the real hands and the hand raising. Don't press the hand thing because it changes where you are on the screen. Go ahead. Okay. So I want to take it back to where it started about the whole tokenization of it all. Yes.

There is tokenization going on right now with Black Jewish people. But the thing is that it's been going on for a while because I've been at this game, this game since like my late teens. So I've always seen the it favorite Black Jewish person. It's always won. that everyone uplips and puts in everything even though they are not qualified to be speaking on these topics and I'm not gonna like say names but I'll just make up something um the crow

So the crow, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just going to say that the crow was, I don't know what you're talking about. The crow, obviously. was a highly problematic person that stole content from other Black Jewish creators, that mistreated other Black Jewish creators, that had no idea what they were talking about and began spreading misinformation, but also...

was taking money from Zionist institutions, even though they were literally an anti-Zionist the whole time and no one was listening to anyone that was warning them about it. But when you tokenize someone... because they're Black and you just throw them into every single subject, that's when you get problems like the Crow. The Crow has done and continues to do an untold amount of harm to the Jewish community.

And she always will because she doesn't care about the Jewish community. She doesn't even care about the Black community. She only cares about how much money she can get, how famous she can get, because that's all she wants. All she wants is fame. And for example, like when I... That's why when I made the BJZ program, when I was going over all the applications, I was looking for something for people that are experts in their field.

Like April, DEI queen. Yes. You know, I got Shonda. She's the educator for over 20 years. Yes. I wanted everyone, you know, Ilana, like she's Black, Jewish, Israeli, you know, musician. Okay, I wanted everyone that was an expert in their field because I keep saying this and saying it my whole life. There's no reason in the world why when there's a finance, music industry, acting panel, why there isn't someone Black and Jewish being represented.

represented there because like Yehuda said, we need to see representation. We need to see representation because I know way too many Black Jewish people like my whole life that are good at what they do and they're not sitting there and no one can tell me why.

in fact they might even be better than the whole panel yes like this this yeah like yep that's exactly where i was gonna go with this is I've been seeing too, just being in this space, is that Jewish organizations tend to want to have the non-Jewish Black voice versus the Black Jewish voice. Yes, so they will launch onto the non-Jewish. Don't rock with me, though. You have Black Jewish kids. You have a Jewish wife.

Why aren't you using, you know, the Black Jewish voice? Because we actually intersect both and are well-versed in both communities. You know what I mean? Like the Jewish community is very insular. People do not know much about how the Jewish community works. nor do they know how orthodox Jewish community works. And so it's like, why wouldn't you use people who are...

No, both. And they rather pop up. And I'm and I thank you to our non-Jewish Black allies. I really do. I really I'm really thankful for them. But I do see that Jewish organizations prefer to pop up those voices than our voices. Because they didn't, they could have had somebody that had, again, these sort of identities and a perspective. Not only that, from the other side, having a conversation.

You could say the same exact thing as somebody that looks different from you, but the fact that you can see yourself in another person and understand that they've had, probably have had, right, knowing the social construct of Blackness in America, have had similar social experiences as you, right? There was a big... opportunity missed and I and you see people going to their favorite I guess Jewish spokesperson that doesn't necessarily

represent like we could necessarily represent it's not me like positioning myself or anybody necessarily particularly but the seeing uh so many times when it matters us dropping the ball uh but then again using it Okay, we need somebody of a different sort of...

face or look for a different reason because we want to show this diversity. Diversity should be in leadership, right? Should be in different spots in these organizations and not just utilizing us for this niche when we are representative of Judaism.

and Jewishness, period. And I think a lot of it is fake. That comes up when we're talking about... They don't represent... you know orthodox judaism as well like i i do get stifled a lot because you know i keep shabbat i keep i'm orthodox we are the jews yeah so i also want to say that like they prefer either that non uh jewish black voice or that

Jewish black voice who's not observant, you know, and I think that's a problem. I think that they should make sure that they represent all of us and that we can that we can also be speaking on behalf of Israel. you know, in an orthodox way as well. And this is also Sunday. You chose to have this on a Sunday. I love you just posted about like.

Please don't ask me to do stuff and break Shabbat in support of my Jewish community, which I appreciated so much because we're not seeing your voices in some of these things. And Elisheva, I'm just going to follow up on what you said. I'm not going to name any names.

Boaz, you have chosen a number of Black Jewish voices. We're pretty legit. And if there is a person who is either not following us, I just came out of being private because I had death threats. But if they're either not following us or Black, blocking us or we're not following them, you may, that may be a problematic person that you may want to take a look at. I'm not saying that we're the be all and end all, but you know, when you talk about tokenizing voices that are.

are harming our community we put out that signal and a lot of and some of those people have blocked us because we've called them out um and so i just want to put that out as a you know i just want to take a moment and then you all are getting on the list after you actually bring it i got something there Of all the problematic. No, I do. I tell you. I document everything. Like, listen. Shona, but this is what I want to say. This is what's important about this call or this.

particular episode is that we're showing that when you have a token, you miss out on the fabric of all of these different experiences. And that is the biggest challenge because then you're putting out into the world that there's only one way to be a black.

And so that represents the entirety of Black Jews, both in Israel and in North America, versus like taking the time to actually look and see who are the thought leaders in this arena and bringing them into the conversation versus going to that. One safe person. Well, first of all, Nate, can I just add this? We are still obsessed. We want to go back to the golden era of Black...

Martin Luther King and Rabbi Herschel talking about we will overcome from 1907 and people we want to we want to but we want to go back to 1912 and we want to stay there we want the black person we are not ready that now they have members of this community and i'm sorry zara israel which is patrilineal Judaism, okay, is there is no way that you should pick somebody over a black Jew. Do not speak for me, ma'am. Do not speak for me, sir. This is the problem.

So what I'm saying is there's nothing wrong with Zerah Israel. If you know what Zerah Israel is, Yehuda, I know you know everybody. No, I know you know. There is a problem when you pick up a person that looks like you want them to look and you want them to be and they're Jewish enough because. Father came from Russia or Poland, jumped off the sea. I don't know. But their mother is a black Christian. Boom. That's the person you want to speak for me?

No, not happening. So I understand what Elisheva is saying, receipts and all, but what I'm saying is if we're going to have... us speaking. We should have people that really represent the diversity because we are all over the place. We're everywhere. I was in New York with Bigga, saw so many Jamaican Jews that I didn't even know existed. Why do I not know that? Why did I not know they were Jamaican Jews?

existed. Why do I not know that? I mean, I know it, but why? Why? The oldest shul in the Caribbean is the person who acts. My guest from episode two in my college episode, her name is Imani Chung. She's half black, half Chinese, all Jewish. She's the one that's been cutting all the reels for us in the current episodes. Love it. she will she will she right now guess where she is with her family in jamaica so

Kind of cool timing. Now, I know that Big Eye is being polite but wants to say something, but I want to just mention one thing in reference to what Ashira says, because I don't know when she's going to suddenly have to go for a very noble reason. Chesed Shalemet, burying somebody. Biggest mitzvah, the most modest mitzvah in the Torah, the true kindness.

I promise you, because ironically, anybody watching this was going to have ample reason to write in the comment section like the little assholes they are. And they're going to have comments like, ah, see, this is like literally a double standard. They're talking about not talking about it, but they're talking about.

it and they're tokenizing don't tokenize us but that's exactly you know it's like we're shining a spotlight but saying don't shine a spotlight which is kind of true we're talking about something that we're also trying to say but don't don't focus on us we don't have to just be talking about these types of panels i'm gonna make

promise to all of you that I've already made to a lot of you guys. You're not only going to be on my show for these episodes. Asherah knows, I'm trying to have episodes with her about the quad, where she's actually the only person who's black, and I hope that won't always be the truth.

Rachel and Elisheva, you guys are going to be on episodes about fashion, right? You know, I'm going to have an episode with Bigga that's going to be all about people who are crazy. No, I'm just kidding. But it's going to be all of you. Nate told me early on that Chaya, who keeps changing and turning off her camera, making me like strobe-like crazy effect, he told me she should be on a comedian episode. I didn't understand that till right now.

She's giving me huge Tiffany Haddish vibes, and I'm not talking about because she's a Black woman, but I'm talking about because she's giving me huge Tiffany Haddish vibes. I had her on my show, and boy, does she remind me of her personality-wise, and I mean that in the best of ways. You are all going to be on this.

April because they're talking about DEI, Biga because of the general influencer doing it for God knows what reason. And Yehuda, I mean, I feel like I just need to talk to him about prison life and becoming a Jew. I swear to all of you.

that you're all going to be at my Shabbos table if you'll let me. And I swear to all of you that you're all going to be on episodes that are unfortunately going to be more white than black because it's just going to be about Jews. So I'm telling you right now, this is not going to be the way you're going to be represented.

in my mind, even if that's this episode's topic. And what I want to say to that is it's not about tokenism in those moments, but it's like putting people together based on their subject matter expertise. Whereas like April is a powerhouse around talking about anti-Semitism.

And so, you know, if we're putting together a conversation that's talking about anti-Semitism, having an April Powers in that conversation is crucial. How much time we got? It's powerful. Well, we've probably, we got Ashira for God knows how long.

but we've got the general talk for about another 40. But Big, you got to talk. Tell us what you were going to say. What I was going to say, going back to the diversity and tokenism, I think where the problem really lies is that a we uh and when i say we i mean just people in general we tend to try to not be confrontational and while i respect that the truth doesn't

hold that title of being confrontational. The truth is just the truth. Facts don't care about feelings. So when you have people who are put out there to represent a certain sect and they're not really part of that sect. or they're not truly representative, that needs to be called out. And I think where the problem comes in, and I say this kind of from a place of expertise because my wife, who has...

been on Jewish Instagram since the inception has been passed over and has been victim of so many of these things. And my biggest issue is always, why is it that you are not?

putting these people on blast because they're doing a disservice to your community. You understand what I'm saying? And I understand nobody wants to be confrontational. Nobody wants to be that person. But if you have actual proof for example that someone is is is stealing post or or or taking work from somebody else or plagiarizing

That person needs to be exposed and that is going to be beneficial for the entire movement. And I think that until that starts to happen, there's always going to be cases where people are. being called a representative for something that they should not be representing.

Such a good point. And like, I mean, even when I see those posts come up, I'm like, y'all, why we shouldn't have to do this. And something I don't I'm blanking on who said I think it was April Powers that talked about death threats. I think that that's another piece that people don't. realize broad stroke is that many of the folks on this call have dealt with some level of threat of personal violence or whatever as a result of being out in public about their viewpoints.

That's a weird kind of weight to carry. You spent 30 years in security. I spent time in law enforcement myself. And nobody wants to be looking over their shoulder every time they're getting into a vehicle because they posted something. calling people out. I had two questions here, but I think I want to go in this particular direction because we're kind of in this realm. And as Black Jews...

Some often confuse us with Messianic Jews. What's the difference and why can this be problematic? Well, we don't believe in Jesus, JC. We don't, you know what I mean? That's fundamental, right? We don't believe in AJC. Not only that, we don't believe in the Greek scriptures, right? The so-called New Testament. That had nothing to do with us whatsoever. So you can't claim that, which is not a Hebrew scripture, right? It's a Greek scripture, right? What it was originally written in.

and then claim to be part of our... Again, I look at it differently. I look at it as we have an indigenous tradition coming out of Eretz Yisrael, and it's been passed down in an unbroken chain meticulously, so you can't just reinterpret things randomly. That's why a lot of the so-called Hebrew Israelites...

it's harder for them to discuss with me because it's not based off a tradition they're talking about. They're talking about a random interpretation. Same thing. You believe in JC, that's a random interpretation. It's not connected to our unbroken chain, our Masora, that we can literally point.

to a rabbi in every single decade of every single century for thousands of years until uh you know from way back then right of what we believe in and so there's no innovation in that sense where you can just come up with new things can i ask you or any of you to backtrack a little bit

to actually explain to us what are Hebrew Israelites? You're saying they follow Jesus and so on? No, not all of them don't. All of them don't. So I want to be clear about that. All of them don't believe that. There is a... a lot of confrontational ones in America that do. And I had these conversations and I say, are you talking about Hebrew scriptures and Hebrew this, but you're using Greek scriptures. But at the end of the day, there was a group of black folks from America.

that went to Liberia first, got ugly for him, ended up going to Israel. They believe they are the true Jews, right? Are true Jews. Hebrews. Yeah, but it's a word game. It's like somebody telling me, how can I be anti-Semitic? I'm a Semite. No, that's not how the word is. That's such a weak argument. I just got that.

They claim to be Hebrews, but it's not based on a tradition. It's based on a sort of contemporary, you know, I could tell you the sort of 100 or so years that it's been around interpretation of things, right, of them reading a passage and transvaluing. Christians have done it before us. Islam has done that before us. Transvaluing passages to mean something that's not. We believe we are Jews.

Right. We know us to be connected to Yiddishkeit and Judaism and our identity because we have an unbroken tradition. You can see it in thriving Jewish communities all over the world that we're connected by Masora, by our tradition.

They are not. They're connecting to nothing, which is why they can't go back hundreds of years to tell you they're learned sages that believe in the same thing they do. They're not connected to tradition. They're not connected to Yiddishkeit. They have nothing to do with us.

And there's one distinction I want to point out here is the recognition that there are Hebrew Israelis that are very much serving in the IDF and are representative as a part of our community. But it's really important to make the distinction between...

They're not Jewish. That's exactly what I'm getting at. They're being supported by non-Jews. I'm all for that. But they're not Jewish. And not only that, I want to be clear on what is cultural misappropriation because we call it out from other people, right? If you steal my identity and say you are real and we are not.

I'm going to have an issue with that. So long as you don't fit in that, you're good with me. My understanding for Messianic Jews is that that was an effort by some group. I don't remember. which one to undermine Jewish identity and to convert us in a hidden way. So that was an effort by whatever community created messianic Jewry to get Jews to believe.

and follow Jesus as a Messiah, I guess, in order to save us, sort of like that, you know, manipulation of our own heritage, right, against us. So somebody can do some research on that, but that was my understanding of also. why messianic Jewry is such a problem. Not for them, but for Jews. I'm not going to get into messianic Jews because it... it's a what do you call it it's contradictory the end yeah you know but going to the Hebrew Israelite situation it's the Hebrew Israel

The only decent, normal conversation I've ever had in my life with a Hebrew Israelite was an Israeli one. Because the American ones... they're on something else and not only that i don't think most i had to tell this to several people several top jewish leaders and top jewish speakers who have a lot of followers who didn't even know this that there's different types of hebrew israelites they like look just like we have like conservative

They have all these different types, and people just seem to think that the Power Rangers are the only ones. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's other types that actually started using the word Jew that try to pass themselves off as Jews. Yeah. you know you see those in New York a lot we got them on Venice Beach too denying our right to in Times Square we used to get into it all the time with them

Yeah. So it's important that people understand that because if people only see the extremism, then they think that that's all that there is. And they're missing the full picture. Like there's a whole situation going on out here. They're thinking that they're the real Jews, the only one. And in my experience, you know, being Black and Jewish, like I didn't, I wasn't the right type of Jewish, the right type of Black, all that. They seem to have a visceral reaction.

to someone that they meet that is Jewish that is black because deep down they know it means if I exist you don't and that's how that's what so like sometimes when when you see Hebrew Israelites confronting black Jewish people it's more visceral then they would attack anyone else that's Jewish, that's not black, because we're attacking their religion, their identity, their self, their sense of self. So it's very highly just by existing.

yeah just by existing because they know if we exist you don't if we exist you don't and that's i mean you even saw some videos or forgive videos like i have real friends in real life but you also saw a video so they were attacking ethiopian jews and they're like you're not real jews like they it's just

even though everyone in the world knows that there's Ethiopian Jews, these Hebrew Israelites are like, no, you can't, you're not really Jewish because it, you know, it's similar to like attacking an anti-Zionist Jew. Like, it's very difficult to have, you know, dialogues with anti-Zionist Jews because their Judaism is based on no Judaism. It's based on attacking Israel. It's based on all these things.

that made them how they are Jewish. So when you attack an anti-Zionist Jew on their views of anti-Zionism, you're actually attacking their Judaism. So it's, which is why you get a visceral reaction from them. You just touched on something. I literally, you're the first person to make me think this, but you're.

We've all experienced that nomenclature that we've come up with since October 7th that pisses all of us Zionists off of the as-a-jujus that we all see in Hollywood and other places. What you're coming up with is an idea that I'd never thought of. which is, as a Black Jew Jew. And that's the same concept, but being hijacked by other people who say, as a Black Jew, and you're like...

Fuck you. Stop saying you're just like I say fuck you to my, you know, to the Oscar screen when somebody starts to like make, try to twist the Holocaust about something else. And you can't even talk in your house during the Oscars. No, that's true. I have an Oscar party.

every year, but man, stuff gets set. So that's really, really interesting. I do want to not do a disservice to certain allies and friends. Nate pointed this out because our last episode, we had two Hebrew Israelites who were Israeli Hebrew Israelites.

who served and who are amazing. So shout out to Lilach, Logan, and Shia. Shout out to Asriel Moore, both people who do not do any of the stuff that you mentioned pisses you off neither and say as a jew they both say as a hebrew light i'm not jewish but blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and i love them and i love what they're doing for us yeah bigger

Asriel actually is the first Hebrew Israelite that I had a conversation with that did not end in an all out argument. I'm originally from New York, from Brooklyn. And in Times Square, they would set up shop and like have the soapbox, the microphone and be all.

decked out in their garb and everything and and we would stay getting in the confrontation with them and i thought for a very very long time anytime that i heard the phrase uh hebrew israelite that is what i i went to and it wasn't until a few months ago that i had a

pretty long conversation with Asriel and realize that there are, just like we said earlier, that there are different sex, just like with everything else. And I think that it's important to differentiate between the two. But at the same time...

You have to defend yourself against the ones who are trying to deny your existence. Right. And I think I just want to add, because Asriel is a personal friend of mine, and I know, Leelock, once again, I really, really want... um people to understand especially for me in this year we live in israel Our Hebrew-Israelite community in Dimona, they are Israeli, and that is that they're a part of our community, and they are very, very special and have a very, very unique...

unique story and i have friends that are hebrews and um you know they have one of our biggest um teva uh organic you know vegan food because they were vegans That's big in Israel. So also you need to go into this nationalistic ideology as well. They serve in the army, Lilac's in the army. There's a lot of levels because in Israel you can actually be.

who you are. You can be a Yemenite. You can do this. You can do that. You can do this. And you can say, but I'm still Israeli. And so I know I fight with people about that. When it comes to this level and this side of the world, all the labels, we just have a hot smudge of labels as opposed to New York Hebrew Israelites that are just Power Ranger. deactivate fighting being silly when you get into something that you know you can't compare to someone that's like

I'm trying to be part of a society. Those Hebrew Israelites are harmful and nasty. And at least Sheva has told me so much they've done to her. And I don't get that from the Hebrew Israelites here at all. So I do agree with you, Bigga. And this is why part of the reason why we appreciate having this question, because it shows of like why this is such a sensitive touch point for so many. And, you know, when we're talking about.

And this particularly happens in the United States, not in Israel, as Chaya Lev was pointing out, when people see us and assume that we are Hebrew Israelites. And I can say for myself, my immediate thought is you are associating me with the guy standing on the street. a microphone. Like, really? Really? You see me here with my tallis and shul and you think that that's a part of who I am? Come on, like, be curious about my identity.

Let me add something to that. I don't think it's just the extremes, right? Because if you're actually in a, I guess, a normative communal Jewish space, right? And you are Jewish by Jewish... customs and our indigenous tradition uh to confuse you with somebody whether they are

very virulent, anti-Semitic, or maybe they're not. Maybe they're nice people. And I'm all for allies. Actually, my son is named after the Druze officer that gave his life in the hard-nought terrorist attack. So I'm all for Israelis and different border people that ally with us for sure.

not taken away from any with anything about that but there's a sensitivity in that at the end of the day no version of hebrew israelites are jewish according to us right and so to confuse with that right according to judaism or yiddish That doesn't mean great people or anything like that. We have to speak. The issue with people hating Zionism and hate Judaism is that they do not believe we're the same people in that land.

Right. That's it. When you ask, when you boil it down, it's not because of Netanyahu's policies. It's not because of this. Right. They don't believe the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. And if you hear the argument.

because that's not our ancestors we're not connected to even though we have the strongest argument no other culture no other tradition we have passed down our tradition meticulously for thousands of years in an unbroken chain right and so That idea needs to be lifted up. So I just want to add a little nuance to that. Right. As far as like what it means to be Jewish and confusing us with people who are not Jewish, not just the acts of anti-Semitism, but.

If you're not Jewish, awesome. Right. No problem with that. Right. We're all made in divine image. Right. But, you know, everybody has their role. All right. I'm going to ask a there's some really big topics we have to get to. And I want to, and I, and so I'm going to transition with one of them being so key. And I'm going to have an episode about this mental health. Maybe I should even have you on Yehuda as a social worker for that one.

uh rona lalazari i'm not sure if you guys know her but she's really big in the mental health community my friend elaine chaya who's a fun Fun Persian online presence. She's actually started working with her. She wants to know how you guys have handled your mental health challenges in light of both racism and anti-Semitism. Almost a hat trick. We just have to get you a third one to be.

attacked with. I want to start with Rachel, if you don't mind, because I feel like we haven't heard from you in the longest. Okay. Dealing with mental health with regards to... What dealing with being black and Jewish and being attacked for both? That's her question. I mean, to be honest, I've been on the Internet for a really long time. I have developed very thick skin.

it really doesn't bother me. And if I'm like, feeling a little bit snarky that day i may do some like funny like clap back screenshot them put them in my stories kind of thing um have a little fun with it troll them back i I really, it doesn't get to me. It doesn't get to my mental health. That doesn't bother me. There are other things with regards to being a pro-Israel.

Jewish activists on the internet that does bother my mental health, but racism, hate, whether it's for being Black, whether it's for being Jewish or anything like that, just does not. bother me at all doesn't Sounds like humor is a very, very strong number one defense mechanism for you, though, which is fantastic. Well, I'm very, my whole family is very, like, sarcastic and dry. I always have a quick comeback and I don't know. I just, I don't have, like I'm not a sensitive person.

you know like i'm not going to have hurt feelings easily um i'm pretty tough and like it's like just Tell me what you think. Like, I'm probably not going to agree with you, but I'm cool. Like it just, I don't know. That's just how I'm wired, I guess.

We all need to be wired differently. It's a very healthy way that you are. Now, Ashira, you're in Israel where you don't deal with the least anti-Semitic country in the world is Israel, ironically enough, right? And you were talking about racism being its own. old and different thing. It's just sort of equal opportunity assholery in Israel, right? It's not about black, white. It's just like everybody's pegged for being Russian or whatever they are.

But you still also are American and you deal with a whole audience all over the world. So how have you dealt with your own mental health concerns? I have to echo what Rachel said and just say, for me personally, social media comments and all the hate on social media, that does not affect my mental health. What has affected my mental health is living through October 7th, going to Kibbutz Bay Area two weeks after.

you know blood everywhere seeing the weapons still on the ground going into children's rooms seeing all their books and seeing that children live there and then sorry and then also seeing that there are bullet holes going through their rooms, there are bloodstains all over their bed. That has traumatized me in a way that I'm still unpacking. Coming home to California for a month has been a way for me to cope.

I want to encourage everyone to like, you know, be with people that make you feel safe. And my mom keeps saying to me, why did you, I keep saying to her, oh, I love being at home. I feel so safe, you know, being an American. and having the privilege of not having to live through a war that's on the ground. I know I lived through 9-11, but I've never lived having a war on my territory.

And having to experience that as an American living in Israel is completely new to me. And so navigating that trauma experience is... what affects my mental health every day not knowing that I have PTSD just like you know I think most of Israel does you know and just knowing that we had to

jump into a a pr war right after i mean i wasn't on social media prior to october 7th i was a political moderator but i just had linkedin and so right after i'm right on the quad i'm right on defending ourselves none of us and no one in Israel got to sit and unpack.

what happened to us i don't think people are unpacking what happened to us even now we're just going we're just fighting we're just going and so that is what is having an effect on mental health people's nasty comments online who cares about that like seeing children seeing our children dead

in the streets, that is what is traumatizing. Well, there's going to be a lot of delayed trauma in Israel that's going to have to be unpacked and dealt with. We're seeing that. Sure. I really appreciate what you're, I see April. get this little thought in. I really appreciate what you're acknowledging around PTSD and the experience of being in Barrie. I've been to Barrie myself. As somebody with that...

has PTSD from the U.S. Army serving in Iraq, stepping into Bay Area, I was like, I've seen this before. I've smelled this before. I dealt with my trauma from being in the army. Now I know when I get home, I'm going to have to unpack this. I can't carry it around with me because I know the side effects of what happens as a result of that. And there's all kinds of mental health initiatives happening in Israel right now.

um but what i wanted like the little twist that i was thinking about is that when i was like i think i need to get uh i'm gonna get a therapist because i don't want to put this on anyone that i know or love and when i started like interviewing therapists i was like okay so you need to know i'm both black and I'm Jewish and I travel to Israel. Let me know right now if this is going to work or not. You know, because I'm like, first of all, I need to be somebody that's Black.

so they need to because they need to understand my lived experience but then they also need to understand that I'm unequivocally a Zionist and travel to Israel all the time and will continue to do so. So like, I think that some of the, that Dr. Price was talking about this with the triple consciousness of like having to think through all of these layers, even when we're thinking about our mental.

health and seeking support april to you so some of you might notice if you follow me at all that one of my many thinks that I focus on is Jewish mental health in light of antisemitism. Why? My mother is a retired clinical social worker, but also I experienced extreme depression after I was canceled after May of 2021. And so I went right into early menopause. I gained 20 pounds. I couldn't lose. I couldn't get out of bed for nine months. I joke.

that I wouldn't have survived the Holocaust because I was so shocked with the onslaught. I had to delete a Twitter account I'd had for since it opened. Right. And and I hid. took all the pictures down of my kids. You will not find pictures of my family on most of the internet. I've really been, you know, some, there were death threats. The FBI got involved. It was a scary time. Turn, you know, Rachel, I should have gone with your methodology.

and Chaya Leves, which is humor because nothing ended up happening, right? I got a dog. I've never had a dog. I have a crazy alarm system. I spent so much money trying to protect my family. And Nate, to your point, yes, we need to be able to have therapists who understand and will not reject our Zionism. And we're seeing in those spaces that Zionists, there are a list for, you know, a Zionist list for therapists, doctors.

authors where they're trying to ban us. So for those of you who are looking for Mental health, I want to point you to mentalhealthisreal.co. They are giving six free sessions to everybody who is Jewish in any language. to jewishtherapist.org. They have Jewish therapists, whether you're a Zionist Jew or non-Zionist Jew, they at least will be able to connect you with somebody who meets your needs. And that includes Black Zionist Jewish therapists. And then there's Kesher Shalom.

that has other interesting products and topics. So there is a lot out there and expect me to post and repost some of their offerings, but you might as well follow them yourself. I'm always going to plug colonics because that is the only thing that got me out of my depression was going and getting doing a liquid fasting and. colonics and it literally sucked the shit out of my

April, let me DM you. I want to hear more about this. And I will tell everybody, I went to We Care Spa. And I'm in there. I'm also, because it was so transformative, I'm in their documentary because it literally changed my life. Like in three days, I was back in my body, not my original body. but at least not with that brain fog of depression. I'm going to remind you all I'm a registered nurse. So if any of you guys need a hand, I mean, I know you're a few blocks away from me.

You want to make that a malava malka? If anybody needs a therapist, though, I think I hit a couple of those qualifiers right there. I am open to new clients, but no, I'm good on that. I'm giving my own wife enemas because she's got ulcerative colitis. We're Jewish. We have stomach issues, y'all. And the epigenetic trauma. I don't care if your soul was there at Sinai or you've got that Ashkenazi stomach. It's real.

I mean, I'm allergic to all the things. I definitely don't have an Ashkenazi stomach. Good for you. My wife talks about... My wife talks about this, like she's giving speeches for the Crohn's colitis foundation. She normalizes pooping. So don't worry about it. I'm not getting, I'm not getting into hot water by bringing this up. Bodily functions are our birthright.

April, did you realize when you just name-checked Israel, the organization, did you realize that that is Rona, the one that asked the question? That's her. Oh, okay, yeah, no, I love Rona. Rona, yeah, no. She's the one, when you said that, yeah, when you said mental health is real, is like, that's the person who just asked this question. She's the founder.

And I have I've spoken on her on her site and I've met with her at the Nova Festival. And the other thing I just have to say, I have never I have read a lot. I hate horror movies. I have never read anything so horrific as what happened on. October 7th in my life. I haven't even seen it in a movie. And, but again, I don't watch horror movies other than a pogrom that happened in Eastern Europe that involved cats that I'm not going to horrify anyone with. So when we talk about.

you know, terror in our minds and just that epigenetic trauma that just keeps on going in our minds. I cannot get. some of that language out of my head and it repeats itself. And the horrors of that knowing that 101 people are still maybe suffering some of that gets at me every day. I have.

hostage posters in my house. I have names up in my home. I have art from Nomi Gal, you know, around. She draws pictures of the hostages. And so I don't want to leave my home, but I also, I think I re-traumatize myself. on a regular basis, especially because I talk about antisemitism in our history so much. And we do owe it to ourselves to, you know, find a Dr. Yehuda Price or someone who can come in and do that work with us. Well, I promise you mental health is going to get...

its own episode, if not more, because it obviously needs more than just to be a fast-throwing question. But don't go anywhere, April, because Nate actually wants to ask a question, direct a question to you to start. You know, what's kind of funny is that, you know, a mental health question is so serious and important.

but the way that we all were able to get some real humor out of that, like I'm really appreciating it. And by the way, I will give my, my one little bit that I appreciate around self-care is the B12 shot. Don't sleep on the B12. Yeah. What is that? Energy boost. It's an energy boost. It lasts about a week. And I was like, yo, why didn't anybody tell me about these? I've given that to my wife too. They give them that we care.

Yeah, I mean, I use ClassPass. It's not an endorsement, but I use my ClassPass points, go down the street from my house, get the thing done. I'm out in two minutes. So this next question, shifting gears back. to sort of what we were talking about earlier. This is from Tricia Krieger. Tricia Krieger, that's actually my wife's cousin for Tricia Krieger, yeah. And this is for you specifically, April.

And I'll read it verbatim. Can you ask April how the concept of DEI, which is intended to be about equity, has gotten so warped into finding a scapegoat in Judaism? Right. Then the elephant in the room. So let's address it head on, starting with you, since you're the expert. Okay. So I want to break down a couple of things, and this will take a while. You can edit it however you want. Affirmative action.

is not DEI. DEI is diversity, equity, and inclusion. Affirmative action is a series of laws that were put into place to you know, make sure that there's equity in our hiring practices. That's inviting people to the party. Diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, anti-racism and accessibility and civility are what happens when you get there.

Am I, do I, if I'm at the party, are they playing my music? Do I get to be the DJ? And we use this example in Schultz. Can I, is it, are you welcoming me here? Like, here's where the kitchen is. Here's where all the stuff is. Open the fridge.

Or is it mine and I get to put my feet up on the couch, right? So we're not going to get rid of DEI. It's been around for too long. It's had different iterations. And one of the reasons I got so depressed... when I was told that I was a white supremacist and I was anti-racist, whatever, all those things that I was accused of doing, is that I have a DEI heart where I'm thinking of people all the time that are different from me.

In my whole career, I did not think about Jewish identity in my own DEI practice. So I can't be mad at DEI professionals who haven't done it now. But the vast majority of us care about everybody. They just don't know how to do it right. Are there anti-Semites in every single profession? Absolutely. Have I met heads of DEI for big companies that were clearly anti-Semitic and told me?

I'm just going to tell you right now, we're never going to invite you in here to talk about that topic. And, you know, like, wow. Right. So are there those people? There absolutely are. Is there a movement in DEI to find a scapegoat for some of the things? The ways that things work, that false binary of oppressed oppressor. Yes. And I'm going to say something a little bit controversial that a lot of people aren't going to like right now. After George Floyd and after any.

his murder and after any big thing happens where DEI is asked to come and show up, there is a mass hiring of people who maybe never did this before, maybe never studied it, maybe never learned exactly. how to integrate all of these things, maybe just have the right background, skin tone, wrote an article on something, but they don't have the full understanding of what DEI as it's supposed to encompass everybody. And that means white people. That means.

queer people that means disabled people that means people with all their abilities that that means everybody dei is supposed to be the party for us all and when we have decided that one person is one group is the oppressor and one group marginalized, then how do you, you know, how do we deal with the intersections when, you know, somebody is a white person who is poor, disabled, you know, English, you know, is their second or third language?

And then we're just, you know, applying these American frameworks onto other cultures entirely. Like I said, it's wildly inappropriate. I feel that DEI has absorbed a number of people who are doing it for the first time, not to say that that's not okay. I was at one point a person who was doing it for the first time, but I refused to do it without proper training. So there are folks who are doing this job, A, without proper training.

based on something that is not always based on a DEI background. They're looking for heuristics. They're looking for simplicity. They're looking for, OK, how can I virtue signal that I get this? And right now, the virtue, the biggest virtue signal that we have, at least in this country, is anti-Semitism. israel rhetoric not based on the facts of thousands of years of history not based on the facts on the ground just based on you know

so much rhetoric that it's hard to sift through. And people don't want to show up not knowing what they don't know or looking like they don't know when they've been tasked to be the head of this important thing. And so I invite those DEI professionals who don't know how to talk about Judaism or Jewish identity or care and want to do better. I have a free class on LinkedIn right now. The only class on antisemitism. You can DM me. We can talk about this.

I'm more than happy to help those of you who don't know how to deal with Jewish identity and DEI. because it's been made into a false binary of oppressed oppressor. And we are one of the most oppressed communities in the history of mankind. And so it is incredible to me that. that we've been oversimplified into this demonized group. It's wrong. It's a lie. And some DEI professionals have found for it. But I think overall, the...

crux of DEI and the desire for DEI to protect all people is still there. And the smart people in the room know that they don't know what they don't know. And they will reach out to experts and subject matter experts and Jews. who are majority Jews, not anti-Zionist Jews, because that, again, when we talk about tokenization, when you tokenize anti-Zionist Jewish voices, that is tokenizing the minority. Not to say that their voices don't matter. Of course they do. But when you tokenize and center.

anti-Zionist voices, you are signaling to the rest of the Jews in your community or in your company or in your culture that you are not caring about representation because we wouldn't do that with any other minority group. And so that's where I think DEI gets it wrong. I just want to throw it out there. Tokenization itself is a form of racism, a form of prejudice. So we got to call it out for what it is.

I will say that if you are an anti-Zionist, well, let me qualify that more, right, of what sort of anti-Zionism, but... If you have no, if you're not connected to any sort of normative communal Jewish spaces and yet you use your identity primarily to attack the Jewish community, there's an issue.

within that itself right there right that that was my whole issue with candace owens a lot of time right is that not saying she didn't have any sort of insight into this and that but if you make a living off uh talking bad about your own people there's something off there right uh so oh yeah i i'm gonna hop in right after that because i made a whole video on it you saw i got a lot of likes on on on instagram yeah Listen, if you've got a black person that's harming other black people.

That means that person is, if they're not Jewish, they're one step away from being anti-Semite because they have no morals. They're morally bankrupt. They're morally corrupt. If you will attack your own, that means you already have. something wrong with you and the whole Candace Owens situation like there were multiple issues but we could see it Sean King the way that he consistently disrespected black women for years for years you know and

Kanye West saying that slavery was a good thing like we already saw we saw the writing was on the wall and as you like when you're black people you can see it but it's also the same thing if someone is black and Jewish like just because they're Jewish and black doesn't mean that they also support

you know, their own. If someone Black and Jewish is doing harm to other Black Jews, you got a problem. There's something wrong with them. And sooner or later, they're going to go off the deep end into something really disturbing. in some sort of extremist type of ideology and activities. But yeah, I just wanted to like just say that like, yes, that's how you know. If this person is harming their own, you got a problem.

I think something else that April that you were speaking about reminded me of is that within some DEI practitioner spaces, there isn't space for people to... define or explain what anti-Semitism looks like for them in the same way that, you know, as a Black man, I don't want anybody to tell me what racism feels like or looks like, smells like. And I think that that's the other rub is that by like not having...

enough Jews being in within DEI spaces where there's a loss because it's like, okay, well, what is this theoretical thing called anti-Semitism that people are telling me about? I have no idea what it actually looks like. I can imagine that for all of us that are on this call, we know what it feels like, and it's not too distant from what racism feels like. And so, I mean, I just kind of want to highlight that, like the missed opportunity there within this particular.

arena of a deeper understanding of antisemitism and how it shows up. And I would and I would and I would piggyback on to what you just said, Nate, that it's not just not enough Jews in a space, but it's not enough of the right Jews. And I know. And so so, for example, there is somebody named Verena Busser. She's been talking to me. Thanks to my.

She's a non-Jewish German PhD scholar on the concept of genocide. She reached out to me and she said, Boaz, I love what you're doing. Can we do an episode about genocide? I said, yes, but what do you mean? She said, I'm in the space where this is what my community talks about, my community of scholarship. And we're literally like there's such an overwhelming amount of it calling what's happening in Israel towards Gaza a genocide. And she's like, it's.

doesn't look like genocide. It doesn't sound like genocide. It doesn't smell like genocide. It's not genocide. And she said, even the Jewish scholars in my field are saying it. And I'm like, what the hell is going on so sometimes it's not enough to just say we need jews in the space we need the right jews in the space because there's a lot of the as a jew jews out there and it's

fucking offensive to the rest of us so i am trying to build an episode with her with different various people who are experts in the in genocide so i really appreciate that we and i want to just mention one other thing For people watching, I knew exactly what you meant, April. But for people watching, I want to clarify what April was saying when she was saying we need to have that a bunch of people who are getting hired are maybe not actually fully qualified and so on.

if I understand right, you're not specifically talking about the people getting DEI hires. You're talking about the people who are hired in roles like yourself as the DEI experts to help run the ship. Exactly. So I would see somebody's, you know, I would there would be all these people all of a sudden.

trying to link in with me and i'm looking at their title and they're like the head of dei and then before that they have might have been somebody's admin or somebody's not that there's anything wrong with that kind of elite but it was just like wait, where did you get your education to become the head of DEI in this space? Like everybody has to take a step. I took steps, but I refused it when Nestle asked me to head up DEI.

for their U.S. market. I was like, no, I don't know anything about this. And they were like, they had to ask me three times and promised me top tier education on the subject before I would accept that role. And I don't blame anybody for accepting the role, but I think companies owe it to themselves to get the right people in those roles. And if you're Jewish.

and you want to do this, I think you should absolutely go into DEI. We need more Jewish voices in DEI and DEI practitioners. If you don't know about anti-Semitism, you need to come to folks who happen, who are Jewish, who are Zionists, because that's the majority of voices, to help understand what antisemitism is, how it works. Yes, yes, Nate, it is.

more of a racialized bigotry today. It is not. You can't think of this as a religious bigotry because you're not shooting up a synagogue because of the Torah portion they're reading. It's because it's a place to find Jews. Israel is a container for Jews.

It is a very, very simple equation. And unfortunately, it does operate very much like a racist bigotry, racialized bigotry today, in that people, you can't... as you know it used to be more of a religious one but now you can't convert out of it right even the converts or conversos they wouldn't they couldn't get married it for generations because they still knew that way back in their history they had jews in their families so it's kind of like now you can't

out of Judaism or be a Jewish identity rather. It's just who you are. It's this, you know, thing. And it's true, right? Nate's going to bring us around to some last questions before we sum up, but I just want to mention something that has entered my mind three times during this talk, and I've been trying not to interrupt you guys because you guys have been awesomely interrupting. You've been on your best behavior.

You've been trying not to interrupt, but you've been interrupting, sir. That's right. I have been. I've been trying not to interrupt. You've been interrupted, sorry. Yes, I have been. Not nearly as much as I could be. So what I will say, though, is that I'm enjoying this immensely. I've thought of this three times, so I'm just going to throw this out there so it's not a fourth. Hollywood, I am so sick and tired as all of you I'm sure are.

of the representation of Jews, because it sure as hell never looks like any of you. It looks a lot more like me. It's always Adam Brody and Seth Rogen and people like that. And that's every single one. And those end up even annoying me, not even just because they're white every time.

but because usually they're basically the as a Jew Jews, right? It's really annoying. They never, they're never wearing the keep us and just happened to be your doc, your, your forget a doctor, but they never happened to be other things. I have to go, which I understand, but I just want to give a good representation. Yehuda, do you want to say any last words? You know what? Thank you for bringing us all together.

particular space, being in this space with so many thought leaders and people who are making an impact on society and us showing what it means to be Jewish, active, and also being allies of Jews as well, and all the important work that people have been doing. But just to be in this space and having this particular...

conversation uh it's a good way to start my day i'm on the west coast so i'm starting my day uh so uh i appreciate y'all and just keep up the good work and i'm hoping to connect with y'all in a similar spaces and similar work to impact the world because that's what we need to do because you know that's what jews do and we just do it in a positive way the world will be a better place thank you i'll see you in person okay sounds good

Dr. Nino Brown, baby, Dr. Nino Brown. Nate just brought up the colonics again. All right. Oh, my gosh. All right. You ain't no good. My wife would not tell you about one either. All right. You go ahead. Bring us back with some of the last questions before we sum up. Got to get my composure back. And I think I'm getting kicked out of my dance studio, by the way, too. I'm at my dance studio. I'm getting kicked out.

Well, so this question is a little bit along the same lines, a little bit different. Before I get to this question, I just want to acknowledge something that. The folks that we have invited onto this call are by no way the only thought leaders that have opinions that could contribute to this sort of conversation. Just want to make that point blank clear that there's a lot of folks that have the...

the depth and understanding to be able to talk about this that aren't invited and not invited. It's not that they weren't invited to the cookout type thing. There's only so many boxes on the screen that we want to have it in and actually still have a conversation. Okay. So this last question comes from, is this Daryl Temkin? Yeah, Daryl Temkin. Finally, I got one name right. Yeah. Brilliant guy.

I want to make sure I get the rest of this right. All right. So amidst the landscape where there's so much anti-Semitism and bigotry coming to our community externally, is there concern? Is there concern that the very real issue of prejudice and discrimination within many Jewish communities will be swept under the rug? So essentially with all of the...

anti-Semitism and bigotry that we're experiencing throughout broader society. Is there a sense that within the Jewish community, some of the work that many of us have been doing to create more belonging is going to go out the window? I would just say, I'm going to start right there because I'm going to speak to it from a spiritual perspective.

We need to spend less time worrying about them and more time about us and how we're going to bring our light. I watched Jewish creators all day long, besides maybe Elisheva and a couple of people. more. Ellie Shedler's really good about this. Talk about they, they, they, they. We're missing the point. It's us, us, us. We have to do work from internally.

to spread that light out. Do you understand what I'm saying? Are you guys picking up what I'm putting down? So listen, so where I'm going here with this is that once again, there is work to be done, but you're not going to fix anti-Semitism. You're not going to fix anti-Semitism because the Jewish people themselves, we ourselves have work to do. If we want to fix anti-Semitism, we got to stay tight.

strong, be educated, no tour. Half of the people don't even know what they're talking about. When you say an acid juju, their identity is bagel and lox juice. I go to Southland, bagel and lox juice. So that's why when they see someone like me walk in, I personally, minding my own business, I threaten them because they have nothing but a bagel and a lock.

We don't even know who we are. So what I think we need to do, if we want to fix anti-Semitism, we need to find out who we are. And if we find out who we are, we want to have this Black Jew issue and that Jew issue because we know. who our Israel is. So I'm going to say take responsibility and start with us and quit worrying about the they. Because the they is part of the issue. It's not the issue. We've got to start with us.

You know, this is something that I often think about, and I really appreciate it. It's like, first of all, you got to put your own mask on first. It's something that I constantly am trying to remind us. And two, it's the idea that you got to take care of your own house before you go out and try to fix something down the street.

um and and i'm i think those are two very very important things to think about so i really do appreciate this question so it means that in some ways we we still recognize that there's work to be done within our jewish community uh and it can't just be outward facing look. What else y'all got? Okay. Well, I'll connect this to the other. There's another sort of partial piece of this question that I'll ask from somebody else, but they go together.

And I want somebody to jump in with this. So Erica Boknik, she's a good influence around mine. She actually teaches American Jewish University, teaches a lot about mental health and so on. So she wanted to know what are ways Ashkenazi majority communities can make art. spaces welcoming and celebrating black jews because that's really what the note i want to finish on here is i want to let us stop

We know that there are problems within America, separate problems from that in Israel. We know that when you go into an Ashkenaz shul in America, you stack out like a sore thumb if you look like any of you and you don't stick out like a sore thumb if you look like. me so how can we make things more about us and less about them like chaya was just saying how can we actually start doing that today for people who are watching this

I think one of the biggest, the saddest things that I learned the last time I was in Israel is that the beta Israeli community is losing their culture. And so I want to see the Ashken normativity in these United States to shift a little bit. the Beta Israeli and other communities that have survived, and, you know, the Sephardic Mizrahi community. Sorry, April, can you just restart but explain what Beta Israel is? Because I've never heard that term before.

Okay, Beta Israel means House of Israel. It's not second tier. It doesn't mean like Alpha Beta. It's our language, Beta Israeli, the House of Israel. Ethiopian Jews, one of the saddest things that I've... seen is the loss of the Ethiopian Jewish culture and traditions. And because of that, you know, what? I don't agree with that. We just had to see.

No, we just had to say, but what I heard when I went to Israel, when I went to Israel, what I heard from some of the Ethiopian Jews that I met there was that they were merging into more of... whatever the Israeli Jewish community life was versus how they, how they experienced Jewish identity, you know, just even the way they do Shabbat and music and some of these other things I would like to see in our schools. across the world that we integrate.

all of our cultures into some of these things, whether it's Sephardic music, learning about Ethiopian traditions. They were able to hold it down for thousands of years without any external input. What can we learn from them? And that is, you know, so I want to learn about all the heritage. I want to bring in the music. I want to bring in the food. I want to come into a space and just hear it's good to see you put your feet up. Not where's the kitchen. Do you need to know where the kitchen is?

Or to have an entire shul turn around because we were on CP time and stare at us, you know, like whack-a-mole, like looking at like all these people looking at us to turn around to see my family. Like, what are you all doing here for High Holy Days?

years ago but it's it's it's a feeling and and part of that feeling is yes ashkenazi is the is the majority here but how are we integrating all of the different the the richness of all of who we are beta israeli you know asian jews latin a jews um and and more into these spaces because there are mixed families in in those things it's not just um interfaith families right You know, something that you said just pops into my mind. It's all about normalization of things.

what is it normalization by immersion so my daughter she's now going to we have we've done the controversial decision of having even though i'm modern orthodox of having our daughter going to la usd public schools here in large part because It's just not affordable. It costs a Mercedes a kid in Los Angeles to go to school. Oh, no, no, but they give scholarships, so it's only a Honda Civic.

It's only a Honda Civic each kid for a year. I mean, and I'm not exaggerating. And that's after scholarships. So she's going to LAUSD. We're doing our thing and we figured it out. First thing I did when she went to her new school. is I got on the phone with the teacher who wanted to talk to me because she got to know Addy.

And I speak to her and I said, listen, I know you can't see me, but if you were seeing me right now in person, you'd see a yarmulke, a kippah on my head, and you'd see somebody who went to Orthodox Jewish day school and high school growing up. I didn't have the experience my daughter's about to have and presumably my son's going to have. What I need from you is a guarantee and assurance that you're going to be my eyes over there that are going to be able to tell me if things get anti-Semitic.

anti-israel um i just and i'm talking not just about her classmates who are little first graders but i'm talking about the parents and i'm talking about the teachers and i said i just need to know what's happening because i don't want her to ever feel a desire to

her Jewishness, right? This is where I'm going with it, right? I don't want, nobody should feel embarrassed about their Jewishness, about their Blackness, about their anything-ness, whatever makes them them. And she said to me very wisely,

These are children, all right? Forget about the adults right now. The children right now, they see you come on campus with your kippah, they're going to look. They're going to do that thing they did to April's family when they walked in. They're all going to do that dramatic. turn around thing when somebody enters a room right with sound effects and what happens is is that is that um is that you just need to normalize this come on campus a couple of times show them yourselves as another parent

Within a couple of times, you're going to be just another parent. That kippa is not going to mean anything more than somebody else what they do. Sure enough, I've come to campus. I don't even think it took me more than two times now. And I am greeted as warmly as anybody else.

on campus by the other parents by the other teachers it actually helps me because they because everybody knows who i am right away right it's sort of like being the one black person in the room the one obvious jewish person in the room everybody knows me right away and it's actually lovely and it's been welcoming and she was right so what did she do that's that speaks to what april just said when april said i want to have black food

from our cultures over there, dance, music, all of it just be normalized. She said to me, come on in and teach us about the culture. Teach us about the religion. I said, you're okay with that? In public school, I could teach about religion. She's like, culture. culture, whatever, tomato, tomato, right? So I go ahead.

And my mom has come with me and she taught the whole class, the story of the Maccabees. And she brought in our menorah, our Hanukkah from the house. And I taught them about dreidel and the gimel and the chet, right? And I went through all of this. And it's as normal as anything now. I absolutely love the idea of just bringing all of our cultures in there and just normalizing the shit out of things and making there be less reason for everybody to...

Turn around and see that weird person who just entered the room in that space that doesn't seem like them. We don't all always have to be others, but when we are others, can't it be more welcoming when it does happen? And one thing I'll add here for our audience.

particular is the importance of being curious without it being uh oppressive so it's important to be curious about the people that are in your community and by curious i'm not saying going up to somebody and being like so how are you jewish uh which one of your parents is jewish but it's the it's the so like um you know what's your what's your favorite

What's your favorite Shabbos food? Where are you from? Like these questions that we would ask anyone else instead of just immediately going into this, like, so did you convert? It was like, I would be like. Did you ask everybody else hear that? You know, cause like, we don't know each other like that. I can guarantee you half of the people in this room do. Are you here to find a husband? And we have not like.

What was that question about a husband? Are you here for having a husband? Yeah, that's a valid question. That says a lot about inclusion. If somebody in the shul is... Sidebar. No, no, no. The only reason that they would be there would be to find a partner. Well, minor sidebar. When I was in the military, I went to a show in Louisiana. And this lovely couple was like, you need to meet my granddaughter. She can take you around town. She's single. And it didn't dawn on me until I got there.

to go back to base. And I was like, oh, that's what that was. That's an inclusive synagogue. And they were trying to hook me up with their granddaughter. Anyway, sidebar, sorry about that. And the end of that story was? Not a match? Not a shitter? It wasn't going to be a match for me. But it didn't dawn on me that that's what they were trying to do. But can we just... I also just want to add something. I have to say... I didn't have the same...

I'm not saying it doesn't happen. We know it happens. I didn't have the same experience in my Jewish community. I've been in Chabad. I'm going where I go. People say a few things here and there. But the reality is we also sometimes we walk in the door with the chip up here.

ready we always we're trying to brace ourselves just go and be you because at the end of the day you're also contributing to that like you don't belong because you feel like you don't belong because you think they don't think you belong and at the end of the day the Jewish community and one thing about the Jewish community we are so loving and so amazing and I'm not saying that people have not had their bad experiences but if you I feel like you just go in there and even just

just understand that you're special and that you have a little different vibe. I mean, like, look, if there's a cookout, an all-Black cookout in Texas, and somebody coming there, not Black, holding... a potato salad with raisins, we're going to all stop. We're going to stop. We're going to stop and look. So why all of a sudden we're trying to pretend like

I mean, we're going to be like, oh, she's Tina Marie. She's definitely up in here at C. Rick James. I mean, we also have our own... Yes, because we... Record scratch. So I'm not... I mean, but I'm just saying, I know that the analogy doesn't quite match, but I'm just saying like sometimes too, like we have to also be forgiving to those of the space that we're going into. We have to be forgiving and understand that for a lot of people.

they just don't know and some people they do know they're just not ready because people have just started really oh you Ethiopian in America I always used to get you're an Ethiopian Jew as if that's the only brown type of Jew there's millions of African types of, you're Ethiopian? I'm like, look, do I look Ethiopian? Well, if you guys... I'm bloated. I'm bloated. I'm Nigerian.

Fufu, baby. I'm Fufu. Fufu. Kaya, we've talked about it. You're going to do an Igbo episode with me, right? We're going to talk about Igbo. This has been a good episode. This is fun. This is the tone that I would like it to feel like. I truly, truly hope that every one of our episodes is going to be able to be this lively. This is what I wanted, and I'm glad I asked you all to interrupt each other and do this, because this is what I wanted. Listen, I want to start to have...

last thoughts from each of you, just like last sort of summation, last, whatever it is on whatever you want to say, sort of your last thoughts before Nate and I give ours. So let's go ahead and start with you, Ms. Boatlocker. Kaya, why don't you give us a hamburger. Oh, you're nasty. By the way, you're nasty. By the way, hold on to everybody.

Because I was going to call myself the hamburger too. First of all, I want to thank you guys for having me on. It's been one of those crazy things that, you know, people stop asking me because I... the internet is like such a it's like a fake place in a real place it's like the matrix and not the matrix like some some moments of the internet feel over and I really believe that you know

Our Jewish community is a good community with the few people that, you know, the few, you know, like Elisheva, the one person and their friend that make it loud. And it's just like, I want to say two things, just speaking to our listeners, do not. Do not beg for people to see you. I get this a lot in Israel. We deserve to exist. I'm not going to say.

Israel has the right to exist. I'm not going to say as a Black person, I have the right to exist, and definitely not as a Jew. So when you're in these communities, you don't have to beg. to be seen you just have to show up and do you you just have to show up and be seen It's going to be okay. The issues that people have, they're going to have to adjust. And I think that's what I want to put out to the listeners, anybody that's listening to me, is don't beg anybody to see you.

Just be you. Just do you. I promise you. I promise you in the end, it's going to all be all right. Yeah. You know, what's that shirt that I always wear? What size you wearing? I'm a large, I'm a large all day, you know, sometimes extra large for the shoulders, but I've got this shirt that I often wear that says, be you, they will adjust. Like just show up as yourself. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah, and fight for your table. And I'm not talking about, you know, if we want stuff, we just got to snatch edges, wigs, hijabs. and um snooze you got to do whatever we got to do and we yeah i'm just saying that's why i'm so grateful like sometimes i don't live in america because the political correctness like no Snatch a wig. I'll definitely snatch a couple of heat jazz. I don't care. And I'm snatching a wig. That's what we're going to do. I'm pulling it off. Because what?

Don't laugh, girl, because I don't care. I was born canceled. I don't want them to get you. I don't want them to come for you. But I just, I don't care about canceled. I know y'all are some nice young ladies. Nice. Ellie Sheva's a nice young lady. April. April's been canceled. I've already been canceled. I hope that when people watch this, I hope that they will understand that Black Jewish people, we are not a monolith.

We all come with our unique set of skills and experiences and perspectives. And this whole event is just proof of that. I hope that people will understand that when it comes to black Jewish people, that our voices. can offer so much more than just fitting into a diversity quota. People should also understand that we don't have to only talk about Black Jewish issues. We can talk about other things as well.

because of our identity we have this intersectionality that allows us to see the same event from multiple perspectives and we can bring new results new insights new perspectives and that is what we bring when we come with our Black Jewish American identity. So I hope... that this episode will open some people's eyes and the right kind of Jews will be uplifted and there will never be an event or a panel where we're not represented because we're out here doing the same work we should be.

sitting with everyone else, talking with everyone else. We should be seen. One thing I would add to that is don't just invite us for the panel. Invite us all the time for all the things to be a part of the community. I think that that's also something that gets lost in translation. We're thought about when it's time for event planning and not about...

when it's time to even just start setting the table to have the strategy session. My degree is in business. I should be talking about all the aspects of my business understanding or military understanding and not just being a, hey, Nate, I'm a Black Jew coming to speak.

about something so i really appreciate what you shared yeah if we talk about the blackness as we are today then we can talk about the blackness but it better damn well not be the only thing we ever talk about that's right absolutely uh thank you very much for that april or rachel do one of you i don't mind whoever wants to go next want to give your final thoughts and rachel you might want to take a second and check your rub your clean your uh clean your camera

Well, my light went out. That's what it is. Okay. Cause you're just, you went from being crisp to blurry. That's all I lost my light. No worries. So now you, now you look like a mortal, like the rest of us.

So go ahead and do you want to give us, do you want to give us your final thoughts? Sure. I mean, I will just piggyback off of what Elisheva just said, what Nate just said about not just including us in spaces of talking about diversity or talking about just Black, being Black and Jewish or a Black Jew. But including us just to include us as being Jewish, because there's so much like each of us have so much to offer and.

We are passionate about different things. We are experts in different things. And we have a lot to bring to the table. I think being, you know, Black is just a drop in the bucket. of who we are as a people. I also want to say that when it comes to the Internet and Instagram and pro Israel activists and influencers, I think that we're doing a really good job at showing diversity.

I know we've been like pushed into this position of having to do that and having to prove that, you know, the Jewish community is diverse, but I will say, I do think there's an authenticity. authenticity with it. And I think that we are doing our best and we're doing a good job. So I just want to say that because I did make some negative comments before, which I stand by, but.

as a whole on the internet and what we're doing there, I think we're doing a good job. Good. It's a good positive and but realistic note to finish on for you. We appreciate that. And thank you for doing this for us twice. And I think the way that we managed it was, you can tell me your thoughts afterwards because you experienced it both ways, but I think it was a lot more able to sort of jump in and be a part of it constantly, right? Yeah.

We learned a lot the first time around. There's a lot of people. There's a lot of people, but even just the management of it now, I think that jumping on over each other. And April, would you like to give us your final very informed thoughts? I have a few, just based on what I heard everyone say. I think as Jews, we really do have to do a better job of incorporating Jews in all hues. You know, is it Jared would like to say?

um no it's not jared who's choosing yeah okay so okay i'm named blind so i'm gonna go back and re-record this so um what's sherrod's last name because i want him to get credit I'm blanking on his last name, Oz. Okay. So I want to just emphasize in closing that we really do have to include everybody and think about Jews. You know, what Jewish looks like is Jews in all hues, as Jared would say. And also include...

you know, our, our Orthodox community. And we've talked about this as like, why are we having things on a Saturday or on Shabbos? Why aren't we having appropriate food? You know, and this includes not just for the Jewish community, which is. not doing a good job of this but also if you are a DEI professional and you are in or hosting something even if you think there aren't Jews there because a lot of Jews are not out at work offer an option you need to offer

options for food. We need to offer a check the box. Are you black? Are you Jewish? You know, when we're talking about who we are in representation, Jewish should be part of a cultural heritage, not just a religion. Pew research will tell you. That many of us are, you know, see this as a cultural versus a religious thing. And Jew hatred is less about our religion and more about who we are as a people and things that we're accused of doing.

My final note is on Black Jewish solidarity because it is a huge thing in this country. We have folks like Van Jones speaking on it with the Exodus Project. When we're talking about Blacks and Jews and we forget Black Jews, you are not having a complete conversation. And so if you are having anything for us without us, it is not an equitable conversation.

an anti-racialist conversation. It is just not. And if you're only including white presenting Jews or the Ashken normativity as the Jewish voice, then you're also missing the vote. There should be multi-ethnic Jews in the Jewish. conversation about black Jewish solidarity because Iranian Jews, you know, and, and Latine Jews and others should be.

in those conversations also. It shouldn't just also be Black Jews. So I look forward, Boaz, to you having conversations with all the multi-ethnic Jewish identities so that we can really see representation on the screen of who we are as a people, because I don't think people really understand that. And it's important to have these positive images of our Jewish mishpucha out there. That's the next that you're leading us into our part three.

When Nate and I started talking about this, my original thing was like, OK, I'm going to do an episode with the black community. Enough people have asked me, have asked me about it. And I said, great idea. Nate, do this with me. It didn't take long before he realized that was like, oh, wait, it's going to happen.

be two episodes oh wait it's gonna have to be three episodes that's how we came up with the it's a different conversation about black jews as it is about the black community and the jewish community which is what the two we've done but then it was an entirely different one i said what about all these

right what about all these other everything else fill in the blank of color communities and nate was like episode three so that's actually what we're going to do we're going to have we're going to try to represent persian community and There's so many Persian Jews there. So many. And that's why I'm going to have a separate. Can I send you a list of my favorites? You are more than welcome to make everybody. I want that list too.

Please introduce me to anybody you ever want to. You know I'm friendly. Celine Rubin. She's amazing. I love her. Introduce me to everybody and I will be happy too. I have about 20 people on deck for a Persian series that I'll do too. It's LA. Just go to the grocery store in LA. Everybody's coming. Daniel Brawl. Nicole's Kitchen. Please introduce me to them all. So we are going to do all of this. So this is, you guys have been fantastic. Let me have some, some last thoughts, but listen, Nate.

In addition to being a friend, in addition to obviously being co-host, co-moderating with me for this series. He would be a guest, as I said in the last episode. If I didn't have this going on or somebody else is next to me, he'd be sitting where you guys are on your own screen because Nate isn't just happened to be my friend. He works in this space and he has so much expertise. He is incredible.

So it would be a disservice to not have Nate give his own thoughts, not as a host now, but as his own host slash guest hybrid. So Nate. your own thoughts. I feel like I get the privilege of being able to sprinkle my thoughts in throughout of the episode. But I think that I kind of hit on this earlier. And one thing that I hope that our viewers come away with is a sense of curiosity.

and leading with that, leading with curiosity and empathy, in that our experience as Black Jews, may look a little bit different than their experience and giving space to be curious to understand what that means, particularly for those of us that have a public facing image, the opportunity cost and the security threats that come alongside.

with that is something that I think that I hope our viewers really understand what that means. There are many levels to this. There are many layers to identity. Recognizing that

Jews, Black Jews are not a monolith, as we've heard other people say, that the voices that were represented here during this episode are not the totality of the Black Jewish community. And that the last thing I'll say is that like, I hope that as a result of watching this episode, people invite similar conversations within their community where people can actually come together and air out their thought or have.

a dialogue across difference around topics of identity within our Jewish community. So that's my on one foot. I feel like this episode is going to be pretty legit and look forward to it. People, people who just watch these. by the reels on Instagram, they get a taste, but they're just getting a taste. You got to watch the whole episode or listen to a whole episode. It's always available as a podcast, Spotify or anywhere. I make no money off of this. I've never made one red cent.

And I mean, hey, I hope I'm one day popular enough that I can say that I get myself some side income, but I don't care in the meantime. I do this because it needs to happen. And I have the conversations that need to happen, whether it's about genocide or whether it's about orgasm.

donation which has nothing to do with anything else i just have the conversations that need to be had and um and so that's actually going to be the episode that this is going to come after is one about organ donation nothing to do with israel so um What I want to say is this is not, people always feel uncomfortable talking to other. People always feel uncomfortable not knowing how to address other.

everybody does to varying degrees and the people who don't feel uncomfortable with it usually often show it in really fucking obnoxious ways with their lack of comfort and their bravado with it it's not at the end of the day I say it like this. I'm Jewish. I wear it. Yes, the kippah can come off and the kippah can obviously hide me more easily than anybody's skin color ever can. But let's just take me with my kippah.

I absolutely welcome. This is my message for other people, my own personal takeaway. I welcome the continuation of what already happens to me when I work in St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica Catholic Hospital. I'm the Jewish nurse with a kipa walking around. When my patients or my co-workers or the nurses or the nursing students come up to me.

and at some point say to me, hey, can I ask you a question about Judaism? Or can I ask you a question, why do you wear that? Or can I ask you a question about Israel? I say, great. I would much rather you ask it than just think it and make assumptions. I love that you're asking it. But I'm also...

talking to them about all sorts of other things this might have just been the 40th thing i talked about that day right and so that's but on the other hand when i'm sitting on when i'm walking down the street and somebody walks up to me and just says hey are those to help hide your horns or is that or do you have to wear that until you make your first million yes things that have been said to me in my life multiple times i'm not just saying that's anti-semitic duh we know

that's antisemitic i'm saying when that's when that's the way you lead your conversation I'm not having it. I'm not saying great discourse. Thanks for asking. Actually, we don't have a, you know, that's not what's happening. So it's, it's not, it's, I welcome.

discourse. I welcome conversation. I don't want the keep on my head to be ignored as if it's not relevant to my life. It is relevant to my life. I don't think the color of your skin, I don't think any of you believe that the color of your skin should be shelved as if it's not relevant or impactful in your lives. It has been relevant and impactful and always will be to your lives and the lives of your children if you have any. But it shouldn't be.

constantly the thing that defines you any more than the kippah should be the thing that defines me. It should just be one of the things that shape us and help define us. Notice the subtle but important differences there. So I personally love that. And I promise you that other than this series we're doing, which is about shining the spotlight on...

race, on a being of color, I promise you that future ones you're invited to, it's going to have fuck all to do with it. It's going to be for Rachel and Elisheva. about Elisheva being a historian, Rachel and Elisheva being fashionista influencers, April being a hell of a scholar when it comes to...

DEI and anti-semitism. And Chaya about fill in the blank, being a dancer and being a comedian. Hairstylist. Yeah. Oh, and Igbo. And the Igbo conversation is its own conversation that she's going to have with me. I just found out. Don't try to make me no evil specialist. I just got a name called Amaraki. Yes, but you're the one that told, yeah, but you told me you wanted me to do that episode, so you were going to connect me to that episode. Oh, for sure. Yeah, exactly.

Well, I feel really grateful because three of the folks on this call I'm going to see in the coming weeks. So sorry, Rachel. Rachel, come to Israel and visit us. I want to. I think I'm going to come in this spring. working on it all right yeah yes and rachel next and rachel next time you're in la you make sure you see me you went you went to the gala for shiba i think right wasn't it

I don't think you even know this, but my amazing, amazing wife who Nate is close friends with, she used to be their director of development. She helped them go from raising half a million a year to 2 million in year two to 6 million in year three to 12 million. 12 million, you know, for my wife is a super woman and she is a stay at home mom, super woman who is peaced out of the whole scene because she wants to be a stay at home mom.

My trip to Israel back in May was with Sheba. They are an amazing hospital and cause. Amazing what they do for all religions and for the soldiers and their rehab and their technology. They are incredible. I should probably even ask my wife to just set up an episode with the heads of that and just do what she about. Oh my gosh, you should. You know what would be really cool is also bringing in the heads from Serona down in Beersheba. Serona's their hospital in Bergen Oshava? Yeah.

Okay, sounds like a great idea. So listen, everybody, everybody, thank you. Big apologize that he's the most polite. What a gentleman that guy is. Got ahead to work. Got ahead to work. Sorry. And he didn't want to interrupt. He didn't want to interrupt and say goodbye, which he should have, of course. He's a gentleman. But it was a pleasure having you guys. It was a pleasure having Vega. It was a pleasure having Yehuda. Thank you all for...

doing this and for your time and for your energy and your presence and your intelligence. I appreciate it a ton. And I know he does too. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is a treat. Bye guys. I'm getting kicked out. Thank you for doing this. Bye. Bye, April. Bye, Elisheva. Thank you. I love you guys. Bye. See you.

Thanks for joining us for another edition of Chosen Links. If you like what you heard, feel free to share this episode. Don't forget to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on our socials at Boaz Heppner on X and Facebook and at Heppner. nerd.boaz on Instagram.