Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Okay. Good morning. Hillel Fuld from Meadowlands, New Jersey. It is nice to see you again. You look a little tired. You are in Chicago, but I understand that you were not participating in the Democratic National Convention. We'll get to that in a couple of minutes. Just to give everybody some background, I started a podcast called Opening Up Sir. Kind of opening up about our philosophy and about educational issues and talking about them with a little bit of a broader audience. And like much of the world, stuff stopped on October 7th. That was pretty much the last time, or a little bit before that where I had my last episode. But one of my summer resolutions was to reopen that and to try to bring guests on again to talk about things that are important, to talk with people who matter and who are doing things that matter. And it is a very special zechut on many levels for me to be having this conversation with you. So thank you, really appreciate it and hope you're doing well.
I grew up actually in Hillel Fuld's home. Rabbi Yonah Fuld and Mary Fuld in many ways took me in. Thank God I have wonderful parents. But Donn, one of his older brothers, was a classmate of mine in the class of 1984 at SAR. Rabbi Fuld was the principal of SAR. He literally brought me to SAR, first in his car and then as the van driver for about 15 kids from Queens who weren't doing well in their traditional school environments. I'll speak for myself. I don't want to speak for you. So I really owe a tremendous amount, especially my connection to sir to the Fold family. Hillel's brother Donnie, Hillel's older brother Moshe. All of the Fuld family lives in Israel. The next brother was Arifold, a very wonderful person who was murdered a few days before Yom Kippur. Hillel, was it six years ago? Will it be six years?
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yehi, Zichro, Baruch, Ari and all of the Folds were tremendous lovers of Tzion. And he was killed as a lover of Tzion, as a defender of Tzion. And El El has another brother, Eitan was very involved in Medinat Yisrael, working within the Israel government. So it's hard to find the family. It's certainly harder to find the family of Olim, who are more involved in, committed to and connected with Medinat Yisrael than the Fuld family. My memories from being in Sir Are by Fuld talking about 1967, talking about his parents experience in the Shoah, and then talking about 67, talking about 73, talking about being here in New York, but really wanting to be there and then eventually making aliyah. As all of my predecessors, Rabbi Shuatz and Ye Bat Lulu Chaim, Rabbi Fold and Rabbi Cohen, who have all made their homes in Medinat Yisra', El, and Rabbi and Mrs. Fuld are living in Yerushalayim. I saw them a few weeks ago. So really a very special family to me personally, and a very special family to SIR. Now, Hillel, did you graduate sar?
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: You did? I was trying to figure out the years, and it didn't make sense to me. First I thought that you left in the middle, but you did graduate SAR. So, okay, you graduated SAR and did you go to high school here?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah, 9th grade, MTA, 10th grade, Khorev. Quite a transition.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: MTA and Khoreb, you made aliyah with your family after 9th grade and you've been living there ever since.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: That is correct. Beginning, as you can imagine, 10th grade. Moving to Israel was not an easy transition for me. And so in my mind, get through high school and get to the military and then I'm out of here. Actually, it's a story that I don't think I've ever told, which is that.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Came to KBY when I was there. So I finished high school, finished army, and I was learning the Shiva. And son was. And I was talking to him, I'm like, I'm getting out of here. I'm like, I gotta get. And he almost killed me, was like, what have you been saying? Of course you're staying here. I don't know exactly why he had such a strong impact on me, but he's definitely one of the people that kind of encouraged me to stay. And obviously, now, 30 years later, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. And we're living the dream.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Amazing. So you did graduate sar. Tell me about your memories, or hopefully the good ones.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Other than the fact that our teachers used to smoke in the classroom, SAR were the best years of my life. On the one hand, you're the principal's son, so you're never going to reach the cool kid level. But it was amazing. The teachers were amazing, the friendships were amazing, many of which I still have till today. And honestly, it's my claim to fame. Right. Anybody who's ever studied at SIR will react the same way. Are you Rabbi Fulk, son? Right. My parents and my dad, they're both pretty epic people. Yeah. SAR was and continues to be an unbelievable educational institution, but far beyond, I.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Think, growing up in your home. You obviously lived the values of sir 24 hours a day. And like I said, your father, for me personally and for so many of us, our connection and our association with Israel first came really through in many ways through SAR and through your father. Are there any particular memories that you have specifically related to Medina Yisra' El in terms of your experiences at SAR that come to mind?
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, obviously, Yom Hatz moves the whole discussion in the Jewish world. Bracha Hallel, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think that my father not only taught me and I guess all of his students the importance of Yom Ha', Atzmuth, the importance of saying thank you. But as like most things, he was fiery, passionate about it, very much so. I think that the Zionism specifically, but obviously the entire Zionist philosophy, I think, was drilled into my DNA from a very young age, both as the principal's son, but also as a student in far as you see him, Zionist.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: A very fundamental kind of pillar of the education we received at sar.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Right. And like I said, for so many of us, and bright memories of Yom Hatzmaut gathering halal on the steps, which is a minhag that has been going on for many years. Obviously. Yvrit, your father, actually, through Bar Ilan, through the Lukstein center at Bar Ilan, wrote a curriculum that we now use in school in SAR and is used in many schools to teach the history. But it's not just about the passion, and you have to know what you're passionate about. So it was very important to him that we learn about and that kids learn about Israel. And that's something that is now happening through the curriculum that when he's. Since he's been to Israel, he was involved in writing many booklets that we use in all the grades to teach kids about Medinat Yisrael, to teach them about Sihanut. But I have to tell you that it's hard to replace that passion and that what you described as that fire instinct that he had, I think that made such an impression on me and to so many of us who are now parents or teachers or otherwise around at sar, it's something that you know about very much.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: I always tell my dad this, but I don't think he hasn't spoken about publicly. I don't think I have. But every time I meet our Michael Eisenberg, wherever I meet him, he tells me the same story every single time. Telling you, it's the funniest thing. He goes. He told me that he's talking to my dad about Israel. At some point, my father said, michael, you can own part of the rock. Go buy property. You can own part of the rock.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: And he does.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And Michael said he was a really strong force in him eventually making aliyah. And obviously, anybody who knows Michael, he hasn't just made aliyah. They get. Has supported the Israeli economy and given more people jobs than most people that I know. Again, that one sentence and that one kind of push that my father gave him and many thousands of others really impacted his life and in his case, helped him make a decision. Maybe one of the biggest decisions ever made in life.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Amazing story. Michael was my chavrussa, and Rabbi Rosenz works here in Yu. And Michael's a special guy, and I know that how much he has done and does for the state of Israel. So great to hear. So let's shift gears a little bit. You're living in Israel. You went to Horev.
You're growing up. I know we're both still growing up, but you're older. And I remember your mother telling me, you're writing, like, technical writing for kind of converse or something like that. Is that accurate? Tell me about that.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: So I went to Maryland University. I studied political science. Not because I ever thought of going into politics, just because. I don't know, it seemed like an interesting degree, and I guess it was relatively easy. My grades were fine from Cory, but as you can imagine, making aliyah middle of high school, I wasn't the top of my class. So I. I can't say I had that many choices as far as what I was doing, whether it was law or something else. I did a degree in political science, really enjoyed it. But then I was like, okay, now what. What are you doing in a degree in political science? You're not going to politics. And at the time, it was basically like a default. If you're American, you live in Israel, you go do technical writing. Someone said to me, go be a technical writer. I didn't know what that was. And I started studying technical writing, and I was writing user guides for a company called Converse, which is the company that basically invented Voicemail. So at the time, they were. Wow. Now, as you can imagine, they longer exist. But that's how I started my career. My answer is super cliche, and I sound maybe like Tony Robbins. But honestly, all that I had when I started, and I'll tell you exactly how it happened, but all that I had in the beginning and early days of my career, the only thing that I had was passion. Again, I know it sounds cliche. But the reality is that I find myself at my job board and I said to myself, this is clearly not what I should be doing in my life. And I said, I love tech, I love writing. I'm gonna start writing on the Internet. I bought a domain, bought a website, started writing. There was no business model because blogging wasn't a thing back then, surely was not social media or the iPhone or any of this stuff. And I started just, I get to work, make a cup of coffee and write a quote unquote blog post. And everyone's what is this thing you're writing? How do you make money from this? And I was like, this isn't a money making thing. This is my passion. I love tech, I love writing. So I would write these posts and basically within a couple of months, entrepreneurs discovered my writing. I don't know how, I don't know where, but they reach out and they'd say, my name is so. And so I read your article about whatever, I'd love to meet, I would meet these entrepreneurs again. There was no business involved. But what I learned is that what we say in Hebrew or in Israel, being a friar, being a sucker, helping someone for free, while it's looked down upon in Israeli society, is actually the best business model in the world. Because instead of selling yourself and saying, I can do ABCD and pay me, you just show what you can do. And that company says, holy cow, this guy is seriously valuable to us. He's indispensable to us. And at that point they come to me and they say, listen, we know what you did for us. They're aware of your abilities because you demonstrated them. You didn't promise anything, you just delivered. And then they come to me and then I have the leverage and they need me. So it's a whole business model backwards. And that's what I did over the last 15 years. And I built a multimillion dollar consulting business. Really? Like I always say, if I'm like a kid in a candy store, just meeting with remarkable people every day. And it was a dream come true from a professional perspective.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: So before blogs were much of a thing. And then it got out there and then obviously it morphed from there into the things that you're doing. So you say you're a consultant. Is that what you, you have, you are consultant to multiple companies or you mostly putting things out there and then taking different projects that I put out.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: There, let's call it that. That's what build the brand. But my bread and butter consultant, call IT advisor, whatever you want to call it. But companies that need strategic help when it comes to growth. It's strategic. I'm not running their Twitter account, but I am building a strategy whether they should be on Twitter in the first place. So I worked with my portfolio. Again, pre war was very diverse from two guys in a garage building a biotech company to Google and Silicon Valley and Oracle and Microsoft. Everyone in like a different bandwidth and capacity. It was a pretty, pretty great business, basically professional dream because I just got to meet the most amazing people and love every second of it and get paid.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Obviously we talked about your father's passion. Your passion certainly comes out in everything that you do and just about everything that you, that you say. And I'm sure that is clearly that is attractive to people who want to work with you and want to learn from you. Is it all Israel based?
[00:10:43] Speaker B: First of all, the predefined Israeli company is really founder. I do have companies and I do have companies in Silicon Valley that I worked with. I mentioned Google, but even startups. But Google, when I worked at Google, it was Google Silicon Valley, Mountain View, not Israel. But the vast majority were Israeli companies, which means that they were founded in Israel. It does not mean they didn't have American office. Almost all of them did. It was company founded by Israel Israelis and has Israeli headquarters.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Okay. So definitely the most part Israeli founded and definitely obviously the connections are they run through Israel for the most part in one way or another. And obviously you were very successful with that. I dabble in social media for some reason. I can never turn your notifications off, so I get them all the time. I know that you don't sleep. I watched you drink Red Bull in my home. So I know that's one of your secrets that I'm now publicizing to the world. But definitely I remember before October 7th you had stuff to say about Israel when you wanted to, whether it was about Israel or about Anti Semit. But it felt like pretty much you were a tech writer. That's the way you described yourself and that's the things that you did. And when you came in even a bunch of years ago, you spoke to some of our kids and you spoke elsewhere in New York.
A lot of it or most of it was about technology, startup nation, et cetera. Then. And you've described this yourself, something changes after October 7th. So first of all, tell me about your experience on October 7th.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Okay, so we're about to get a little dark here. Rubber cross. People talk a lot about the word trauma. Right? Traumatized. Right? You said traumatized. Trauma is a very real thing, as most people know. It's a real thing with real symptoms, one of which is selective memory, selective amnesia, whatever you want to call it. And honestly, the day Ari was murdered, and I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember what socks I was wearing. I can't remember a thing afterwards, like, complete blackout. I don't remember. Literally for months, I don't remember. You could tell me I went to the Bahamas and I could, like, zero recollection. I'll tell you why I mentioned that in a second. But that's a very clear symptom. Right. October 7th, we were in shul.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Sorry. Just to tell. Just to make sure that people knew. Six years ago, Ari was stabbed. He was stabbed. I remember that day in a different way, too. I was in Israel the next day to be with your family. And one of the first things that we learned about and we talked about was the fact that he, if I understand correctly, shot the terrorist before he was able to kill other people. Is that accurate?
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Yeah. But it was actually only the fact that he shot him. He got stabbed in the main artery, and despite the fact that he was basically medically dead, he managed to chase the terrorist hundreds of feet, jump over a wall, and shoot the terrorist, which, as you knew, Ari.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Typical.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: That's how he lived. That's how he died. Right. He's not meant to.
You're gonna bring me down. You're going down with me, right? Yeah. So that day, obviously still feels like yesterday, number one. It also feels like a lifetime ago. But anyway, so that I kind of blacked out or blocked that out afterwards. Same happened on October 7th. I remember being in shul. I remember away to shul, my twins. We were hearing rockets above, which, as ludicrous as this is today, which was a relatively normal thing, so we weren't too worried. And we get to shul, and I don't know if it was in Laning or Al Kuffos, whatever. Siren number one. We run to the Mahmoud. We run to the bomb shelter, where, you know, hundreds of people. A bomb shelter that's equipped for 20 people. Women went inside. The men found cover somewhere else and went back to Daven. And then back in the day, it was weird. We were like, what is going on? Nobody had their phones on them, so we didn't really know anything.
But when people started to get called up to the army, we're like, okay, something's going on. And then the rumors started in shul. Oh, there's thousands of terrorists. We came to Israel and I was the first to say to everyone, would you stop spreading hysteria? Thousands of terrorists are not coming to Israel. Why are you spreading this rumor? Stop it. I remember that. I remember a few days later doing what I'm doing now. I do not remember finding out. I do not remember the second I turned on my phone, I found out. I complete, like blocked that blackout on that zero recollection, which is a crazy thing, might pull these tricks on you, but that's the reality. I don't remember it at all.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: So traumatic day for, for, for the world, for Israel and for you.
And again, obviously connections to past. To past traumas, which, you know, neither of us are psychologists, but we can certainly probably connect those dots. Okay, but then it is a few days later and you're in Israel. And in theory, you can wake up in the morning and try to get back to what we call your day job. Even though your day job obviously always involves talking to people.
But it seems like your focus has really never gone back since then. So could you tell us about that?
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Sure. So in a way, Ari and I, we operated in kind of parallel spheres. We both were promoting Israel, right? He was promoting Israel through Israel advocacy, I was promoting Israel through tech. But the underlying mission that I had was always to promote Israel. It's just that I did it in a way that there's more consensus. Right. Who doesn't love tech? And I would say that October 7th just peeled that layer off and I just got rid of the let's promote Israel through tech, which let's just defend Israel. I would say I had about 100% clarity that day that everything I had done till now, I did for this. And this was time to leverage my platform and my followers, etcetera, to fight lies about Israel. And so I shut down my business October 8th and completely repurposed everything, all my platforms, my writing, the whole thing, to basically carry out a two pronged mission. One is to be a source of real time, accurate information. Real time and accurate are generally mutually exclusive. Because it's real time you can't verify. And if it's accurate, you verify it's not real time.
Because I'm able to get feeds from different formal sources, like the Knesset through Atom maybe, and the idea of spokesperson in different offices. I'm able to cross reference before I post anything to make sure that I'm being accurate. And for the most part, with very few exceptions, I was successful so far at that mission to, even though I'm getting a lot of Obviously fake news, and I'm very careful to verify it. And that's the first part. The second part of the mission is inward is for our team, and that is to give people a reason to wake up in the morning. I give people something to smile about. Any good news in the war, any operational video, any father coming home to his daughters or sons and all that stuff, and just to be kind of a source of some positivity and hope, because we're all in deep devastation, obviously. So that's what I've been doing since October 7th. And successful is obviously not the right word. I'd love nothing more than not to do this stuff, but I have this platform that I think puts me in a very, very unique position, which is that I have the ear of the tech world, right as the tech world. Generally speaking, the tech world is predominantly liberal, AKA anti Israel or close to anti Israel. And because they know me and trust me as a tech guy, when I share stuff about Israel, they don't just dismiss me. Oh, he's another Azbara guy, our colleague. We know him and we trust him. So I have the gear of the tech world across my platform. So It's Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. I'm approaching the 2 billion impressions since the beginning of the war, which also is a nice metric for me. But the real metric and the one that I'm most proud of are the thousands of messages that I've gotten from people beginning of the war saying to me, I simply did not know that's what Zion is, or I was completely misled about Israel. And many people have said to me, I actually either changed their mind or at least opened their eyes to another perspective. And that to me is really what I'm most proud of. And I'd say the second thing I'm most proud of is the fact that I haven't lost my cool one time on social media, which with all the hate that I'm getting, is actually something that I'd like to toot my own horn.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: We'll take it. I hope you don't lose your cool when you get off of social media. You said talking about the tech world, like, who is your audience? Kids in America, adults in America, Israelis, English speakers, non Jewish people. Who is it?
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Who? I see there's really three groups on the Internet. There's our group, quote unquote, pro Israel, people who get it, but we don't need convincing. What we absolutely do need, reinforcement, strengthening and knowledge. Then there's the third group, the opposite which are the people that I call the high Hitler folks who.
I wrote them off. I'm not getting through those people. They just are blind and deaf. They don't want to know anything. They want to hear anything. So I've written those people off, and once in a while I'll get to one of them, and that's just a big win for me, but I'm not targeting those people at all. The middle group, which, based on my anecdotal evidence, are the vast majority of people, which is people not necessarily that are pro Israel, but they have integrity and they're willing to listen. They're willing to hear you. And that's many hundreds of people in the tech world. So that those are my target people. That's my target audience. And again, there have been so many people who have reached out and said to me, I just. I didn't know any of that. And so it's very satisfying, very gratifying for me and for, I would say, the state of Israel. I don't know if this is true or this is accurate, but someone said to me that I have the farthest reach in the state of Israel as an individual without an organization behind him. Right. There's no money behind me. Again, maybe some feel good, but at the end of the day, if I'm being fully transparent, it's like I said, great for my neshama, great for the state of Israel, not so great for my bank account.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Okay. I know that you're a big believer in doing things that matter, and then the rest flows from there. And hopefully that will be the case. And that should be the case for you in terms of this as well. So you spoke about the people that. Let's call them the message of appreciation. We all know that words of encouragement go a long way. I know that you sometimes, and you referenced it here, you get some pretty ugly responses as well. Does that hurt?
[00:19:40] Speaker B: So many years ago, I went to visit a friend of mine in la. He said, big social media guy, shall remain unnamed, but somebody very big, very big. And I asked him that question. I was like, how do you handle all the hate? Every post that you post, you get thousands of hate messages. He said to me, I don't read that stuff. What do you mean you don't read that stuff? He says, I tweet and I mute. I don't read the replies. And I remember thinking to myself, this was years ago. I remember thinking to myself, it defeats the purpose. He said, it's called social media. We're supposed to interact with people. Right. What's the point? You might as well just write a blog. What I mean, and at the time I remember thinking, that's crazy.
But that's what I've done during the war, because it's become completely, utterly unmanageable, unbearable. The people writing are truly demented. Once in a blue moon, I'll go back in to kind of see what people wrote. And then I remember why I started reading them.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: Okay, that sounds like an approach. And obviously there are many responses, but wherever we are, anybody doing anything public or semi public or even within small groups, you obviously have to know how to respond to the way people respond to you. You also have to get your, your beliefs, your core values from yourself, and it's not going to come from anybody else. And in your case, that's clear. I also know because I do read a lot of, a lot of the things that you write that you, if you make a mistake, you admit it. I'm sure people appreciate that. And that adds to your integrity.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Yeah. On the one hand, like I said before, I'm super, super careful about what I share, but there have been instances where I was given information from a formal source. For example, just to give one example, when there was Muhammad death. But I was told we got in weeks that before Israel actually now yada means again, I was given that information by many formal sources. I posted it and it wasn't yet confirmed. Obviously at the end of the day it was right, but it wasn't yet confirmed. But a few instances that I did share Something that wasn't 100% accurate, I did apologize. But there's also, you have to remember there's been many instances where it's half accurate. Right. Give an example, which obviously the issue itself doesn't matter, but the J Post reported that America gave Iran the names of the Mossad that killed Niya. Which was like, what? The story didn't make any sense to me. Why would Israel give that. The whole thing didn't make any sense. But it was reported by J Post, quoted by jns. It was all over the place. They posted it and then J Post ended up deleting their article, which I don't even know what that's about. It's highly unprofessional to do such a thing. They should have added maybe a disclaimer. But the comments in that post are like, why are you spreading fake news? And whatever. There have been instances where it's great. And when things like that happen, the comments are just, you're such a propagandist what are you doing? You gotta strike that balance. Not easy.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Some people might disagree with that. Once people say they don't talk about politics, like everyone talks about politics, everyone cares about politics because politics better. So maybe I'm misquoting you, but I'd love to hear how you would respond.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: To that today, especially in Israel. Can't really separate politics in real life. Politics is real life. I definitely don't shy away from it like maybe I used to because again, because of like the tech world, I don't want to hear people's bad sides. Obviously, since where I'm a lot more. Let's go political or talking about political issues. But again, I don't, I'm not unable to make that kind of separation. So for me, when I'm talking about politics, I'm talking about life.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Okay, that's fair. Something that goes both ways. You're obviously, your English is excellent, but you are an Israeli citizen, you can vote in Israeli elections. You're an American citizen. Correct. You're still an American citizen. The question doesn't apply to you in the same way. But one of the things that sometimes people say to me if I express an opinion about Israel is I have no right to have an opinion because I don't live there. I usually feel like I don't have the right to vote because I don't live there and I'm not a citizen. But I do think that I have the right to have an opinion and you have the right to ignore my opinion or for my opinion to be wrong, which plenty of people do. I would ask it for you both ways in terms of the whole world has opinions about Israel and do we have that right to an opinion and what are the limits of those rights? And I guess back at you, you've commented on things going on in the world or particularly in America right now, and what are the limits of that? Now again, you're an American citizen. You could say that might make it different. But I'm just curious about the way you think about that.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: First of all, the whole double loyalty thing or one issue vote. I don't, Honestly, I don't. Maybe I'm missing something here. Doesn't everyone vote on the issues that are important to them? Yes, for me, Israel is important and that's American. Asian politics and Australian politics are intertwined. So that's number one. Number two, like you said, I'm an American citizen. Number three, I pay. Pay American taxes. But on a more fundamental level, in my opinion, the question which, as you can imagine appears in my social media all the time. Who are you? Why are you talking about American politic? The question to me is not innocent you, but it's a condescending question. You're telling me what I'm allowed to talk about. I mean, I care about this stuff. I care about. I'm an American. America's been amazing to my family. I'm. Why am I entitled any less than someone else to have an opinion? Because I don't live there. What is, how does that. If I live there, what would be the difference? It would be the same issues that are important to me. So I don't think anybody is going to tell anyone what they're allowed to talk about. Obviously the Jews around the world are affected by the war, so everyone's entitled to their opinion. And I think that the question should be, do you feel as a person that a, you care deeply about the issues at hand and does it affect your life? Both the answers to that question are yes. And so that's why I feel the liberty of talking about American politics. But there should be no doubt every time I do, I get absolutely hammered by people saying, you live in Israel. What do you even.
I don't buy into that narrative. It's on the long list of things that people say to me on social media. There are pet peeves.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Okay, that's fair and I guess so then, you know, it sounds like, sounds like you agree with me the other way as well.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: In other words, people here have the right to have an opinion about Israel and they have the right for their opinion to be totally wrong and you have the right to argue with them. And that's what we do on conversations and online.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: 100%, I would say with one asterisk. And this is again, obviously just my opinion, but I have a real problem on both ends of the spectrum. Doesn't matter where you live, whatever. I have a big problem with the need of Jews throughout history, not just now to air our dirty laundry. In other words, just to give a very extreme example, it was that very, I don't even know, scary, I would say story of there being Israeli soldiers who were looking after the terrorists and did obviously certainly acts that was obviously very widely publicized because it vilified Israel and it was an Israeli journalist who shared that story and everyone of course bought it because that's what the world does when it's bad about Israel. It turns out that this dude like doctored the video and just. It's a full blown. I don't want to Give it names. But this guy felt the need to air our dirty laundry. In this case, it wasn't even real to the whole world. And that's something that we do. And every time I get the most hate on social media stuff, somehow the person's name is always David. It's unbelievable. And so it's one thing I would say to express your opinion, whether I'm in Israel and expressing my American politics, or you're an American express about Israeli politics. But I do think we have to be a little bit responsible and loyal to our people and remember that the world doesn't need another reason to vilify Israel and more propaganda. So if someone has a really horrible opinion about whatever topic, the prime minister, whatever it is, by all means criticize.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: There could be no disagreement about whatever you put out there. Especially if you have the power of thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers, you better have information that's correct. I would imagine that people would argue that if the information is correct, that sometimes the only way to make movement is to talk about it. I remember that not so long ago, or maybe multiple times, and it was covered in the press, I think here that you told American Jews that the writing is on the wall, we shouldn't be living here. Is that something that, first of all, did I quote you accurately? Basically. And do you stand by it and how do people respond to it?
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Yeah, obviously. I get a ton of heat whenever I write about that stuff. When I say American Jews, we write it down a wall, and they're like, oh, it's not so easy to just pick up. And Israel's so hard to live in. And October 7th, in a minute, there are all the answers in the world. And before I even express my opinion on the issue, disclaimer. This all comes from a place of love. I'm not judging anyone. I came to Israel when I was 15. I didn't make any decisions or sacrifices. My parents brought me here, so I'm big talker. That being said, as uncomfortable as it is, it's inconvenient to hear the words get the hell out. The only time I keep telling myself, when I get all that hate back from America juice and basically get off our backs, the only thing I keep telling myself is if someone had just told Esther Varva, your grandmother in Europe in 1930, whatever, read the writing on the wall, get the hell out. Obviously, things would have turned out very differently. Thank God she survived. But I'm saying it's not fun to hear. But on the other hand, my question to My, to my American friends, and again, they don't like hearing it. But the question is, if I put a gun to your head and I said, you have an hour to be on an El Al plane or I'm pulling this trigger, presumably most people would be on a plane because they have a gun to their head. Which just means logically that people who don't get on a plane do not believe that what's going on today in America or around the world constitutes a gun. And so my question to my friends is, what does? Because the, the way I see it, there are anti Semites in Congress, there are shuls being vandalized, there are windows being smashed, there are Jews being beaten in the streets, there's court cases to convince a college to let Jews walk freely on campus. Like, how have we gotten here? And so to me looking from the side, that's again, disclaimer disclosure. I'm looking from the side, it seems to me there's never been more writing on the wall and nothing hasn't happened. And so that's my question. What does constitute a gun? For you to say, I am out of here. This is, it's, that's it, we're done.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: I'm a little older than you, but neither of us were around in 1936, 37, 38. Do you think that America today is.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Comparable to 36, 37, 38, Europe?
[00:28:42] Speaker B: I guess I'll appeal to answer, answer your question of the question.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: Perfect.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Was 1936 Germany the same as Spain?
Was Spain the same as whatever ancient Egypt or Rome or Greece or any of these places that exiled and persecuted us? It was different in every generation. It puts on a different mask. And so I'm not saying that America 2024 is a copy paste. Europe, 1936, of course not. But if you look, you know, take a step up and look at the reality, Jews being beaten, you see the rhetoric, you see the politicians, you see the mass marches and protests again, but the anti Semitism is not hiding anymore. And so it's not comparable in the fact that it's copy paste and it's not comparable in the fact that there's going to be concentration camps in America. That's not what I'm saying. But it is comparable to the fact that if you look at society, from the normal guy on the street to the politicians, anti Semitism has become pretty mainstream in American society today.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Okay. You're, as we all know and can tell, you're a passionate person. I think you're a very positive person. Even though Some of your perspectives now are a little bit dark, as you said, but I think that you're a very positive person. So I would imagine that you're bullish on, I don't know, the next 12 months, the next couple of years in Medina, Israel. Can you give us some perspective on that?
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So one of the questions that I get when I speak to American Jews, which is all the time, is what? You're safer over there. You had October 7th. What do you mean? There are bombs falling on your head there. What are you talking about? Right. Which is a fair question. Like, why am I pushing Israel and saying America's not safe when Israel is not safe? Fair question. But basically my answer to that is that there's a fundamental difference, in my opinion, between a failed mission and no mission at all. Right.
October 7th. The IDF failed miserably. Colossal failure. That doesn't mean there's no mission. The IDF exists. Protect me. Whereas outside of Israel, there's no mission. Nobody's looking after the Jews. Nobody cares about the Jews. You see these occurrences. Where's the police with it? Nobody cares. Yes, it's a super dark time, a rough time in Israel's history, but at the end of the day, I hit like a brick wall.
And so I take a step back and I say, hashem, you got a good sense of humor. I don't know what you're doing, but clearly he's running the show. And I think, at the end of the day, think that we're gonna not only win this war, but we have to take a step back and look at history. And I always talk about this, but it's so worth repeating, and that is that we celebrate every one of our holidays. I don't know how much how many of your listeners or viewers think about this, and I gotta be honest, I didn't think about this my entire life. But what is Purim? We didn't celebrate Purim. Everyone loves Purim. What is Purim? What happened on Purim?
Leader of the free world, Right. Kashmiris wasn't a king. He was the king. 127 countries agreed to annihilate us. We were done. That was it. That was the literal genocide of the Jewish people. We were done. And if you lived in the time of Purim, and I told you that one day we would celebrate, you would have thought I was the biggest shmo in the world. And here we are celebrating. And so that is true about Purim and it's true about Hanukkah. We were not winning that war. There was no way we were winning that war in Pesachat. 210 years of backwards.
Here we are celebrating. So I'm not only optimistic, I'm hopeful and I know hope that not only are we going to win this war, we're going to come out stronger. And we are, as I have said a zillion times in this war. Because to me, this is. This sums the whole thing up. We will dance again.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: We will dance again. I appreciate the message. I will say, I think I must say as someone who is living here, I've been to Israel six times since October 7th, and I have family there. I don't think that we have no mission here. I think there's a Jewish community that does have a strong mission here and believe deeply in Jewish values. And included in those Jewish values are connection to Israel. And I also think that it's not accurate that nobody cares about us. I think that we have wonderful relationships within our community. The police department cares about us and a lot of the politicians we have wonderful relationships with and they care about us and they show up and those are things that were happening.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Hold on.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: That we're happy with. And I think that's important to mention. It's obviously not everybody. It's not without its problems. And we could talk about those for a long time at the same time. And part of the mission of this school is that optimism that you share about the state of Israel, about Medinat Yisrael, and about really the center of the Jewish people. And nobody can disagree at all with that. Going back to the. To where we started, somebody whose family and whose lifeblood was SAR and everything that SAR stood for. And certainly you, the impact that you've had and that you're having through the work that you do and through the passion that you have is something that many of us appreciate and benefit from. You wanted to have the last word.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Which I'll allow the last word. I just want to be very clear. I don't want anybody to misunderstand me. Of course the Jewish people in America have admission. That's not what I was referring to. Of course people care about the Jewish people. What I'm saying is that there is no IDF there. And you know, when you see a 400x percent increase in anti Semitic events in Toronto, I think over in Canada, like 70% of the hate crimes are targeting Jews. You ask yourself, why is no one looking after us?
Shules are being banned and everything that's happening. Yeah, okay, there are security guards and whatever, but at the end of the day is someone preventing this insane increase of anti Semitism? That's what I meant when I said there's no IDF there whose mission is to protect the Jewish people. That's all I meant. Not that the Jewish people there don't have a mission. Of course they do.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Okay, I appreciate it and understood and I hope that you enjoy the rest of your time here. And I know that we'll know exactly when you land, because you'll tell us. Thank you again for taking the time to be with us and with our listeners in regards to Racheli.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: Dan, thanks for having me.
