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Jane Marie
I'm Jane Marie and this is the Dream. Today we finish up our conversation with Daniel Klein, who grew up in the West Bank. That's the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. This conversation goes all over the place, which I love. We talk about religion, ethics, love, marriage, accountability, etc. And we try to get to the bottom of why he left his community and religion. If you didn't hear last week's episode, I urge you to go back and listen.
Daniel Klein
Here's Daniel it really isn't one moment. It's a whole series of moments that I think for many people actually starts in childhood. Many of the people that are coming around now are people that if you ask them, they would say that there is always something off that they weren't safe to express, but there is always something that they were holding at the same time. And when I had mentioned splitting my personality as a kid, when I saw that breaking the Sabbath was not what I was told it was, and I started to kind of see through what what I would call now Rabbinic Judaism, there is. There are always these series of questions and thoughts and feelings that I was never truly safe to express. And I had created this Persona in order to fit in and in order to be received and not to be rejected and not to be excommunicated. Because growing up I knew that there were three red lines that if I ever crossed them, I would be excommunicated for my Family, or at least for my parents, which are. The first one is marrying a non Jewish woman. The second one is cultivating a relationship with Christ, and the third one is turning against the Zionist project. I hit three for three.
Interviewer
Do you see Zionism as a political movement or is it a religious movement? Not that there's a big difference, but you know what I mean? Like when you just said, and also don't turn away from Zionism. It would be. To me, it's like, and you have to be a Republican, you know, as a, as a someone from the US it would feel like that.
Daniel Klein
Yeah, you're asking a really good question, because I've never actually been asked that question directly. And I think that there's the anti Zionist talking point, which is it's just a political ideology. And while it's true that it's a political ideology, I think it's also fair to say that it's its own religion. And there was a point in my journey where I realized that the branch of Zionism that we were a part of is, well, Jewish Zionism, religious Zionism. But what I came to realize is that our Jewish religion was actually just a branch of the bigger religion, which was Zionism. And so I think that Zionism is almost a religion into its own, onto its own right. And that it actually emerged. Zionism as, as an idea or as an institution originates in Christian Zionism. So this is Christian End Times thinkers that we're starting to think about. How do we. How do we connect the physical Jewish people with the physical land as a part of End times prophecy? It didn't even originate with Judaism. At some point there was the Jewish branch of Zionism. And back then there were all sorts of different ideas about what Zionism was. How do we actually achieve safety for Jewish people? And I think that if we cut through a lot of the noise, ultimately the history of Zionism as it finally manifested today is a settler colonial project to settle the land of Palestine using foundational Jewish mythology. Many settler colonial projects use different kinds of foundational myths in order to achieve this. Israel's not the first. Certainly not the first.
Interviewer
Right. So tell me about the. I know you said it's a layered thing, but maybe a first conversation you had with your parents or was there a moment where you talked to your mom or your sisters about your changing beliefs?
Daniel Klein
Honestly, never. And even though I could slowly start to challenge it, those were my early explorations of what it's like to try to communicate these ideas and realize that there's no space for Them. It's relationally very dangerous to broach these topics often. And I think that my parents, and my dad in particular, he got a sense that I was, let's call it a black sheep. Well, before I started challenging it. He could sense that I was, I think, in many ways breaking free. But it wasn't ever something that we could actually talk about because I. I had already internalized and understood what the consequences of speaking out would be. And just like. And I write about this certainly in the context of cults and high indoctrination systems, you internalize the social, relational safety and financial taxes that you would incur if you start to step outside the box. And I wasn't willing to pay the price. For a long time. I was externally a modern Orthodox Jew for the first, let's say, 25 years of my life. Although I was internally not Jewish from a very young age, I didn't accept what it is that they were teaching me. I rejected the theology. I guess once I encountered the Gospel, it made a lot more sense to me in terms of putting the ritual over the essence. And I saw it as a system of. And so there was always the part of me that when nobody was looking, I wouldn't keep. I wouldn't keep the rules if nobody was looking. But if I was in community, I would have the yarmulke and I would have the tassels, and I had to do that in order not to suffer the punishment. And I actually took this into my first marriage. So when I married my wife, at the time, she thought she was marrying a good Jewish boy, right. But I had already constructed so many walls and false identities and masks that I was carrying this inner dissonance of what I knew to be true to me and authentically and everything that I had to present in order to be safe. And that's when I started this slow process of unraveling that I think for many people is really challenging because I was married at the time. What is. How do you, how does this affect your relationship? Not only, you know, my relationship with my wife, my. My two daughters, and then my family, my community. And there was a slow journey there of finally, finally freeing myself and becoming authentic. And that, that took years. Honestly, how that related to. To my father who was seeing this process, and it was just creating a huge amount of friction and conflict and pain and learning how to, how to move through that and, and ultimately how do you heal those things on the go? So this was creating a lot of friction. Well before Zionism, but I think that for him, he saw the writing on the wall.
Interviewer
So how did you come out to your family about this, or did you.
Daniel Klein
It was slow because at first. At first we would do these things, but we wouldn't share them with the family. So it's not that you tell them that you don't observe the Sabbath anymore, you actually lie to them.
Interviewer
You're saying we was your wife on
Daniel Klein
board as well at the time? Yes, we went on this journey together, but we were navigating that journey together because we were each moving at our own pace, our own levels of comfort, figuring it out. And how long ago this was. 2018. 2019.
Interviewer
Oh, so recently. Okay. Yeah.
Daniel Klein
They started to pick up on it and understand it on their own, and eventually they confronted us. So we'd have these very charged conversations of, do you keep the Sabbath anymore? And I'd say, well, that depends on what you mean, because there's a much bigger spiritual unraveling that's happening at the time, and you start to understand things differently, and you want to be able to express your newfound understanding of things, but your newfound understanding of things would label you a heretic or. I actually was looking back at some emails and, you know, I had family members that were calling me a goy in. Even in the early 2000 and twenties, which is the slur for non Jew.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Daniel Klein
And that was just because that was just me becoming, in their eyes, not religious. Right. And so the. The reactions to it were. Were pretty, you know, pretty extreme. But eventually I think my family came to terms with that. As long as in shared spaces, I was respectful, which of course, of course I try to. I mean, I would never enter into their home. And, and, And I'm so steeped in. In the tradition that it's, you know, it's very easy for me to drop in and honor. And respect. And respect, all of it.
Interviewer
You know what's funny is like those kind of communities, my family's part of my family is very religious, the other part not. But they are so used to proselytizing that they. That's what you're going to do.
Daniel Klein
Well, that's the fear. Because one model of understanding it is certainly, as it gets more extreme, it's a contagion model. So many of them see me, let's call it, as a virus. And when you have a virus in the family that can infect other people, you need to create systems of quarantine, especially to protect the next generation. So in 2020, I had the first major cracks around Zionism and the State of Israel. And that's. That's closer. If there was a moment, that was the moment when I saw Israel's response to Covid. I remember writing in my journal at the time, for the first time, I was able to explain, express what had been on my heart for a long time. And I wrote in my diary that I recognized that Israel is a police state that practices apartheid. And I never said that to anyone, but I finally put that down in my diary.
Interviewer
What was the thing that triggered that for you? I don't know what Israel's response was exactly.
Daniel Klein
It was very swift. You know, Israel's a small country. It is a surveillance state. Not only capital, but, you know, exporter of the surveillance state technology. And so very quickly, all of the system turned authoritarian against the citizens involving the surveillance, the secret police, all of the laws, all of the mandates. And for me, ever since I was a young boy, I would watch Braveheart with my dad. Ever since I was, I think, four or five years old, he took me to see it in the theaters, so I think I was four and a half. And we would watch Braveheart. And this is where the irony is, right? We were learning about this idea of freedom and resisting oppression. And I ultimately saw what Israel was doing as England. Right. And the Palestinians as Scotland. But growing up, we had the inverse story because the ego centers itself in, you know, in the victim position. And so I grew up with this sense of freedom and liberty and never made the connection to Israel. But there was always a part of me that was wondering, why is it that Israel, just as a nation state, is such an oppressive, oppressive country? Whether it's the taxes, the cost of living, the regulations, there are always things that, to me, didn't feel free. And again, I was never able to think about the question of if this is what I. If this is what I'm feeling, what is the Palestinian experience? And when I saw all of the weapons of state turned against me in 2020, all of the sudden I had this moment where I saw the state for what it was. And then the bigger picture of what it is that the Palestinians have been subjugated came into full view for the first time.
Interviewer
Oh, my God. You're like a girl dad. That's what girl dads. Yeah, girl dads are always like, now that I have a daughter, I understand.
Daniel Klein
But, you know, that's the tragedy, which is, you know, they say first they came, first they came for them, and then they came for me. Right? It's easy when you are the benefactor and when your Life of luxury and comfort is built on the subjugation and occupation and extraction of another people. It's really easy to ignore and to not see what it is that your comfort is built on, because if you recognize that these things that we're talking about, your entire reality and your entire identity shatter, and then you're left to pick up. To pick up the pieces. But that process of your entire reality shattering is incredibly, incredibly destabilizing. And I realized that I spent my entire life trying to protect myself from the true reckoning of. Of, well, not only what I was seeing collectively, but also in my personal life. Like, where are all of the places that I've been lying to myself and to others in order to myself safe? And once you pull at that string, everything collapses. So I spent a couple of very destabilizing years still living in Israel, seeing everything, you know, I couldn't even work at the time. There's a stage in this process where it's just so ungrounded and so destabilizing that you can't even think straight. And so I spent a couple of these years starting to research, starting to go down the rabbit holes.
Interviewer
What is it called? What is it called? Not leaving, Deconstructing, I guess, but also de.
Daniel Klein
Deconstructing on some aspect. Defecting is also a word that I think is important for this conversation.
Interviewer
Yeah, so you're doing research, you're reading, you're trying.
Daniel Klein
I'm reading.
Interviewer
Arm yourself with reasoning.
Daniel Klein
Right. And then trying to tell other people. But that is a complete. It doesn't do anything. You have to move through that frustration. Right. Trying to change minds. And at that point, it was actually less focused about Zionism, to be honest, because that was still too much of a taboo for me to talk about. Even though I was seeing Zionism for what it was, I was still focusing on everything that I was experiencing and the oppression that we saw in this state, there was. Well, I was very, very alone at the time. These kinds of processes are very isolating. You know, people think you're crazy. Whatever it is you're going through. People think you're crazy. You can't really talk about it. And there is a. So there's a social cost to that. And essentially this is a long process, a very long process of learning how to ground your nervous system so that you can. So that all of this information doesn't. Doesn't make you explode, honestly.
Interviewer
Sure. I know that feeling of just like the itchiness inside your body and the crushing heart, like, palpitations and just panic. You feel like a trapped animal.
Daniel Klein
Absolutely. I was having heart problems at the time. Indeed.
Interviewer
Really?
Daniel Klein
Mm.
Interviewer
I'm sorry.
Daniel Klein
And so. Well, it's. That's a name. It's. You just named it. So I'm over there and I'm dying to get out. My. My wife did. Did not want to leave. And we were still evolving that journey of finding that middle ground. And eventually we left. We left in. We left Israel for Costa Rica in September 2023.
Interviewer
Okay, nice. Not a bad choice.
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Daniel Klein
Well, that's. That's a part of it, too, because I knew that something was coming, and I even. I had a feeling that it was going to happen before October 8th. And I know that because my wife at the time said to me, instead of leaving in September for Costa Rica, she asked, why don't we stay in Israel until October 8th after the holidays? We'll spend the holidays with the family and then we'll leave. And I told her, no way, because this thing is going to happen. Before. Before October 8th.
Interviewer
Was that just intuition or you are. You were going off of what.
Daniel Klein
So it was. It was a deep intuition that when you. When you become attuned to Israel, Israel is. Operates like one body, and it has a very, very strong nervous system, a very dysregulated nervous system, which makes it easy to feel into. And once you feel into that collective nervous system combined with. Well, there's the nervous system, there's the intuition, and then there's understanding this, the. The cycle of violence, because Israel essentially thrives off of these kinds of events that have to occur every so often. One of the ways that I describe it is like addiction. Right. So the. The collective needs to get another hit of violence because that's the only way that the nervous system finds coherence and that people can find unity with one another in what is otherwise one of the most fragmented societies in the world. And so once you start to feel these things, you can get a sense that the next hit is coming. You feel into it. And I knew that it was time to get out.
Interviewer
So you. You were just kind of riding the wave of, like, your whole life of ups and downs, you know, like, things are cool, things are bad, things are cool, things are bad.
Daniel Klein
Right. And then you don't think twice about it, Right. Because you need to develop a deeper sense of awareness in order to become aware of cycles. Right. Otherwise you. You become the cycle rather than becoming aware of the cycle. And so for most of my life, I didn't realize that we're just living life on repeat.
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Daniel Klein
And so we got out and we left to Costa Rica and that was the safe haven. My wife and I had visited the year before and fell in love with Costa Rica, started to ask about different communities anywhere in the world. For me, I was just ready to get out because I felt like I couldn't breathe when I was in Israel and my two daughters were 9 and 7 at the time. This is another part of the journey because while I was down in Costa Rica, that's actually when my wife and I separated and that's the next stage of the journey. And when, when I left, when the, when we left as a family in 2023, I had absolutely no intention at that point of speaking out against Zionism publicly.
Interviewer
I see.
Daniel Klein
I knew, I had the belief that, let me just get out of here. I can find somewhere quiet. Let me live my life in peace. I don't need to blow up relationships. I don't need to get disinherited from my family. I could just kind of keep cruising. And so when I left, I still had no intention of speaking publicly.
Interviewer
But. What?
Daniel Klein
Oh, yeah, but, but that does not last forever.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Daniel Klein
Keeping. Keeping that peace eventually becomes too painful.
Interviewer
Is this part of why you split?
Daniel Klein
That's. That's not the reason that we split. She was actually very supportive ultimately of, you know, of my journey of transformation. Even though I think it was really hard for her because I think that to witness another person going through this is. It's highly destabilizing and I'm sure creates a lot of feelings of unsafety. And yet she was really, she was really there for this major part of my evolution.
Interviewer
Oh, that makes me want to.
Daniel Klein
But it was so sweet. I'm so grateful. It was a really beautiful. Ultimately, it was a really beautiful journey, the whole arc of the story, and that we both were there for each other during these huge, huge transformations. So now we're shifting to a complete parallel track to this whole story. And the. I'm a. I'm a very. To me, the inner world and the outer world are 100% interconnected. And what I believe that what we see on the outside is a reflection of everything that the beliefs, the subconscious beliefs that we hold on the inside. And so this whole story, the collective story of Zionism, to me had a deeper reflection, which is in 2016, there was a two year period of time where I was unfaithful to my wife. And the. At the end of this kind of two year period, I had to sit with what just what had just happened. And what I did at the time was bury it. And I kept it a secret. Nobody in the world knew. And that's about the time where I started processing all of the information that was happening and trying to basically figure out what just happened. How did, how did this happen, why did I do what I did and how do I process this and how do I. How do I live with what just happened? And this is where, you know, our journey as a couple, you know, was in many ways evolving because this is when I started to also transform in all of these ways while maintaining the secret at the same time. And ultimately the, The. The realization that I had was the only way out is truth, the only way to deeper layers of intimacy, of connection, of. Of partnership, both personally and collectively. It's all connected is. Is telling the truth and taking accountability and living with the consequences of your actions and how you hurt, how you hurt the other person. And it was when we were in Costa Rica that I came forward and I had confessed the truth to her and suffered the consequences. Yeah, you know what?
Interviewer
Can I. Can I not challenge can. I'm going to give you some commentary that won't be very nice, but the age of your children, the idea that you were cheating at that time is so stereotypical of heterosexual men. Like, you guys see us. This is when I got divorced. My daughter was 2 or 3. You don't see us as your part, as your girlfriend anymore. You know, so this is a completely different conversation. But when you said that it was 2016, I was like, oh, shit. She was going through it. And you were like, I want to have some fun.
Daniel Klein
Yep, it's. It's terrible.
Interviewer
What was that about, Daniel?
Daniel Klein
Well, ultimately, a bit a part of this process or the real. The real reckoning that I had to do is I had to ask myself to understand why I did what I did. It goes beyond cheating. I think that the bigger question is why did I show up the way I showed up the entire time? And to do that, I had to get to the root. Where was my, you know, where was I controlling and dominating? Where did I not respect her? All of these questions on every single level. That, that process of. I mean, you could probably talk about it all day because disclosure, you know, there's the part of me that knew, that always knew that the truth would collapse my life because that's what I. That's already what I had learned from childhood, right, that. That telling the truth is dangerous. And this goes way before I had ever cheated. Right. I had mentioned earlier that when we got married, I wasn't religious. I was lying about everything. Everything about my life was one giant lie. Right? And it's about exploring why, why that is and why I built this cage of lies around us. And through this process, disclosure comes with surrender. You have to surrender your image, control, narrative, any expectation of the outcome. Because I realized that whatever came next after this had to come from freedom and choice. Though I had built my entire life with my partner on coercion, essentially by
Interviewer
pretending to be like a devout.
Daniel Klein
By pretending to be somebody who I'm not. And by playing out aspects of the patriarchy at this point, I was. You know, when you go through life like that, most of our lives, until we decide to become conscious of our own lives, are playing out all of the multi generational trauma and stories and we don't even think twice about it. We put everything aside and we live out what we're supposed to do. And so, you know, I had to go to go to the root and look at these. And for the first time in my life, I had to sit with the pain and the grief not, not just for what I lost right now, but for what I had caused. What I caused another person. How my choices, my betrayal, my lies, all of that destroyed her. And I broke the person that I loved.
Interviewer
That's where I was starting to get teary eyed earlier, is like, she trusted you 100% to be that, you know, like to take your religion as seriously as she did, or, you know, like just that you had the same worldview. And that is. It's really, really hard to admit to somebody like, I'm not actually the person you think I am.
Daniel Klein
It's the scariest thing in the world.
Interviewer
And I've been thinking about it for a while and I'm acting it out in all these other ways, but I really just am avoiding telling you.
Daniel Klein
This is the hardest part of this, is when you go through this kind of journey is you want to scream that the person that did these things isn't the person that confessed these things. But that's not your. You're not owed that.
Interviewer
Wait, what do you mean?
Daniel Klein
Well, to the person, the person that cheated that version of me that, that actually did these things and caused that harm isn't the same person who decided to come forward and take accountability. And the person who. The, the ego's initial response is when you come forward and you even very often, even when we apologize, right, we have this expectation that the other person is gonna look at you look at me and say, oh, he's this great healed version. He did such an amazing thing like coming forward.
Interviewer
You're insane.
Daniel Klein
No, not me. I mean, no, no. I mean, as a process.
Interviewer
No, no one assumes that. Everyone assumes that when they come forward, the person was gonna be like, you fucking liar, get out of my life.
Daniel Klein
Oh, that's. That's what the other person may do. But the egoic expectation is to be seen. Yes, because you want to alleviate your own pain by having the other person forgive you or recognize you. Right. But that's. You can't Expect that. But by the way, everything that we're talking about. Right. Is actually very similar to the situation with the Palestinians. Right. It's the same thing of like, oh, I just want them to recognize me or forgive me or xyz. But the actual process of coming forward and taking accountability for the ways in which we hurt another person is a messy, painful, individual process. Ultimately, sure.
Interviewer
Do you think a lot about grace?
Daniel Klein
Grace was. I think the most important part of this story was grace, because for me, this is one of the most important gifts of Christ is this exact idea, which is how do we separate the things that we did from who we are today? Because if we collapse into the past, infinitely into the shame, into the pain, we can never evolve from where we are today. And grace is what allows us to break that cycle. But I think that this grace is not just given. There's a process that you go through that breaks you. And then at the end of that process of brokenness, you experience the gift of grace.
Interviewer
I think about it all the time, both as in my actions and in what I want to receive from others and what I want to teach my daughter to give and receive. It's just all grace. Grace and mercy. Are you a Christian now?
Daniel Klein
I wouldn't identify.
Interviewer
Or you just know Jesus? You know Jesus?
Daniel Klein
Yes, exactly.
Interviewer
I don't like any kind of hugely umbrella type doctrines. And I read the Bible differently than most people in my family who are actually Christian, like practicing Methodists. I read it very differently. But I. There are parts I really like, you know, And I think Jesus was a cool dude, so. And if we could be more like him, everything would be fine.
Daniel Klein
Indeed. I'm with you. It's not about switching. Switching. It's not switching beliefs. It's about knowing I want to hang
Interviewer
out with hookers and lepers.
Daniel Klein
Oh, there you go.
Interviewer
And I want to turn water into wine. Boom.
Daniel Klein
There you go.
Interviewer
Life is perfect.
Daniel Klein
I see what you're taking from the Bible.
Interviewer
No, actually I. My deconstruction, whatever happened as a child, it was literally a Sunday school lesson. I think I was 8 years old or something. It was a Sunday school lesson about the book of Job. And I, like, I don't know if I slept for the next couple of days. I was just like, this is insane that Satan can go to God and his friends, the sons of God, right? And say, I bet your rich friend over here doesn't actually like you if I can destroy everything in his life. And then God was like, try me, bruh. And then he did it. And Then after all of his trials and tribulations because he didn't shit talk God, then God was like, I'm gonna give you back everything. Except it's not gonna be the exact same thing. It's gonna be hotter. Daughters. What? You're not restoring my family that you took away? Are you kidding me?
Daniel Klein
And that's what cracked you open?
Interviewer
Oh, totally. I was just like, this makes absolutely no sense. Like, there is no cohesion to this story. Like, oh, the risk and reward doesn't make any sense. Like, Satan can start a bar fight with the Lord and then the Lord will egg him on and say, give it a go. And then he gives it a go on this guy and kills his children and all of his oxen and all of his cattle and all of his sheep and burns his house down or whatever else happened. I mean, he destroyed his life. Right. And gives him boils all over his body. And then because he didn't curse God, God goes, ha ha, Satan. See, he still likes me. And then he goes, bingo bango. Here's a whole different life. I just like, as like an 8 year old, I was like, I can't take what you want me to take from this. This feels really icky. He misses his children. Why would you give him different children?
Daniel Klein
I can imagine how that reading, when the readings are so counterintuitive to what we know about divinity and about love. Oh, love can be hard to process.
Interviewer
Yeah. Why would you give them different kids? Just put the regular ones back if you're all powerful, you know what I mean? Just give him the people that he raised and he loved. No, we're gonna give you prettier ones.
Daniel Klein
What?
Interviewer
Insane. Anyway, that was the book that broke me.
Daniel Klein
Maybe it was different versions of the same kids.
Interviewer
Who cares? I want my kids back. I don't want the clones. I want my children.
Daniel Klein
You know, Anyway, it's interesting what cracks people open and what. What causes that chain reaction.
Interviewer
Yeah. Was there any scripture that. That did it for you?
Daniel Klein
I think that for me, it wasn't. It wasn't specific scripture. It was very definitely how we interpreted scripture. That was something that always never sat well with me. And in the context of rabbinic Judaism, there was always an aspect, and people talk about, like, the loopholes of how is it that we. How we create system after system to get further and further away of the original intent until we are doing the opposite of the original intent but justify it.
Interviewer
Can you give me an example of that? Because I'm not a rabbinic Jew.
Daniel Klein
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I can probably think of some funny ones.
Pura Advertiser
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Daniel Klein
Oh, I mean, here's actually a simple example. Or actually a simple one. And a funny one, A simple one would be, you cannot lend with interest.
Interviewer
Oh, we have that also in Methodism.
Daniel Klein
Right. But then we built an entire civilization off of lending off of interest because we found a technical loophole. And the technical loophole is technically. Technically it's not interest. So it's not. It's structured as an investment.
Interviewer
Okay.
Daniel Klein
And basically we found a way around it. And I would ask. I would kind of find myself asking that question, but isn't the whole point not to lend with interest? So that's the commandment. Another one would be on Passover, you're not allowed to have leave in products in the home. So you can't have bread and wheat and all of those different things because
Interviewer
you have to run out of town right away. Right, right.
Daniel Klein
Because we had to run out and we didn't have time for the bread to rise. So there's the whole mythology around it, and you can't keep it in your home over Passover, over the holiday. So we basically created a system where you can sell it on paper to a non Jewish person and keep it in your home.
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Daniel Klein
Because it does. Yeah. What you do is you. Basically, there's a piece of paper and you sell the food products in your home in the cupboards on paper to a non Jewish person. And then you technically don't own it anymore, and so you can keep it in your cupboard.
Interviewer
It's kind of like the light switchers that you hire to come in to turn your lights on.
Daniel Klein
Exactly.
Interviewer
And then there's that other one where they put the rope around a block.
Daniel Klein
Right. In order to make it a private area so that you can carry things. So all of these kinds of things, to me, I started to see them and they never. Let's say they never made sense to me.
Interviewer
Yeah. Yeah. So that was my thing with Job, where I was like, I don't know if I like this book so much, but then when I got to the New Testament, I thought, oh, this guy seems cool.
Daniel Klein
Yeah. Well, for me, the connection to Christ is also what allowed me to understand and re. Relate to the Jewish scripture. Because there are. There's so many spiritual layers of what the text even is and an understanding of what the text even is. And as I understand it, Jesus came along and he said, guys, you don't even know what this thing is. You're practicing all these rituals, but you don't understand the essence of this book, which is a spiritual book and an inner map of your own reality. It's not to be taken literally. It's to be taken as a reflection of what you are. And from that place you can do the deeper healing when you understand that you're not the center of this book and everybody else or these bad guys that are out to get you. And these are all the things you need to do, but these are inner processes and you need to learn how to integrate that. All of the others that you read in this book are a part of you and then you could do the real work. And so that's Christ is what. It's hard, but it's. That's the real work. You can't just use the book to project.
Interviewer
Right. Gosh, that's hard work though. How do you do it every day?
Daniel Klein
How do I do what's work? The work.
Interviewer
The work.
Daniel Klein
I think it's, I mean the work is as, as much as possible being honest with yourself every day and taking accountability for everything that you see in your life. That's what I always try to do. I try to never put any blame for anything in my situation on other people. I try to just always bring it back to me and sit with what that. With what the reflection of my life is showing me about myself.
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It was a mansion.
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Daniel Klein
The journey of healing that came through this process, like, really leaning in and asking myself, what is it? What was my contribution? How did I. How did I show up? How do I own that? How do I understand it slowly was increasing my capacity for love and for self love. Because ultimately, even understanding yourself is the root of forgiveness. And by the grace of God. Through this process, I met my wife Christina, who by the way, is Lebanese Armenian. And so she comes from the other side of the border, which is a really beautiful part of the story. And we met by the grace of God. I was in a very pained place in this process and I was very much crying out and praying and I was on a short trip to visit my sister in Boston. And while I was on this trip, Christina pops into my life out of nowhere through a mutual friend and was renting my home in Costa Rica while I was on a trip. So she literally appeared in your house. And her last name is Isa. And Isa in Arabic means Jesus. So her name is actually Christ. Jesus. What? Exactly. So,
Interviewer
yeah, you can't ignore that.
Daniel Klein
No. So thank you, God.
Interviewer
Yeah. Can I ask you dumb a couple dumb questions just about Israel real quick? Cause again, like, we're not there. Here's the. And this is so reductive and basic and probably something you've been asked a million times, but how do Zionists. I'm scared to actually air something like this because people are gonna get mad at me. You know, how are Zionists? How do they not see themselves as oppressive genocidal maniacs? I don't know. I don't know what to say. Like, how are they different from any other kind of Colonizing force. That's how I'll say it. That they were subject to. Like, why? You know what I mean? You end up in Israel because of the Holocaust. I mean, Israel was built for that, right? For people. And then you do the same thing to your neighbors. What's up with that?
Daniel Klein
Well, so the victim becomes the perpetrator, right? That's the cycle. The same wounds that were inflicted at the victim level become the ammunition and the weaponization that allows you to then inflict it on another person. But most of them don't see that. So the essence of the question is why can't they see it? And the layers of trauma and indoctrination that went into this project create a system where at the nervous system level, you actually can't see. Your nervous system filters out all the information that contradicts the story that keeps you safe. And so no amount of information and a huge amount of reality is actually not coming in. It automatically gets rejected. Because since you're taking nervous system programming and we're talking about the ideas of existential safety, deep trauma, obviously stories about the Palestinians too, right? Because there are different layers to how you do this programming where anything that lands in your body that contradicts it feels as if you are, in the case of Holocaust trauma, going through the Holocaust again. It's. This is what the design of this does to people. And so from this place, there's a form of blinder where you, you literally can't see reality for what it is, because anything that contradicts it sets off the deepest, the deepest layers of identity and triggers and existential safety. So they can't see.
Interviewer
Do people in Israel understand that they're killing a lot of people? Or do they think that, like, killing children, for example, is like a good part of the plan? Or is it just necessary? Or. That's the part I don't understand.
Daniel Klein
I guess you'll have a spectrum. I think that most people wouldn't say that killing children is good. A lot of people would say that. Killing children, yeah, they would say that it's a necessity. Or this is where you go into different aspects of, of propaganda and programming. They'll say, well, it's. It's Hamas's fault, right? They made us do it. But these are all just. These are all just projections, right? And so that might be the more common sentiment. They made us do it because you need to have an entire. Because you have to have an entire net that allows people to operate and to do these things and feel safe within the circle of silence. So you actually need to create all of the. You need to be able to absolve all responsibility before the thing happens so that you don't actually have to sit in face with the reality of what it is that you did and how that contributed to what it is that we're seeing. So absolving responsibility is a big part of this.
Interviewer
I know it's not all traced back to the Holocaust there. It's like, it's like millennia deep, right?
Daniel Klein
Yes. This is thousands of years of, of programming that start with. I mean, there are different layers to it because in, in the Jewish text there are many readings and many branches that are based off of very supremacist beliefs that when one was a minority, you could live with it because you don't see it. But then when you have power, all of the sudden you actually see the fractured moral framework of othering, though. You know, most people don't inhabit those things on a day to day basis. But that's one aspect that goes back thousands of years. The separation of the in group and the out group. And then you have different components. Like the story of Passover has this instills this idea that in every generation they rise against us to kill us. And this has been, you know, this has been passed down for thousands of years.
Interviewer
So does that happen over the dinner table at Passover? Like, is that the discussion? Can you tell me about that?
Daniel Klein
Yeah. So Passover as it's, as it's practiced today in rabbinic Judaism is the story of the liberation from Egypt, which is really the story of the physical, perhaps liberation. And you move through an evening of ritual that is ultimately telling the story of a Passover.
Interviewer
And Passover means they're gonna skip your house and not kill your child.
Daniel Klein
Yes. That goes back to the foundational. That goes back to the foundational story that basically the homes of the Jewish people were skipped over during the plague of the firstborn children, when all the firstborn children died unless they mark their doors.
Pura Advertiser
Right?
Daniel Klein
Yeah. That's getting into the Nitty gritty.
Interviewer
Yeah, I like it though. I like the nitty gritty.
Jane Marie
That's my favorite place to be.
Daniel Klein
There's a victim program that's installed during Passover, which is there is always somebody out to get us. And so I would also learn in school and in many Jewish people that you talk to, it actually starts to have profound effects on how you're experiencing the world and how the world is experiencing you. And this is a conversation that many people find very uncomfortable. Well, this, this goes to some of the kinds of beliefs that that I personally held and it absorbed growing up. For example, that eradicating the Palestinians would be doing the world a favor. Right. Remember my friend that had mentioned that the Palestinians are the excrement of the world? Right. So there are many streams that would say that ridding the world of the evil of the Palestinians is ultimate good or that this is part of the messianic plan. And this exists on multiple layers of the conversation. Because it's not only religious people that say that too. Right. There are also secular versions of of these arguments as well.
Interviewer
Well, I'm going to get out in front of it and just say, I know this episode is going to make people mad at me, and I don't think that that's a reasonable response.
Daniel Klein
I think, I think you may be I think you might be pleasantly surprised.
Interviewer
I hope so. What are you doing now?
Daniel Klein
Well, I'm devoted to devoted to creating these off ramps from these indoctrinations and devoted to sharing my story and supporting people on their way out of these systems.
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Interviewer
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Minouche Zamorodi
Go touch grass. You have probably heard this phrase, maybe you have even said it. But beneath the sort of light hearted nature of this meme is something very real and important. A growing sense that staying in touch with our humanity and being present in our bodies matters more than ever in today's digital world. My name is Minouche Zamorodi and I am taking over as host of TED Talks Daily this week to explore what technology is actually doing to your body and mind. In special interviews with scientists, doctors, parents, artists and more, we're going to dig into your physical and mental health on tech how we think about our bodies differently now, how we relate to new innovations that are amazing but also a little scary, and how we can live a healthier life in this high tech era. Tune in on TED Talks Daily. Wherever you listen to podcasts,
Daniel Klein
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Daniel Klein
Acast.com.
Host: Jane Marie (Little Everywhere)
Date: July 12, 2026
Guest: Daniel Klein
In this emotionally nuanced episode, host Jane Marie continues her deep-dive conversation with Daniel Klein, who grew up in the Israeli-occupied West Bank within a modern Orthodox Jewish family. The discussion explores Daniel’s gradual break from his religious and cultural upbringing, the personal and social repercussions of rejecting Zionism, the impact on family and marriage, and his journey into radical accountability and reconciliation. Along the way, themes such as indoctrination, trauma, grace, and the human tendency to repeat cycles of harm are woven together with remarkable honesty.
Tone & Language:
The conversation is candid, emotional, at times raw, and often gently humorous. Both Jane and Daniel speak in a confessional, open-minded style, using personal anecdotes and direct examples to ground larger questions about religion, nationalism, trauma, family, and healing.
For Listeners:
This episode is deeply personal and philosophical, offering insight into the painful, complicated process of rejecting inherited ideologies and the costs and freedoms that come with living more fully in one’s truth. Daniel's journey prompts powerful questions about identity, accountability, indoctrination, and the possibility of grace after deep harm.
Recommended for anyone wrestling with religious/cultural identity, communal belonging, or the messy process of genuine reconciliation.