← Unholy: Two Jews on the News
Unholy: Two Jews on the News
After Sydney, how can Jews feel safe in the world - With Rabbi David Wolpe
01:01:38
Watch us on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BWTPM1AIn_M Jews Are Being Sent Back Into Hiding https://www.thefp.com/p/jews-are-being-sent-back-into-hiding https://www.youtube.com/@RoniKripper As the traditional joy of Hanukkah combines with fear and grief after the horrific attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Yonit and Jonathan are joined by Rabbi David Wolpe for a searching conversation about loss, faith and how—if at all—to find sparks of light in the darkness. We also invited listeners to send in voice notes telling how this week has felt for them. Rabbi Wolpe responds with empathy, perspective and wisdom drawn from our deepest tradition. Plus: a tribute from Yonit and Jonathan to Rob Reiner, and the legacy he leaves on screen and beyond.
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- [00:00]
A
Shockwaves felt throughout the Jewish world and beyond after the horrific attack in Sydney. We will hear our listeners from around the world and be speaking to Rabbi David Wolpe. And a very sad goodbye to one of the greatest American directors, Anna Mensch. Rob Reiner. It's Unholy. I'm Yanit Levy in Tel Aviv.
- [00:17]
B
And I'm Jonathan Friedland in London. Unholy. Two Jews on the news. Well, we did our special update, didn't we, earlier on in the week, straight after the news came from Sydney. I think it was just a few hours later. And it's obviously been one of those things that we've all been thinking about ever since, where kind of wherever you are and, and not just this event itself, but the fact that it is no longer exceptional. The. It no longer can be called a sort of one off aberrational. And it's actually amazing to me because I thought it was longer, but it was only two months ago that we were talking in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur attack in Manchester in England in October. And so two of these in the space of two months. I mean, so there's the grief and the immediate reaction to Sydney and then there's this getting to grips with what may be a new normal.
- [01:27]
A
Yeah, I mean, it feels like a nightmare coming true, doesn't it? In the sense that it really does feel like it's a defining moment. I think of the events during these past two years, right? There was Washington D.C. and there was Boulder, Colorado, and there was Manchester, as you, as you mentioned, all of them horrific. This feels different. It feels different because of the scale. It feels different because of, of even the negligence, right, of putting two policemen over this huge Hanukkah event. It feels different because the war is already over. And I think it feels different because of this kind of creeping sentiment that this might not be the last, as you say, this might be the new normal. And I think that is a friend of mine who actually lives in London talked to me this week and said, use the word discombobulated. And I think that's what we kind of feel really, all of us. And I have to confess too, Jonathan, I mean, this is one of these weeks and doesn' happen a lot that I kind of picked up the phone to write to you. And what I was going to write was, please stay away from really large events. And I stopped doing, I kind of stopped in my tracks every time to say that because I was like, okay, you're a grown up, you know, to stay Away from large events, but just that kind of. And who am I to say to you, stay safe, you know, kind of. But it was just this kind of feeling, like disorientation even. It kind of throws you off balance, even though we shouldn't be surprised, even though, you know. But it's just. It really is a shocking thing.
- [02:56]
B
Well, this is something I want to pick up when we come to talk to our guests later on in the episode. What strikes me as perhaps a new thing for the Jewish people can be captured in a way by your very kind thought about texting me that, which is over the last two years, I will have been sending you messages saying, stay safe. During the Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel, you were poised to do the same here. The new thing, it seems to me, even looking back over centuries, is the absence of one place where everyone agrees, well, that's safe, that's the safe place. Israel is obviously physically unsafe in the way we just described. There are enemies all around who want to attack and throw missiles. Then there is the diaspora life, where every place. And that's part of the symbolism of Australia, because there is, in a way, in the global Western imagination, a fantasy about Australia, the other end of the world. That's where you'd run away from all the news and all the drama, you know, and yet it comes and reaches you there. So that is a new thing in the Jewish condition, I think the absence even of a place, even at the level of fantasy, that is that whether there's the safe place, as I say, I think we'll talk about that with our guest. It's interesting, this thing about fear, though. I've been in various places, you know, been been asked about this, including on a BBC TV show here, Newsnight, where earlier that day Lord Finkelstein, Daniel Finkelstein, who's written very brilliantly about his own family history and so on, he having been somebody who always and still does, by the way, there's no contradiction, praises Britain as a wonderful place that took in his parents, one fleeing Hitler, one fleeing Stalin. The safest place, best place to be in the world, he always writes and says, was now admitting that he himself on some level felt scared. And so on this BBC show, they said, well, is that, you know, do you. Do you feel scared? And I wasn't expecting away such a personal question, but the truthful answer was that, you know, it was as we. As it is now as we're speaking, it's one of the nights of Hanukkah, and I had said that I'd lit candles in my own home. But had there been a big public outdoor gathering, I would have thought twice about it in a way that I don't think I would have thought twice about it a week ago. And I'm thinking about Nomi Kautman's words to us from Australia, how she explained Australia is just an outdoors culture and Hanukkah is a summer festival. It happens outside. And even with the best school in the world, if you're very generously, governments wanting to do the right thing and giving money to Jewish communities for security, what that means is indoors. It means being behind walls and fences and reinforced doors. And so one of the things I mentioned on that is along with the fear, there's a kind of anger that, okay, enough with the reinforcing security. Now we want you to actually address the threat. Let's reduce the threat rather than just increasing the protection against the threat. And I felt that there was some sort of tipping point in that area this week. And it was interesting because it was. It took similar form all over the world, actually. You heard echoes of it in Australia and the United States, but oddly, picking up on the same thing that needs to be changed, that let's deal with this threat rather just hiding away ever more securely.
- [06:22]
A
Yeah, and I understand that feeling of, like, trepidation turning into rage and turning into a call for action. We are seeing the sort of convergence of three very dangerous factors. One, obviously, this violent jihadism that is targeting Jews, not only Jews, but certainly since the war in Gaza, it's mainly Jews and it's organized and it's funded and it's in weaponry on the ground, and it's an incitement online. Right? It's all that. And you see what we've been talking about a lot on this podcast, right? The dangers of actual anti Semitism, old school antisemitism from the right and from the left in the west, that is giving the background to all of this. Right? I mean, if you have on the one hand the Tucker Carlson's, on the other hand you have the globalized intifada, then that is this leads to some of the rhetoric that leads to violence. And the third thing you have is this kind of attempt to minimize the problem, right? You're hearing these voices, no, it's not so dangerous like you think. And there are other minorities that are being targeted, all of these conversations being said to Jews. And I think that kind of mindset has led to the very, very poor security that was on this specific event in Sydney. And all of this leads to this feeling that, you know, this, this feeling of being unsafe, which shouldn't lead us to, to be afraid because that is exactly what, you know, some of these people want. It's to talk about what to be, what is to be done. I can't forget the words. I think I quoted her on this podcast. I was talking to a leader in a Jewish, in the Jewish community in the United States a few months after October 7th and she said to me, we're talking about the campuses. She said, while Jews were spent decades arguing about the wallpaper to be put in hillel houses on campuses, the other side was hard at work. So the other side is hard at work and we should, I think, wake up to this problem. If there's any sort of silver lining is to say, you know, we have to address this. This is a very, very deep rooted problem that we have to deal with.
- [08:17]
B
Yeah, I think the, the point about the climate, that sort of horseshoe effect where you're saying the threat that comes from the right. We talked about it so much on the podcast last week with our guest about what's happening there. Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson that's a real threat. And then naming this other threat as, as well violent jihadism, very specific movement. You know, it's really important to be clear about that because I think other people often use other words and it ends like people have got some kind of issue with Muslims and Islam. I think it's much better to be specific as you just were and say it's this very specific movement who by the way, whose biggest toll of victims has been other Muslims around the world, whether it's Iraq or Syria. It's a, it's a really specific ideology and it has absolutely got Jews in its sides, but also to, to, to focus on and this is where it's gone this week. I think the thing you mentioned about this climate in the discourse that's been fostered and it particularly centers on these protests, the protests that have been a consistent feature of the last two years outside Israel, on, in every capital city, in every major city, sometimes every single week, these pro Palestinian or anti Israel protests, university campuses particularly. And the, you know, nobody I think is saying that a slogan on the campus of some university leads to directly in a straight line to Bondi Beach. But is there, is it, does it incubate a kind of tolerance for those calls? And it's all centered on this one particular slogan. It's interesting how this cohered because I found my own thoughts going to it even Before I'd read other people doing it, and yet lots of people must have found themselves coming to it, which is globalize the intifada. And this is a phrase that is used a lot. Just last week there was a big demonstration in Birmingham, in England, where the banner that was from the front, you know, wide banner held by the people at the front of the march, said one solution, by the way, itself a chilling phrase, but one solution. Intifada revolution. But variations on that theme globalized the intifada. Now, a lot of Jewish communities have appealed straight away to governments and police and said, you've got to shut this down and in effect, ban it. And the heads of the police in London and Manchester, two, you know, of Britain's biggest cities, have said that's what they're going to do. The approach I've been taking, and I'm absolutely ready to be told it's far too idealistic and sort of naive, is to try and address the people going on those marches, not necessarily the organizers, who I think may. May be irreconcilably difficult to persuade, but the kind of people are going on. As much as I kind of want to say to them, why are you going? Are you going because you are desperately moved by the plight of people in Gaza the last two years? If so, is it important to you to hold onto a slogan which strikes fear into the hearts of a British, in this case, or American or Australian ethnic minority? This phrase does that because to be honest, I don't know what else globalized intifada can really mean except bring violence onto the streets of Sydney or Manchester. So is it that important to you that you're going to hold onto that phrase? Or could you perhaps find another way of expressing your fury at what's gone on in the last years that doesn't do that? And I would love to know if the people going on this march is because the people who are going there in good faith, I don't believe they're doing it in order to strike terror into the hearts of a tiny ethnic minority. I don't think they want to do that, but let's find out. But instead, reaching straight away for the law has a very big downside, which it immediately makes Jews, somehow the people who are trying to shut down free speech, they get blamed for it. They get, you know, we've seen it in this country with the banning of a group called Palestine Action. All it's done is massively inflate the importance of that group. And it means that somehow people, the sentiment is still there. It just goes underground. So that's the thing I've been trying to do is call on those people going on those marches. Is there another phrase you can use that doesn't do this?
- [12:37]
A
Perhaps. I mean, perhaps there are good faith people who just are ignorant to what this means. I think anyone who's lived in Israel during the second intifada when buses and cafes blew up, feel in their bones what it means to say globalized intifada. And I think, as you said, many Jews do too. And it is, I think, part of the gaslighting of the Jewish community to say, oh no, no, it's just a liberation slogan. I'm not sure how many people are naive about that. But yes, there are groups of people who are perhaps led astray and should be talked about. But I think the problem needs to be addressed on so many levels. One of them is a level you're talking about, but it's also education and it's also, yes, law enforcement. I think there are places in which, for example, when these protests are violent, when they happen on the day of an attack against Jews, yes, they should be prohibited. So it's a multi pronged approach. The part of it I think is what you say.
- [13:39]
B
Yeah, I mean, in a way I'm looking for something very old fashioned which is for some degree of self reflection and kind of shame that I think if you're on a march, you think your intentions are good and on a day when this has happened, you're chanting something which terrifies people would summon. I know there are some people that, that won't register, it won't matter to them and believe me, they've made themselves known on social media in the last week or so. But I hope, I hope, and it's only a hope that some would be somehow shamed into it. I think the other fact that does give people pause, Dave Rich, who's been on this podcast a couple of times, I think, always makes this point. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you have not seen attacks on Russian Orthodox churches. And around the world, whether in Australia or America or Britain or France, that doesn't happen. It's only this conflict that this happens. And therefore again, I would love to see some soul searching in those movements saying we're not saying we're responsible. Violent jihadism and organized movement is responsible. But have we got some questions to answer? I'm not really seeing that so far, but I have a hesitation, which I've explained about reaching straight away for the legal remedy, but that there is anger there and that people are demanding action rather than just being the trepidation you described. That's definitely real and that is something that's shifted, I feel just a bit this week.
- [15:02]
A
And we wanted to talk about all this and also hear our listeners and what they have been feeling this week with someone very well positioned to have this conversation with.
- [15:16]
B
Rabbi David Wolpe was once named the most influential rabbi in America by Newsweek magazine. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School. He is the emeritus rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and a scholar in residence at the Maimonides Fund, as well as being the author of several acclaimed books. Rabbi David Walpeep, welcome to Unholy.
- [15:40]
C
I'm very happy to be here. Thank you.
- [15:43]
B
This has been such a huge year for the Jewish people. I mean, not just in Israel, not just in Diaspora. Both. Second year of war for Israel, then the ceasefire, the return of almost all the hostages, certainly all the living ones. Multiple attacks on Jews in the Diaspora, most recently in Sydney, Australia. Just asking you to step back and give us the big picture. How do you assess this moment for the Jewish people?
- [16:16]
C
The clearest and most immediate thought is that it is a time of enormous insecurity and growing fear. And that's true, I think, for, especially for every Diaspora community. I say that because for Israelis, I mean, this almost is a continual state of existence, that there are threats that loom, sometimes greater, sometimes lesser. But for the Diaspora communities, I think this is the first time in the post war era that they have asked themselves continually the question, do I belong here? Am I really accepted? Here is the taboo that existed for now almost a century against hatred of Jews, open hatred of Jews, violent hatred of Jews disappearing. And that's a terrifying thought.
- [17:15]
A
You wrote a beautiful piece together with historian and former special envoy Deborah Lipstadt, and the headline is Jews are being sent back into Hiding. And you talk about this deliberate attempt to make Jews afraid. And I wonder maybe this should have been the last question, not one of the first questions, but what is to be done? I mean, how do we not, of course, as you say, Israel is a slightly different case, but as Diaspora Jews, how does that group not fear going to open events like a Hanukkah celebration at this point? I mean, what should be done?
- [17:53]
C
I think ultimately the situation of Jews in America is somewhat different from the situation of Jews in Europe. Not only because of the number of Jews, but also, you know, for most of Jewish history, Jews were the identified other. There were Russians and Jews, there were Frenchmen and Jews, there were you know, Iranians and Jews there aren't Americans and Jews because America doesn't have an identifiable majority. There are. We're a patchwork quilt of different minorities. And that has ensured and I have to believe will still ensure primarily Jewish safety in America. So in a bigger picture, I am hopeful that's partly temperamental. I'm hopeful by temperament, but also I think that it rests on somewhat of a solid basis. Having said that, though, in terms of security, even those who the danger of speaking so savagely about Israel for the past two years is that you encourage and legitimize these actions, because after all, if the entire Jewish community are pro Nazi, then of course you're going to assault them, which is essentially what we have heard from the world. And the other part of this that I think is worth keeping in mind is that the one thing the Jewish community has not done as well as it should, which I hope I try to encourage all the time, is we have not actually reached out to others as well as we need to. We're not really great at saying we're in trouble and we need you, and I don't know about you, but in my experience, when you tell people you owe us and you have to do the moral thing, they are not as likely to help as when you say we're scared and we're hurting. And I understand why the Jewish community is unused to admitting vulnerability, because part of our survival strategy has been we will get through with faith and with solidarity. But right now is a time when I think we very much need to build alliances of the good people who are not Jewish. And that's at least the beginning of a strategy, because we need a strategy.
- [20:17]
B
The way you began that answer, by pointing out the difference between Americans and other communities, whether Europe or Australia, by saying that in America there aren't Americans and Jews, in a way, it strikes me that that is exactly what is now being contested. And we talked about it on the podcast just the other day with the. A conversation about the Nick Fuentes, the Tucker Carlson.
- [20:43]
C
Right, because they're.
- [20:44]
B
And in a way, nearly, of course, in those lurid terms, but with JD Vance talking about this notion of sort of European, as if the European origin Americans are the real Americans somehow, and everyone else is newcomers, I speak to several people who aren't quite as confident of that American exception anymore. They used to be in exactly the way you said, but they feel that itself is now under attack.
- [21:12]
C
I think that you're exactly right. And it's astute to point out that in Fact, at least in a part of the American ideological spectrum, which is the far right, which has grown increasingly influential, there is that difference between Americans and Jews that still by the way, is a fringe of the right, although increasingly, as I said, influential. And that isn't the strategy of the hard left. It's not. Jews are different from all other Americans. There's a different anti Semitic strategy on the far left, but I still believe that that's not anything close to a predominant movement. And remember that if it's any comfort, the same people on the far right who hate Jews hate other minorities too. So yes, Jews might be the particularly the most prominent in their pageant of hatred, but we are hardly alone.
- [22:12]
A
It's interesting to me because I think that what has been going on besides against violent jihadism and just kind of old school anti Semitism has also been this. And again you mentioned this in this article, this kind of maybe indifference or minimizing the problem and telling Jews, you know, you're actually not seeing what you're seeing. You're making mountains out of molehills. This is not dangerous as you think, at least in that regard. Do you think a penny has dropped? Something has moved. After these horrific events this week, I.
- [22:46]
C
Have not yet been able to take the temperature adequately of the non Jewish community inside the Jewish community. Yeah, I was gonna say it's pennies from heaven, but it's not from heaven. Lots of pennies have dropped. There's no question that the Jewish. I receive an increasing volume of messages from people who are scared in ways they never were in their lives, the world. And part of this I do want to say, you identified the third stool of the hatred of Jews. I mean there's the right, there's the left and there's jihadism, the demonization of Israel in Islamic circles, not all, but many, even though it's not explicitly directed against Jews, is creating, is at least assisting this climate. And there is an almost perfect storm. And so in this sense the anti Zionism, antisemitism debate about what is anti Zionism and what is antisemitism starts to dissolve when you recognize that if the toxicity of anti Zionism is raised high enough that it results in genuine old fashioned, undeniable anti Semitism by almost, almost by mathematical formula. And so I noticed, for example, I just heard recently, I just read recently that the statement from the imams in Australia did not mention the word Jews. And that omission alone tells you that the, the membrane between the two is exceedingly thin.
- [24:37]
B
We did something just a Little different this week, David, where we encouraged listeners to the podcast to bring their own questions. And just the thing you've just been talking about was touched on in this question from Daron from Sydney, Australia.
- [24:54]
D
Hello, Two Jews on the news. I am from Sydney, Australia. I grew up in Bondi, and I just wanted to reach out and say I'm an actor in Sydney. Just a few thoughts with the artistic community in Sydney that it's been really tough. It's been really tough. And granted, over the past 48 hours or so, there has been amazing messages. But what's really hard is that people are still not acknowledging the Jewish experience and acknowledging that it was an attack on Jews. And that's really, really hard. Really. And frustrating. Thank you again and sending all of my love.
- [25:39]
B
So. So what about that, David? This idea that there's even, in a way, your reference to the imam statement earlier does. Does suggest that. What would explain that reluctance to even identify an actual deadly attack on Jews as that.
- [25:55]
C
I have two answers to that. The first, more generous than the second. The first answer is that people are afraid of their own communities. And so the generous answer is cowardice. Because, you know, generally in these sorts of. I know, for example, if I say something critical of Israel, it's not the people who oppose Israel who are going to be upset with me, it's my own community that's going to be upset. How could you possibly get up and say something critical? And I think the same thing is true of some of the imams, which is they're afraid if they're too explicit in their support of Jews, they'll be attacked by their own community. And in some cases, they're exactly right. Of course, the ungenerous answer is that unfortunately, since I had not unfortunate that I had a congregation that was about 60% Persian, I mean, Iranian Jews are remarkable people. And I had a lot of. But when they told me the way in which, growing up in the Middle east, the antisemitism was nurtured almost from birth, then you also recognize that this is deeper, more pervasive and more instinctual in a lot of the Islamic world than is comfortable for us to believe. And so it could be because they're afraid of their own people, or it could be because they don't like Jews.
- [27:29]
A
Yeah, that's Occam's razor version.
- [27:31]
C
Yeah. I remember what I have to tell you, Yaniv. I remember once, like, my second year of being at Sinai, an old Persian man, like, very dapp, very elegant, came up to me, and he Put his hand on my shoulder and he said, rabbi, you're a very nice man, but you grew up in Philadelphia. And I understood and he was exactly right. It's like you don't understand the world the way I do because I grew up in Tehran.
- [27:56]
A
Yeah. Sadly, it seems like more and more we're understanding the world as we are in kind of bringing in some of our listeners thoughts. This week I want us to listen to Maya, who's an Israeli in Berlin, what she says, and let's maybe talk about that a little.
- [28:12]
E
Hi, I'm Maya from Berlin. And I feel I don't have a place anymore. I can't live in my own country, which I love dearly because of the government. And on the other hand, I can't live anywhere else because Jews are proudly hated. Right now in my neighborhood, they mark houses of Jews with hate graffitis. There is Hamas propaganda like Hamas is love. And on every trash bin in my street it says Israelis or Zionazis or Zionists and curses. And everywhere I go I see hate. And I was never that desperate to be honest and so angry. It feels like Jews are hunted in the street while the world is chanting Free Palestine. This has nothing to do with Free Palestine.
- [29:05]
A
I do want to ask you about that kind of sentiment and how to help the people who have been feeling this week that really there's no place safe for Jews. That is really a sad and frightening thought. And I wonder how, if you can, answer that.
- [29:22]
C
So last night, actually at the synagogue in Los Angeles, we had Eli Sharapi. And when he talked about how in the tunnels in Gaza, he explained to them that despair was not an option and that they had to look at the end of each day say something good that had happened that day, despite the fact that they were. I quoted what Mulra wrote to Whitaker Chambers after Chambers broke with the Communist Party. When he wrote that famous. I think it was a telegram. And he said, you have not returned from hell with empty hands. I mean, and that's what I thought about Sharabi. He returned from hell with full hands, which is amazing. And it's very difficult to counsel people to courage. But I think for the Jewish community, we have no choice. We have to say to people that you are standing up where you are and being who you are is not only important for you and for Jews, but right now, without being too grandiose, it's important for the world. People have to see that we can't be intimidated into fleeing, into hiding, into all the things that Deborah and I warned about in that article, because if we don't do this, what is the alternative? To make ourselves smaller and smaller and smaller till we're sort of an agoraphobic people? And that's a terrifying thing.
- [30:48]
B
I want to go back to the beginning of what Maya said, though, because she said she doesn't feel at home, absolutely, in Germany or in Europe because of safety. But she said she also doesn't feel home. She's an Israeli. She doesn't feel at home in Israel, she said, because of the government. She doesn't unpack what it is about the government. But we can all, you know, supply our own imagined answers to that question. I have been wondering more and more about whether we are at a new moment for the Jewish people where there isn't at the moment a functioning sort of fantasy alternative. In other words, when Jews were in Eastern Europe, they imagined that one day we will create a new country called Zion, which will be perfect, or they imagined the golden medina of the United States. There was always somewhere else that you could go to that, as yet had not proven itself inhospitable to Jews. And now I sort of wonder. There are people who, whatever the politics, will think being in Israel does mean being exposed to Houthi missiles and Hezbollah rockets and danger, physical danger, even before you get to the politics, they'll think, you know, Europe, that's we've seen what can happen there, and they won't, even now, for the reasons we've talked about, feel that safe about the United States. You know, the journalists reach far too often to the for the word unprecedented. But is this something new for the Jewish people to have looked around the world and regard nowhere as being completely free of trouble, even at the level of fantasy?
- [32:15]
C
You know, you've had on your podcast a couple of times my friend, the wonderful Rabbi Angela Buchdal. And when she speaks about her book, he ends with a story and then talks about this song as a Jewish prayer and sings Somewhere over the Rainbow, written by two Jews. And I think it's exactly what you're saying, which is Jews always had that sense of somewhere over the rainbow, there is going to be this better place. And for a while it was America, and then for a while it was Israel. When you say you don't like the government of a country in a democracy, what you're saying is you don't like the sentiment of the people. So I think that that's important to say. When people say, I don't like the government, the answer is, of course, that if the majority of people don't like it. With you, it will be different. And so I hate to revert to this formula again, but honestly, I don't know a different one. If you don't like the government, rather than despair of the country, you have to persuade other people of the good reasons why you don't like the government and change it. I think all of us have seen in recent years, in almost every country that there is a despair that leads to personalities who are extremely assertive and aggressive in the public sphere in different ways. I mean, it's almost a worldwide reaction. And if you need that to be different, then despair is actually the least productive emotion to change that, because despair feeds it. And instead what you need are people who will both attain and also give you a sense of hope that things actually can be better and that the world is not only about the enemies outside us, but also about the agency within us.
- [34:12]
A
And to that agency. I mean, you did say that Jews need to kind of ask for help and that we need a strategy. When you look at the ideal strategy, what would that be?
- [34:24]
C
It would be that we build coalitions with people who are not yet really alert and awake to this problem. Because, I mean, think just thinking about America, the vast majority, I always tell Jewish audiences, like, how much do you know about Kashmir or Nagorno Karabakh? Like, you know, we assume that the whole world actually knows and thinks about Israel and they've just decided what they've decided. But of course, that's not so. And I. One thing I learned as a fundraiser, which I was not really all that good at, but the thing that I did learn was if you don't ask, people won't give. And it's astonishing how often when you ask someone, they say, sure, I'll give, but had you never asked them, it wouldn't have happened. And I think for the Jews, alliances are the same. If we don't ask, nobody's going to take time out of their day to say, oh, by the way, I support the Jews. But if the Jewish community can develop this strategy, and I think there are actually some efforts in this area to speak to people who are of goodwill but like most of us, indolent and in their own lives, and say, we really need you to have a public voice because these terrible things are happening, then I think even without the kinds of horrific tragedies you saw in Sydney, we might make some progress. But it's not easy work.
- [35:51]
A
You write in the article, you say the greatest enemy we face now is indifference. And you say that what you need to convince people is even if they're not particularly tied to the Jewish people, you say the consequences of this will be not only dire for the Jewish people, they will be dire for democracies, the rule of law and civilization we cherish. How do you convince people of that, of that theory? It doesn't stop with the Jews. It can start with the Jews. It doesn't. It doesn't stop with the Jews.
- [36:18]
C
I mean, well, if people still learned history, it would be easier to convince them not to be. Not to paint with too broad a brush. But it really. I think if you show them what happened to Europe when the Jews were. What happened to Spain when the Jews left, what happened to Germany. Germany would have won the war easily had it only kicked out the Jews. Only here being here. Carrying a lot of weight in that sentence. But there's a very strange dichotomy in antisemitism. Jews are superhuman and subhuman at the same time. Hyman Maccabee, an English scholar, whom you may have known, has a really interesting theory about why that's so. He says because only superhuman evil can kill a God. And once the idea that Jews had killed Jesus came into currency, then they were going to be superhuman and hated. But the Nazis thought of them as vermin who control the world. But putting all that aside, the truth is that Jews are an extraordinarily accomplished people. And this is a terrible strategy for advancing your national purpose is to destroy the people who are most accomplished. It's like Mao's cultural revolution. Why don't we destroy everybody who is intellectually capable and then run a country? And so I can't imagine that anyone who, for example, really believes that America should flourish would want to destroy a people who has contributed as much as any people to its flourishing. It is the twisted logic of hatred that it doesn't follow a rational path, but doubles back on itself. And it's really hard to. To reason someone out of something that wasn't reasoned into in the first place.
- [38:15]
B
I'm tempted to ask you this because you are a rabbi, which is. It seems to me that at different points in our history, and particularly even recently, that we find different things to put at the center of our Jewish identity. And yeah, it's true in big parts of the Jewish people. It's been Israel since 67 in some ways. And then you think about the role of the Holocaust as a big thing that coheres people's identity. I think there are some for whom antisemitism Even can play that role. What do you see coming in terms of what people might now place at the center of their identity? And this is the bit about you because you're a rabbi. Do you see that? Anybody moving? Well, obviously there are some people, but a large movement towards making Judaism the center of Jewish identity again, rather than Israel or politics.
- [39:14]
C
To be autobiographical. So my father was a rabbi in Philadelphia for most of his career. Wonderful man, wonderful rabbi. But it was clear that for him, the rabbinate was about building the Jewish community. It was about freeing Soviet Jews. It was about building schools and federation and so on. So the first couple of books that I wrote were all about God, because that was actually in my Judaism growing up, that was much less important than all these other things that were really center stage. And I wanted to reclaim this spirituality for Judaism. And there was a huge spiritual push. I think actually we are moving to a time when. Not when. When spirituality is neglected. Actually, there are a lot of spiritual and quasi spiritual movements inside Judaism that are flourishing. But where the spirituality embraced in peoplehood is what really matters, because it is actually Ahavat Yisra', el, love of the people and land of Israel, that I think is taking center stage at the moment. But one of the expressions of that is synagogues, camps, all the apparatuses of Jewish learning and Jewish life. And I think the other thing is that people have awakened to the fact that the more Jewishly learned and involved you are, the much more likely you are to support Jewish peoplehood, that it is the most effective vehicle for caring about other Jews. So I would say a spiritualized peoplehood. I've never used that phrase before, and I'm going to have to think about it for the rest of the day and see if it fits. But for the moment, for the moment, I'm going to go with it. So in other words, I'm trying to be holy on unholy.
- [41:10]
A
Yeah. We're honored by this experiment that you're doing. We like it. Yes. It's a spiritual peoplehood and podcast. We like it. The combination. I think we want to end with one of our listeners from Uruguay. This is what she sent in. I think some of it has optimism in it, and I'd like to ask you to relate to that. Here it is.
- [41:29]
F
Greetings from Latin America, from Uruguay. I always listen to your podcast. There are times, difficult times in our Jewish community communities around the world.
- [41:43]
A
But.
- [41:45]
F
We have to have hopes in these times. And I need to thank you for giving us hope and information with your podcast. Saludos De Uruguay. Greetings from Uruguay. There will be peace.
- [42:10]
A
So essentially, I think the question is, do you share her optimism about, you know, there might be a sort of peaceful period for the Jewish people yet Ahead.
- [42:21]
C
So I'm going to go full rabbi on you and say that since, you know, on Hanukkah, we read the story of Joseph, and Joseph, at the beginning of his life, has these dreams of the stars bowing down to him that are his family. And so he tells his family about it. And of course, they hate the fact that he thinks they all want to bow down to him. His brothers hate him. They throw him in a pit. Some of them intend to kill him. He eventually gets sold into slavery. He goes into Egypt, and there he interprets Pharaoh's dreams and rises to be viceroy of Egypt. And so he falls by dreams and he rises by dreams. And the question is, what's the difference? And the difference is that he falls when he can only hear his own dreams, and he rises when he starts to learn to listen to the dreams of others. And I think that part of the sort of metaphysical, religious cure of this is that people have to begin to understand that people who are unlike them have dreams and to be able to listen to the dreams of others. And I think there are a lot of people who resonate to that idea and to that ideal. And so maybe if we actually shared our dreams with each other and learned to listen to what it is that the other person yearns for and needs in a human way, as opposed to a political and polemical way, we would do better. And I know that that sounds a little bit rabbinic and messianic, but it's astonishing how often things that seem impossible come to pass.
- [44:03]
B
You don't ever have to apologize for being rabbinic on this podcast, despite its name.
- [44:09]
E
Thank you.
- [44:10]
A
Thank you for being full rabbi with us.
- [44:12]
E
Sure.
- [44:14]
B
Rabbi David Wolpe, thank you very much indeed for being full rabbi, as Yonit says, but for being with us on Unholy.
- [44:25]
A
That was such a smart and spiritually beautiful conversation. I think that ending with listening to others, to the dreams of others really is something that resonates with you. And even, I think, a few of the practical notes of that conversation, right, of, like, Jews asking for help from other communities and things like that. I mean, it was just. I'm so glad to have. To have had him on finally. Long overdue.
- [44:49]
B
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. I think that was a really interesting question. You know, drawing from his experience as a fundraiser, the one thing he Learned was if you don't ask, people won't give. And maybe Jews have been reluctant to ask for help. And I was thinking about that as he was saying that strategies for survival that we've tried over centuries to say we're stronger or more powerful. Resilience and resilient and in a way the whole mythology around Jews and power in a part it's a survival thing. A very small people might do that. But actually we are vulnerable.
- [45:19]
C
Vulnerable.
- [45:20]
B
And we do have needs and we need allies. You know, I got an email from a friend just this week, non Jewish friend saying I am lighting a Hanukkah candle after Sydney. This was. And he said it's small and probably not much good but I wanted you to know I'm doing it. And it's incredibly touching to have that, that support. And so I think he's right about that and so beautiful. Even when he went full on rabbi, we loved it because not even, I mean especially when he did that. That idea of Joseph flourishes when he listens to others dreams. That's great. I'm going to file that one away. So we learned a huge amount from Rabbi David Wolpier.
- [46:06]
A
You know, it's interesting, Jonathan, it was one of these weeks where we sometimes have this conversation. The big story in Israel is such and such. And you would say the big story outside Israel is completely different. We have this discussion, what should we open with? And this week we had absolutely no issues. The same lineup on Israeli television was the same one in the same of every other sort of Jewish family I think around the world. Number one, Sydney, number two is what we will come to right now. And that is of course the murder of one of Hollywood's greatest directors, Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle. The suspect in this is their son. I mean every part of the story is horrendous and we, you know, it's hard to try and talk about his body of work which is so, so impressive before we talk about the actual tragedy. You know, I think your friend Hadley Freeman had this beautiful piece she wrote in the Free Press in the the title was Rob Reiner deserved a Happily Ever after. Which I think is very poignant because it's true. He really was on every level it seems a mensch and a person who was so talented in so many ways not only in filmmaking that really the sort of gut wrenching feeling all of us had when we realized the story was I think the same all over the world really.
- [47:42]
B
Just one thing to say about you mentioned friend of the podcast Hadley Freeman, a friend of mine, we're indebted to her for several things that we know about Rob Reiner and indeed particularly about the film that you and I both love, which is When Harry Met Sally, which is. It was in an interview with her that Rob Reiner revealed explained that the ending of the film came in part through meeting his wife Michelle, who obviously, as we know, was murdered with him. That's certainly the allegation and assumption it was. The story was that that beautiful romantic comedy that we both revere was, was going to end with Harry not getting together with Sally. They were going to go their, you know, separate ways or remain friends, but not get together. He then met Michelle on the set of filming When Harry Met Sally, a mutual friend, I think the Barry Sonnenfeld involved in the film said you've got to meet this woman, saw her, you know, fell for her more or less love at first sight and then believed again that romance really is possible and therefore gave Harry and Sally there happy after, thankfully. And there's more actually again, my source for this in part Hadley, who is working on a biography of Nora Ephron, who wrote When Harry Met Sally. We will talk about all that you can hear what other revelations we know and what insights we know into that film and into the, into the work left for us by Rob Reiner. I also, you know, will make a point about him having great yus, an underused Yiddish word which means kind of, it's not the right word, sort of pedun lineage, meaning the family he came from. We will talk about all of that in that extra look at the life and work of Rob Reiner.
- [49:30]
A
Yeah, but two, two things just to mention briefly, one, just the range, right, of this, of this man having to on the one, you know, directing these romantic comedies and these courtroom dramas and horror in Misery and satire in Spinal Tap and coming of age drama in Standby maybe. I mean, what a range and a director that I think his ego was put aside for his, you know, and instead came his deep respect for writers, for stories, for actors, for characters. It is not a coincidence, I think, that he never won an Academy Award. He made it seem so effortless what he did a bit of sort of a Jeff Bridges in a director. And just to think of, again, we'll talk about this more but just to think of, I think in a way he looked at everything as being really a romantic story. Of course it's easy to prove in the American President, When Harry Met Sally and the Princess Bride. But also in a sense, I would claim in A Few Good Men, which is not a quest for true love, but it is a romantic quest for the truth. And even that line, right, I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. Just how much depth there is, is. And how much room for that kind of conversation. His respect for words, his respect for dialogue. This is a man like, you know, that we haven't seen. And it's interesting. I spoke to a philanthropist yesterday who said to me, in the philanthropy world, Rob Reiner is a legend. And you'd think, okay, the film world, he's a legend. No, she said, just his work. Even on legalizing gay marriage, Even on things like that. You know, again, the range of this, of this man is something so impressive. Impressive.
- [51:10]
B
And we will talk about all of that and pay tribute to Rob Reiner, his extraordinary work. And as you say, the range, I think the. There is no writer in the world who doesn't. Writer of books in particular, who doesn't have a special place in the heart for Misery, which I think is the most brilliant spoof on the. No, not spoof, but brilliant even.
- [51:33]
A
That's kind of romantic, right? Of course, Course. A very warped romance.
- [51:35]
B
It's about the pressure of a deadline. I mean, it's just the most brilliant thing of his imagination. There's obviously from Stephen King, but the idea that the, you know, writers live in terror of having to complete a book. And so that is taken to the most extreme, logical conclusion in the form of that brilliant film Misery. But there's many, many others. We're going to talk about them all. But as you said, it's not just in film. He is a huge log loss to the wider world too, in terms of a, you know, his conscience and, you know, as a citizen and you mention his philanthropy. So all of that we'll talk about. So we would. Would certainly have given any kind of awards to Rob Reiner. Amazing, that point about an Oscar. I think you make point you make about the effortlessness of it. It's brilliant, actually. But we would give our own, you know, unholy Academy Award to Rob Reiner long ago. Should we do some other awards while we are here?
- [52:34]
A
I think this elegantly leads us to our chutzpah award of the week. Really.
- [52:37]
E
Right.
- [52:38]
A
Which could only be one nomination.
- [52:39]
B
No, it really is. It's a shocker, this one.
- [52:43]
A
Yeah. I think that we, of course, were referring to what Donald Trump wrote after the death of Rob Reiner. I think none of our listeners did to miss this. But I'm just going to Quote what, what he wrote. A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle passed away, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome. End quote. Yeah. So I don't even know what to say about this, but I think it, it's safe to say that even if, if you're attacked by your own party and Marjorie Taylor Greene is telling you you're misbehaving, then you know you did something, you know, terribly wrong. And this is really a. I think it's safe to say, I don't think anyone with a conscience thought this was not anything but a vile comment about a man who just died. Right. So that is what he said.
- [53:40]
B
Yeah, I think that's right. I think it was a sort of failure to read the room. Often he does get it right with his hardcore. Even while liberals are, are appalled. In this case, I don't think anybody felt that's the way you speak about somebody who has just died and certainly not how you speak about someone who was a national treasure, who was clearly loved for his films and just his whole personality. Of course, Trump being Trump, he doubled down and just carried on with it, even when challenged and said, you know, I didn't like him.
- [54:08]
D
And.
- [54:10]
B
To the point where actually some people are sort of one wondering is, is Trump himself kind of in missing, losing a step as they used to say about his predecessor. Just something was really off there, even by his very, very slow standards. Some, something very, you know, almost as I say, sort of morally off. So we agree in the winner of our Chutzpah award. When it comes to Mensch, I think it has to be said, there really can be no contest. I think it's a collective award for those people and there are more of them than I think people realized who stepped up and stepped in trying to save lives during the Bondi beach massacre. Now there was a lot of attention over the world and I completely can see why. For Ahmed, Ahmed the Muslim, you know, civilian guy just walking around, who unarmed, went in and, and tackled one of the two gunmen and actually got his gun off him. Extraordinary. That became a figure. He became rather sort of already immediately a kind of iconic figure. But there were others, including caught on a dash cam, one of those car cameras, Boris and Sophia Goes Gurman, who can be seen in this footage stepping in to try and protect others before they themselves were horrifically shot. And there are other cases, too. These are not the only ones.
- [55:44]
A
Yes, there's also the story of chaya de Don, 14 years old, who tried to protect other children, kind of, you know, cover them with her own body to save them. I mean, there are stories of heroism here, of a community really abandoned and left alone and what happens to that community. It's a story of heroism above anything we can imagine. So, yes, I think, as you said, it's a collective Mensch award this week. Couldn't be any other way. I fear that this could have been a bit of a dark episode, and it is a dark week. But I would want to share with our listeners a very, very lovely note that we received this week from Ronnie Kripper. He's a musician in Boston and he wrote to us that he has been listening to the podcast for a very long time and he has had this conversation with a friend of his on the kibbutz. He called it his own musical unholy over these two past two years. And he writes that during these long distance conversations he wrote and recorded a song that feels to him half diaspora and half Israel. And it's a prayer for peace. He incorporated in this musicians from Argentina and Israel. And he writes in our own small attempt, it's our own small attempt to hold both worlds together. So we wanted our listeners to hear a little bit of that song that they recorded together, the unholy music version, if you like.
- [57:16]
B
So our thanks to Ronnie for writing this song and certainly for sending it to us. We will play out with this after we have said it, of course. Our thank yous to Michal Porat as always, and to our listeners who sent in those questions which we put to our guest. Thanks to to others who've written in about that special episode we have coming in 2026 with Orna Guralnik, people who have any kind of relationship that has been strained by the events of the last two years. It's not too late. Do send in some of those for us to put to Orna Goralik when she he is our guest on the podcast. But for now, this beautiful song to play us out for this almost, not quite the last episode of 2020.
- [59:56]
E
Sa.
- [60:22]
A
Montrok. I'm.