Noa Tishby

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is actor, producer, activists Noah Tishbi, author
of the book Israel, A Simple Guide to the Most
Misunderstood Country on Earth. What's the number one thing people
misunderstand about Israel? Oh? God, how long do we have?

(00:31):
A lot? A lot? I think one of the things
that I found so disturbing, and one of the reasons
that I wanted to write this book and do the
work that I do, is because people have started to
paint Israel as the big bad wolf of the entire universe,
and I, as a liberal, as somebody that's been an
entainment industry of my mentire life is somebody that's been involved,
my family has been involved in the establishment of the

(00:53):
country for many generations that was highly bothered by that.
So I don't know if there's one thing, but I'll
give you, you know, ethnic cleansing, genocide, country, apartheid state,
I'll give you all of those as as one of
those things that a lot of people perceive as truths,
which are not at all. Okay, we're jumping, We're literally

(01:16):
jumping right in. Are we Your audience have no idea
who I am. But you know, I thought about that,
but this is the way we're doing it, So speak
to genocide, this is okay. The answer to that is
so simple that it's almost comical, because if you say

(01:36):
that to do ethnic cleansing, to do to create genocide,
you have to have numbers that actually are reduced, right,
And if you look at the numbers at the establishment
of the state in nineteen forty eight, or about one
hundred and fifty thousand Arab Israeli Palestinian citizens of the
State of Israel, now there's two point one millions. So
if you think of it as like a genocide, it's
literally the worst genocide in the history of the world.
That is. That is one of the things that infuriates

(01:58):
me the most, because there's there's no it's almost it's
almost upsetting to even start with this because of how
not true this is and how much I've had to
fight against this. And the thing is that this is more.
It's more. These things are more than just misunderstanding. There
are actual national security for America's best ally in the region,

(02:22):
for the single consistent democracy, and the entire at least
for the only country the charis of values the only country.
But it's not a perfect country. There are no such
thing as a perfect country. But what's been happening specifically,
sadly around what I call polite circles, is this demonization
of one state and that it just happens to be Jewish.

(02:44):
So so my home's homeland. So I took it personally.
I took it very personally. And you know, look, we're
both both based in La And there's a story that
I tell in my book that's kind of like the
funny version of it, right, the funny version of like
Israel's and the cleansing Street. Okay, the fight version is

(03:05):
I was, it was just when I moved to LA,
I was in my early twenties. I was, you know,
roaming around kind of like in Aprove. Okay, this is
going to come up later. I don't want to have
to get your exact age, even though someone could just
look it up at Wikipedia. But how many years ago
did you move to the US? Over twenty years ago?
Over twenty years ago? Started coming back and forth, Okay,

(03:26):
and I there's this girl that we were hanging out with,
and she was already famous, she was already very well known.
She turned she ended up being one of the most
famous actresses in the world. Every single one of the
audience knows who she is. If you're read between ages
of twelve and ninety, you know, you know who she is.
She was lovely and she came up to me one
day and she asked me. She's like, oh, so I
heard you from Israel. I said, yeah, I am, and

(03:47):
she goes, so, how does your family feel about you?
And I was like, what what do you mean? And
she goes, you know that you're modern and everything, that
you don't wear all the head gear. And that was
when asking me about misunderstanding. That was the first time
that I realized that people have no idea about what
Israel is because this here was this woman who's young,

(04:10):
well educated, successful, well meaning, lovely, and she thinks Israel
Afghanistan like legit. So that was probably the first time
that I encounter that, and from then on it was
just over and over. Literally every week I would hear
somebody say something that is not true. I would have
to jump in and jump in again, jump in again,

(04:32):
until here we are it's what I do. Oh okay,
so you've been here twenty years, so you've seen the
rise of the BDS movement. You've seen this wave certainly
on the left of support of Palestinians. What do you
think is going on here? First of all, let me
just make one thing clear, and Prosraeli and pro Palestinian.

(04:54):
So this trying to create this it's false equivalency or
trying to create this this it's not they're not it's
not mutually it's not mutually exclusive, right, So you don't
have to be either pro Israeli or pro Palestinian. There's
not a single person that I know in Israel that's
against Palestinians. Okay, there are people on the French right
that are against Palestinians, but that's the slight that's not

(05:17):
a majority by any stretch of the imagination. Right, So,
first of all, it's not either war. The way that
it's perceived in those polite circles is that you're either
pro Israel or your pro Palestine. That is not true.
The question is the question what to be done is
not a question that I can obviously answer in a podcast.

(05:38):
But what's been going on in the past since since
we've identified this since two thousand and one, So this
kind of originated at the Durban Conference for Against Racism,
which turned out to be so anti Semitic that the
US and Israel pulled out. That was when the language

(05:59):
of to brand Israel an apartheid state was originated, and
this is where BDS kind of took their language from.
So the BDS movement, which is the boycott, divestment and
sanctions movement, is trying to portray Israel as South Africa.
So if you which is it's it's it's offensive to

(06:22):
South African, it's offensive to actual apartheid warriors, anti apartheid warriors.
So BDS movement is trying to create academic, financial, intellectual
boycott on the state of Israel completely. They're trying to
turn it into pariah state, and they're trying to, at

(06:43):
the end of the day, destroy Israel. So they're trying
to dismantle the only democracy in the release. And this
is one of those things that I'm not it's not
hyperbole and I'm not making this up. This is what
their leaders are saying. They're not afraid of it and
not ashamed of it. It's all out there. It's on
videos on the Internet for everyone to see. But what
they do and what they've done throughout the years. Is

(07:05):
they cloaked it in a very kind of sophisticated language.
So they'll show up, for example, on college campus. Okay,
they'll set a table on college campus, and on the
table they'll talk about justice and freedom. Right. They're not
going to sit at the table and say we are
here to destroy democracy. Please sign up, all right. So

(07:29):
they're literally trying to hide what it is that they
are about. But this is what they are about. No,
BDS movement is against peace. Abdias movement was against the
abram Court. How there's no there is no, there's not
going to be peace lasting piece between the Israelis and
the Palestinians. If there's going to be less collaboration and cooperation,
there needs to be more than that. There needs to be.

(07:51):
BDS was against the abram A Court. Okay, okay, so
give us give us a little bit of the history
of BDS. So well, let me let me give you
first the history of boycotting Jewish goods. Okay, so boycotting jewishness.
This is why we say BDS is an anti Semitic movement.
It's not about um, it's not a political movement. It's

(08:12):
an anti Semitic movement. It's not a progressive movement. It's
a hate group basically. So the origination of boycotting Jewish
goods started in with the first This was the first
decision that the Arab League made when they were established,
before the establishment of the State of Israel, So it
was either nineteen forty five or nineteen forty six they

(08:32):
had their first decision was to boycott Jewish goods. Okay,
Now why I say the reason I say so this
is the origination of BDS concept. So there was an
incarnation of this throughout the year. So there was the
Arab boycott in the seventies that we didn't have Pepsi
in Israel because of the Arab boycott, and now again

(08:54):
BDS trying to boycott, to boycott Israel, to boycott Jewish goods. Now,
the thing about BDS, the people in the in the
West and on the left don't understand is that it's
a movement that hurts Palestinians. So the Palestine, this is
not it's not a grassroots movement of the in the
like that's like actually coming from the West Bank. The
people on the West Bank want more opportunities, they want

(09:17):
more jobs. They want to be able to eat ice
cream the way that you know, I'm referring to Ben
and Jerry's boycotting, boycotting Israel. So this is this is
a movement that's actually damaging Palestinians. I wrote in my book,
I quoted this letter of a guy, a Palestine guy
who's working at the soda stream factory in the West Bank,

(09:40):
and BDS went after the soda stream factory and the
workers there. There were about fifteen hundred workers there, but
eight hundred of them were Palestinians, and he wrote this
letter two arts and he said, don't close the factory.
I'm working here with Israelis and Palestinians and Ethiopians and Russians,
and we're all working together. I get paid three times,
I get benefits. What are you doing? Stop this? This

(10:03):
is what's happening. And it's BIDS on campus, and it's
these well intentioned justice warriors that don't understand what it
is that they're supporting, and they don't understand that it's
actually damaging the Palestinian people. Okay, you know you mentioned
Ben and Jerry's and we talk about the woke left
being pro Palestine. I didn't mention that word yet. Okay,

(10:26):
that's my word. What do you think is the generation
of this? Why is this happening because it didn't happen
prior to the last twenty or so years. This is
again my chapter in the book about BDS is the
chapter that the legal department at Simon and Schuster was
most concerned about, and they went through every single one

(10:48):
of these words with like, you know, fine, fine, fine fine.
I kind of like went through this very thoroughly because
I talk about the origin and the funding of BDS
and who's behind it, and I'm quoting two congressional hearings
that happen on the subject of BDS, and there needs
to be investigation about the sources of funding and who's

(11:11):
behind it. Let me just say that it's not happening
by accident, it's by design. There's a nefarious intent to
destroy the state of Israel. And I believe the FBI
needs to actually open an investigation against them, and also
the Department of Education should not allow them on campuses.
Probably the IRS should look into their funding as well. Okay,

(11:32):
let me use a specific example. I'm I'm being again
careful just because it's all in my book worded very carefully,
but it's let me put it, No nobody came after
me because there was nothing there that was not the truth. Okay,
let me use a specific example. There is highly reviewed
series on Amazon Pride called Trent's Pairing and it's got

(11:54):
a Jewish underpinning and a lot of people involved in
the show are Jewish. And then one of the later
seasons they go to Israel and they make a big
point of going to Palestinian areas and how the Palestinians
were just peaceful people and they were being mistreated by Israel.

(12:17):
What is the genesis of this sentiment by left leaning
liberal Jews? Why do you think this is suddenly you're happening.
First of all, everybody loves a perceived underdog, right when
you look through history and I'm coming I'm talking as
as a liberal Israeli right and a liberal Jew, And

(12:40):
in my opinions and my kind of like leaning, it's
very confronting to look at the history of the conflict
and to realize black on top of white, how many times,
like written down right, how many times there were peace
offerings to the Palestinian leadership, and how many times they

(13:01):
were turned down from literally nineteen twenty two onwards. So
when you look at that and you think to yourself,
what do they want? It's a very confronting feeling when
you know history well to realize that as a political movement,
the Palestinian people need to figure out what it is

(13:23):
that they're after, because every single action that they have
taken throughout the years was rejectionism, was a no to
whatever was offered. And when you see people like Beljadid right,
bless her heart, chanting in demonstrations from the river to

(13:45):
the sea Palestine will be free, that is a call
for ethnic cleansing of the Jewish people from their ancestral land.
That's what that is. Because there's a country between the river,
the Jordan River, and the sea, the Sea of the Mediterranean. See.
So it's a very confronting feeling as someone who's more
on the liberal side to look at that and go,

(14:07):
oh my god, what do we have to work with?
What do they want? What do they want? However, the
left eats it up in America when somebody comes over
and use fake intersectionality, perceived Jews as white people and say,
see the poor Palestinians, they're just like the blacks. They're

(14:30):
just like you know, it's it's white on brown oppression.
It's kind of easy to believe that in America if
you don't know the facts. And it's a very and
I'm saying this so lightly because even the notion of
intersectionality in Israel is wrong. Can you define intersectionality please, Well, yeah,

(14:50):
the sure so intersectionality in the context of perceiving everything
to the prism through the prism of skin, color, right,
and ethnicity. So there's an attempt to paint Israel as
this white nation that's oppressing brown people. And all you
need to do is go to Israel and see that

(15:12):
that's not the case. Because right now in Israel, only
thirty one percent of defining themselves of Eastern European descent.
The rest are of the region, So either Jewish of
you know, Jews of North African descent, or Palestinian, Arab,
Israeli whatever it is, that's it's not a white country.
The majority of American Jews are of European descent, but

(15:33):
that's not the case in Israel. So there's no this
is something that's based on that isn't based in reality,
but it because of the world that we live in
today because of this trying to you know, you said woke.
I don't want to even use that word that much,
but because of the people are trying to be holier
than the pope and they the perceived underdog is not

(15:55):
the underdog. It's just not the case. And again, I'm
not saying this when people to get upset. I'm not
saying that Israel is perfect by any stretch of the imagination,
but I'm trying to pull us back from the brink
of Israel shouldn't exist, because that's the thing. Is this right?
The people don't understand that Israel is the only country
in the world that her existence is being questioned. It's

(16:16):
the only country. It's the only country in the world
that has its own Wikipedia entry the legitimacy of the
State of Israel. No other country has that. Okay, let's
start with that concept. You and me both know that
the goal of the Palestinians and the other people in
the area is for Israel literally not to exist. Why

(16:37):
and howard st say that? Yeah, say that again, that's
the thing, But a lot of people don't actually get that.
Well of a lot of countries in the region, and
a lot of I'm not saying everybody and not saying
all the Palestinian people. I'm just saying the goal is
to throw the Jews into the sea and Israel seased
to exist. That's what we're dealing with here. Okay, you

(16:59):
and mean, how come that concept gets no traction? It's
a great question. I wish I had the answer to it,
the only thing that I can think of, right when again,
I've done a deep dive on this for like decades. Okay,
we all carry around subconscious biases when it comes to

(17:21):
different ethnicities and different races and different the other. Right,
and people carry around subconscious biases around Jewish people. They
just do, right. I always joke, I'm like, you know,
Jews have all them, and the Jews have all them.
You know when I say cabal, you say, people just

(17:41):
carry around these subconscious biases around the Jewish people, and
they do necessarily know that they carry them. But when
they hear something about Israel, it falls smack into that
subconscious bias. And if they don't stop and be like, wait,
is that true or is that automatic? Then they believe it.
And a lot of people's opinion about Israel is based

(18:03):
on feelings not in fact, and it's very frustrating. And again,
by the way, just so you know, I was born
and raised in Israel, so I was not raised with
anti Semitism at all. Like I was raised with zero
anti Semitism. I didn't even know that that's still a thing, right,
but I came here and I'm like, whoa, that's very
much a thing. Okay. One thing you do very well

(18:27):
in your book is you talk about the history of
the land. Who was there, who owned the land? Why
do you give us a short version of that? Well,
the short version of this And I'm going to say
something that's again going to be very confronting. When I
say this to people, you just look at their eyes
and they go there's just like a disconnect. Okay. There

(18:51):
has never in the history of humanity as we know
it has been a Palestine. There's never been a Palestine.
I know, I know there's never been a not that
there shouldn't be, but there just never has been. So
I go quickly through the history of the land from
the time we know it right from like to you know,

(19:11):
whatever the biblical time is more or less where we
you know, can have writing, and that piece of land
went through it was. It was quote unquote owned because
the land can't be owned, but it was. It was
a sovereign Jewish state in the Biblical era and from
then on two thousand over two thousand years ago, it
just swapped hands from one hand to the next to

(19:33):
the next, from the mamlukes to the usual rights of
the disco where the caliphet was there for the Crusaders
came and took it, and then four hundred years of
the Ottoman Empire and a few years of the British Empire,
so it was never anything other than a Jewish state, okay.
And in seventy four a d after the Great Roman

(19:55):
Jewish War, the Romans took over and gave the land
the name Palestinia in order to disconnect the Jews from
their homeland from Judaea essentially, and that's where Palestine comes
from from the Romans. I know, this is something that

(20:17):
is it's something that is very difficult to talk about
because a lot of people are get this is upsetting
and confronting and triggering to them. But this is where
the concept Palestine was in reference of a geographical location,
not a country, not a state, not a nation, not
a people now it's different, but it never was. So
they were the Jews of Palestine and the Arabs of

(20:38):
Palestine and the Christians of Palestine. Right, So it's never
a peoplehood up until nineteen sixty four, where the PLO
kind of created it to be so and great. Every
people deserve self governance and self determination, but historically that
land was only ever Jewish. And when we hear calls

(21:00):
today in America and around the world for the Jews
to go back to where you came from, and you
ask people where where's that and they go go but
to Europe, it's very upsetting because we know how that ended.
And the Jewish people are its own ethnic group. It's

(21:21):
not a religion, it's an ethno religion that is originated
in Judea. So it's a it's an indigenous group of
people that has a religion and traditions that are connected
to a land. I mean, think about it, every single
Jewish person that's listening to this right now. Passover is
about moving to a land. Chavot is about the land,

(21:41):
you know, taking the bequelium from the ground, whatever was grown.
Suquot is about going to the land. It's all about
it's indigenous, it's indigenous tradition. And for people to now
say you're colonialists on your land, it's very confronting because

(22:02):
as a people, every generation we hear something like this.
This is why anti Semitism is such a tricky thing. Right,
It changes in morphs, it adapts it just like it
sounds differently different in every generation. And now this is
what it is. So you swamp the word Jew with
the words Zionist, and it's a blood libel. And you

(22:26):
tell me, you look me straight in the eye, and
you tell me that the Israelis, the Zionists are killing
Palestinian people, posting in children, and I'm like, this is
the blood liabel from the you know, the Crusaders. It's
the same. So this is what we're dealing with. And
I'm on the front line of this. This is what
I deal with every single day. It's hard when you're

(22:50):
talking to people when when people don't understand that that
it's this is it's hate. It's just hate speech, that's
all it is. This is not political, This is not
it's not about any political personality that you like and
you don't like, Like, this is where you're dealing with.
You dealing with subconscious bias about the Jewish people. That
is then affecting your opinion, and it's very dangerous. It's

(23:12):
very dangerous for the State of Israel. Okay, you go
through what happens in nineteen forty eight where the United
Nations gives the Jews their land Israel. But you will
also talk about their offer to the Palestinians, which is

(23:35):
never accepted. Yes, So in nineteen forty seven, there was
a UN Resolution one eighty one, which was the resolution
to divide the land between the Jews and the Arabs
they will call the Arabs at the time, because again
there was no Palestine and identity as we know it today.
The Jews said yes, the Arabs said no. And the

(23:57):
day after the night of the declaration of the State
of is they started a war. And it wasn't a
surprise because they said they're going to start a war,
and they said that they're going to wipe the Jews
off the map and killed all the Jews. Now remind you,
this was three years after the Holocaust, so the Jewish
people were in no mood to be slaughtered again. So
this was literally either we establish a land or we

(24:21):
all die again. Whatever whoever has left is going to die.
This was a war in nineteen forty eight that Israel
did not want. It was a war that Israel did
not start, and it was a war that Israel won.
Yet here we are in twenty twenty three and we're
still litigating that war. So despite the fact that there

(24:47):
were a lot of refugee Palacini refugees, there were between
seven hundred and seven hundred and fifty thousand refugees at
the time, they were not resettled in other countries. They
were kept in refugee camps and they were told weight up,
you can return, You'll be able to return soon. Now
I talk in my in my book about the house

(25:09):
that my family had a templets in Jenoslovakia at the time.
This is it's not just a ridiculous concept because now
we're three or four generations later. So now there's millions
of people that are considered Palestinian refugees that are stuck
in limbo, and this is something that's horrible for the
Palestinian people. That's something that should not have happened to them, right,

(25:33):
But nobody, nobody would tell our family that was kicked
out of here and there and everywhere. Oh wait, you'll
just be you'll be able to return. But there were
nations that actually told this to the Palestinian people and
perpetuated this state of victimhood, which is now a real problem.

(25:55):
But it's a problem that's laid at the doorstep of Israel. Basically, Okay,
are of the well respected journalists who had a downfall
a couple of years ago because of sexual peccadillo. He
wrote a book called My Promised Land, The Triumph and
Tragedy of Israel. And if you read the book, there

(26:15):
were Palestinians that had land that now no longer have
that land. What would your response be to that? I
it's obviously horrible, there's no question. Look at the fog
of war. Things happen that are terrible. They do. And
I don't doubt that there were Palestinians that were kicked out,

(26:37):
and I don't doubt that there were Palestinians that lost property.
I don't doubt that this happened on the Jewish side
as well. So around the same time, from every single
Arab country there was an equivalent nakama right of all
the neighboring Arab countries kicking out the Jewish residence to

(26:59):
the tune of eight to eight hundred fifty thousand people,
and they lost everything that they had. I have friends
from my friend, my friend zo Are from Fez Morocco,
kicked out out, left everything there, houses, property, everything, and
kicked out. I'm not saying there's no excusing any of this,

(27:19):
but that's what happens. And right now what people are
doing is we're going to take this against Israel and
we're going to legitimize its existence. And that is something
that I'm just not willing to accept. Okay, So you
go a little bit deeper to the point you just
made about the Palestinians and the refugee problem, which is

(27:43):
exploded exponentially over generations. So after the War of Independence,
after nineteen forty eight, there was an agency established in
the United Nations called UNRA, which is a agency for
Palestinian refugees. Okay, until this day, it's the single There's

(28:09):
there's one agency in the UN for Palestinian refugees, in
another agency in the UN for every single other refugee
from every other country in the world. So all the
other refugees are under one agency, and the Palestinian people
have their own agency. Throughout the years, they tried to
dismantle that agency because they found out that it's corrupt.

(28:34):
It teaches in the schools, in the schools, in school books,
it teaches about terrorism and about becoming Shahid's and all that.
They were unable to dismantle that particular agency. I forgot
the exact number today, but it's over five million people.
So in UNRA, it's the only agency in which you

(28:55):
are automatically second generation, third generation, you're registered as a
as a refugee unless you asked to be removed from
that agency. Okay, So it's the only agency like that.
Usually in the other unchar As, the other agency, you
have to you're being removed, you're not if your second
generation in another country, you're not considered a refugee anymore.

(29:17):
Not like that with UNRA. So essentially, from seven hundred
and fifty let's say thousand refugees Palestinian refugees of nineteen
forty eight, they're now I think the number is five
point nine million, but I'm not entirely sure. Five point
nine let's say million refugees that are quote unquote to
Palestinian refugee problem. And when you read material by BDS.

(29:40):
When you read about those organizations, they use that number
as if that number is the truth. There were five
point nine million people kicked out of you know, Palestinian
territories when Israel was established, so they use this number,
and i'm that number is wrong to begin with, because
how would you inherit a refugee status? What if you

(30:00):
are already settled in another country? What if your children
are already settled in another country. Okay, So it's a
highly corrupt body. There's been you know, it's a political
football in America. But I definitely agree that the funding
for UNRA needs to be booked at very carefully because
it does some good things, but it does some horrible things.

(30:22):
And again it's perpetuating this problem that is not helping
the Palestinian people. So of this approximately five point nine
million Palestinians, where exactly are they now? It's a good question.
There a lot of them are. They're either in Jordan, Lebanon,
some of them are around the world. You know. The

(30:42):
other problem is, for example, in Lebanon, they're not allowed
to integrate into society, so they're still in refugee camps.
So the notion in the UN and the United Nations
at the time, including this guy Ralph Bunch, who's an
amazing person who I've kind of went down a rabbit
hole on him, who was a black diplomat who helped
the creation of the State of Israel on behalf of

(31:04):
the UNIT, on behalf of the United States at the time.
The notion was that they're going to be fine because
that's the same people, and it's the same culture, and
they're going to be integrated into the society. And again,
there was no Palestinian identity as we know it today, right,
But they were wrong because the Jordanians put them in
and refugee camps, and the Lebanese put them in refugee camps,
and they bade them from actually participating in the country

(31:26):
and integrating into the country. So this is if you're
a second or third generation in a refugee camp, you
are pissed, and rightfully so rightfully so, so how come
the people who were generations removed their lives are not

(31:47):
being re established in they're living like refugees because those
countries don't allow it. Those countries don't allow it. And
here's the other thing again, the question is to why
is there no Palestinian state should be asked of the
Palestinians as well, Why is the no Palestinian state? Yet
it's been offered many times, why is the no Palestine? Okay,

(32:12):
let's move to a slightly different topic. Please define Zionism. Oh,
what a great question. So when people hear the word Zionism,
they often get annoyed because the word Zionism was turned
into a bit of a curse word. So Zionism, in
its simplest form, is the Jewish people's right to have

(32:34):
a state. That's really what it is. So in a
little bit more of a sophisticated way, it's a Jewish
people's right for self determination and self governance in some
parts of their ancestral land in a Jewish not an
exclusively Jewish state. So Zionism was never about having an
exclusively Jewish state ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever. It's

(32:56):
just about the Jewish people's right to have a state.
And I I'm a proud Zionist. I think listen, Joe
Biden is a prize proud Zionist as well. And I
think that if you are a person who believes in
human rights, then you shouldn't be a Zionist. And again,
Zionism is not against Palestinian self determination. Zionism is not
an exclusivity of Jews in the land. Zionism is about

(33:19):
the Jews being allowed to own the state. Okay, how
about people Roger Waters being the prime example who say
I am not anti Semitic, I'm just against Israel's policy.
First of all, I kind of don't even want to
give Roger Water. I know that you're you know, it's
it's it's the music, the music spot here. But he's

(33:43):
Germany just canceled his performance because he's so anti Semitic,
like he's he's his band came out against him because
he's so anti Semitic. He's also always on the wrong
side of history, like he's supporting Putin, Like you know,
he really knows how to pick him. Because it's kind
of like, if Aga Waters is against something, we should
all support that because that's the right, the right thing

(34:04):
to do. Look, anti semitism and anti Zionism are the same,
and what do I mean by that? You can be
against the Israeli government's policies, against the Israeli government, against
Israeli Prime Minister. You can be against Israel's policies in
the West Bank or in Tel Avion. Right, But if

(34:27):
you're against Israel's right to exist, that goes into a
different direction. Because if you are against a lot of
other countries right to exist, if you don't like borders,
that's fine, you're not anti Semitic. But if you're against
one country's right to exist, then that country happens to
be Jewish. There's a name for that right. So that,

(34:49):
to me is the difference. The difference is not about
being upset about Israeli government. God knows, I'm upset about
Israeli government policies for years, as I am in America. Right,
I'm nobody. I always give this example. Right, nobody likes
whether you left, right, as center, whatever. Nobody likes the
American policy of kids in cages, right, nobody, nobody, nobody.

(35:09):
But nobody's also talking about dismantling America. And that's where
the line crosses, in my opinion, between being against Israeli
policies and being against Israel's right to exist. And that's
where Roger Waters is. He's against Israel's right to exist,
he's anti Semitic, he is full of blood. Liabel he's
full of sh We love to curse on your podcast,

(35:33):
of course, guys, full of shit. He really is, like
in a massive kind of way. He's a grumpy old
man who's on the wrong side of history, and I'm
glad that a lot of people are not just not
giving him the time of day anymore. He's just the
energiz of bunny of anti Semites. Okay, but there's also
the issue of Roger Waters and people who agree with him,

(35:54):
who will say people should not play concerts in Israel. Okay,
we see branded Roger Waters is an internationally famous person.
But how come we see one side so large and
we see the other side defending Israel where the right
Israel's right to exist so small because it's not a

(36:18):
cool cause anymore. It's not a cool cause. Israel is
not perceived as the underdog. Israel's a superpower, technological superpower,
it's a strong military. It's you know, if there's one
one of the best brands in the world would be Massad. Right,
you just say Massad to somebody and like, oh my god. Right,
So Israel is not perceived as the underdog, and people
forget that it's literally under threat every single day, there

(36:40):
were fourteen people that were murdered in Israel since the
beginning of the year. We're three months in, point blank,
just just murdered. So people in Iran is running to
create a nuclear bomb in order to dismant destroy Israel.
So people forget that Israel, as powerful as it is,
is still constantly under threat and it's just not a

(37:00):
cool cause. You know, if in working in Hollywood for
so many years, and every time I would try to
get some celebrity to speak publicly for the state of Israel,
I get a no, no, no, Like we love Israel,
we get it. I'll get phone cause we're like, oh
my god, we support Israel. Is such a great state.
I've been there. It's amazing. It's so liberal, it's so great.
Would you say something publicly? No, So you know this

(37:24):
is it's just not a popular cause anymore. It used
to be because people was they were It was after
the Holocaust and after the Wars and after what it
was just people try to overtly destroy it. So many
times there was this like Jewish heroism that came out
of the destruction of the Holocaust. But it's not the

(37:44):
case anymore. It's not the case anymore. And I'm just
concerned because we don't want it to get too far.
It can be very it can be very dangerous. These
things are slippery slopes. As a Jewish person, right, we
get extraordinarily triggered because we carry around an epigenetic fear

(38:06):
of being rounded up. And I know you know what
I'm talking about. Yeah, I know you know what I'm
talking about. And I know every single Jewish person knows
exactly what I'm talking about. And every person who's not
Jewish that's listening right now, please consider this to be
the truth. Everyone of you Jewish friends have an epigenetic
fear of being slaughtered. So we have general not everybody

(38:29):
understands that term eigenetic. Let me explain it, Okay, let
me explain it. So we have people do understand generational trauma.
So we have generational trauma in our DNA. That's every
single generation there's been some sort of a disaster that
has befallen the Jewish people for thousands of years. Right.
Epigenetics EPI is above genetics is genetics, and epigenetic is

(38:51):
the memory basically that goes down in our genetic memory
that is above the like it's memories and generational memories.
And I'm not going to get into it that much
because it's go go, go dig about it. It's fascinating.
But when I when I went down the rabbit hole
of the epigeneticism, I was floored because nobody talked about
the Jewish aspect of it, and I was so obvious

(39:13):
to me that we carry this around there. I'm sitting
around la with my friends right now that are well
to do and successful and have families, and we're sitting
down and having conversations about taking down the mazuzas and
your doorstep at your door front, like at the front,
at the front of the house, the side of the
of your doors, and where are we going to go?

(39:36):
And I'm stopping them. We're literally sitting at a bar
on Bohemia and I'm stopping everybody. I'm like, do you
see what we're doing? And they're like what. I'm like,
we're talking about escaping again. And this is happening for
the Jewish people. If there's no we have this thing
of we have to run, we need to run because
every few years we get slaughtered. So this is bringing

(39:58):
it all up right now, What's happening right now between
Kanye West and Kyrie Irving and the hate that it's
against Israel. This is bringing up generational stress for all
of us. And again, because the Jews are not perceived
as the underdog in the world, because Jews are not underrepresented,
actually overrepresented in a lot of areas, people don't think

(40:19):
that the Jewish people are under distress. And they're like, well,
you're white passing, you should be fine. And I'm like, yeah,
you're white passing, but I'm walking around with a Star
of David and that's considered to be risky. So being
Jewish right now in America, it's kind of like being
gay in the sixties. It's ask, don't tell. If you
can pass is not Jewish, then you're fine. But if

(40:41):
you're visically Jewish in New York City, you get beaten
up on the streets. That's the world we live in
right now. So this is this. Yeah, let's go back
to Israel for a second. So again, if anybody's hearing
this right now and they're not Jewish, like all the
non Jewish, trust us right that this is what's happening.
Kanye Jewish friend, ask them how they're doing let's talk

(41:03):
about the settlements, because there are a lot of liberal
Jews Wus support Israel and they feel the settlements are
just one step too much. They will say, as we're
speaking right now, there's big issues with the government and
the settlements. Describe the history and your take on what's
going on. So my take is pretty clear from my book. Again,

(41:23):
I don't want to get into two into the weeds
about this, but the settlements are basically the new kind
of like settlements. So we're established in the West Bank
and Gaza when Israel won the War of sixty seven.
Again the word that she didn't start nor wanted, but one.
They were created initially in order to create some kind
of physical buffer zone and protection, and they turned into

(41:45):
something that's more of a religious kind of fervor because
they sit on a land that's historically indigenously Jewish. There's Hebron,
which is the barrier of the fathers and mothers, so's
it's a land that's indigenously Jewish land. It's pretty clear
what I think about the settlements from my book. I

(42:07):
don't think they're helping. But I also want to caution
people about them as well, because I think that to
some extent, there are a red herring within the debate
about the piece let's say, two state solution, right, which
arguably I'm not even sure if it's viable anymore, but
that is arguably the best solution that we can imagine

(42:30):
right now. Hopefully we can imagine something else, but this
is what we can imagine right now. There's always a
debate about the settlements, right, So it's like two point
nine million Palestinians, about four and fifty thousand Jewish people
in the West Bank. So what I like to propose
and bring up all the time is why do we
even talk about the settlements as something that has to

(42:50):
be dismantled? Right? I mean, there are twenty one percent
Arab Israeli's in living in Israel having the same rights.
Why would't they be some Jewish people in a Palestinian state? Right?
Why do they have to be dismantled? And this is
obviously a rhetorical question because the answer to anybody who
lives in the region or been to the region, that

(43:11):
knows anything about the region, the answer is very clear,
and the answer is because they'll be slaughtered within two
and a half seconds. But that is something that I
I always like to bring up That's why I don't
support that operation, the Dish vote. I don't think it's helpful.
But I also think that to some extent sometimes it's

(43:32):
a red herring. If there was willingness to create a
Palestinian state on behalf of the Palestinian leadership, the settlements
would have been, they would have figured out what to do. Okay,
let's talk about you specifically. So you have a long

(43:53):
history as an actress and as a producer. So what
we're talking about is a singer as well as an artist. Okay.
I was like, a we going to talk about that?
Because yes we are, but we're going. I got it,
I got it in my mind. Don't worry about it, right,
We're getting there. So how much of your time is
spent on activism at this point in time, whether it

(44:15):
be speaking, writing, posting on social media? Give me an
understanding of that, all of it, all of it. Well,
that was the question of how do you have time
to be an actress, a singer of producers. I don't
know all of it is on all of it, That's
that's the thing. I So I started acting when I

(44:38):
was around eight years old. UM got my first scholarship
when I was fourteen years old and been I had
I remember the first moment that I was on stage
that I'm like, I had this magic of you know,
the zone that they talk about and everything goes quiet,
and I just knew that it's my spot right um.
And I've been extraordinarily passionate about this and I did

(44:58):
well in some areas and great in other areas, specifically producing,
which which worked out really well. But I've always wanted
to communicate. That was my biggest thing. I just needed
to communicate in various ways, and it just kept changing
throughout my life. And when I sat down to read

(45:18):
to write my book in twenty nineteen, it became very
clear to me that this is what I'm going to
be doing from now own. And not just that, it
became very clear that this was I was just like
I said down I started writing, I'm like, oh my god,
that's why I went through everything, Like everything that I
went through had led me to this, like this is
not you know, And it was incredible how everything everything

(45:44):
changed for me from that minute onwards. And I I
have I signed with a new agency last year and
I told them very specifically that I'm not interested in
going to auditions and I'm not. I don't. I don't
want to do anything that doesn't have meaning anymore. So
I feel I I feel like everything that I did
led me to led me to this, led me to
be able to be a spokesperson on behalf of you know,

(46:07):
making the world a better place in my own kind
of in my own kind of way. And I just
am so disinterested in acting. I'm never saying never, right,
but it's just not something that I'm interested in. I
advocacy and diplomacy and writing us so much more interesting
to me. It just okay, But we we all need
money to live. So how are you supporting yourself now?

(46:30):
I do speaking engagements, I do. I'm I'm I'm good.
I'm able to support myself through this work. And it's extraordinary.
The book is doing great. I mean, the who knew
a book about Israel would do, would do so well
and get such great reviews from such amazing people, and
it's still people are still responding to it. I knew

(46:52):
that there's a constituency out there. I knew that there
isn't a book about Israel that tells that story in
a way that's fun, funny, easy to understand, relatable. I
just knew that it exist. Also, it's the first book
about Israel written by a woman, by the way, Okay,
let's go back to the beginning. You were born in Israel,
growing up in Israel. One very interesting thing is you
talk about your service being in the army and that

(47:17):
you did that service by being a performer. Can you
tell us more about the obligation to serve in what
varying people do. Yeah, So, first of all, it's so
it's mandatory to serve in the military in Israel. Obviously,
if you really don't want to serve, they have a
lot of people that you can get out of it
if you really really don't want to serve. But it's

(47:38):
mandatory to serve. I actually think it's a great thing
for a person to do at the age of eighteen,
because you're in a system that's bigger than you and
you've got to do things that you don't necessarily like.
And I don't think when I moved to America and
I realize that people go to college and just get drunk,
I'm like, oh, yeah, that the difference between like an
Israeli nineteen year old and American nineteen year old is

(47:59):
quite striking. So I wanted to sing in the military,
sing and act. There is something in Israel called La Katswit,
which is a military performing troops, which is essentially a
USO tour, that's what it is. And you have to
audition to get in, and it's like months of auditions basically,

(48:20):
and you audition would like been sketch comedy and acting
and singing and whatever all of it. And I got in.
I was very excited. It was my dream for years
and years and years to do and I did that
for two and a half years. So it's basically you
do a USO tour, meaning you're on a bus, you
come to base every morning, you get a note of
where you're going that day. Remember Israel's size country the

(48:41):
size of New Jersey, so it's a very tiny, tiny country,
so you can travel throughout the country basically one day.
And I got a chance to perform for soldiers every
single day. And it's a very it's a It gave
me a couple of things. First of all, it gives
me great experience in terms of standing in front of
an audience because it's like the toughest situations that you

(49:03):
can imagine. So one day you're performing in front of
like the Prime Minister and it's like a puge of
thousands of people in a stadium or whatever. And the
next day you're literally in a military kitchen in Hebron
on a box of tomatoes and you get three soldiers
in front of you and you have to entertain them.
You're like, hey, okay, let's do this right, so you
get as a performer, it's one of the best training

(49:27):
grounds that you can imagine. So once you get out
of that, and I've done this between and a half years,
I'm like, I can stand on any stage. You don't
scare me. Like nothing is worse than seeing, like, you know,
being a girl showing up in a guy's base that
I haven't seen a girl in like three weeks, and
they can get rowdy and you need to calm them
down and in all of that. So that's the first

(49:48):
thing you gave me. The second thing is I was
I saw the country and I saw the military first firsthand.
So I saw every single military base that you can imagine,
and I saw how soldiers live, and I saw the commitment,
and I saw the difference between like Air Force and
like you know, yoking like the Greenforces, and it was.

(50:14):
It was extraordinary. It's obviously gotten old. So I was
very excited to do it. I thought it's going to
be very glamorous and fun, and instead you realize that, oh,
I'm on the bus where five of us and you're
also the performer and the roadie, like I know, to
build a stage and like you know, like with the
might of the things, set up this down system and
everything and carrying everything ourselves and all of that. Um.

(50:37):
So it gets old. It's not it's not as fun
at the beginning. Beginning gets fun, but afterwards it gets
it gets a little. But it was an amazing, amazing
experience and it taught me a lot. The other thing
it was that coming to America, people here that I
was in Israeli military and they think I was so
cool and I was. I was a massad agent, and
it's quite disappointing for them when they were realized I
was just a singer. My son even laughs at me

(50:57):
as he was like, but you are, but you are
a singer and militarium shut up, Okay, you were a
singer in the military. Was there anything in the back
of your mind saying I want to go down this
path of the in my year of quote to USO
although this is audio, because I don't want to be
in combat and I don't want to die. Oh not
even a little bit. I was like, I want to

(51:19):
do this because this is what I want to do
for a living. It wasn't for a second I don't
want to be in combat. I didn't even think about that.
It was very much. There is a movie in Israel
called The Lack the Troop, right, It's a movie from
the seventies, and it follows one of these troops, right
the USO tour, and we were all it's like black

(51:40):
and white, it's super old, but we all grew up
on it. It's super famous, and I grew up on it,
and I'm like, oh my god, that would be so cool,
Like that's what I want to do. So it was
never because I wanted to avoid dying. It was just
because that's what I wanted to do. Okay, But speaking
of dying, you talk about your mother's first husband. Now,
I want to Columbia. This one's almost ten years ago,

(52:02):
and literally everybody interacted with had had a family member assassinated.
So to what degree do you feel that, do you
feel the military presence, do you feel the have an
essence of life or is it like living in New
Jersey in America. Absolutely not, not even a little bit,
not even close you. There isn't there's there's not a

(52:28):
single family in Israel that hasn't suffered a loss, a death,
a wounded, an attack. There's not a single family. So
one of the biggest differences that I saw that shocked
me when I moved to the States was a Memorial
Day because in Israel, and I talk about that in

(52:48):
the book as well, Memorial Day is a devastating day.
It's twenty four hours. It starts in the morning and
it ends in the ends in the next day. It
starts in the evening and it ends the next evening basically,
and then we moved straight to Independence Day and it's
a day of mourning the people who fell, the soldiers

(53:08):
who fell, and the terrorists victims who died. And I
can't describe the feeling because it's it's the entire country
is in mourning. There's there's sad music on the radio,
and TV only plays documentaries about the fallen, and every
single person mourns in their own way, and you go

(53:28):
to ceremonies and it's just you cannot escape it. You
cannot escape it because because everybody serves in the military,
and everybody has a friend or a family member of this,
like everybody knows somebody. So this is something that really
unites the country for a day and then it goes
straight into Independence Day to remind us that there was

(53:50):
a reason for all of that. And when I moved
to the States and the first Memorial Day came, I
asked my friends, like, what are we doing? And they're
like what, I mean, what are we doing. I'm like,
what are we doing? They're like, We're doing a barbecue.
And I was blown away. I was blown away, and
I I'm I have maybe two friends who are veterans,
and I'm the only one. You know, I'm the only one.

(54:11):
I'm a veteran, and I don't have a lot of
friends who are veterans. And it's it's unfortunate. There's a
there's a little bit of a disconnect, I think within
the American people in the military because it's a because
it's a it's a paid military. It's not I wish
we had more of an ownership around it and more
kind of like pride. And I actually say thank you
for service when I see military service, and I, you know,

(54:36):
I find I find it adorable because I know it's
necessary sadly. So what kind of kid were you growing up?
And what was your growing up experience? I um, I was.
I was very determined. I was extraordinarily determined. I was

(54:57):
very driven and very determined and wait, wait, wait, determined
to do what as soon as I got the stage bug,
that was all I wanted to do. That was all
I wanted to do. So I was. I was a
good kid. I was like, I was the youngest from
my mom I had. My parents got divorced when I
was about eight years old. I had three older sisters

(55:20):
that were kind of more rebels than me. They grew
up in like the eight seventies eighties, and they were
smoky pot and hitchhiking to sign I and causing a
little bit more trouble. So when I came around, I
was like, I'm just gonna be a good girl. I
don't want to rebel. I don't need to rebel. I
was going to do my thing. So I was very

(55:41):
I was good like that. But I always ended up
doing what I wanted to do very quietly. So as
soon as I as soon as I went on stage
for the first time, which was when I was around
fourteen years old and drama school, I'm like, oh my god,
this is all I want to do. And I became
so focused, like so and being a mom today my
son is seven years old, I'm seeing I'm kind of going.

(56:02):
This was actually quite extraordinary because I knew what I
wanted to do. I would go to sleep early, I
would go to rehearsals. I didn't smoke, I didn't drink.
I didn't I was very very focused on being successful
and being good at what I do. I worked on
my singing, I worked on my dancing. I worked on
you know, I took acting classes. I got my first

(56:23):
scholarship at with a Television Museum of Arts. And I
was very very focused and very determined. And it's you know,
I created my first format, television format when I was
twenty years old. So I was that was that was
kind of the kid that I was. I was a
good girl that ended up doing what you wanted to do. Okay,
So when you were growing up in today, what is

(56:47):
everyday life in Israel, like compared to everyday life in
the US. It's a great question. Um. So on the surface,
it's the same, right, it's the same. It's the same
TV show, it's the same music, it's the same food,
better food in Israel. Actually, by the way, I always

(57:08):
say to people that go to Israel, I challenge you
to find a bad meal, because the food is so
good over there. So on the surface it's the same.
It's it's like, it's exactly the same. You think of
yourself as like a citizen the world, exactly the same
as the US, kind of like a little sister of
the US. But it isn't. Because every house has a

(57:29):
bomb shelter, Like every apartment building has shelters, and every floor,
every office building has to have a shelter. When you
walk around in a neighborhood, you see shelters, shelter shelters
every few blocks. You see a bomb shelter every couple
of years. You sit around at a restaurant somewhere and
suddenly the sirens go off because Hamas decided to throw

(57:51):
a couple of rockets because they're not happy about something.
So this is something that's ongoing in the Israeli experience
that I don't think anybody understands this. So when people
complain about Israeli actions, the Israeli attitude can and should
be to some extent. You go live thirty miles from

(58:13):
Hamas and then we'll talk, right. So there's an undercurrent
as an Israeli of danger, of danger. So I remember
this as a child. There was a terrorist attack one
time and they were very close to my house and
Tel Aviv, and we all had to go into the
houses and close the doors. They got on a bus
on a road near the beach and they were roaming

(58:36):
Tel Aviv. Basically nobody could find them. I remember as
a as a in high school when or as a team,
like an element of whatever. It's like a I can't
remember the age, but I was maybe middle school. The
golf war happened and suddenly were their sirens and like
Saddam says, throwing rockets on us, and we have to
go to school with gas masks. So I'm walking around

(58:59):
with a gas mask and I had to box. It's
kind of like a cardboard box that had a strap
on it. And I was very creative child, and I
basically decorated it with like lace and red and like
glitter and whatever, and it's a it's a gas mask
that I'm I'm a thirteen year old taking to school.
That's not right. So but underneath and above all of that,

(59:24):
there's a very strong like knageoideviv In Israel, people are
people have a very strong not just will to live obviously,
but also just like will to enjoy life. To you
know that people go out and they celebrate, and they
take their babies to restaurants, and you know, it's it's
a very lively society because there's a constant threat. So

(59:48):
when you live with this, this concept of tomorrow might
nut come. Do you want to enjoy life? You really
do and appreciate your life? Okay, So would you ever
as a an individual, someone say well let's go to
this area and you say, well, that's sort of a
dangerous area or something happened there. Would you ever check
yourself or would you say, I'm alive. I'm just gonna

(01:00:10):
live my life to the fullest. The risk is inherent
and I don't care. We're going to live our life
to the fullest. So what you do, basically, we're so
used to it, so something happens. There's again Hamas throwing
a rocket into television. Right. So you hear the siren,
you're like, oh, snap, okay, you go into the safe

(01:00:31):
room or the shelter or whatever it is that you
have in your house. You wait for it to pass.
You hear the bombs, you hear it falling around, you
listen to the news. They say it's okay. Military goes
in taking care of the launchers, and you're like, all right, great,
let's go back to coffee. That's just the way you do.
People just go immediately snap back to yeah, all right,
we have to keep on living by the way. That's

(01:00:53):
true for a lot of places in the country, not
so much to the region in the south, because the
southern towns of Israel and the children are traumatized because
they are constantly under attack. So it reaches Tel Aviv
and like the rest of the country every now and then.
But in the south, in like Otefaza, the circular kind

(01:01:13):
of like cities and towns around Gaza, this happens so
often that they have children there that can't sleep, you know,
that are legitimately traumatized. And then standard of living, living
in a homogeneous society we have great income inequality in America.
What's it like in Israel? And to what degree? What

(01:01:34):
is the standard of living? So it's not homogeneous, Like
it's not Israel is not a monolith, right, There's like
the Jews of every descent. There's like Christians and Arabs
and Drews, and there's it's a very very very eclectic country,
like super eclectic. And you see this on the street
when you walk around and you see there with the
food and you hear it with the music. It's like
it's a very very eclectic. M It's a good question.

(01:01:55):
I wish I had like a GDP kind of numbers
for you on this, but I don't expense and inflation
and rise of living expensive living is a problem in
a lot of countries. So there's a lot of money
in Israel and the tech companies and the tech industry

(01:02:15):
and other industries, but there's also there's also income inequality
that needs to be addressed. Not dissimilar to what's happening here. Okay,
you came here because someone said if you want to
be in the A level actress world, you have to
go to Hollywood. But there are a lot of emigras
from Israel. Why would people leave Israel? I mean, why

(01:02:39):
would people come here from any other country? This is America.
I'm a big fan of America. I don't think particularly
there are more Israelis here than there are like French
people here or Swedish people here. I don't think so.
I think that. I just think that lack America is
the shiny house on the hill and doesn't matter how
screwed up our ticks are, it still is. So people

(01:03:03):
want to come here. I don't think it's I don't
think it's necessarily just specifically because Israeli's leave more. I don't. Well,
I wasn't if that was implied, that was not my belief.
But okay, with all the craziness. The other thing, by
the way, the thing is this, right, it's a very
small country over there. So the reason you you you

(01:03:25):
don't you might not even know how many Israelis and
like how many Israelis you work with or you meet,
or you know or you use their products or you know.
There're Israeli professors in a ton of universities and their authors,
and there's their chefs. There's like Israeli cuisine in America
that's exploding right now. All over the country. There there's
a lot of the Israeli. Israeli designers are dominating in

(01:03:48):
like the bridal dress, like bridal dresses right now. Well,
the biggest designers are Israeli designers. So it's a very
small country. So I have a feeling that a lot
of people feel like they need to branch out of
the country in order to expand their business, but they
don't necessarily leave. They sometimes will expand their business internationally.
It's a very small country, obviously. That's what happened with
the entertainment industry. That's what happened with like the format. Okay,

(01:04:17):
so tell us about you're moving from Israel to Los Angeles.
I I always wanted to live in America. I'm not
entirely sure why I have. I described that in the
book as well, in this. In this, I had a
dream to move here. I had I wanted to live

(01:04:38):
in America. I wanted to live in America when I
was in high school, Like I had this. I saw
myself as a high school kid with like a ponytail
and speaking in English and all that. I'm not entirely
sure why, but it was always appealing to me and
I had no reason to do it. None of my
family was ever born and raised or lived in America.

(01:05:00):
My entire family uses really my mom grew up in Africa.
And but but I just had this I just had
this drive. So when that producer told me that line,
just basically, if you he said, if you make watches,
you need to live in Switzerland, if you make wine,
you need to live in France, and if you're in
the aintainment industry, you need to live in Los Angeles,
I just went, Okay, great, and I just moved just

(01:05:22):
like that with two suitcases and didn't know anybody. I
knew one person. So I'm not entirely sure why I
had that drivers. Obviously, I came for the entertainment industry.
I came to further my career, but it shaped up
to be so much more important and so very different
to what I thought. It's yeah, I don't know. It's

(01:05:43):
kind of like there's a there's a concept called the
share it. Do you know the concept which is a
Yiddish You know, it's a Yidish. It's it's usually referred
to a romantic love, like you're meant to be. But
it's kind of like the concept of meant to be.
And when I see what I do now and how
am I my life turned out, I know that I'm
so much more valuable to the world from here that

(01:06:08):
I really was meant to be, even though it didn't
it did not work out the way I thought it
was going to work out. Okay, at a record deal,
I thought I'm going to be Britney Spears, but that
didn't work out. But other things worked out in much
better ways and much more exciting and important, most of all,
being able to talk about being able to talk about
anti Semitism all day long and talk about the state

(01:06:30):
of Israel and make people see things differently and see
where it is that they have blind spots and what
it is that we can make to create unity in
the world. This is extraordinary. I'm very likely to be
able to do that. So how'd you get rid of
your accent? I never had it. That's again for a second,

(01:06:51):
I've never had it. I never had it. And that's
the crazy thing, because if you ever met an Israelie,
this is you know, you can be outside of the
wisland for it is and you still talk him, you know, Okay,
as well, just what my father took like all I
need to do is a lot of a right And
there was a lot of hand talking to to the
people who are listening. Um, I don't know. It's a

(01:07:14):
part of it's a part of that mystery that had
me want to be here that I was in elementary
school and we started started learning English and I kind
of started speaking English with an American accident and not,
and my kids in class were like laughing at me.
I'd stand up in class and answer, give an answer,
and they'd be like rah rah rah, like why do
you have an accident? Like why don't you So it's

(01:07:35):
also it's a it's a part of it's a part
of this weird thing that I had, I guess pat
to be here. But also because I'm a singer, I
can pretty much imitate every accent as well. So wherever
I'm at whatever however somebody's speaking to me, I imitated accidentally.
So when I'm in London or in Australia or England

(01:07:56):
or Australia, have to be very careful because I turned
into very douche con person because I start imitating the
accent that I hear. So you there were no special classes,
no courses you didn't have to. I have never taken
a single class like dialect class. Not a single one.

(01:08:16):
Not a single one. Okay, So you you come to
America to act. Your book says you had a certain
level of success, but not at the level of your dream.
Can you tell us about that. Well, I came to
America already very successful. So I started acting at a

(01:08:37):
very young age, and I got I became successful around
sixteen or seventeen, and super successful around the age of nineteen.
And the television show that I did that became basically
a national hit within one episode, to a point where
we couldn't walk down the street. It was the equivalent
of like a melrose Place. It was like a nighttime

(01:08:59):
so opera, ridiculous but so fun. And it was the
first soap opera in Israel. And we all became overnight sensations.
So I by the age of twenty one, I was
offered like the equivalent of the Tonight Show, like a
nightly evening show. I was very, very successful. I say

(01:09:21):
this like that because I've noticed that a lot of girls,
especially young girls. I do a lot of college and
high school talks. They try to they talk themselves down.
They don't own their success. So I always say that
a girl's like, own your success. You did amazing, So
I try to do that myself. So I came here.
I came here already famous, and I was certain that

(01:09:41):
it's going to be the same. I'm gonna be like, oh,
you just are going to realize that I'm a very
famous person from Israel and you're going to just hand
me everything. And I'm like, oh, here's the most famous
person from France, here's the most famous person from Holland.
So I was a rude awakening and in that sense,
I'm like, oh my god, I have to audition my
living crap out of everything. I had a record deal

(01:10:03):
as soon as I moved here with MCAM. I was
traveling all over the world, recording with the best people,
the best musician, best songwriters, like I went to Stockholm,
I've worked with share on people, I work like everything.
And then the label folded, basically disappeared where you know
when it merged into Universal, and I was left with nothing.

(01:10:24):
So it was a very challenging few years of getting
very close to something but not getting it, and the
label do like I'm getting this huge record deal that
is a huge, huge thing, and then the label fold.
So I had a few years of humbling that I

(01:10:46):
appreciate now, I really do. I don't think I would
have been able to handle everything that I'm handling now
if I was successful at that level at that age.
I was too young for it. That's one thing to
be successful in Israel, but it's a whole story in America.
But you do have acting credits, and you do have
an acting career. I do, I do, and I did,

(01:11:08):
and you know, all the trucks in the house say yay,
said star trek. I didn't even realize it's a big deal.
And I did it. Yes, I did. I did. I
was working. I was a working actress. A lot of
fans in the industry. The industry was lovely to me.
It was never the breakthrough that I wanted. The biggest
breakthrough actually came with producing. When I a part of

(01:11:31):
you were asking what kind of a child I was,
or what kind of a kid I was, and the
driven and committed and all of that. That didn't stop
when I moved to America. So I had ants in
my pants even here. As a young adult. I was
auditioning and getting roles and whatever. But I kept looking
for projects to produce because I was like, I'm not

(01:11:53):
going to just sit down and be quiet a bored.
I'm annoyed, I'm not ful failed. I need to do more.
So I was looking for projects to produce. I was
working on a documentary format. I was creating a bunch
of formats. And then I heard about an Israeli show
that's called Mittipura, which was basically two people sitting around

(01:12:16):
and having a conversation. So I was a therapist sitting
with a patient in a room talking and I heard
that concept and I'm like, oh my god, this is brilliant, right,
And I, at the time was on a show called Coupling,
which was a British format that NBC adopted. So I'm
kind of going. I went to Israel for two days

(01:12:37):
or a couple of days for my nieces. But Mitzvo
and everybody, we're talking about that show and how brilliant
it is. You have to watch it. You have to
watch it. If you watch it. And I'm sitting in
a car driving with my manager and she turns to
me and she goes, oh my god, have you seen Battipoolia.
You have to watch this show, and I had one
of these aha moments again. I had like till like

(01:12:58):
a light bulb went above my head. And I turned
to her and I'm kind of going, oh my god,
this is it's a format. It has to be a format.
And I turned to her and I said, do you
know the creator? And she said yes, and I'm like,
do you have his number? She said yes, so call him,
call him right now. And mind you haven't watched the
frame of the show, right So she calls him up

(01:13:19):
and I pick up the phone and I go, Hi,
this is no tice me. I'm leaving town tomorrow to
go back to LA. We need to meet tomorrow morning.
And it's not about what you think it is, because
I didn't want him to think that I want like
a roll and a show right right. So then I
hang up the phone. I turned to her and I'm like,
cand you get me a DVDs of the show because
I haven't watched it. But it was so clear to
me that this was my format, because the idea was

(01:13:43):
so simple and so brilliant, and the execution was clearly
brilliant because everybody was talking about it. So she, of
course I get the DVD that afternoon, I watched it.
I'm floored. I'm like, this is this is it, this
is what I'm gonna do. I'm going to bring the
first Israeli television show from Israel to America and I'm
going to sell it as a show. So I go

(01:14:04):
and meet the guy and I said, what's going on
with the show And he's like, oh, I started working
on second season. I'm like, I stopped it. I go,
I'm going to sell your show to HBO and he
looks at me as if I'm insane because at the time,
this never happened before, obviously, and it's so never happened
before that there wasn't even a remake claw in the

(01:14:25):
contract of the creators and the network. That wasn't even
addressed like a remake or international format right sale. It
just was not. It didn't exist at all in the
reality of anybody. So he's like okay, and he I'm like,
do you have a translated copy. It's like yes, I
actually do, because I'm sending it to some Jewish festival
somewhere and I'm like, great, can I get it. He's
like sure, So he gives me a translated copy of

(01:14:47):
the first five episodes, and again I'm a plane back
to LA and I'm thinking, how the fuck do I
sell a show to HBO? I don't know how to
do no idea how to do that. I literally had
no idea how to that. I knew that I have
a brilliant concept, a brilliant show that needs to be
an American show. So I come back to LA and

(01:15:09):
I start making calls. My first calls to my lawyer
and I'm like, I have a show from Israel, and
he goes, good for you. I'm like, no, it's a format.
It's like, what do you mean? And I'm like, the
same way that we adopt shows from the UK, We're
going to adopt this from Israel. Like it's a brilliant
show we should do. Like I'm pitching people on adopting

(01:15:30):
a show from Israel. Long story short, I brought the
show to Stephen Levinson at leverage in Mark Wahlberg, and
we sold at HBO and it did four seasons and
over one hundred and forty episodes, fourteen Emmas, and Golden
Globe domination, a Peabody Award, Like it did so well,
And what happened as a result of that show was

(01:15:51):
that it created a market where market didn't exist before.
And that market is an Israeli television show in the
US and television format sales in the US, and so
many people don't A lot of people know like Fauda
and shows like that, which are brilliant, but a lot
of people don't know. So many of the shows that
we love are actually based on Israeli format. It's like

(01:16:11):
Euphoria is an Israeli show. So I have a tendency
to do things first when you kind of look back
in my history, and this was one of those things
that I'm the most proud of because it just it
changed the Israeli market forever, changed a lot in the

(01:16:33):
American market, and it's it changed the perception of Israel
within within Hollywood. It really changed that. And of course
the show on HBO was called in treatment Um. One
other element in your book, you talk about the Israeli
personality that a woman wouldn't expect a man to open

(01:16:55):
the card door restaurant and told offended. I was offended.
I was offended. That's a true story. I the Israeli
personality is it's what's called a saber, right. So a
lot of people are like, oh, you're a sober if
you were born at Israel. But the reason it's a
sober is because it's spikey from the inside and sweet
from the spikey from the outside and sweet from the inside. Right,

(01:17:17):
there is an urgency to being in Israeli that can
be translated into rudeness very easily. So if you met
in Israeli in your life, you know that there's kind
of like an abruptness and kind of like an aggressiveness
and kind of and this comes from the pressure cooker
that we live under. So there's no time for pleasant

(01:17:39):
reason and politeness. The downside of it is that there's
no time for pleasant reas and politeness, so it's a
look rude. The good side about it is that you
always know where you stand. You always know where you
stand with in Israeliti. And it is something that, as
in Israeli, was very difficult for me to decipher because
I didn't understand when people were saying great, but they
didn't mean great, they meant no thank you. Right, So

(01:18:00):
I am the kind of friend and the kind of
person that I'm straight up, I just find it to
be easier. I had to tone myself down in a
in a lot of ways and also allow men to
open the door for me. I'm a big fan of
that now. But the story that you're referring to is
my first boyfriend in la who is an Australian actor,

(01:18:21):
and he is very kind of like gentleman in a
in an old school way, and he came to pick
me up and when we walked to his car, he
opened the door and I looked at him and I'm like,
what are you doing. He's like, I'm opening the door
for you. I'm like, why, I can get the door.
It's fine. I was offended. I was annoyed. It annoyed me.
So I'm not like that anymore. Very much want people

(01:18:42):
to open the door for me. I'm okay with that.
Doesn't take away from my strength or right or my
or anything else. But but yeah, this is the Israeli way.
Is a lot more. It's a lot more in your face,
but it's real. It's real. It's real. You'll know and
if somebody is if somebody doesn't like you, you'll know it.

(01:19:03):
But if somebody is your friend, you can count on
that forever. Okay. You have a long history of knowing
what you want seeing it and getting it being very agile,
sometimes not getting it, by the way. But that's let
me continue here. How does that affect your love life
and your interaction with women someone who's so strong and successful. Okay,

(01:19:25):
these are such great questions, but they're two very separate questions.
I'm all about women. My girlfriends are the most important
thing for me up and then my son. Obviously, I
have four sisters, so I am a huge My interaction
with women is amazing, and women actually they sense that.

(01:19:46):
So the majority of my followers are women. I get
I meet like kids when I speak in colleges and
I can't in high schools, and I can't tell you
how many times they come to me and like, oh
my god, my mom loves you. Like women get me
down level. They know that I'm a girl's girl, through
and through. There's no question about that. Every girl right

(01:20:06):
now is listening to it if she don't know me,
and she looks through my stuff, and I'm a girls girl.
I have four sisters. Women camaraderie is one of the
most important things in the world. When I had, like
when I have meldowns in my life, I got like
my girlfriend's showing up in my LA kitchen, sitting around
and I mean, it's so important to me. It's I

(01:20:26):
think it's one of the most important things in human
interaction is the relationship between women. I think that if
a woman does not have that, it's such a loss,
and I feel for her. I think she should every
woman that doesn't have that need to go out and
seek it. I have extraordinary group of girls around me
in La, in Tel Aviv, in New York, in Sydney,

(01:20:49):
and I have my girls crew everywhere. And I also,
I mean, I have a WhatsApp group with my two
best girlfriends from elementary school, from fourth grade, but we
still have what's up group like a carrying relationships for decades.
And my girls are my tribe, like my tribe um.

(01:21:11):
In terms of relationships, I I'm looking forward to my
third relationship. I am. I was married, so I had
I had two long term relationships and two you know,
seven and a half eight year relationship. They were great relationships,
but they didn't end up continuing. Well. Just to be clear,

(01:21:34):
Just to be clear here for a second, people say
that they broke up it's mutual. It's never mutual. I
would think knowing you your personality that in both of
these cases you were the one who blew the whistle, Bob,
you would be so surprised. And right now, if my
girls are listening all the way through, they're laughing their

(01:21:56):
asses off right now, they really are. Look, I have
a son, so I won't publicly talk about specifically, not
the relationship with his dad where great co parents were
working on raising raising our son together. And I'm just

(01:22:20):
I think that I don't know, It's it's an interesting question.
I didn't realize we're going to go there. Right. I'm
a very couply person, so it's very bizarre that I
didn't that they both didn't last. You know, I'm a
very couply person, so it'll be interesting. They say third
times a charm, right, Well, well, why why did the
why did the two relationships not work out? What are

(01:22:42):
we having this? What kind of a conversation is that? Um? Well,
I can talk about the first one because he went
public with it. So the first one did not work
out because he's a lovely guy. He was an addict,
um And I didn't know he was an addict when
we got together and we got married, and we we

(01:23:06):
stuck through it as much as we could, but it
destroyed the relationship. And again, the only reason I'm talking
about is because he he's a he's a He wrote
a book about it, and he went public. He went
public with it, So I didn't. I didn't know to
recognize the signs. I mean, in retrospect now I should

(01:23:28):
have known, but I could I couldn't have known, right,
But that's why that didn't work out. And the second one,
I can't. I can't discuss this. I have a son.
I can't. It was it was challenging, but it's not
what you are alluding to her thinking. I will tell

(01:23:51):
you once the mica is off. How about that, Okay, Okay,
I don't need to press you. Okay, So I will
just like I have a son. It's I have to
be careful and everything that's out there for him to
be Like what, Okay, So you're talking about this hypothetical
third relationship. Yes, are you actively seeking it? I think

(01:24:12):
that so. I we broke up about two and a
half years ago, almost two and a half years ago,
and I think I'm only I was not interested in
one up until now. I needed to sort things out first.
I was a bit dramatic and there are a lot
of things that were happening. So I was not open
to it. I think I am. I am open to

(01:24:33):
it now, so yeah, well let's see what happens. Well,
I mean, are you know, would you be set up
with friends, or you meet people through life, or would
you go on a dating site or any of that.
I don't go on dating sites. I've never been on
a dating site. I'd like to keep it that way.
I get introduced to people, people are interested in setting
me up. I'm not. I'm in a great place in

(01:24:55):
life for a woman, not for a woman, just generally
for a human being. I think that we need to
be in a place in which we're happy with ourselves
and happy like I have a great son, I have
a great life of incredible friends. I'm a very couply person,
and I want somebody that would compliment me and I
would compliment him, like I want to be able to
find my share it, to find my lobster, my ride

(01:25:18):
or die the friend. The person's going to enjoy all
of it with me, you know, and we'll see if
they're out there. It's so bizarre. I have never Bob,
can I tell you something? It's only in Israel that
I get asked these questions. In America, I never get
asked these questions. And Israel they know me for so
many years and they've been through like the media has
been with me since I was a teen, so they
always ask these questions and they're like about children in

(01:25:41):
marriage and divorce and all that. This is the first
time I'm ever talking about this in America. I'm so confronted,
Like well, as I say, I'm already asking as a person,
this has got more to do with my identity asking
these questions than your fame. But just I love talking
about It's not about fame, It's just about I'm in America.
My work is so overshadowing my personality and my personal life.

(01:26:02):
I didn't even talk about I only recorded like a
video that talks about me being a single mom or recently,
and I haven't posted it yet, so I don't even
talk about it publicly. It's pretty clear from my social
media that I there's a son, but there's no husband.
So but it's yeah, it's interesting. I think people think
that I'm like a lot more of a ballbuster. I

(01:26:23):
always say about myself that I'm a Labrador and a
leopard skin. That's the truth. Wait to say that one
more time. I'm a labrador in a leopard skin. I
look like I'm this ball but whatever, But I'm just
I'm not so you know, somebody can see through that. Then,
going back to the initial question, are men intimidated by

(01:26:43):
your success? Personality, beauty, etc. Um. I'd like to say no,
but it's I don't know. Are you intimidated by it?
Do you think it would be intimidating for a guy? Well,
I mean, I'm dead straight. I mean this is not
only you specifically. You know, this isn't all the immediate
at this point that you have these successful women and

(01:27:06):
there's a limited pool of successful men and should they
date down? And then you have all these successful men
who want to date down and you're successful in a
way beyond just career, And I was wondering how that
would affect dating prospects with a certain people would say, hey,
I want to date someone that successful, or would you

(01:27:27):
comminently say I don't want to date someone that unsuccessful.
I don't say anything to me. It's about the people
I've never dated in my life. I've never I've never
I've had opportunity to date very big people, famous and
successful and rich and whatever. I never cared about that.

(01:27:49):
The joke among my friends that I didn't and they're like,
you know, they're like, just could you date a billionaire now?
And I'm like no, because it's never been a parameter,
so it's not going to be now. I don't know
what to tell you in terms of if men are
intimidated or not. Maybe maybe not. I'm not entirely sure.
I don't see myself like that, but that's why I

(01:28:11):
asked you, would you be intimidate? Are you into is
it intimidating? I'm not the regular guy, you know, the
regular guy who has big on image and has his
check book whatever, and that's you know, I would think
generally speaking, men would be. Then there's an elite level

(01:28:32):
of people who are billionaires and very successful like that,
and that's they have different criteria. But the average person
is earning a living and doing well, driving a German
car or a tesla. I think that they might be intimidated.
But moving on from this, the conventional wisdom is that
the Israelis and the Danes make the best television forgetting

(01:28:55):
the Danes. Why is this? Rayleigh television so good. It's
such a great question invention, like necessity is the mother
of all invention. That's legitimately why the reason Israeli television
is so good, and it really is so good, is
because number one, there's no money. There's no money in

(01:29:16):
the industry. There's only nine million people to sell the
product too, so to begin with, there's no budget, right,
and those people are extraordinarily sophisticated. So it's a sophisticated
audience that doesn't take bullshit and would not stick around
if the show is not good. And when you create
a show, you cannot rely on explosions, helicopters, special effects, monsters.

(01:29:42):
You can't. You have to make sure that the show
is great. It's written really well, like a song that's
written on a guitar and you can play it and
it's brilliant without all the productions in the rigor moole.
That's what Israeli television is. That's why in treatment is
so great. That's why Homeland with such a huge success,
That's why You four is so great, because it's characters
and its stories and its people, and that's what Israeli

(01:30:04):
people like. And because Israelitis, there's so much like Americans culturally,
whatever works there can work here. So it's it's just
there's no it's almost like there's no miracle to it.
When you know the Israeli culture and you know American culture,
you know why the television there, why it works. Okay,
other than in treatment, name your three favorite Israeli television shows,

(01:30:26):
Oh my god, Okay, Well, honestly, it's a show that
you're never going to hear about because it's called is
a sketch comedy show that's never going to be able
to be adapted because it's so specific. But it's absolutely brilliant.
It's the most biting political commentary that you have ever seen,

(01:30:47):
way harsher than America. So what they'll do there, Like
you think SNL is biting, it's nothing compared to what
they do there. They turn politics into a circus in
the cleverest of way. So I would say this is
probably my most favorite show. It's been going on for
twenty years or something. It's it's absolutely brilliant. That's number one.
Number two. I think the show is now. This show

(01:31:10):
is now in Hulu, but I'm not one hundred percent sure.
It's called Rehearsals. And it was a show that was
created by the public broadcaster con eleven. And it's again
very small show about a couple that used to be
a couple and they wrote a play about themselves and
then the play becomes they buy the theater, buys a play,

(01:31:32):
but their relationship breaks apart. So very small, relationship driven,
brilliant show. It's called rehearsals. Look it up. It's amazing.
That's two. That's two a third do we need a third?
Can I get back to you on them? I'm sure
they're amazing ones. Don't let me think I mean, i'd

(01:31:53):
say foud up. Let's say found up because it's amazing.
Everybody can watch Fouder on Netflix. It's brilliant. If you
haven't gotten addicted yet for it, I would go with
Prisoners of War and True Gear. Oh my god, stop, sorry, sorry,
I'm changing my mind, and I'm putting Prisoners of War
there number one. First of all because it's the best

(01:32:15):
Israeli television show of all time, and second because the
creator is my best friend and he's going to kill
me rightfully, so I can't believe it didn't think Prisoners
of War. I'm so sorry. Prisoners of war number one. Okay,
so all these people I've I've seen a lot of
Israeli television and you tend to see the same actors
and actresses. You know, So what kind of economic life

(01:32:40):
would those people have? Not easy? It's not. A television
show in Israel does not. If you're an actor, you
need to do everything. So in Israel, you if you're
an actor only doing a TV show. I'm like in America,
if you do one TV show here that's successful, you're
set over there. You need to do TV. You need

(01:33:01):
to do theater. You need to do voiceovers and campaigns
and live shows and stand ups and commercials and a
lot of different things. So it's again there's no budget,
So it's a it's a tough life in that sense.
You have to do a lot of things in order
to actually make a living as an actor in Israel. Okay,

(01:33:25):
let's go back to you. So what does an average
week or an average month look like? Now? They vary. So,
first of all, I travel all the time, So there's
I do. I started a college campus tour now, so
I travel, I go to speak on college as I
started with Berkeley, or as we wait a little bit,

(01:33:45):
a little bit slower. How did this get set up?
And do you get compensated? I do get compensated. I
mean there's a there's a it's a discounter price for colleges.
So I and I do a lot of high schools
as well for you know, nothing basically, but but it's UM,
I travel a lot. I travel a lot. How do

(01:34:06):
you get those gigs? I have a speaking agent and
they contact him and he reaches out and now they
know to talk to him if they if they want
to book me to go and to go and speak.
But the college campus store for me is one of
the most exciting ones because because of what's happening with
BDS on college campuses, because anti Zionism and anti Semitism
on campuses is so extreme. I love going to college campuses.

(01:34:31):
I started with Berkeley or as let's let's slow down there.
Berkeley is uh is a hotbed of political activity. He
who hosted your speech? In two? How many people came?
Great question? So, first of all, I wasn't actually a speech.
So I went to Berkeley because, um, there was an

(01:34:53):
article that came out a few a couple of months
ago about the fact that at Berkeley Law School, some
student groups have outlawed in their by laws, basically in
their constitution. They outlawed any speaker to come and speak
to them if they support Israel or Zionism, effectively creating
a what the article was referring to as a Jewish

(01:35:15):
free zone. So the campus university try to say it's
only nine groups in the campus, but the problem is
that these groups were the women's groups, the LGBTQ group,
the Asian Pacific us of big, big groups called student groups.
So the kids on Berkeley have been feeling alienated, discriminated against,

(01:35:43):
marginalized for a very long time. And this was kind
of like the straw. The broke their backs and they
reach out to me and they asked They asked me
basically if I want to go, and I said absolutely,
I'll go. And I just asked them, what do they need?
What do they want me to do? So they asked me,
that's the Jewish groups, the Jewish groups on Berkeley, jew

(01:36:04):
students groups on Berkeley. They said they wanted me to
first of all, come and hang out with them and
have dinner. So I came over and I hung out
at the hilll and sat with the students and chatted
to them and to see how they're doing. They're not
doing well. They're very concerned and feel alienated. And I
heard some horrific stories about that. And then the next

(01:36:24):
day they wanted me to do what's called the tabling event.
So and that's what they wanted me to do. So
they didn't want me to come and speak at the
hill El. They want me to be out there on
the main plaza and put a table and have conversations
with people. And I said, okay, great, I'll do that.
And they said, you put it basically, put a sign
above the table and you just kind of reach out
to students and have conversations. So I said, sure, I'll

(01:36:47):
do that. And I said, I'm going to have the table.
Sign above the table say anti Zionism is anti Semitism.
Let's have a chat. And I did that and it
was horrible. It was absent, horrible. I was there for
four hours. The video is on my Instagram and or
my social media and on YouTube. Is well, I think,

(01:37:08):
but it's I was attacked. I was yelled at, I
was harassed, I was ignored, I was ganged up on.
I didn't want to bring security because I don't want
to change my life because of the work that I do.
But the people that I was going with basically ruled
out and said at some point, like a day before
that I can know overay, just gonna have security there

(01:37:29):
for you. So there was playing clothes carrying security guy,
and I was very happy that he was there because
I was scared, like legitimately scared. I was. I was
attacked so badly. Well a little bit more, a little
bit more specifically, what happened enough with the yelling, the
blood on your hands and you're enough with the killing,

(01:37:52):
and you know, I had people ganging up on me
and I'm trying to have conversations and they don't want
to have conversation. There was demonstrations, there was yelling those
you know you should just you can check out the video.
It's it's extreme. It's extreme. And I walked out of
there after four hours, and I'm thinking, oh my god,
I'm exhausted. This is terrible. And this's just me for
four hours. What are the Jewish kids on campus are

(01:38:14):
going through? How did they feel? And the answer is
they feel terrible. College campuses right now, in terms of
anti Semitism and anti Israel sentiment is a hotbed. It's horrible.
We hear reports that student Jewish students on campus only
feel safe in Jewish spaces. It's to what to the
point that I was saying before, it's like, you're Jewish,

(01:38:34):
don't ask, don't tell. As long as you're not telling anybody,
as long as you're not out there visibly Jewish, proud Jewish,
then you're fine. It's horrible on college campuses. So I
do a lot of that. It was a Duke class week,
which was incredible. I went to the University of Miami.
I've got I'm doing UCL. Okay, you have those bad,
bad experience at Berkeley, So what happened like a Duke

(01:38:56):
in the University of Miami. Duke was university I was great.
It was Florida Atlantic University actually, and the University of
Miama did both of them. Those two experiences were great,
and Duke was also great. Duke was intense because there's
a lot of anti Semitism and antisignism the Duke and
they had a huge turnout in terms of the students

(01:39:20):
and local people from the community, apparently the biggest that
they had for a very long time. Because a lot
of students at Duke d students at Duke are very
concerned about what's happening. And it was interesting because the
professor that was interviewing me was not it was throwing curveballs, like.
He was asking me very harsh questions that I disagreed

(01:39:41):
with and I had to set my foot down. And
basically he was you know, nobody puts baby in the
corner rights And he was saying all these things or
like the cleansing and the genocide, and I'm like, I disagree.
Let me tell you why. And what I heard from
the students afterwards, which is totally legitimate, by the way,
we can definitely have a conversation about that. I got
nothing against that, But what I was able to show

(01:40:04):
the students is also how do you stand in front
and stand in the face of these uncomfortable conversations, because
a lot of people just recoil. They just kind of like,
I don't want to talk about it. It's too complicated.
And I'm trying to show people that it's okay to
have these uncomfortable conversations. We have to have these uncomfortable
conversations because otherwise what are we doing. So it was

(01:40:24):
that's what I heard from the kids there that they
it was very helpful for them to see me kind
of like butt heads with a professor a little bit,
because it showed them how to handle it when it comes.
Because it comes, it comes a lot. It comes up
a lot. So I do a lot of that. I
travel to various places around again, around the country and
around the world. And when I'm in La it's a

(01:40:44):
lot of like reading, writing, working in the next book,
posting on social media, doing videos, taking readings. It's very
it's a busy time to be fighting anti semitism. Sadly okay,
by times. Well, let's let's go back. When you do
these speaking engagements, generally speaking, are you preaching to the

(01:41:07):
converted or do the people who disagree with you show up?
I wow? Okay, Oddly enough, other than Berkeley, I did
not have people show up to protest, which is kind
of surprising, honestly, because I don't we don't hide that
I'm going to speak, So we're wondering why they didn't
show up. I'm all about I've you know, I've been

(01:41:30):
through these conversations many times. I can handle it. I'm
please accost me, I'll be fine. Hackle the shit out
of me. It's okay, you're allowed, but it hasn't happened yet.
I'm not only preaching to the choir. I'm obviously talking
to a lot of people in the Jewish community, but
I have a lot of people that invite me to
speak to their non Jewish friends in their workspaces. This

(01:41:51):
is something that I really want to do more of.
Like I think Google should invite me to speak about
anti Semitism, and Apple and Coca Cola, and like these
companies need Oh okay, but let's let's go back to
the basic question, not just me just generally speaking out.
Operations need to deal with anti semitism head on, right,

(01:42:12):
But do the people who need their beliefs challenged? Did
they show up? Yes? Yes, so one of the people
that I like. So, for example, at Duke, I know
of a few kids that were there that were brought
in by their Jewish friends because they had an issue
with Israel and an issue with anti Semitism. I know

(01:42:34):
that people use these talks in order to bring out
their community and bring out their friends when they need
to be challenge or addressed. I also know that people
use my videos for that, So they save my videos
online and then they send them to people when something arises.
So yes, definitely, definitely. And do I want to be
more in more spaces where I'm not more spaces that

(01:42:55):
are less preaching to the choir, of course, but again
it's not easy because it's Hewish advocacy and it's people
don't it's not as comfortable as other advocacies for people
to kind of wrap their heads around. Is this a
Sisaphian endeavor or do you think you're making a difference both?
So I don't. We didn't touch upon that. But I'm

(01:43:18):
also sometimes Israel's first special Envoy for combating anti Semitism
and delegitimizations. I was appointed by then Foreign Ministry and
a Pede to represent Israel when I'm asked on international
stage as the anti Semitism envoy, And when we had
this conversation, he offered me the position. He said, you

(01:43:41):
know how the United States has a special envoy for
anti Semitism in Canada and EU and a lot of
other countries in the world, and Israel doesn't have one.
I said, right, I didn't think about that, And he's like,
would you like to be that person? And I said
absolutely yes, And then I started laughing and he asked me,
why why are you laughing? And I said, because you're
setting me up to fail, like I'm literally never going

(01:44:02):
to be successful in this. And he started laughing and
he said, you know, he said, I expect you to
end anti Semitism and then three months give me a report. Please.
Anti Semitism is the oldest form of hate and discrimination
that's still being practiced today. There's no reason for me
to think that I'm going to be able to end it.
It's crazy. It's never going to end fully. Am I

(01:44:24):
making a difference? Yes, I know that for a fact.
Okay that I'm making a difference. Sor right? Are there
any other noah tissues out there? But we just don't
know who they are. There are other advocates out there, Yeah,
there are other people that are doing this. It's it's
I mean, everybody, everybody is different. But I can definitely
recommend people to follow an account named a white of

(01:44:46):
Frame and a guy named Blake Flayton and Eve Barlow
and Lizzie Savitsky is like a great advocate. There are
people out there, but you know, the Jewish people are
zero point zero two percent the world population or zero
point two percent of the American population, we're less than
fifteen million people. Around the world, it's a very small
number of people. So when it comes to online, when

(01:45:09):
it comes to we're kind of drowning. You know, our
voices are drowned a little bit. What is your personal
belief of the cause of the great resurgence? Anti Semitism
never went away, but even statistically it's burgeoned in the
last seven years or so. Why do you think that is.

(01:45:31):
You know, here's the thing. Throughout history, every time a
society was having challenges, the Jews were to blame. So
when we look at in perspective of history, this is
not surprising at all. When we look at what's happening
now with like the modernization of anti Semitism again, whether
it's Kinye West or anti Zionism, you kind of look around,

(01:45:55):
you go, okay, we've been through a pandemic. So then
of course they're going to be voices that say that
the Jews created the pandemic, and we're sitting looking at
it going really cute. So every time there's like economic challenges,
they'll find the Jews. There's a plague, they'll the Jews fault.
This has happened throughout history, and this is something that
to some extent the Jews are to be blamed because

(01:46:16):
anti Semitism is not simple racism, right, it's a it's
a conspiracy theory. So it says that the Jewish people
are they're also like they're they're like the Nazis would say, right,
the vermins of the earth, and they're lower race and
they're like the scum of the earth. Right, But they're
also controlling everything, and they control the banks, and they

(01:46:37):
control Hollywood, and they control this and they control them.
So there's this like duality of anti Semitism that isn't
simple racism. That's why it's harder to decipher. And every
time throughout history it just repops. So it's repopping. Society
has been through a lot of stress in the past
few years. And sure, lo and behold, blame the Jews. Yes,

(01:46:57):
but everything you're saying is certainly true. But observers would say,
there you can say things and there will be no
repercussions in a way that never happened, certainly in my lifetime.
You know, it's been legitimized, and and why do you
think it's been legitimized Jews don't count. There's this book

(01:47:21):
it's it's actually David Baddell wrote a book called Jews
Don't Count and showing throughout like recent history how in
every Jews don't count in like d im offices, Jews
don't count as a minority. Literally, people don't look at
the Jewish people and think of minority. Right, So there's
this kind of like double standard when it comes about
the Jewish people again, because the Jewish people are not considered,

(01:47:41):
they're not underrepresented. The Jewish people have used the American
system in a way like this is a blessing. Right,
We're like, oh my god, we can actually achieve things great,
and now it's held against us. Right, So it's it's
a very it's they don't want to cry wolf, and
I don't want to be like competing in the oppressed Olympic. Right,
you can be both an oppressed minority and also do well.

(01:48:04):
It's just that people need to notice that there are
subconscious biases towards the Jewish people are affecting them, whether
they know it or not, whether they acknowledge it or not.
What would you tell you know, you speak at college campuses,
those are developing people let's just talk adults. What would
you tell adults to do in the face of this

(01:48:25):
anti semitism. First of all, say something when you see something.
In second, reach out to your Jewish community. This is
something that's not a joke. If you see if you
see like a rise in anti semitism online in your neighborhood,
reach out to your Jewish friends, reach out to your synagogue,
the neighborhood synagogue, see if they need help. Actually reach out,

(01:48:47):
Actually reach out again. This is something we are walking
around feeling like we're I'm creating a lot of ally ship,
like reaching outside of our community and finding more allies
because the Jewish community does have allyship in the way
that we would like to have. So that's something that
I would say to again to people who are who

(01:49:08):
are not Jewish, who are listening to this reach out
or reach out. We're under stressed right now. Every Jewish
person that you know is like breaking out a little bit,
pulling the lens back a little bit. What do you
think about intermarriage, because certainly in the United States, there
is a rising number, rising percentage of people who are

(01:49:28):
marrying people outside the faith, and there's a limited number
of Jews to begin with, do you have an opinion
on that? I mean, the father of my child is
not Jewish, so and my child has raised Jewish and
his identity is very strong, and he is first language
is Hebrew, but it didn't it's important to me to
raise my child Jewish. But I wasn't that particular about

(01:49:51):
the father in terms of religion or tradition. Also knowing
that I'm the woman, so it goes by the mother.
I look, I technically, I just I think we need
more Jews, so I would loosen the acceptance bar. But
that's just me. But the good thing to remember is
that everybody is welcome to be Jewish, Like everybody is welcome.

(01:50:13):
It's going to take some work, but everybody's welcome. So
I would love to see as many more Jews as possible.
I also think that with Jewish culture and Jewish people,
the proof is in the pudding. So there's something about
Jewish way of life the works, right, And as Jews,
we instead of celebrating that, we sometimes kind of try

(01:50:35):
to hide it. So we try to hide the bizarre fact,
right that the Jewish people are zero point zero two
percent of the world population, but we're twenty two percent
of Nobel Prize winners twenty nine and like economics twice
that can't remember the exact breakdown, but like twenty two,
that's a crazy number. And that's not because of some

(01:50:57):
cabal or some genetic like it's not right. There's something
about the Jewish way of life that's really good that
everybody should adopt as well. And that's something that I'm
very as a secular Jew, I celebrate because I think
culturally we get so much to contribute. Because just think
of how great, how where would it be if the
entire world would celebrate a bat on a Friday, just

(01:51:19):
get together with friends and family and like stop everything
and just relaxed and not talk about mundane stuff and
focus about you know, focus on like what's what matters.
Like there's a lot there are a lot of things
about the Jewish tradition that are magic that needs to
be adopted by the entire world. How great would that be?
So that's my attitude. My attitude is that we need
to be more open in terms of acceptance and spread

(01:51:42):
out that kind of like way of life more. That's
not a bit of a secret, by the way, It's
all out there. Just we can all live like that. Okay,
although some of this stuff actually engenders anti Semitism. But
moving the focus once again, what do you mean, Okay,
this is the same thing. I don't want to get
deep into a discussion is because there's a lot of nuance,

(01:52:04):
But this is the same thing Asians are combating at
this particular point in time. There's a very people would say,
I don't want to start getting em get in trouble,
but there's a very strong family importance placed on education.
So therefore there are people feel that the Asians are

(01:52:25):
taking their spots in education, and conversely, their Asians believe
they're being discriminated against. So there's a long history with
Jews that people feel, well, you took my spot, you know,
and you know this is all a thing together you
speak a little Yiddish whatever, and I'm not including Okay,

(01:52:50):
that wasn't at all what I was saying. And as
long as America as a meritocracy, and that's great, we
can this is all about achievements. I hear what you're saying.
I don't think this was not what I was you know, well, well,
let me let me let me change a little bit.
The world is not about facts. The world is about perception. Sure, Okay,
and then you say, you know, as you said earlier,

(01:53:12):
when times are tough, people are looking for a scapegoat. Yeah,
and you and both you and me both know how
hard it is to make it in Hollywood. People have
no idea. You have to sacrifice everything and you still
may not make it. But there are a lot of
people who don't make it or don't even try, who

(01:53:33):
blame the Jews. Okay, So there are these examples and
they cause the anti Semitism. But I want to move
to a different topic. Let's talk about let me just second,
Just at that point, i refuse to recoil to that,
and I'm going to stay proud, loud, and proud you

(01:53:54):
And because I know that historically if I go quiet,
it's not going to stop anti Semitism, So I'm actually
flipping it on its head. I'm going to be as
loud and as proud and as open. I'm going to
invite people for Shabbat. I'm going to be as open
as I possibly can because either way, antisemitism is not
going to go away. Does that make sense, absolutely, very

(01:54:15):
very clearly delineated. But let's go to Israel today. You
had a video you posted about, well, Israel's a democracy,
and just like in the US, there are people, you
know who have different opinions. There's protests in that shows
a healthy democracy. Today, which is March first, Thomas Friedman

(01:54:35):
has an opinion piece in the New York Times talking
about Israel being on the precipice. This is one person's opinion.
I don't want to say that. I'm going to Thomas
Friedman himself gets a lot of blowback, but talking about
net Yahoo, talking about the Supreme Court situation, talking about
the settlements, what is your take on what's going on

(01:54:59):
in is Real today? My take on it is that
Israel is such a flourishing democracy. It's virtually almost ungovernable.
That's one of the things that people need to understand.
What's happening right now is very delicate because I mean, again,
I don't want to this is inside baseball, So maybe

(01:55:20):
people have no idea what we're talking about. But basically,
the new government is it's the most right wing government
that Israel has ever had, and they're trying to create
these judicial reform very quickly, and the majority of the
country is resisting them. And there are a lot of demonstration,
like huge percentage of the population are out in the
street demonstrating. So, first of all, that's beautiful, that's democracy.
That's number one. My opinion about what's happening is that

(01:55:43):
they need to slow down. That's my opinion. They have
to slow down. But these reforms need to be taken
very seriously and need to come to a wide agreement.
They must know now that there is no wide agreement.
The percentage large percentage of we could voters want to
slow it down. Don't think that it's the most important
thing right now to do. But again, it's a it's

(01:56:06):
a flourishing democracy. Let's see, let's see what happens. Look,
if every single one of these laws pass, and then
they pass like that, every country can unplode. Right, and
they took Row away from us. It's this is terrible,
but it's not the end of the American democracy. So
this is a part of the process. We're all concerned

(01:56:26):
and we're all watching it carefully, but it's a part
of the democratic process. What's happening there right now? Oh,
let's talk to me in three months. Maybe my opinion
would be different, But right now I'm kind of like,
all right, this is it's happening, and it's it's the process.
It's a moving it's a moving and every day there's
something else that's exactly it's a moving picture. But also

(01:56:47):
when you referenced this in the beginning, but let's look
at it enough from the outside, but the inside. To
what degree do the Orthodocs affect the perception of Jews
in general? It's like we were talking about inner marriage, etc.
One of the big stories in America now, and I
know some people who are involved in a very religious

(01:57:11):
traditional groups where they're having a lot of kids because
they say, we have to repopulate the Jews. New York
Times has done all these series about these communities are
taking money and not really educating their kids. In Israel,
you have the Orthodox, the ultra Orthodox, they don't have

(01:57:32):
to go into the army, etc. So speak to this please.
I always say about my book that left, right and center,
you can pretty much tell where I stand, but I
can explain everybody's perception, and I'm not going to be
I was. The book was endorsed by the left and

(01:57:53):
the right, both in Israel and in America. Right, but
who is not going to be happy about that? Are
the ultra Orthodox? Those are the only community that I
was like, you, guys, I can't defend that, so, honest
to God, and again, this is inside, this is full
on inside baseball, right. I cannot defend not teaching core
curriculum to generations of people within Israel or with our

(01:58:16):
outside of Israel. I just can't defend that. I think
that is abhorrent and it's disgraceful and it's terrible. It's
it's abusive for the children, there's no question about that.
And it's not sustainable. So the Orthodox population in israels
about fourteen percent. They're growing, a lot of people are
leaving the Orthodoxy, so it's kind of like balance it out.
It's not going to take over like everybody, but it's

(01:58:38):
like the entire country. But there's no world in which
you don't need to teach corpora with Lim and that
needs to change immediately. That's my opinion. What about Sorry,
aren't the ultra Orthodox also behind the settlements? Not entirely
the ultra It's not entirely the ultra Orthodox are A

(01:59:01):
lot of the ultra Orthodox are actually not don't even
believe in the existence of the State of Israel. So
they believe that it's an abomination because there hasn't been
the Third Temple yet, So it's not The settlers are
more kind of There are a lot of Americans in
the settlements actually, and it's more it's kind of like
the more muscletem traditional muscle team munim, you know, more

(01:59:22):
than that. It's less the ultra ulter Orthodox, the ones
with the black hats and the and all of them.
But I'm against not studying core curriculum. There's no nothing
controversial about that. Okay. So the average American we're talking
about the government and the settlements, etc. They're not thinking
about that. But on a regular basis in the news

(01:59:43):
there are actions and retaliations, and the Jews, the Israelis
in this case, which you're both, are constantly criticized in
these circumstances. Tell us what you think is really going
on here. I'll tell you a story. A few years ago,

(02:00:07):
I was in Israel with the father of my child,
my ex was. We were there together at the same time, obviously,
and we were sitting and having dinner in Hurzeleia on
the beach, and there was tension. So before sometimes before
these attacks. You kind of get intelligence and they somehow
kind of They're like, all right, it's tense, mus might

(02:00:27):
try something, so be on alert. And we're sitting and
having dinner and all of a sudden, sirens go off.
And I'm sitting with my I'm sitting south facing south.
The Mediterranean Sea is to my right, and I'm looking
at him facing south and we're on the beach outside
and the sirens starts going off and I start seeing
missiles coming from the south, and the south of Hurtzelea

(02:00:49):
and Tel Aviv is the Gaza Strip and we're like,
oh shit, we're just looking at it. And I'm like, look,
look behind you, here they are. Here are the missiles.
And we get off and we go to the shelter
and we wait for it to pass. An hour later,
we are in the hotel room and heard Celia and
we're watching CNN and the headline is Israel attacks in Gaza.
And my ex, who is an American Southern Baptist from Tallahassee,

(02:01:13):
looks at it and he goes, that's not what happened.
They just threw missiles at me. Well, that's not what happened.
And I'm sitting and I'm looking at him and I'm
rolling my eyes and I'm like, yep, welcome to Azrael.
This happens all the time. There's a terrorist attack, they
call it israelis were you know, people were murdered. They

(02:01:36):
don't call it a terrorist attack. Israel retaliates, they call
it an attack, and they don't say what preceded the retaliation.
This is the bias in the media is so extreme
that once you've seen it for the first time, you
can't unsee it. And we do this all the time,
and it comes up every time this happens. There's this
whole thing with the activists. They're like, no, New York Times, no,

(02:01:59):
the Guard and let me correct that, and we kind
of x whatever they say and we say what actually happened.
But this is what happens all the time. The bottom
line is Hamas for that matter, is a terrorist organization
that took over Gaza by force. Again, Israel does not
control Gaza. Israel unilaterally retreated out of Gaza and handed

(02:02:20):
it to the Palestinians, and then Hamas took over. So
Hamasa is the one who's controlling Gaza. It's a terrorist
organization that wants to enact shariel law, which is the
embodiment of rape culture. Right, Sharia law, not Arab culture,
not Muslims and not you know, this particular iteration and
wants to wipe Israel off the map. And that's what

(02:02:41):
we're dealing with here. And we're dealing with people that
celebrate death. We're dealing with people that again I'm prefacing,
it's the extremists of them, right, that are dragging the
entire region into hell. We're dealing with people that the
more casualties there are, the better it looks. And it's

(02:03:05):
just it's horrible, and it's horrible for the Palestinian people. Look,
I've been to demonstrations and I carried signs saying free
Gaza from Hamas, Free Palestine from Hamas, not from Israel.
If these extreme groups would have put down their weapons
and would have agreed to accept the existence of a

(02:03:26):
Jewish state, they would have been a Palestine and there
would have been prosperity and collaboration and communication, just like
look at what's happening with the Abraham Court, with the UAE,
with Israel. Suddenly it's it's suddenly the region is acknowledging
what everybody publicly basically what everybody knew privately, and that
is Israel's not a big bed wolf of the Middle East.

(02:03:47):
Iran is And if you want more tech and more
advancement and more freedom and more democracy, Israel's your partner.
So Drew, if you get out your crystal ball, what
do you foresee as the future of Israel and the
future of anti Semitism in America? Those are two different questions,

(02:04:09):
but both the future look Israel is strong and Israeli
people are resilient, smart and stubborn. So Israel is going
to be fine. It's it's not going to be pretty,
and it's not it's challenging right now, but Israel is

(02:04:32):
going to be fine. There's also such extraordinary people there,
with so much brain and so much innovation. And if
it's the country, if the country is not going to
be changed, laws are not going to be changed to
a point that it changes it such a we can't
recognize it anymore, Israel is going to be fine. Anti
Semitism is not going anywhere, actually, So it's kind of

(02:04:53):
like a Jewish mandate to make the world a better place.
And it's our job to continue warning the world when
the comes up. There was an article years ago by
Jonathan I've got his last name, Oh my god, it's
in my book. It's called basically he's the one who
kind of coined the Jews of the Canary in the
coal mine. The Jewish people. When society turned on its Jews,

(02:05:15):
it's a sign that society is in trouble. So every
country in the world that turned on the Jews, that
was foreshadowing for something bad that was going to happen
in society. So it's kind of like it's almost our
role to stand there and be like, no, we're not
gonna let you do this, because we don't want America
in the world to implode and just notice that you're

(02:05:36):
being anti Semitic. Let's just stop that. It's not going anywhere.
But I hope that in my lifetime at least it's
going to go back and become unfashionable again, because that's
the thing that we're frustrated a bad not that it
came back, because again it's it never went away, but
it became acceptable. That is a shocking proposition for all
of us. Well, it would be hard not to look

(02:05:57):
at the United States and not say the visibility of
anti Semitism and the ability to verbalize it came in
with the Trump administration, and you have a unique situation
where the right wing always pledges fealty to Israel, support

(02:06:19):
for Israel. There's issues as to whether that's because they
see it as the Christian homeland or defensive whatever, But
our country at large irrelevant of anti semitism. Most people
on both sides of the FEDS don't think it's going
in the right direction. Now, wouldn't that portend even more

(02:06:42):
anti semitism. Yes, it does. That's why it's going up
so much. And look, the thing to acknowledge is that
right now we're dealing with anti semitism on the right
and anti semitism on the left. This is one of
those things that are hard for people to acknowledge. It's
almost like it's easier to see the Jews will not
replace us and the Marjorie Taylor Green Green of the

(02:07:03):
you know Lewis Jewish space laser right, that's very easy
to call out. But what about on the extreme left
when they equate Israel to Commas? What about them the
extreme left when they call when they call Israel a
bloodthirsty country. This happens on both sides, and oddly enough,
on the fridge light fringe right, on the fringe left,
the one thing that they have in common is anti Semitism.

(02:07:25):
So this is definitely something that I think we should
look at as a society and be worried about. Um.
There's no doubt the Trump allowed anti Semitism in America
to raise its head on the right in a way
that we never saw before. Um, which was shocking for
all of us. But again, it's coming from both sides.
It's radical left, radical right, and radical Islam is where

(02:07:48):
anti semitism is coming from the most. And that's that's
that's what unites them. But but I will never just
call the right. I'm going to call the left because
I'm obliver world that lives in Hollywood, you know what
I mean. I'm going to call out the left and say, no,
we need to look at ourselves as well, not just
on the right where it's convenient, but also on the
left where it might not be might not be that

(02:08:09):
easy to look at. We still have to because anti
semitism on the right, by the way, anti semitism on
the on the left right now, the majority of it
is anti Israel. Rhetoric anti Semitism online. Sixty nine to
eighty four percent of online anti semitism is anti Israel rhetoric.
It's the demonization of Israel. It's the double standard, it's
the delegitimization of Israel. It's all these when you when

(02:08:32):
you switch, when you switch the world due to the world,
the word Zionist, it's anti Semitism. It's just it's just
kind of cloaked and masked. Definitely. Okay. In conclusion, I
think everyone on both sides of all these issues should
read your book. So why don't you sell your book
to my audience a little bit? Tell them, tell what

(02:08:53):
they're what they're eating for if they read it. Wow, um,
such a great pret question. So yeah, it's a It's
a book that tells the story of Israel and the
Middle East in a way that's that's easy and fun
and funny. It goes in depth, but not too deep.
It tells the story of my family that was establishing,

(02:09:16):
very involved in the establishment of the state of Israel.
And it was endorsed by both Bill Maher if you're
on the left, then Ben Shapiro if you're on the right,
and Aaron Sorkin and Eric Weinstein and raycourts While and
a lot of people that are thought leaders that I
admire that we're very gracious in reading the book and saying, yeah,
we like it. It's good. So maybe your audience would
like it too well. I think everyone should. Wed You're right,

(02:09:39):
it is lighted. As I tell people, it's not a
hard weed in any event. No, I think we've come
to the end of the feeling we've known. I want
to thank you so much for speaking with my audience.
Thank you so much for having us. It's a pleasure.
Till next time. This is Bob left Sex

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