Episode 1: BARCLAY

Michael Barclay is the founding rabbi of Temple Ner Simcha in Westlake Village, California – just north of Los Angeles. Barclay talks about the history of Antisemitism from his perspective, the history, and politics of Temples in Southern California, and offers a firsthand account of the attacks on him, his family, and his home.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
January thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine,during a two and a half hour speech,
German dictator Adolf Hitler tells a crowdof thousands that if another World War
were to break out, he predictedthe annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
Eight months later, Germany invaded Polandand World War Two began, and

(00:30):
Hitler continued his genocide of the Jewsinside Germany itself. The Elizas is the
famous stadium of Nuremberg. On Mayeighth, nineteen forty five, the war
in Europe ended chapter of this famoussouthern German city. The American flag blouped
out the Swastika after the dust settled. It was estimated that more than six

(00:52):
million Jews died in the Holocaust,but what didn't die was anti Semitism.
In fact, it flourished throughout historyand today, almost eighty years later,
anti Semitism has evolved and become evenmore dangerous, largely due to technology.
If Adolf Hitler had an Instagram account, the Holocaust would have happened a lot
quicker because the public would have beenconvinced a lot sooner. This is the

(01:21):
iHeartRadio original podcast Hate Modern Anti SemitismI'm investigative journalist Steve Gregory in Los Angeles.
Michael Barklay is the founding rabbi ofTemple Naer Schimpre in Westlake Village,
California, just north of Los Angeles. He's been the target of hate crimes,
including vandalism at his home. Hebegins with the history of his modest

(01:44):
temple in the heart of the sleepytown of Westlake Village. So the synagogue
started nine years ago. I usedto be a professor Loila Marymount University in
a rabbi in Beverly Hills. Nineyears ago. We started the synagogue out
here in a very different way,which is we have no membership dues,
no cost for high holiday tickets,cost for religious school or our Mitzvah's typically

(02:06):
the model outside the Orthodox world andreformer Conservative, which is where we are
theologically, people have to pay thousandsfor membership dues, hundreds for high holiday
tickets and we don't do that.That's a business model that didn't start until
the mid twentieth century, is stillonly accurate in the United States, Canada,
England, and South Africa, andnot in the Orthodox world typically.

(02:30):
And I don't think anyone should haveto pay to prey. So we came
out here and started this community.Everyone said it can't be done, and
here we are, nine years later, thank God, still here. We
rent this space, which is beautiful. We can have over a hundred people
on a typical Friday night Shabbat,and we take over the Canyon Club and
are the largest provider of free highholiday services in the nation. And we

(02:54):
take over the Canyon Club and wehave our high holiday services there. We
have everything from religious school to ourmitzvah as an adult education and all the
stuff you would have at any anytemple. It just never really makes sense
to buy a building. It justends up being a lot of debt and
you don't use it except for youdon't use the massive space except for high

(03:14):
holidays. So we're here and wehave our library and our classroom and our
sanctuary and our kitchen and all thatkind of stuff, and high holidays we
go spend at the Cannon Club,which is really very appropriate for us and
our persona and who we are.It's a lot of fun. Let's talk
about Westlake Village then it's west ofLos Angeles, about an hour west of
Los Angeles. Who are the peoplethat come here, and what kind of

(03:35):
an neighborhood is this. So WestlakeVillage is an upper middle class to upper
class financially that kind of area.It is a suburb of Los Angeles.
When we first moved here, Ilooked at a friend and I said,
this looks like all the houses inthe TV show Weeds, and it goes,
well, this is where they shotit. So it's it's really the

(03:58):
epitome of a suburb many many ways. It was a pre planned community in
terms of the power lines aren't aboveground, there below grounds. It's very
green and very beautiful. Lake Sherwood, which is one of the most beautiful
areas in all of California's here andthe Lake Sherwood development and Sherwood country Club
and Sherwood Lakes Clubs, two Masongolf courses, Westlake Island, things like

(04:18):
that. Interestingly, and we're closeto the west part of the San Frgando
Valley as well as we're not farfrom Siami Valley and close to Thousand Oaks.
I would say probably over third ofthe people who come to our community
for whether it's a service or afestival or a class, actually are traveling

(04:38):
from the west side of Los Angeles. They've whatever read different reasons and there's
different reasons for reach to them.They resonate to what we do and how
we do it, and they comeout here for the high holidays or for
services or classes, etc. Isthis a safe area? Would you categorize
it as a safe area in termsof crime and assaults and those Now,
this is the suburbs. This isI when I live in Westchester and was

(05:01):
teaching a loyal Merrymount. This isa very different area. You know.
This is not an area where typicallyyou have gangs walking around or a lot
of crime pleas that we know of. Typically it's an area, you know,
one of the jokes that that wemake because I'm a person of color
here because it is a very subclassic suburban area for better hand for horse

(05:25):
and it's a very safe area,you know, instead of living in Westchester
by Laila, which is a greatarea as well, we live across from
a park that has three baseball fieldsand beach, volleyball and tennis courts,
and it's a very green and awonderful place to have a family and to
raise a family and to be safein that way. Typically that's what it's

(05:46):
always been that said. You know, attacks against synagogues, hate crimes against
Jewish people are on the rise everywhere. Are you have you been immune to
that in this safe area, thesafe sub of yours, the exact opposite.
No, we have not been immuneat all, and I have not
been immune to it in any inany way, shape or form in this
area. In this area, Ihate get regular hate mail. I get

(06:10):
regular threats. We have armed securityat every event we do. Either if
it's a large event, we willhire security firms that are showing their firearms
on the outside, so it's adeterrent as well. But every event we
have, every gathering we have,there is at least one person with a
concealed carry who's trained in that handlingsecurity for the event. At least one.

(06:36):
And that's everything we do. Andit's a sad statement, but it's
it's what's needed. And as Isaid, my house has been vandalized four
times, most recently. You know, we put up video cameras and we
actually have a video of some guysin hoods throwing an m adi at our
house. Guys in hoods as inhoodies or bodies hoodies. Okay, so

(06:58):
that Antifa look throwing m ads atyour house. Yes, any words spoken,
any words, We don't paint iton your walls. I mean,
do you know what they're doing there? They know we're the Jewish, they
know it's the home of the Jewishleader. We also do temple events occasionally
at our center, at our home. In this case, it was the
last case with the M eight,we had a There's a holiday in Judies

(07:20):
and called Sukote, and you builda temporary structure and you have parties in
it, and you dwell on it, and we build the community soucca in
our backyard because I'd say, wedon't own this temple property, so we
don't have the property. Build asecond we have over the course of the
seven nights. Each night we haveanywhere from thirty two hundred and fifty people
in our backyard under the succa doingall of that. This was on a

(07:44):
Friday night when we'd had a Succotegathering. We had armed security right outside
the house. There's no way thatyou could get into sidegate without seeing a
guy with a firearm. The eventhad ended, we had closed everything up
and off the lights not I meanless than ten minutes after the lights were
turned out and the security guy hadleft. My family and I were upstairs

(08:05):
when we hear this explosion like I'venever heard of my life, because thank
god I was not in a war. And this car screeching off and we
look at the video and it's somepeople who are parked in front of our
house, gotten out of the car, throwing the mad gotten back in the
car and screeched off. It's reallysad. Do you believe it's people or

(08:28):
it's individuals that are from this suburbor do you think they're outsiders. I
think they're from the suburb. Reallyyeah. I think people are doing the
actions are from this area, whetherdirectly from Westlake or whether they're from a
Gura Thousand Oaks or somewhere in theSan Francdo Valley or Semi Valley. I
think people aren't slepping. They're notthey're not driving an hour to come after

(08:48):
our house or our community. Thereare people who were local and whatever way.
It's interesting because we talked to youknow, law enforcement professionals, and
they keep eyes on these hate cellsand these anti Semitic cells, and they're
getting their marching orders from groups outof Illinois Northern California, Orange County,

(09:11):
California, and they dispatch these cellsto go to all these different communities,
small and large. That's why Iask the question, because unless you have
evidence of it being someone local youthink, or at least in the in
the region of the area. ButI do know that there are groups that
are from out of town that arecoming into to wreak havoc and to do

(09:31):
this for whatever, you know,whatever their motive or whatever their takeaway is.
But they're coming from out of town. I don't think that's if I
judge it based on the hate mailthat we've gotten, it's not coming from
people tell us about that. Asan example, so before high holidays we
advertise in the two local papers whatit's called the Acorn. One it's called

(09:52):
the Guardian, and the Guardian isowned by people who are politically conservative.
Many they're advertised there's in their takeon the news is politically conservative. The
Acorn on the other side, ismore. Then we advertise them both because
I could care less what someone's politicsare. That's not my job, my
personal politics. I'm active politically ona personal level. I do not ever,

(10:13):
ever, ever speak politics from thepulpit with the exception of I will
always back up Israel no matter whatthey do, and I will call it
anti semits out. But this isthis is an example we advertise in the
Guardian. And then there is ablogger who has a couple of thousand followers,

(10:37):
who is very far on the left, who then says, we need
to stop all these people who areadvertising the Guardian. That's on a Friday
night. It comes out of Friday. That's on Friday night, Saturday morning.
On her website is tell us theiraddress and we'll take care of it.
Hashtag canao Antifa and you can findaddress. My address is not hard

(11:01):
to find out. And Saturday night, at one o'clock in the morning,
our dog starts barking. I lookat and there's a car across the street.
There's a park. There's no reasonfor a car to have pulled up
with two people. And they're justsitting there, and they're sitting there for
about five minutes, and I turnon the light and the screech off.
An hour later again the exact samething, and this time I call the

(11:22):
police and I come out and theyscreech off again. Same car, same
people. They'd come back to beright across from our house, and that
was the genesis of that action,of that kind of stocking, which I
don't consider ananalism, because they didn'tget away with anything because we saw them
came from a blogger and a websitethat is people with Jews spewing hate about

(11:46):
our synagogue, etc. Because wehad advertised in the Guardian. Are you
finding, Rabbi, that the hatredtowards Jews comes and go in waves or
do you think it's pretty consistent.I think it's an understanding of the history
of anti Semitism, which is reallya virus that mutates. It's a hate

(12:11):
that mutates. And I don't knowwhat other I know you've had an other
experts and guests on so I don'tknow what they did or didn't talk about
anti Semitism. But in the fourthcentury you have the Vulgate. What before
the Gospels are not written by MarkLucas said, or written a generation after
the written years later, and there'sconscious there's comments that are made that could
not have been accurate for the timeperiod. In terms of the death of

(12:35):
Jesus. You couldn't have had atrial during Passover as an example. Things
like that and I'm not saying whatthe Jews wear. We're not involved in
the crucifixion I have as we comeup to Easter. That's not my comment.
I stay over the people's theology.But so that starts breeding a hate
towards the Jewish establishment. In thefourth century, there's something called the Vulgate,

(12:56):
which is a translation of the TorahBible, and in that Vulgate there's
a conscious mistranslation that when Moses comesdown from the mountaintop, he has horns.
It's conscious. It's a similar wordto meaning that he is light shining
from his head. But this translatorwrites down that he has horns, and
from that we get the myth thatJews have horns, which many people still

(13:20):
sadly believe today. That translation ofthe Vulgate was used all the way into
the nineteen seventies by the Catholic Church, was the official Bible all the way
to nineteen seventies. In eleven fortyfour Norwich, England, you're the first
case of a blood libel where ayoung man, a young boy is disappears
and they blame the Jews, sayingthat the Jews need Jewish blood to make

(13:41):
matza. And so they kill aCatholic child every year. Obviously another fallacy.
We're not even allowed to be aroundblood. The reason kash about meat
is so salty is because you can'thave any blood in me, so it's
ludicrous. But then you get theidea that Jews drink blood. So we
have two thousand years of anti Semitism, and those are just some examples that

(14:03):
are ingrained. After the Holocaust,you have a sense of guilt in the
world and you want to talk badlyabout those Jews because look which has happened.
But by the time you get tothe nineteen seventies and eighties, anti
Semitism is now being couched as antiIsrael, and so you have we're not
anti Semites, where anti Israel.So anti Semitism, which didn't disappear in

(14:26):
a generation there for thousands of years, has now come back in as anti
Israel. By the time you getinto the nineties and the early two thousands,
no longer is just anti Israel's antiIsrael and anti Jews, until you
get to the place of people likeCongressman Flaibe or Omar who blatantly make anti
Israel an blatant anti Jewish comments andanti Semitic comments and get away with it.

(14:50):
So I don't think it's ever decreasedor increased. I think there was
a brief respite in overt anti semitismfrom the end of World War Two through
the late seventies early eighties. Doyou suppose that because politicians take a stand
on this now and you talk aboutyou don't preach your politics from the pulpit,

(15:11):
politicians seem to have gotten more andmore vocal about their views on Israel.
And I don't think anyone ever understoodthat there was what the conflict was
or what the purpose behind it is. But a lot of people keep bringing
that up now. And I notice, would you agree also that that's probably
one of the biggest reasons there's alot of anti semitism conflict on college campuses.

(15:33):
Yes, and it's more than that. It is. Okay, we'll
get to that in a second.I wanted to give back to politicians that
between politicians and social media, don'tyou think that has exacerbated anti Semitism.
It's it's ascerbated at being overt.I don't know if it's made it.
If it's made it, there's moreanti Semitism, but it's certainly given people

(15:54):
they're in there the permission internally toexpress it because I'm behind a computer keyboard.
Okay, So do you think it'sit's brought that out from them?
Do you believe that social media,politicians and the way media has been treating
it, do you think that hasindoctrinated new people to be anti Semite.
I think that's a part of it. I think it's also that there are

(16:18):
many groups that, just like theywere in the thirties in Germany, there
are many fringe groups that looking fora scapegoat, and so anti Semitism becomes
a scapegoat. You know, I'llgive an example that we've seen for the
last number of decades. Lewis Farrakhanand Al Sharpton are bad guys. They're

(16:40):
just bad guys, I'm sorry,And they're anti Semites. When you call
the Jewish people cockroaches that should beexterminated, when you call New York timetown,
these are not good guys as asyou do. But they're embraced by
one of the political parties and bymany political leaders. How do you embrace
someone who calls a whole race ofpeople cockroaches, but they are because they

(17:03):
want that vote. So I thinkthe politics have opened up more people to
be inculcated in anti Semitism. Andit's and again it's when someone doesn't know
the other than the other can bedegraded and denigrated, and I think people
do that. Going back to collegecampuses now, the one thing is I've

(17:26):
noticed I didn't realize it was sucha pervasive issue when I went to college.
None of that ever existed when Iwas in college. I can't even
remember a protest of any kind atmy college, and I went to CALS,
I saw a lot of protests.Well, yes, I went a
little further inland in the United States, so it was a little a little
and moderate in my world. Butbut I see now more and more there's

(17:48):
a lot of anti Semitism rhetoric andprotests, and Jewish students are being and
a lot of them don't even tellpeople that they're Jewish and they just hide
that. Now you had thoughts onthat. First of all, I wish
people wouldn't hide their Jewishness. Ithink we should all be proud to be
who we are. That's number one. But on college campuses, anti Semitism

(18:14):
has radically increased, and for anumber of reasons. Like all of us
did when we were in college,most of us, you're a liberal.
It's a leftist right, they say, if you're young and you're not a
liberal, you have no heart.Right, so liberal leftist. But there's
no longer respect for the other thepeople we disagree with. Well. I
went to Berkeley, which was avery different school than it is now.

(18:37):
We embraced having a conservative come tospeak because we wanted to challenge him.
We wanted to hear his thoughts andchallenge him, and we wanted to have
respectful dialogue. I wrote an articleyears ago right after Trump was elected,
before he was inaugurated, there wereriots in Berkeley that he's going to destroy
the world, and so they wereburning things on campus and destroying buildings and

(18:57):
everything else. Article in The Ironyof Hate that the reality is your word
about a guy who's not even apresident yet, about what he's going to
do, while you are doing theexact same thing and destroying and shouting down
what they just recently did at Ifiguredout university. But there was a judge

(19:18):
who came and he was shouted downby people that's not respectful, so that
there's become less tolerance on college campusesfor the opposing view. And where does
it come from or is it comingfrom? Now? I don't know where
it comes from. My own Judaism, we embraced the dialogue. We say
Alu alu these words and these wordsare both words of the living God.

(19:38):
We teach in Judaism that since Godis infinite, I don't have the exclusive
understanding, and it's only through ourdialogue we can even start to have that
kind of understanding. So we wantdialogue. That's a traditional Jewish view.
Unfortunately, that's not the view oncollege campuses all too often, that's not
even the view all too often withrabbis anymore. And it's profoundly sad to

(20:02):
me that rather than respectfully disagreeing,you know, you can disagree without being
disagreeable. And we need us toquote my friend Rabbi Sho and we need
to We need to do that,and that's been lost on college campuses,
and it's been lost in the Jewishworld as well. Quite honestly explain that
I had related a story to earlier. Our synagogue never closed our doors.

(20:27):
We during the pandemic We streamed foranyone who was uncomfortable, and we didn't
want to be here, and we'relive, and we took precautions. Who
were the large provider of life servicesin the state our high holidays, we
did outdoors. We put up afive thousand square foot canopy. We did
double services. There was six toeight feet between every family and it comes
outdoors. It was brutally difficult andextremely expensive, set us back financially in

(20:49):
a big way, but we wantedto keep it safe. It doesn't matter
who, but a prominent reform rabbiput out on his page to his couple
of thousand follows, Rabbi Barklay andhis board should be arrested and die.
I called this guy up. Ireally don't really know, and I said,

(21:10):
what are you doing? And hesaid, you're killing people. I
said, you don't know what we'redoing. You don't know what the precautions
were taking. Moreever, it's notyour decision. I respect and support you
whatever you're doing with your community,and our community has decided other things to
which you said, you're killing people. It's horrible, we have to stop
you, et cetera, et cetera. And I said, you know it
says in the Tamuld, which isone of our sacred texts, that the

(21:32):
temple in Jerusalem two thousand years agowas destroyed because of this type of baseless
hatred between Jews, to which hesaid, a shocking comment, and this
is verbatim. We are reformed Jews. We don't care about the Tomuld would
shock me and I said, okay, but it says in the tour that
you shall rebuke your neighbor when they'redoing this. What are you doing?
This is not helping the Jewish world, it's not helping the world in general,

(21:53):
to which his response was a stringof expletives ending with Fu and him
hanging up on me. When youhave that kind of division within the Jewish
world, where you've lost the jewishnistsand you're only about a political viewpoint,
that's one example. Another example isrecently when that Yahoo became prime minister again,

(22:18):
I think it's over three hundred prominentrabbis from around this country wrote a
public letter basically saying to the Knessea, the group there the political Congress,
none of you people, you're notif you support in that and Yahoo,
you're not invited to urs Senna goodto do fundraising or anything else. You're
not welcome. We don't have abusiness in Israeli politics. Moreover, is

(22:42):
a jew I can go become anIsraeli citizen next week. If I want
to be involved in Israeli's politics,I can move to Israel as any of
us could. But instead they're tryingto influence israel politics from their pulpits here
in the United States. So,if you know, it's interesting because it
sounds like within the Jewish community locallyand internationally apparently that there's you might be

(23:10):
unified in some things, but notunifying all things. Correct, Now,
it's not just not unified. Thereis sadly expressed hatred and vitriol between Jewish
community and Jewish community, between rabbiand rabbi as opposed to you know,
I disagree with you, and that'sokay, we're all on the same side.

(23:30):
There's a vitriol. As I saidthis, rabbi, I haven't heard
language like that unless it was somebodyfrom the military. Yeah. Don't you
suppose though, that that that diminishesor dilutes your power as a whole community
to fight anti Semitism other things.Absolutely, Moreover, when you look at

(23:52):
things. So I've written articles onthis. If your religion is no longer
Judaism, but it's your political bendleft or right, you going to not
be teaching authentic Judaism. You're notgonna be practicing authentic Jewish values. So
at one of which is supporting Israelperiod always. So's it's really important that

(24:15):
we stand together in that way.But we don't as Jews, we don't
as Rabbis. The hatred is ittears us apart. It's not that different.
You know, Judaism to survive fora very long time, and every
time that we seem to start fightingwithin ourselves as when we have problems.

(24:37):
Someone once said it's easy to beJewish when it's tough to be a Jew,
and it's tough to be Jewish whenit's easy to be a Jew.
So that said, then what's theanswer, Rabbi, how do you see
this thing getting better? Or doesit get better? To me? The
answer is always education, and theanswer is mutual respect. The answer is

(25:00):
being willing to disagree without being disagreeable. The goal there's a tour portion that
we have a reading and the Torahabout when you go to war. What
are the rules when you go intoconflict, and the rules are really pretty
simple. Ultimately, the goal ofconflict is not victory. It's peace.

(25:22):
It's not victory over your enemy,it's peace. I remember walking into a
cigar lounge a few years back,and these guys are sharing like it's a
football game. Rabbi, Rabbi,you gotta watch this. And it was
a CNN video some terrorists going underone of the tunnels and being blown up,
and the guy isn't that great?And I said, you guys are
out of your mind. We justmade a hundred children lose their fathers.

(25:48):
We just made a hundred parents losetheir sons. We may have to blow
up that tunnel, but we don'thave to rejoice in it. The teaching
is that when Moses, you know, when the Sea of Reads is parted
and Pharaoh's true and Pharaoh's soldiers aredrowned. The teaching that we have from
Midrush is that the angels start torejoice and God stops them and says,

(26:08):
the work of my hands is beingdestroyed. And you want to sing hymns
of praise. You may have todo what you need to do, but
there's no there's no joy in it. We need to recognize as Jews the
people who want ustead, you know, gold in my air. I think
it was who said if we putdown, if the Airs put down their
weapons today, we would have peacetomorrow. If we put our weapons down

(26:29):
today, god forbid there being noIsrael tomorrow. She said something to that
effect. Well, look, alllives matter, black, white, brown,
yellow, red, whatever, gay, straight, all lives matter,
period. But in the BLM manifestothey call for the destruction of Israel.
So how can any rabbi support BLMwhen they are calling for our destruction?

(26:56):
And yet that is the vast majority, the majority of reform and conservative rabbis
support BLM because it's politically convenient.And they say, well, they don't
really mean that. Well, I'msorry they do. It's in their manifesto.
It's not an accident. And Ithink we need to call out darkness
whenever we see it. We needto shine a light on darkness of hate.

(27:18):
You don't fight hate with more hate. I had a discussioned someone with
someone who is on the right politicallyrecently, and they're saying that much they
loved Marjorie Taylor Green because she fightsfor their cause, And I said,
I don't care if if she's conservador liberal, she's no different than AOC.
She's using the same stuff. Andthat's not what we need to do.

(27:41):
We need to create peace through respect, through education, and through calling
out hate, calling out anti Semitesby name calling them out and saying no,
this is an okay, and standingup for those values. Unfortunately,
Jewish leadership doesn't do it. It'srarely done by Jewish leadership. Your family,

(28:06):
you talk about having your home vandalized, and you folks approached at least
four times. How do you handleit? And how does your family handle
it? And how do you handleit all together? So I have a
pair of thirteen year old twins,thank God, and I have a couple

(28:27):
of standards about how do I act. One is would it make my dad
who's deceased, would make him proud? One does set a model for my
children? And when I have aquestion or whether I should do something or
not something, not do something,I look at that litmus test for both
on both sides. The first timeour home was vandalized, we had a
large wooden misses on our door.Someone had tried to take it down they

(28:52):
were unable to, and so theysplit the misses in half and through the
scroll and half of the wood intoa planter by the front door. We
did not have video cameras security camerasat that time. Came out in the
morning and saw that, and theboys saw that. By the time they
came home from school, there wasa larger mississa that was in place of
it. We need to step upand do the right thing. And so

(29:15):
that's how, on the one hand, how we combat it through education,
through being willing to stand up andsay Vidanachi, I am a Jew.
And that's I think incredibly important tobe willing to say that and to call
out anti semitism. And you know, there's there's overt anti semitism where someone
is trying to hurt you, andthen there's anti semitism because people are ignorant.

(29:38):
So I'll give you another story ifyou'll forgive all the stories being on
clergy, So we have those stories. I'm not an academic anymore. I'm
just a community leader. So wehave lots of stories. My kids had
gone to first grade in a secularschool. They've gone to Jewish day school
prior to that, and they weren'ta secular school. We want them to

(29:59):
be. You grow up in anon Jewish world that way. So the
day before his orientation, day beforefirst grade, and the principle is there,
and I go to the principle andsay, hi, I'm rab By
barclay Am, the rabbi here inWestlake Village, and I just want you
to know. I know the policyis that kids aren't allowed to wear hats,
but I want you to know thatmy sons will be wearing ball caps,
not just outdoors, but indoors aswell. It's a religious commandment that

(30:22):
we were where I keep our headcover, to which this twenty seven year
old principle of this elementary schools andhere in Westlake. Her reply was,
not in my school, they won't, to which I said, yes,
they will, and they were ballcaps, not Yama, because because of
anti Semitism, they don't want tobe singled out in that way, to
which your reply was, I've livedin the Canajo Valley my whole life.

(30:45):
There is no anti semitism here.And my comment to her was you and
I don't get to tell a blackman if he's experiencing racism. I don't
get to tell you if you're experiencingmisogyny, and you sure as hell don't
get to tell me about anti semitism. Went home, called the superintendent who
walked our kids into class the nextday. Now do I think that she's

(31:06):
overtly anti Semitic? No, Ithink she's just an idiot. Okay,
I think she's just she's just oblivious. But you need to educate people.
You need to say, you knowwhat, that is anti semitic. Whether
you mean it to be or whetheryou don't mean it to be, it
is anti semitic. It is aprejudice against someone you And I don't get
to tell a woman if she's experiencingsexism because I've never had my male boss

(31:30):
patent my behind after I had tellsme to go get a coffee girl,
Right, So we don't continue that. And we need to hear where anti
semitism is coming from. Where Jewsays he's experiencing anti semitism, he probably
is. Sometimes people like to playa victim card, which is craziness,
but often they are experiencing that,and it's in our culture and it's overt

(31:51):
we're hearing it out of DC.We're hearing it out of different places.
We're here with the anti Israel typeof stuff. There is a number of
years ago I was at a brunchwith Marco Rubio and he was out here
because he had spoken out here,and it was when they were running for
president that primary, and it wasa small brunch and one's asking their own

(32:13):
questions, and I asked him thequestion about Israel, and his comment to
me was brilliant. He said,this isn't about Israel just being you know,
anti Israel's anti It is a formof anti Semitism. He said,
Israel is our greatest ally, andwhen we turn our back on Israel,
every other ally in the world's goingto wonder when we're going to turn our

(32:34):
back on them. So we mustalways support Israel unflinchingly, which I thought
was a brilliant comment. Political comment. We need to be honest, We
need to have dialogue, We needto call out things, and we need
to not let people get away withstuff. We need to not let people
get away with Congressman Omar saying it'sall about the Benjamin's. We need to

(33:01):
call out fallacies and lies, whetherthey are done by politicians or the media
or your neighbor and see, that'sjust not accurate. Here's the accuracy,
here's the real truth. Let's reallylook at this. Let's have a dialogue.
I have more in common with anobservant Christian minister or Catholic priest than

(33:27):
I do with a secularized Jew whohas given up his religion for his politics.
You don't hear that every day,That's true. Finally, back to
your family though, because I amcurious. You know, you clearly are
are a fighter, you clearly bychoice. I actually don't like conflict.
Well yeah, but whether or notthis has been the path for you,

(33:49):
and you've chosen to do this.But do your twins? Do your sons
share the same kind of passion?Now they're thirteen? But do you know
do you not know yet whether they'reheaded there? I mean, how does
this impact them? You're talking aboutyour personal perspective, but I'm curious about
how your wife and your boys handlethis when someone comes to the house again,

(34:13):
what's that trauma like for them?Well, my wife is very proud
that she has a husband. Imean, first of all, to speak
there, my wife does most ofthe work in the world, and I
am I married way above my station. Okay, because I could not do
what I do without her. Andshe's very proud of saying that I'll take
a stand on things, which Idon't think is anything to be proud of

(34:34):
personally. I think it's just incumbentupon being a human being. So she
is on board with that, andshe gets nervous at times. My kids
are thirteen. They have experienced antiSemitism. They were called dirty Jews and
an elementary school and a playground bya kid three years older, and the

(34:54):
principle violated state and federal law bycalling the boys in and this whole a
kid saying did you say that?Now? I didn't say that. Okay,
See it's all fine. Now goand play in the play art,
which is violation of both state andfederal law. Okay. And we dealt
with that how it had to bedealt with with the school system everything else.

(35:14):
My kids are children of clergy,and it's difficult whether you're a child
of a rabbi or a pastor orminister or anyone else. They're looked at
a lot, so I'm really notyou know, they are learning the right
values. We do a lot oftalking and processing about any of these kind
of incidents, both that we experienceor that are going on locally, nationally

(35:35):
or internationally. Did they go topublic school. No, we made a
choice right when the virus hit totake them to homeschool because it didn't make
sense for them to be doing zoomclasses that were to the lowest common denominator.
It just didn't make sense. Andthe agenda in many of the public
schools is not an agenda. Iwant my kids learning the skills that they're

(35:58):
going to need in life and toget into the right call edge and graduate
school, etc. Not a socialagenda, not an agenda from It's not
what we want out of the school. So we end up we end up
home school. They part of homeschoolpods and they do homeschool that way,
and you know it's it's there's fightsthat go on in all schools, both

(36:20):
from my kids, but I can'ttell you how many fights I had,
even back when I was teaching aLoyola where I had to go talk to
the administration and say, look,you can't penalize a kid. Russia show
is actually a two day holiday.You can't penalize a kid for going to
temple the second day. You givethem off the first day. You gotta
let them if they if they practicetheir religion, you gotta let them go

(36:43):
practice and go to temple. Andthose were fights that I had to have,
and thank god the administration loyal atthe time, understood that. So
it's it's really important, I thinkagain, that we stand up, that
we stand up and make and takea stand. Sometimes people say that that
that takes whatever willingness to fight orwhatever else, and my answers, it

(37:10):
would be harder to not stand upfor what is right than to stand up
and do what is right, becauseat the end of the day, I
still go back to the Listmas test. My dad'd be proud. Am I
setting a model for my children?Aren't you getting tired constantly? But you
know, I have a friend's pastorand I said to him, you know,

(37:30):
sometimes I'm just tired. He goes, Moses didn't get to retire,
neither do we. And with that, I appreciate your time. Hate Modern
Anti Semitism is a production of theKFI News department for iHeartMedia Los Angeles and
the iHeart podcast network. The programis produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez.

(37:52):
To learn more about anti semitism andhow you can join the conversation.
Go to translate hate dot org.That's translate hate dot org.