May 21, 2023 • 43 mins
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the associate dean and director of Global Social Action Agenda for the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, California. He is also called upon to advise heads of state on hate crimes and Antisemitism. Cooper also heads up the team that produces the annual hate crime report card on media companies and individuals. Cooper gives us an unfiltered view of Antisemitism and its worldwide reach.
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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
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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 blouted
out the Swastika after the dust settled. It was estimated that more than six
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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
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iHeartRadio original podcast Hate Modern Anti SemitismI'm investigative journalist Steve Gregory in Los Angeles.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the Associate Deanand Director of Global Social Action Agenda
for the Simon Weisenthal Center in LosAngeles, California. Cooper also heads of
the team that produces the annual hateCrime Report card on media companies and individuals.
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I asked him about the history ofthe Weisenthal Center. So back in
nineteen seventy seven, my boss,a mentor and friend, Rabbi Marvin Hires,
the founder and CEO of the SimonWeisenthal Center Museum of Tolerance. We
had just come down from Vancouver,Canada to start two up starts in the
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Jewish community, a Jewish post highschool school for people with limited background.
We could call it a yeshiva,being serious study and um. Rabbi Hire
felt that one of the unsung heroesof Jewish history until that point was the
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lone Nazi hunter named Simon Wisenttal inVienna. So he went over to Vienna
in August of nineteen seventy seven,had met mister Weisenthal just once before,
sat down with him together with oursupporter of the late Roland darnal and came
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right to the point and says,you know, King Solomon says, a
good name is more precious than oil. I'm here to take your good name.
And even what mister Weisenthale responded was, well, what are you going
to do with this Simon Weisenthal CenterIf it's a place where people only come
to say cottage the Memorial prayer twice? So here, I'll write you a
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letter of recommendation if you want myname. I'm an activist, so I
know you're going to help me onNazi war crimes, and I know you're
going to be active also an antiSemitism, but I'm an activist on broader
issues including genocide, etc. Havinghimself lost eighty nine members of his family
during the Nazi Holocaust, and sohere was a living legend who basically bestowed
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his name and I think in hisway also gave us some moral gps.
From from day one and from ourapproach has always been a non traditional teaching
institution, meaning Museum zem intolerance documentaryfilms. O Hire has two oscars in
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his office. I think we've beenworking out in our seventeenth or eighteenth documentary
for our Maray of Films, divisiontraveling exhibitions for the decades that we had
access to them, Holocaust survivors speakingto young people, and when we opened
the Museum Intolerance, believe it ornot, February will be thirty years we
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were also indicating that we were makinga broader commitment. Of course anti Semitism
and the protection of our own familiesand communities first and foremost, but it's
much bigger than that, So wetrained police. The doors here are wide
open. We've got people from allover the world. State Department brings this
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delegations from different countries, and I'vehad the amazing opportunity to also travel around
the world in search of moderates orcall them normals her faith or creed or
color they are. That's been alsoan amazing journey and an important part of
our journey of trying to understand wherethe current spike in anti Semitism, where
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it's coming from, coming up withsome strategies to fight it, and how
do we reach new generations who areborn in this century with many young people
not knowing where Asia is, letalone China. You know, if you
ask them to point out New Jersey, it's hit and miss So how do
you reach also younger generations, forwhom the Second World War and the wars
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that came throughout the second half ofthe twentieth century, it's in the rear
view mirror of a civilization of society. How do we bring some of the
horrific but important lessons from the Holocaustdirectly to their attention? How do we
had them to understand that when someoneflashes the swastika or praises Hitler, that's
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a terrible thing. Twenty years agothat wasn't so much of a challenge,
if you will, But today acrossthe board it is. It's generational and
you have also, i would say, the wholesale takeover of society communications culture,
by social media, which has itsown set of rules, and all
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of these pieces conspire together to createnew challenges about how to deal with histories,
all this tape, and that's whatwe try to do in real time
here. So would you consider whatyou're doing in the people that work with
you. Are you the modern Nazihunters? Well, we do have our
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doctor Afraim Zerov who's in based inJerusalem, and we made a commitment to
Simon Wisenthal that we would keep thatpart of our job open and running until
the last possible person could be prosecuted. And here we are, amazingly where
you have some of the Nazis inpretty good shape, approaching a hundred or
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even the other side of that.But that is a chapter that is finally
coming to an end. And soI'll put it this way. It's very
interesting. I find myself quoting misterWeisenthal more as I get older. I
remember I was with him in nineteeneighty on a tour of universities in the
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Midwest. A great question from acollege student said, mister Weisenthal, were
you surprised by how many Nazis therewere? And he said no, but
I was very disappointed and surprised tosee how few anti Nazis there were.
And I think that's the challenge infront of all of us, which is,
yes, let's identify who's doing theevil stuff. Let's identify from which
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wells they're drawing their poison, fruitand water. And then the other part
is how do we create awareness,sensitivity, and a sense of community against
the evildoers. Because as I starteda project here thirty years ago called Digital
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Hate, you know, it seemsas though Rabbi in the in the last
gosh, in the last year,and I if not more, social media
has become the sort of primary conduitto spread hate. Would you agree with
that? I think it's clear thatsocial media in twenty twenty three is the
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front lines of every marketing campaign ofcommunications, of culture and when we talk,
and the most powerful marketing tool everconceived of. That's the good news.
The bad news is that biggetts,racist, anti Semites, people who
hate as LGBTQ. They're all theremarketing their message, their ideas and their
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product, and of course that's quitedevastating. But I think you mentioned,
like within the last year in someways, what really changed things in a
really fundamental and dramatic way was COVID, because what happened was that social media
became our single life action to theworld, to family, across the nations,
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around the world, sometimes even acrosstown when you couldn't travel. So
we saw pretty early in terms oflet's say, the COVID crisis, how
quickly, for example, the antiAsian rhetoric spread and it led directly to
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violent and sometimes deadly attacks. Allof that stuff was up on the conspiracy
sides you pushed by bigots, andif you go back and take a look
now, you'll see that he mixeda match with Jews all the time.
It's essentially the same sort of psychosislooking for a quick answer the complicated issues
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for people who have who just don'ttrust government anymore, and looking for alternative
definitions and matching how they quote unquotefeel rather than the facts on the ground.
Will we take a look looking backin terms of COVID, it became
an accelerant for these developments. Now. I want to also be clear that
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I would say we go back nowabout four and a half years ago,
where we sat with the three topNYPD cops, two of whom were in
charge of hate crimes back then beforeCOVID, and these gentlemen, I would
say, we're back then. Certainlyin their sixties, they were not,
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you know, I would say,computer walks. Sure. But when we
ask them, like, what's changedin New York to for you know,
the spike in the violent hate crimesagainst Jewish people and especially religious Jews on
the streets of the city I grewup with, and to a person,
they all said social media. Andthat was before the COVID outbreak. So
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I think a lot of that isintensified, a lot of the you know,
the numbers, the influencers. Itis sort of kind of difficult for
all of us to break out.And remember there's a nice world outside.
If you need, you can takeyour mask along, but you know,
get outside, shut off the damagingeyou know, put your cell phone on
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mute, etc. Right now alot of people have not made that move
yet, and they really are tiedin a profound way to social media and
that's something that the streamists are takingfull advantage of well. And prior to
that, it was the Internet.I mean, the Internet was that cesspool,
if you will, at that collectionpoint of these extremism views. What
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I learned as I'm getting older isthat being right is not everything that's cranked
up to be. We have beenat this for three decades. Our first
meeting with Facebook with their top managementwas when they had one building. Now
I think they owe nine or tenZIP codes up there, and you know,
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everything we urged the companies to do, like maybe coming up with the
collective definitions on these issues, beingtransparent, putting some AI on it,
and focusing on degrading the marketing capabilitiesof bigots, racist and anti semits.
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You're never going to eliminate. Hey, that's that's part of life. But
all of the answers that we receivedwas you know, a round bye,
we really can do that, orthat's technically not possible, or we just
don't think it's you know, we'lltake off some of the websites that you've
given us, etc. And we'llput up the rules and we'll try to
live up to it. But everythingthey said they couldn't do when it came
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to politics, they did almost overnight. So I think in some ways the
people we dealt with understood the problemearly, and I think more often than
not they were overruled from the topbecause it was also way to monetize the
hate. And now our job,I think collectively becomes even more difficult because
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through their own choice, they've nowentered the political arena, censorship issues,
everything that we were worked very hardto avoid by saying, you know,
make your own rules, don't goto the government. You know you're you're
fully capable of doing it, ofmaking a collective effort to just to make
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the internet and social media not avery inviting place for them to be,
and they and they didn't do it. What is so? Then how do
you define this the difference between hatespeech and you know, hate crimes.
A lot of people push back andtalk about the First Amendment, and a
lot of people have never read theFirst Amendment. They really don't understand that
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the nuances, or they understand thespirit of it, if you will.
But how does your your teachings andhow does your center deal with First Amendment
hate speech, people's right to spoutwhatever they want to spout, or you
know, and then where does thehate speech stop and the hate crime begin?
Right? These are obviously critical questionswe've been grappling with since day one,
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but I think a couple of pointsare worthwhile. Remembering Number one,
in terms of the biggest boys inthe block, these are private These are
private companies, and they can settheir own rules. And in fact,
you and I have done this religiouslyfor decades. You know, where it
says that button, I agree whenyou when's the last time you ever read
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the contract underneath that I never do. We have people here are who are
researchers who do so. In fact, when we push those buttons saying we
agree with the terms of usage,all you really have to do is put
in the terms of usage saying thekinds of behavior that lead to racism or
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attacks or pedophilia or whatever. Thatit's in many cases already there, but
it's also essentially visible. It's thereto protect the companies in case there's a
problem. So number one, theycan set their own rules, and number
two, if they want guidance aboutwhere to draw the line. We may
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not always agree on where that lineis, but if they would draw the
line, stick to it, andit would be a tremendous help in degrading.
And I'll use this term again themarketing capabilities of social media, meaning
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there might be places on the Internetthat are debating societies and where you have
real time back and forth. I'mnot sure you know, people maybe use
even phony identities, But okay,if you want to have a mosh pit
for free speech online, I thinkthere's a strong argument to consider it.
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But that's not really where the actionis at, or where the problem is
at. You were talking about howyou were negotiating with the social media platforms
their corporate headquarters and trying to figureout how to make it right, make
it just, and make it sortof a hate free zone, and I
we had to interrupt your thought there, so I apologize if you can finish
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what you were talking about with respectto social media in the spread of hat
right. So to sort of boilit down to the following is that we
don't see the issue here as aquestion of freedom of speech versus censorship.
We are not the censors of thought. And by the way, there aren't
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any ideas that will ultimately be blockedon in the world of social media in
the Internet, the struggle is totry to push those biggots, racist anti
semids off the mainstream of the megacompanies, where if something goes viral you
can go into the millions very veryquickly. And the point being is that
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by and large, when we talkabout social media, it's not a debating
society. It's the marketing. Andin the case of biggots and racists and
people who are part of the terrorismfood and looking to incite individuals for sell
to become the lone wolf, thosekinds of behaviors have no place in places
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like Twitter and Facebook and YouTube andall the rest, and you know they
know it. I'll give you alsoone specific example of I received a phone
call. You remember the horrific murdersof I think fifty one Muslims in New
Zealand on a Friday, two mosques. The person who did it was wearing
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a camera and broadcast the murders live. I received a phone call from Facebook
on Monday morning saying, Rabbi,we just want to reassure you that we
have removed over one point five millionshares of that video. That's just Facebook.
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They weren't a primary one point fivemillion. So I said to the
gentleman, I know quite well,Oh, I thought you were calling me
for a different reason. We've beenurging Facebook and all the other social media
companies to stop streaming live and justadopt the rules of every TV station and
radio station pretty much in the world. We've had live murders of police from
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France on Facebook, and you know, this is something that they simply,
unless they're forced to do it,won't do because it may cost them a
few dollars and secondly, it interfereswith their business model. So when we
will make it clear, I'm notworried about speech. We have to be
able to defeat hateful ideas in themarketplace of ideas. Social media is way
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way beyond there. You're talking abouta subculture of hate, of promoting terrorism
and sometimes command and control. Andnow we see the bleeding over, for
example, to gaming. So wesee terror and racist and anti semites in
going into that domain which is usuallyjust for kids, but millions of them,
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and figuring out a way how tomanipulate those systems in order to directly
market their message to young people.Well, if that's the case, v
I, if you have that challengebefore you, where these privately owned companies
are looking at profit over you knowwhat we're doing the right thing. Do
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you ever see this getting any betterfor you? Because social media is going
to it's already dominating the communications sector. As you mentioned before, it connects
a lot of kids, and sodo you see this thing getting better?
Right? So, when you thinkabout the numbers, you say, how
is it possible to control this runawaytrain? It's not a runaway train.
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It's a brilliant way of people voluntarilygiving up all their private information so that
companies can say, how come inand stop at Starbucks or buy the pair
of shoes, etc. This isnot just the twenty first century of the
bell telephone wires, a hundred yearsago. So the fact is they have
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the capabilities of interdicting when you crossover into these horrific types of behavior for
a variety of reasons, depending onwho you're talking about. So Telegram and
other social media folks that operates fromRussia, for example. Who knows if
we'll ever be able to, youknow, to stop what's going on there.
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But if nothing else, if wecan just push all of the all
of the terrorism and the anti LGBDQand the anti Semitism and Holocaust denial,
if we can push them to someof those services that are out of our
reach, maybe other ways to pressureit, but at least in so far
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as our own society, American basedcompanies, the collective genius of the people
in northern California have changed the worldwhen they're ready to give their full attention
to a problem. Look what theydid. Politically. You can be on
the left or the right, likeTrump or hate him. That's not the
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point. The point is they haveshown the power and are not afraid to
have not been afraid at all becausethey also have protection under the current laws
that they basically get treated like they'rethe phone company that they can't be held
culpable if any of these kinds ofbehaviors in other societies like Canada, those
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protections are not there, and asa result, it's the internet companies themselves
that are in the forefront of gettingrid of the bad stuff because they don't
want to be held culpable. Godforbid if there's a mass shooting or a
hate crime. You know, Iwas recently I spoken in Vienna, Austria,
and I brought some information to theMinistry of Interior there. Do you
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know that on TikTok there was agroup, a subgroup that actually was promoting
and celebrating school shootings. Incredible,and one of the people promoting it was
in Vienna. So we handed overthat information to the local police. But
when we just think about it,you know, we just had Sandy Hook
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anniversary and all the rest, andwhat's going on in our country with with
mass shooting. There's a subculture outthere, and I'm not talking about the
dark net, right, I'm talkingabout the mainstream of what our kids and
grandchildren are absorbing and whatever the companiesare currently saying. Frankly, they can't
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be you know, cannot be believed, and we don't believe them. We
have to them accountable, and Ithink we need also a bipartisan push from
Congress to get back control of theseissues. Right now, the companies have
no legal exposure, and as longas they're covered, you're going to have
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plenty of people saying, we're monetizing, We've got a great business model,
we're making millions and billions, andwe'll throw a bone here and there.
The one area where they do haveproblems and they occasionally change their behavior,
I believe it or not, it'snot the model that I like is the
European Union because they have their ownrules and the way to draw the line
in a different way. It's all, you know, government or EU intervention.
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It costs them billions, and theypay it and they'll modify their behavior
because it's still worth it to them. I think that most Americans Democratic Republican
really would prefer if government can stayout of this and if there would be
some fundament changes that would be madeby the collective, just as they decided
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to weigh in in politics. Ihope they'll get out and use all of
that creativity to weigh in this area. And again, I'm not going to
dictate where they draw the line.I'll try to educate those companies and when
we feel across the line, aswe did with thousands of websites over the
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first two and a half decades,there's so much more that can be done
technologically for electronic trip wires to identifyand marginalize the extremists, which the companies
are not yet doing. Sir,I wanted to talk to you a little
bit about digital terrorism and hate.This is a report card, an annual
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report you put out. Can yougive us some insight as to what the
next report card's going to look like? Well, we actually do tooth things.
We take about seven hundred and fiftyto one thousand examples of what transpired
in the previous year. It's kindof a snapshot of the low lights,
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if you will. And also,I want to say predictive, but also
identifying some of the players who behindwhether it's a lurid conspiracy that goes after
minorities or whatever it might be.So we have that, and then we
have the big companies we grade onhow they deal with these issues. And
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in addition to that, there arevery often new platforms that frankly I never
heard of, but our researchers havethat, for example, TikTok came early.
Whatever it might be, they're alsogoing to be in the mix.
And what we found, quite remarkablyis that a lot of the companies were
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very sensitive about the grades they got. I remember one time I was at
in the early years of Twitter attheir headquarters in San Francisco, with about
fifteen of their top executives. Afew of them were lawyers, and one
of them came over and said,you know, RAPPI, I noticed that
last year you gave us an Fon the report card, and do you
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think it might grade might change?And I said, well, you know,
to be perfectly honest, if therewas a grade lower than F,
that's what I would give to Twitter. Because in those years, Twitter was
the weapon of a choice of terrorists. And it wasn't until you had congressional
hearings at the height of ISIS power, where someone you know says, well,
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in the month of October, onaveraged a two hundred thousand tweets sent
out by ISIS on a daily basis. And it wasn't until Dorsey's life was
threatened by the terrorists that they suddenlymight say found religion and things, you
know, changed a little bit,and here we are in twenty twenty three,
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still grappling with a Twitter. We'vebeen in touch with the Lon Musque
as we still think that jury's out. We need a change of culture that's
going to include a systemic, seriouslook and dealing with the most maybe the
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most difficult thing, drawing the lineon hate and actually holding people and institutions
accountable for it. So we've putin We've approached must directly, probably now
about two months ago on behalf ofa hundred and eighty Jewish organizations around the
world, and so far the resultsare mixed. We're still looking for the
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systemic approach. But I also cautionedthe listeners because everybody in America seems to
have chosen upsides. You're either leftor right, you're progressive or conservative.
We don't look at it that way. We're trying to play it right down
the middle. And you know,I've never understood how Twitter could allow a
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murderous thug like the Ayatollah Kamani who'scrushing the human dignity, human rights of
his own people in Iran, andso many hundreds of individuals murdered, tens
of thousands in jail, the womenwho've tried to change the reality there.
He's still up on Twitter as wespeak. And for all of those years
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that we urged, bag cajole,threatened whatever it might be, they just
never made a move. And soyou have this situation where in the old
regime they took down the president ofthe United States and they left Kamani up.
So maybe, you know, maybeTrump deserved what he got. But
we know one thing. The mostpowerful marketing platform is there for a government
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that is officially a Holocaust denier,that is talking, you know, wants
the genocide the Jewish state and threatensexistential threat to every one of the of
the countries in the Gulf. Sothere's never been a consistency. And now
we have a situation again, Ithink primarily because of COVID, in which
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everyone is now in the social mediabasket. That's where all the action is
at, and the companies are happyabout the traffic. We need them to
also be good citizens. Let's gofrom the virtual world in REVI to the
down back I guess, out ofthe ether net and back down into the
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conference rooms are in this case thecollege campuses at an alarming rate. I'm
seeing more and more reports now aboutanti semitism on college campuses, and there's
a case in the University of SouthernCalifornia with Rose Rich. Can you talk
about why that's become a problem,because honestly, when I went to college,
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I don't know that it ever existed. If it did, I was
absolutely unaware of it. But whynow and what is causing this spike in
anti semitism in college campus. Sothe Rose Rich case that you mentioned was
actually the purging of a duly electedcollege student from being president of I think
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the student body at USC who waspurged from that position because a she was
Jewish and b she had the audacityto say that she loved Israel. So
what you have here is a convergenceof a couple of things. Number One,
you have individuals and groups highly organizedon many of the campuses who demonize
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the State of Israel, meaning nostate is perfect, every government is and
should be up for scrutiny and criticism. But what we're dealing with now are
organized global campaigns to say that theState of Israel, which is a member
of the United Nations, doesn't havea right to exist. And another sort
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of quick comment. That's especially truein Europe. Hundreds of millions of Europeans
believe that what the Nazis did tothe Jews in the nineteen thirties, the
Israelis are doing to the Palestinians.Now. That is a grotesque and lurid
life, but it's been absorbed andit's promoted now. If few were brought
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up at to believe that Israelis orNazis, what do you do with Nazis?
You fight them, you hurt them, you ostracize them, and that
is the you have campaigns, theboycott Israel, the BDS campaign, and
then every time there is a militaryconflict between either Hezbollah from Lebanon or Hamas
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from the Gaza strip, when youhave those battles that are breaking out between
terrorists and a sovereign country trying toprotect its citizens, we've seen the export
of terrorist language of Hamas that oncethe genocide the Jewish people being spouted on
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university campuses. That is something thatdidn't exist when we went to college.
Criticism of Israel, absolutely for sure. And then the other part that's also
equally troubling is most American universities talkabout wanting to have an inclusive climate where
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everybody should feel comfortable, intimidation,free, be able to express themselves.
It's a great goal and in manycases it's upheld by universities, by the
deans and by the red but notwhen it comes to Jews. And that
when it comes to Israel. Sothe very rules that are put into place
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to try to protect everyone and everykind of minority and idea has the line
has been drawn when it comes tothe Jewish community. And you just had
I saw now Colgate is a fairlyfamous elite college back in I think in
New York State, and I heardfrom Kabbad that's the youth or well on
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many of the campuses across around theworld. Actually, so the Manoah has
already been desecrated. Kanaka hasn't wasn'teven started us a few days before the
our festival of lights. Uh,those kinds of you know, someone who's
in the dorm the Missuzsa on theirdoor, which is you know a quote
from the Bible that when you gotto a Jewish person so home, look
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up on the right side. You'llyou'll see it hanging there, you know,
ripped off, missing, desecrated.These are you know, behaviors that
are they're meant I think, tointimidate and we forget that. You know,
last year, the kid was asenior in high school. Now they're
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university student, isn't It's meant tointimidate, and it does. And our
university elite have failed the their theirJewish students, in some cases the Jewish
faculty. And there is a kindof sense like, you know, almost
like a purge there there's is youknow, part of it. And also
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be the you know, when youhave someone like Linda Sarso who was a
leader in the progressive movement, whowas part of the Washington March protest Women's
March protesting President Trump is an inaugurationbasically saying well, if you're a Jew
and you want to be a progressive, you better park your Zionist identity on
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the outside. Who you can't comein. So you have gatekeepers themselves are
racist and setting rules that just simplynot the American way. And on top
of all of it, look howit also spills over into the general climate
on campuses. I mean, whendo you actually formulate where you're going as
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an adult? And you should haveliberals and conservatives and everyone else in between.
And I'm old enough I remember hippiesand Vietnam and for me Soviet Jewry.
Those were pretty wild times. Therewas even a semester where they suspended
every university in the country because youngpeople were out in the streets. So
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I'd rather deal with the dynamic,a free flow of ideas on the on
campus than this new, rigid orthodoxythat reminds me of the bed old days
in the Soviet Union, not theUnited States of America. This final question
I have for you, sir,is it might seem very pedestrian, but
I really felt that's an important question. I've been asking other people of Jewish
(37:36):
faith the same question. But whyare why are Jewish people a target?
Well, I think for the mostpart of the last two thousand years,
we were the other. We werealways the minority in places like Europe and
in across North Africa. We didn'tpray the same way as as the main
(38:00):
society's prayed, and back then thereno such things as human rights. We
were just an easy mark say that. You know from Christian theology back in
the Middle Ages was that Jewish peopledeserved to suffer and to be treated.
In second and third class and maybebeing ghettos because they didn't accept Jesus as
(38:22):
their savior. So not to killthem, but not to admit them either
in terms of of the of themainstream. And you know, coming into
the modern period of nationalism, wellthe Germans, the Nazis of course,
took it to the ultimate, sayingthe Jews didn't deserve to live, they
(38:43):
were outside parasites. Never mind thatyou know, many German Jews served with
distinction in World War One in theGerman military, not just in Britain or
France or the US. And soyou know, for the communists, we're
capitalists. For the capital lists,we're communists. It's uh. You know,
(39:04):
ask people who are ethnic Chinese inUH. In certain countries in South
South Asia where they're not the majoritybut a minority, sometimes you pay their
price because of the perceived perception thatyou're doing too well in life. And
it's but we live in a democracy. We're supposed to have a level playing
(39:25):
field and that should not bring abouthatred. But again I think it should
be curiosity we live in now withbetween the Internet, social media and the
fact we live in a democracy,if you have an interest to find out,
like what did Jews do in synagogue? Oh, there are a lot
of synagogues in the area. Um, you know, there are plenty of
(39:47):
books to read up there are SouthernCalifornia is no shortage of rabbis of all
stripes and orientations. So I thinkthe most important thing also that I learned
in and my global travels is thistremendous curiosity. I've learned to also deal
with my own stereotypes when I gooverseas, and it's sometimes a difficult wall
(40:13):
to bring down, but worthwhile theeffort. So education, at the end
of the day is what mister Weisenthalsaid would be the key. And the
other part that he also I thinkI saw by example and I always remember
it is we need to build newalliances and friendships. When you talk about
friendships and alliances, that means thatnot only do we need help when we
(40:35):
have a problem, when our housesof worship are under potential attack, but
we have to be there for theother communities as well in wherever we live.
It's got to be a two waystreet. You can't wait for crises
in order to start looking around forhelp. And because we're blessed o being
in democracy, we should be doing. The Jewish community can be doing an
(40:59):
individual rules a lot more and thenmaybe one last thing going you know,
point going forward and whether or not, whether it's the White House or now
that we have a new mayor,Karen Bass here in Los Angeles after a
very contentious election time. If we'regoing to fight hate, let's say,
(41:20):
from the White House and then makingannouncements, you have to do it in
a bipartisan way. We can't allowto fight against hate, whether it's anti
Semitism or the attacks on on Asianset cetera. Gays. We you know,
I think both sides are often guiltyabout treating this as a wedge issue.
We're not going to make any progressuntil we can have definitions that we're
(41:46):
we you know, we can acceptand we work together to marginalize the people
who want to destroy our society andour targeting minorities. And in the case
in our case, first and foremost, we are in Pico Boulevard and you've
got two hundred Jewish institutions and goodrestaurants in about two and a half three
(42:08):
miles, and the amount of effortthat's needed when you come to a Jewish
house of worships, you have togo through airport security. Is that the
way life should be on a Saturdaymorning or on a Friday evening. You
know, it's a it's a real, it's a it's a shame. It's
the price right now that we haveto pay to keep our community safe.
(42:31):
And but in the bigger in thebiggest struggle here, I think, as
I go back to mister what misterWistanthal said, we're always going to have
the Nazis. What we have tois make sure that we can find a
way to inspire people to become antiNazis. When we have that equation in
our side, the biggest, theracists and the jew haters will go back
(42:54):
into the gutter. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, I appreciate your time and your inside
very much, by pleasure. HateModern Anti Semitism is a production of the
KFI News department for iHeartMedia Los Angelesand the iHeart podcast Network. The program
(43:15):
is produced by Steve Gregory and JacobGonzalez. To learn more about anti Semitism
and how you can join the conversation, go to translate hate dot org.
That's translate hate dot org.
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 blouted
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.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the Associate Deanand Director of Global Social Action Agenda
for the Simon Weisenthal Center in LosAngeles, California. Cooper also heads of
the team that produces the annual hateCrime Report card on media companies and individuals.
(01:47):
I asked him about the history ofthe Weisenthal Center. So back in
nineteen seventy seven, my boss,a mentor and friend, Rabbi Marvin Hires,
the founder and CEO of the SimonWeisenthal Center Museum of Tolerance. We
had just come down from Vancouver,Canada to start two up starts in the
(02:07):
Jewish community, a Jewish post highschool school for people with limited background.
We could call it a yeshiva,being serious study and um. Rabbi Hire
felt that one of the unsung heroesof Jewish history until that point was the
(02:32):
lone Nazi hunter named Simon Wisenttal inVienna. So he went over to Vienna
in August of nineteen seventy seven,had met mister Weisenthal just once before,
sat down with him together with oursupporter of the late Roland darnal and came
(02:52):
right to the point and says,you know, King Solomon says, a
good name is more precious than oil. I'm here to take your good name.
And even what mister Weisenthale responded was, well, what are you going
to do with this Simon Weisenthal CenterIf it's a place where people only come
to say cottage the Memorial prayer twice? So here, I'll write you a
(03:13):
letter of recommendation if you want myname. I'm an activist, so I
know you're going to help me onNazi war crimes, and I know you're
going to be active also an antiSemitism, but I'm an activist on broader
issues including genocide, etc. Havinghimself lost eighty nine members of his family
during the Nazi Holocaust, and sohere was a living legend who basically bestowed
(03:39):
his name and I think in hisway also gave us some moral gps.
From from day one and from ourapproach has always been a non traditional teaching
institution, meaning Museum zem intolerance documentaryfilms. O Hire has two oscars in
(04:00):
his office. I think we've beenworking out in our seventeenth or eighteenth documentary
for our Maray of Films, divisiontraveling exhibitions for the decades that we had
access to them, Holocaust survivors speakingto young people, and when we opened
the Museum Intolerance, believe it ornot, February will be thirty years we
(04:26):
were also indicating that we were makinga broader commitment. Of course anti Semitism
and the protection of our own familiesand communities first and foremost, but it's
much bigger than that, So wetrained police. The doors here are wide
open. We've got people from allover the world. State Department brings this
(04:47):
delegations from different countries, and I'vehad the amazing opportunity to also travel around
the world in search of moderates orcall them normals her faith or creed or
color they are. That's been alsoan amazing journey and an important part of
our journey of trying to understand wherethe current spike in anti Semitism, where
(05:15):
it's coming from, coming up withsome strategies to fight it, and how
do we reach new generations who areborn in this century with many young people
not knowing where Asia is, letalone China. You know, if you
ask them to point out New Jersey, it's hit and miss So how do
you reach also younger generations, forwhom the Second World War and the wars
(05:40):
that came throughout the second half ofthe twentieth century, it's in the rear
view mirror of a civilization of society. How do we bring some of the
horrific but important lessons from the Holocaustdirectly to their attention? How do we
had them to understand that when someoneflashes the swastika or praises Hitler, that's
(06:03):
a terrible thing. Twenty years agothat wasn't so much of a challenge,
if you will, But today acrossthe board it is. It's generational and
you have also, i would say, the wholesale takeover of society communications culture,
by social media, which has itsown set of rules, and all
(06:26):
of these pieces conspire together to createnew challenges about how to deal with histories,
all this tape, and that's whatwe try to do in real time
here. So would you consider whatyou're doing in the people that work with
you. Are you the modern Nazihunters? Well, we do have our
(06:48):
doctor Afraim Zerov who's in based inJerusalem, and we made a commitment to
Simon Wisenthal that we would keep thatpart of our job open and running until
the last possible person could be prosecuted. And here we are, amazingly where
you have some of the Nazis inpretty good shape, approaching a hundred or
(07:09):
even the other side of that.But that is a chapter that is finally
coming to an end. And soI'll put it this way. It's very
interesting. I find myself quoting misterWeisenthal more as I get older. I
remember I was with him in nineteeneighty on a tour of universities in the
(07:29):
Midwest. A great question from acollege student said, mister Weisenthal, were
you surprised by how many Nazis therewere? And he said no, but
I was very disappointed and surprised tosee how few anti Nazis there were.
And I think that's the challenge infront of all of us, which is,
yes, let's identify who's doing theevil stuff. Let's identify from which
(07:55):
wells they're drawing their poison, fruitand water. And then the other part
is how do we create awareness,sensitivity, and a sense of community against
the evildoers. Because as I starteda project here thirty years ago called Digital
(08:16):
Hate, you know, it seemsas though Rabbi in the in the last
gosh, in the last year,and I if not more, social media
has become the sort of primary conduitto spread hate. Would you agree with
that? I think it's clear thatsocial media in twenty twenty three is the
(08:39):
front lines of every marketing campaign ofcommunications, of culture and when we talk,
and the most powerful marketing tool everconceived of. That's the good news.
The bad news is that biggetts,racist, anti Semites, people who
hate as LGBTQ. They're all theremarketing their message, their ideas and their
(09:05):
product, and of course that's quitedevastating. But I think you mentioned,
like within the last year in someways, what really changed things in a
really fundamental and dramatic way was COVID, because what happened was that social media
became our single life action to theworld, to family, across the nations,
(09:30):
around the world, sometimes even acrosstown when you couldn't travel. So
we saw pretty early in terms oflet's say, the COVID crisis, how
quickly, for example, the antiAsian rhetoric spread and it led directly to
(09:52):
violent and sometimes deadly attacks. Allof that stuff was up on the conspiracy
sides you pushed by bigots, andif you go back and take a look
now, you'll see that he mixeda match with Jews all the time.
It's essentially the same sort of psychosislooking for a quick answer the complicated issues
(10:13):
for people who have who just don'ttrust government anymore, and looking for alternative
definitions and matching how they quote unquotefeel rather than the facts on the ground.
Will we take a look looking backin terms of COVID, it became
an accelerant for these developments. Now. I want to also be clear that
(10:37):
I would say we go back nowabout four and a half years ago,
where we sat with the three topNYPD cops, two of whom were in
charge of hate crimes back then beforeCOVID, and these gentlemen, I would
say, we're back then. Certainlyin their sixties, they were not,
(10:58):
you know, I would say,computer walks. Sure. But when we
ask them, like, what's changedin New York to for you know,
the spike in the violent hate crimesagainst Jewish people and especially religious Jews on
the streets of the city I grewup with, and to a person,
they all said social media. Andthat was before the COVID outbreak. So
(11:24):
I think a lot of that isintensified, a lot of the you know,
the numbers, the influencers. Itis sort of kind of difficult for
all of us to break out.And remember there's a nice world outside.
If you need, you can takeyour mask along, but you know,
get outside, shut off the damagingeyou know, put your cell phone on
(11:48):
mute, etc. Right now alot of people have not made that move
yet, and they really are tiedin a profound way to social media and
that's something that the streamists are takingfull advantage of well. And prior to
that, it was the Internet.I mean, the Internet was that cesspool,
if you will, at that collectionpoint of these extremism views. What
(12:13):
I learned as I'm getting older isthat being right is not everything that's cranked
up to be. We have beenat this for three decades. Our first
meeting with Facebook with their top managementwas when they had one building. Now
I think they owe nine or tenZIP codes up there, and you know,
(12:33):
everything we urged the companies to do, like maybe coming up with the
collective definitions on these issues, beingtransparent, putting some AI on it,
and focusing on degrading the marketing capabilitiesof bigots, racist and anti semits.
(12:54):
You're never going to eliminate. Hey, that's that's part of life. But
all of the answers that we receivedwas you know, a round bye,
we really can do that, orthat's technically not possible, or we just
don't think it's you know, we'lltake off some of the websites that you've
given us, etc. And we'llput up the rules and we'll try to
live up to it. But everythingthey said they couldn't do when it came
(13:18):
to politics, they did almost overnight. So I think in some ways the
people we dealt with understood the problemearly, and I think more often than
not they were overruled from the topbecause it was also way to monetize the
hate. And now our job,I think collectively becomes even more difficult because
(13:43):
through their own choice, they've nowentered the political arena, censorship issues,
everything that we were worked very hardto avoid by saying, you know,
make your own rules, don't goto the government. You know you're you're
fully capable of doing it, ofmaking a collective effort to just to make
(14:05):
the internet and social media not avery inviting place for them to be,
and they and they didn't do it. What is so? Then how do
you define this the difference between hatespeech and you know, hate crimes.
A lot of people push back andtalk about the First Amendment, and a
lot of people have never read theFirst Amendment. They really don't understand that
(14:28):
the nuances, or they understand thespirit of it, if you will.
But how does your your teachings andhow does your center deal with First Amendment
hate speech, people's right to spoutwhatever they want to spout, or you
know, and then where does thehate speech stop and the hate crime begin?
Right? These are obviously critical questionswe've been grappling with since day one,
(14:52):
but I think a couple of pointsare worthwhile. Remembering Number one,
in terms of the biggest boys inthe block, these are private These are
private companies, and they can settheir own rules. And in fact,
you and I have done this religiouslyfor decades. You know, where it
says that button, I agree whenyou when's the last time you ever read
(15:13):
the contract underneath that I never do. We have people here are who are
researchers who do so. In fact, when we push those buttons saying we
agree with the terms of usage,all you really have to do is put
in the terms of usage saying thekinds of behavior that lead to racism or
(15:33):
attacks or pedophilia or whatever. Thatit's in many cases already there, but
it's also essentially visible. It's thereto protect the companies in case there's a
problem. So number one, theycan set their own rules, and number
two, if they want guidance aboutwhere to draw the line. We may
(15:54):
not always agree on where that lineis, but if they would draw the
line, stick to it, andit would be a tremendous help in degrading.
And I'll use this term again themarketing capabilities of social media, meaning
(16:14):
there might be places on the Internetthat are debating societies and where you have
real time back and forth. I'mnot sure you know, people maybe use
even phony identities, But okay,if you want to have a mosh pit
for free speech online, I thinkthere's a strong argument to consider it.
(16:37):
But that's not really where the actionis at, or where the problem is
at. You were talking about howyou were negotiating with the social media platforms
their corporate headquarters and trying to figureout how to make it right, make
it just, and make it sortof a hate free zone, and I
we had to interrupt your thought there, so I apologize if you can finish
(17:00):
what you were talking about with respectto social media in the spread of hat
right. So to sort of boilit down to the following is that we
don't see the issue here as aquestion of freedom of speech versus censorship.
We are not the censors of thought. And by the way, there aren't
(17:22):
any ideas that will ultimately be blockedon in the world of social media in
the Internet, the struggle is totry to push those biggots, racist anti
semids off the mainstream of the megacompanies, where if something goes viral you
can go into the millions very veryquickly. And the point being is that
(17:48):
by and large, when we talkabout social media, it's not a debating
society. It's the marketing. Andin the case of biggots and racists and
people who are part of the terrorismfood and looking to incite individuals for sell
to become the lone wolf, thosekinds of behaviors have no place in places
(18:11):
like Twitter and Facebook and YouTube andall the rest, and you know they
know it. I'll give you alsoone specific example of I received a phone
call. You remember the horrific murdersof I think fifty one Muslims in New
Zealand on a Friday, two mosques. The person who did it was wearing
(18:33):
a camera and broadcast the murders live. I received a phone call from Facebook
on Monday morning saying, Rabbi,we just want to reassure you that we
have removed over one point five millionshares of that video. That's just Facebook.
(18:55):
They weren't a primary one point fivemillion. So I said to the
gentleman, I know quite well,Oh, I thought you were calling me
for a different reason. We've beenurging Facebook and all the other social media
companies to stop streaming live and justadopt the rules of every TV station and
radio station pretty much in the world. We've had live murders of police from
(19:18):
France on Facebook, and you know, this is something that they simply,
unless they're forced to do it,won't do because it may cost them a
few dollars and secondly, it interfereswith their business model. So when we
will make it clear, I'm notworried about speech. We have to be
able to defeat hateful ideas in themarketplace of ideas. Social media is way
(19:45):
way beyond there. You're talking abouta subculture of hate, of promoting terrorism
and sometimes command and control. Andnow we see the bleeding over, for
example, to gaming. So wesee terror and racist and anti semites in
going into that domain which is usuallyjust for kids, but millions of them,
(20:07):
and figuring out a way how tomanipulate those systems in order to directly
market their message to young people.Well, if that's the case, v
I, if you have that challengebefore you, where these privately owned companies
are looking at profit over you knowwhat we're doing the right thing. Do
(20:30):
you ever see this getting any betterfor you? Because social media is going
to it's already dominating the communications sector. As you mentioned before, it connects
a lot of kids, and sodo you see this thing getting better?
Right? So, when you thinkabout the numbers, you say, how
is it possible to control this runawaytrain? It's not a runaway train.
(20:55):
It's a brilliant way of people voluntarilygiving up all their private information so that
companies can say, how come inand stop at Starbucks or buy the pair
of shoes, etc. This isnot just the twenty first century of the
bell telephone wires, a hundred yearsago. So the fact is they have
(21:17):
the capabilities of interdicting when you crossover into these horrific types of behavior for
a variety of reasons, depending onwho you're talking about. So Telegram and
other social media folks that operates fromRussia, for example. Who knows if
we'll ever be able to, youknow, to stop what's going on there.
(21:42):
But if nothing else, if wecan just push all of the all
of the terrorism and the anti LGBDQand the anti Semitism and Holocaust denial,
if we can push them to someof those services that are out of our
reach, maybe other ways to pressureit, but at least in so far
(22:03):
as our own society, American basedcompanies, the collective genius of the people
in northern California have changed the worldwhen they're ready to give their full attention
to a problem. Look what theydid. Politically. You can be on
the left or the right, likeTrump or hate him. That's not the
(22:25):
point. The point is they haveshown the power and are not afraid to
have not been afraid at all becausethey also have protection under the current laws
that they basically get treated like they'rethe phone company that they can't be held
culpable if any of these kinds ofbehaviors in other societies like Canada, those
(22:48):
protections are not there, and asa result, it's the internet companies themselves
that are in the forefront of gettingrid of the bad stuff because they don't
want to be held culpable. Godforbid if there's a mass shooting or a
hate crime. You know, Iwas recently I spoken in Vienna, Austria,
and I brought some information to theMinistry of Interior there. Do you
(23:10):
know that on TikTok there was agroup, a subgroup that actually was promoting
and celebrating school shootings. Incredible,and one of the people promoting it was
in Vienna. So we handed overthat information to the local police. But
when we just think about it,you know, we just had Sandy Hook
(23:34):
anniversary and all the rest, andwhat's going on in our country with with
mass shooting. There's a subculture outthere, and I'm not talking about the
dark net, right, I'm talkingabout the mainstream of what our kids and
grandchildren are absorbing and whatever the companiesare currently saying. Frankly, they can't
(23:56):
be you know, cannot be believed, and we don't believe them. We
have to them accountable, and Ithink we need also a bipartisan push from
Congress to get back control of theseissues. Right now, the companies have
no legal exposure, and as longas they're covered, you're going to have
(24:17):
plenty of people saying, we're monetizing, We've got a great business model,
we're making millions and billions, andwe'll throw a bone here and there.
The one area where they do haveproblems and they occasionally change their behavior,
I believe it or not, it'snot the model that I like is the
European Union because they have their ownrules and the way to draw the line
in a different way. It's all, you know, government or EU intervention.
(24:41):
It costs them billions, and theypay it and they'll modify their behavior
because it's still worth it to them. I think that most Americans Democratic Republican
really would prefer if government can stayout of this and if there would be
some fundament changes that would be madeby the collective, just as they decided
(25:03):
to weigh in in politics. Ihope they'll get out and use all of
that creativity to weigh in this area. And again, I'm not going to
dictate where they draw the line.I'll try to educate those companies and when
we feel across the line, aswe did with thousands of websites over the
(25:23):
first two and a half decades,there's so much more that can be done
technologically for electronic trip wires to identifyand marginalize the extremists, which the companies
are not yet doing. Sir,I wanted to talk to you a little
bit about digital terrorism and hate.This is a report card, an annual
(25:48):
report you put out. Can yougive us some insight as to what the
next report card's going to look like? Well, we actually do tooth things.
We take about seven hundred and fiftyto one thousand examples of what transpired
in the previous year. It's kindof a snapshot of the low lights,
(26:11):
if you will. And also,I want to say predictive, but also
identifying some of the players who behindwhether it's a lurid conspiracy that goes after
minorities or whatever it might be.So we have that, and then we
have the big companies we grade onhow they deal with these issues. And
(26:37):
in addition to that, there arevery often new platforms that frankly I never
heard of, but our researchers havethat, for example, TikTok came early.
Whatever it might be, they're alsogoing to be in the mix.
And what we found, quite remarkablyis that a lot of the companies were
(27:00):
very sensitive about the grades they got. I remember one time I was at
in the early years of Twitter attheir headquarters in San Francisco, with about
fifteen of their top executives. Afew of them were lawyers, and one
of them came over and said,you know, RAPPI, I noticed that
last year you gave us an Fon the report card, and do you
(27:22):
think it might grade might change?And I said, well, you know,
to be perfectly honest, if therewas a grade lower than F,
that's what I would give to Twitter. Because in those years, Twitter was
the weapon of a choice of terrorists. And it wasn't until you had congressional
hearings at the height of ISIS power, where someone you know says, well,
(27:47):
in the month of October, onaveraged a two hundred thousand tweets sent
out by ISIS on a daily basis. And it wasn't until Dorsey's life was
threatened by the terrorists that they suddenlymight say found religion and things, you
know, changed a little bit,and here we are in twenty twenty three,
(28:10):
still grappling with a Twitter. We'vebeen in touch with the Lon Musque
as we still think that jury's out. We need a change of culture that's
going to include a systemic, seriouslook and dealing with the most maybe the
(28:30):
most difficult thing, drawing the lineon hate and actually holding people and institutions
accountable for it. So we've putin We've approached must directly, probably now
about two months ago on behalf ofa hundred and eighty Jewish organizations around the
world, and so far the resultsare mixed. We're still looking for the
(28:56):
systemic approach. But I also cautionedthe listeners because everybody in America seems to
have chosen upsides. You're either leftor right, you're progressive or conservative.
We don't look at it that way. We're trying to play it right down
the middle. And you know,I've never understood how Twitter could allow a
(29:18):
murderous thug like the Ayatollah Kamani who'scrushing the human dignity, human rights of
his own people in Iran, andso many hundreds of individuals murdered, tens
of thousands in jail, the womenwho've tried to change the reality there.
He's still up on Twitter as wespeak. And for all of those years
(29:42):
that we urged, bag cajole,threatened whatever it might be, they just
never made a move. And soyou have this situation where in the old
regime they took down the president ofthe United States and they left Kamani up.
So maybe, you know, maybeTrump deserved what he got. But
we know one thing. The mostpowerful marketing platform is there for a government
(30:11):
that is officially a Holocaust denier,that is talking, you know, wants
the genocide the Jewish state and threatensexistential threat to every one of the of
the countries in the Gulf. Sothere's never been a consistency. And now
we have a situation again, Ithink primarily because of COVID, in which
(30:34):
everyone is now in the social mediabasket. That's where all the action is
at, and the companies are happyabout the traffic. We need them to
also be good citizens. Let's gofrom the virtual world in REVI to the
down back I guess, out ofthe ether net and back down into the
(30:56):
conference rooms are in this case thecollege campuses at an alarming rate. I'm
seeing more and more reports now aboutanti semitism on college campuses, and there's
a case in the University of SouthernCalifornia with Rose Rich. Can you talk
about why that's become a problem,because honestly, when I went to college,
(31:22):
I don't know that it ever existed. If it did, I was
absolutely unaware of it. But whynow and what is causing this spike in
anti semitism in college campus. Sothe Rose Rich case that you mentioned was
actually the purging of a duly electedcollege student from being president of I think
(31:45):
the student body at USC who waspurged from that position because a she was
Jewish and b she had the audacityto say that she loved Israel. So
what you have here is a convergenceof a couple of things. Number One,
you have individuals and groups highly organizedon many of the campuses who demonize
(32:10):
the State of Israel, meaning nostate is perfect, every government is and
should be up for scrutiny and criticism. But what we're dealing with now are
organized global campaigns to say that theState of Israel, which is a member
of the United Nations, doesn't havea right to exist. And another sort
(32:36):
of quick comment. That's especially truein Europe. Hundreds of millions of Europeans
believe that what the Nazis did tothe Jews in the nineteen thirties, the
Israelis are doing to the Palestinians.Now. That is a grotesque and lurid
life, but it's been absorbed andit's promoted now. If few were brought
(33:00):
up at to believe that Israelis orNazis, what do you do with Nazis?
You fight them, you hurt them, you ostracize them, and that
is the you have campaigns, theboycott Israel, the BDS campaign, and
then every time there is a militaryconflict between either Hezbollah from Lebanon or Hamas
(33:28):
from the Gaza strip, when youhave those battles that are breaking out between
terrorists and a sovereign country trying toprotect its citizens, we've seen the export
of terrorist language of Hamas that oncethe genocide the Jewish people being spouted on
(33:52):
university campuses. That is something thatdidn't exist when we went to college.
Criticism of Israel, absolutely for sure. And then the other part that's also
equally troubling is most American universities talkabout wanting to have an inclusive climate where
(34:12):
everybody should feel comfortable, intimidation,free, be able to express themselves.
It's a great goal and in manycases it's upheld by universities, by the
deans and by the red but notwhen it comes to Jews. And that
when it comes to Israel. Sothe very rules that are put into place
(34:34):
to try to protect everyone and everykind of minority and idea has the line
has been drawn when it comes tothe Jewish community. And you just had
I saw now Colgate is a fairlyfamous elite college back in I think in
New York State, and I heardfrom Kabbad that's the youth or well on
(35:00):
many of the campuses across around theworld. Actually, so the Manoah has
already been desecrated. Kanaka hasn't wasn'teven started us a few days before the
our festival of lights. Uh,those kinds of you know, someone who's
in the dorm the Missuzsa on theirdoor, which is you know a quote
from the Bible that when you gotto a Jewish person so home, look
(35:22):
up on the right side. You'llyou'll see it hanging there, you know,
ripped off, missing, desecrated.These are you know, behaviors that
are they're meant I think, tointimidate and we forget that. You know,
last year, the kid was asenior in high school. Now they're
(35:43):
university student, isn't It's meant tointimidate, and it does. And our
university elite have failed the their theirJewish students, in some cases the Jewish
faculty. And there is a kindof sense like, you know, almost
like a purge there there's is youknow, part of it. And also
(36:05):
be the you know, when youhave someone like Linda Sarso who was a
leader in the progressive movement, whowas part of the Washington March protest Women's
March protesting President Trump is an inaugurationbasically saying well, if you're a Jew
and you want to be a progressive, you better park your Zionist identity on
(36:30):
the outside. Who you can't comein. So you have gatekeepers themselves are
racist and setting rules that just simplynot the American way. And on top
of all of it, look howit also spills over into the general climate
on campuses. I mean, whendo you actually formulate where you're going as
(36:50):
an adult? And you should haveliberals and conservatives and everyone else in between.
And I'm old enough I remember hippiesand Vietnam and for me Soviet Jewry.
Those were pretty wild times. Therewas even a semester where they suspended
every university in the country because youngpeople were out in the streets. So
(37:14):
I'd rather deal with the dynamic,a free flow of ideas on the on
campus than this new, rigid orthodoxythat reminds me of the bed old days
in the Soviet Union, not theUnited States of America. This final question
I have for you, sir,is it might seem very pedestrian, but
I really felt that's an important question. I've been asking other people of Jewish
(37:36):
faith the same question. But whyare why are Jewish people a target?
Well, I think for the mostpart of the last two thousand years,
we were the other. We werealways the minority in places like Europe and
in across North Africa. We didn'tpray the same way as as the main
(38:00):
society's prayed, and back then thereno such things as human rights. We
were just an easy mark say that. You know from Christian theology back in
the Middle Ages was that Jewish peopledeserved to suffer and to be treated.
In second and third class and maybebeing ghettos because they didn't accept Jesus as
(38:22):
their savior. So not to killthem, but not to admit them either
in terms of of the of themainstream. And you know, coming into
the modern period of nationalism, wellthe Germans, the Nazis of course,
took it to the ultimate, sayingthe Jews didn't deserve to live, they
(38:43):
were outside parasites. Never mind thatyou know, many German Jews served with
distinction in World War One in theGerman military, not just in Britain or
France or the US. And soyou know, for the communists, we're
capitalists. For the capital lists,we're communists. It's uh. You know,
(39:04):
ask people who are ethnic Chinese inUH. In certain countries in South
South Asia where they're not the majoritybut a minority, sometimes you pay their
price because of the perceived perception thatyou're doing too well in life. And
it's but we live in a democracy. We're supposed to have a level playing
(39:25):
field and that should not bring abouthatred. But again I think it should
be curiosity we live in now withbetween the Internet, social media and the
fact we live in a democracy,if you have an interest to find out,
like what did Jews do in synagogue? Oh, there are a lot
of synagogues in the area. Um, you know, there are plenty of
(39:47):
books to read up there are SouthernCalifornia is no shortage of rabbis of all
stripes and orientations. So I thinkthe most important thing also that I learned
in and my global travels is thistremendous curiosity. I've learned to also deal
with my own stereotypes when I gooverseas, and it's sometimes a difficult wall
(40:13):
to bring down, but worthwhile theeffort. So education, at the end
of the day is what mister Weisenthalsaid would be the key. And the
other part that he also I thinkI saw by example and I always remember
it is we need to build newalliances and friendships. When you talk about
friendships and alliances, that means thatnot only do we need help when we
(40:35):
have a problem, when our housesof worship are under potential attack, but
we have to be there for theother communities as well in wherever we live.
It's got to be a two waystreet. You can't wait for crises
in order to start looking around forhelp. And because we're blessed o being
in democracy, we should be doing. The Jewish community can be doing an
(40:59):
individual rules a lot more and thenmaybe one last thing going you know,
point going forward and whether or not, whether it's the White House or now
that we have a new mayor,Karen Bass here in Los Angeles after a
very contentious election time. If we'regoing to fight hate, let's say,
(41:20):
from the White House and then makingannouncements, you have to do it in
a bipartisan way. We can't allowto fight against hate, whether it's anti
Semitism or the attacks on on Asianset cetera. Gays. We you know,
I think both sides are often guiltyabout treating this as a wedge issue.
We're not going to make any progressuntil we can have definitions that we're
(41:46):
we you know, we can acceptand we work together to marginalize the people
who want to destroy our society andour targeting minorities. And in the case
in our case, first and foremost, we are in Pico Boulevard and you've
got two hundred Jewish institutions and goodrestaurants in about two and a half three
(42:08):
miles, and the amount of effortthat's needed when you come to a Jewish
house of worships, you have togo through airport security. Is that the
way life should be on a Saturdaymorning or on a Friday evening. You
know, it's a it's a real, it's a it's a shame. It's
the price right now that we haveto pay to keep our community safe.
(42:31):
And but in the bigger in thebiggest struggle here, I think, as
I go back to mister what misterWistanthal said, we're always going to have
the Nazis. What we have tois make sure that we can find a
way to inspire people to become antiNazis. When we have that equation in
our side, the biggest, theracists and the jew haters will go back
(42:54):
into the gutter. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, I appreciate your time and your inside
very much, by pleasure. HateModern Anti Semitism is a production of the
KFI News department for iHeartMedia Los Angelesand the iHeart podcast Network. The program
(43:15):
is produced by Steve Gregory and JacobGonzalez. To learn more about anti Semitism
and how you can join the conversation, go to translate hate dot org.
That's translate hate dot org.
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