Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, the Chariman of the Kentucky Jewish Council, discusses KET giving voice to anti-Jewish political candidates, on-campus protests at the University of Kentucky, the globalizing of intifada, and the release of hostages being held by Hamas...
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(00:00):
As always, thank you for beinghere on news radio eight forty whs Terry
Miners. Here we cover a littlebit of everything on this show, world
events, little sports things, nowand again, local issues. People having
a little fun party here there.The parties continue, by the way,
the PGA Championship now lined up nextweek following our incredible Kentucky derby. We
(00:25):
also look out for our family,our family of citizens. I read a
lot on issues that go on inthe world, and I'm especially curious about
what's going on with the Israel andHamas war. I mean, what a
rough situation this is. So Ido read a lot of the social media
(00:49):
that's connected to various factions that areinvolved in this story. And one of
the people I find incredibly interesting isby Litvin. I want to bring you
in over the phone. Rabbi Litvin, you're there, I'm here. Excellent.
You are the chairman of Kentucky JewishCouncil, a voice for Jews and
(01:10):
Judaism in central Kentucky. And firstoff, I appreciate you. I love
your voice on social You do notback away from anything. I don't think
backing away from a struggle is agreat way to survive. Right you are.
I've seen you call out people thatare In fact, you called out
(01:33):
k E T for they were sayingthey were going to interview a certain candidate,
and you immediately came back and said, it's absolutely shameful that k ET
is having one of its most importantvoices in Kentucky media interview SHAWNA. Rudd,
a fringe candidate with extremist anti Semiticviews. Absolutely so. I mean
(01:57):
k ET's policy is that anyone thathas fifty thousand dollars in donations gets a
platform, and I understand that policy. However, when you have someone who
is spewing anti Semitic hate, thefact that they're able to raise theifty thousand
dollars to support those views is shameful. Now, I'm not concerned about her
(02:17):
candidacy. Thank God, she's runningagainst Andy Barr, who's going to beat
there by twenty five points if shedoes win the primary, and who has
been a tremendous voice fighting for Americanvalues, defending the Jewish community other minority
communities. But the fact that KETis allowing her a platform, especially one
(02:37):
with someone like Renee Shaw, whoautomatically gives legitimacy to anyone she speaks to
is a shameful choice. Well,some people will say that everybody gets a
chance to have their voice heard.So isn't that unfair to stiff arm one
person because you think their views arewrong? Why not have you as the
guest the next night to counter whatshe had to say. So if they
(03:00):
were to do that, if theywere to bring a counterpoint, that's one
thing. But to simply promote acandidate without giving a counterpoint, it's not
like they're bringing her on a debatewith anyone else. It's a one on
one interview. And I don't haveany issue with free speech. I'm a
big proponent of free speech. Butit's a difference in allowing someone free speech
(03:20):
and providing them with a platform tospread their hate. Understood, there was
you contacted me last week and wetalked about or we were texting anyway back
and forth about the various college proteststhat have been going on, and one
at the University of Kentucky you wantedto call attention to because that's here in
our home. So tell me whatyour take was, because it didn't seem
(03:42):
like that much of a message thatcame out of there. So I don't
know that they have a strong message. I don't know that any of the
students who took part could tell youwhy they were there or what they were
protesting. They're yelling from the riverto the sea, a call for the
genocide a seven million and Jews.And I don't think that ninety five percentage
people the protests can tell you whichriver and which sea they're talking about.
(04:06):
The protest was part of the nationwideprotest that we've seen, which again I
have no issue with protests free speechare great. The fact that after the
protest they harassed you were students,they vandalized the library, etc. That's
where we run into a problem.And it's interesting that while students have made
their voices heard in all sorts ofissues on campus every day, it is
(04:28):
specifically with this string of protests thatwe have seen illegal harassment of Jews,
breaking the laws, not free speech, Vandalism of public property, vandalism is
not free speech, etc. Thevery name of these protests, they've called
them the student intafada, So forthose unfamiliar, the Intafada was a campaign
of terror attacks in the late ninetiesand then again the early two thousands,
(04:50):
which killed over a thousand civilians,which was blowing up pizza shops and bus
stations, targeting children as they camehome from school, murdering old people at
a passover Satyr. That is whatthey want to name themselves after. They
want to name themselves after a campaignof terror. And then the central slogans
(05:11):
of the campaign has been globalized theIntifada, bring that violence that would regularly
attack his release. My aunt,who Blesser had sixteen children, used to
ensure that each one went on adifferent bus to school because the concern of
a terrorist trying to blow up schoolchildren was so high. Trying to bring
(05:32):
that violence here, globalize the Dafada. They said last week, no Jews
should be safe until their political meansare met. They're not talking just about
violence in Israel. They're talking aboutmy kids who live in Lexington. They
also bring up this phrase too well, and so we're not against Jews,
we're against Zionism. And they're tryingto blur this thing, and you're right.
(05:55):
I keep seeing these videos over andover where someone comes up with a
microphone says what are you protesting?And a lot of them say, well,
I don't know. I just wantedto be part of the rally that
they're having, or they'll say Ican't speak to you, speak to our
leader, and then it turns outthe leader is not a student at the
school. So yes, this isnot a student led issue. In fact,
(06:15):
there was not a single student groupassociated with the protest at the University
of Kentucky. It was led bylex for Palestine, which is a radical
hate group which has been harassing statecity council members, harassing our congressman,
our mayor, trying to get someoneto endorse their despicable views while screaming at
(06:35):
cops and comparing them to Nazis,and harassing Jews on campus and around the
city. Just in the forty eighthours after the rally at UK there was
a Jewish student who was harassed andhad to have people hold people back from
harming them at UK, and thenext night at a college bar just off
campus, another Jewish student who wasjust sitting there having a beer was harassed
(06:59):
and yelled at till he felt souncomfortable he left and then contacted the police.
So that is their intention. Soit's very very clear this is the
same as the campaign we saw inLouisville and in other cities to make a
ceasefire resolution in the city council.Okay, Israel does not care what the
Louisville City Council has to say,as well as they shouldn't. Certainly Hamas
(07:21):
doesn't care. The city councils didn'thave the courage to mention Hamas in their
resolution, which by the way,failed even in Louisville. The entire point
of the resolution was to bring morepower to these fringe voices, to these
hateful voices that are calling for thegenocide of Jews, that are calling for
violence against Jews, and for theirrecord hiding it behind saying Zionists. Doctor
(07:46):
King said it very well fifty yearsago, and nothing's changed. Seventy years
ago, nothing's changed today. Whenpeople say Zionis, they mean Jews.
They're talking anti Semitism. The factis, the majority of Zionists in America
aren't Jews. It's like the majorityof bankers aren't Jews. The majority of
globalists aren't Jews. But when someonesays the problem is bankers, we all
(08:07):
know what they're talking about. Fora little while, there were neo Nazis
on Twitter who would put quotations triplequotations around someone's name, as if no
one knew what they were saying whenthey said that. So the code words
that they're using, everyone understands theymean Jews. At Hanakah this year,
we have a grand mineral lating oncampus. My eight year old daughter was
(08:28):
walking to the mineral lating with ashirt on it that said Happy Hanukkah,
and someone cursed at her and toldher she's not welcome on campus. This
might shock people. My eight yearold daughter is not a representative of the
Israeli state. She doesn't get avote in their parliament. She's a child
who happens to be Jewish, wholives in Lexton, Kentucky. She is
their target. What should the Bidenadministration do next in terms of Hamad.
(08:52):
I know that Biden has said he'spushing for ceasefire, but they're holding hostages.
So can that be move one,release hostages, and then we can
talk about ceaseflyers. So it's thatsimple. I don't understand how any country
could say to Israel while they areholding fearbe Bus, a nine month old
(09:13):
baby, we want you to stopfighting to get him back, while they
are holding an eighty six year oldsurvivor. We want you to stop trying
to get him back. As longas there are one hundred and thirty three
people being held, many of whohave already been murdered. By the way,
we don't even know the correct number. I don't understand how anyone with
morality can say stop fighting, whichmeans allow these people to be held longer.
(09:33):
I don't understand how anyone could morallyor logically say, sign a ceasefire
that allows Hamas to stay in power. If you do, we will be
back here. Be it six months, be it eight months, be a
ten months. Hamas has said itthemselves, We're going to do October seventh
again and again. Obviously another Octoberseventh would go in another war. It's
worth noting that while Hamas has recentlylowered their number, they said they can
(09:56):
only confirm now twenty two thousand dead, not thirty thousand dead as they've been
saying for months, twelve thousand ofwho are Hamas members. They also haven't
said that anyone has died of naturalcauses in the last few months, so
this false blood libel of genocide isreally comes down to the deaths of four
to five thousand people. Which,while tragic, is the result of a
(10:16):
war that Hamas started. If theydidn't want people to die in war,
which again is just tragedy, theyshouldn't have started one by raping and killing
Jews anywhere they could, at anycall that doesn't surround the return of the
hostages. I think it's just asilly political statement that doesn't have any work.
That's the first step. Yeah,and the media dissemination of those numbers
(10:41):
that you were just talking about isastounding because they don't have verification of it,
and so they've been telling this grandiosestory that is apparently much less significant.
But every law quoting Hamas. Whenyou're quoting Hamas, you should expect
that the information serves Moss propaganda.I mean, the earlier in the war
(11:03):
they've ever run every major American CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, we're
all running with the story of ahospital that was bombed by Israeli plane,
and six hours later America's like,well, the bomb was in Israeli,
the explosion was in Israeli, itdidn't hit a hospital, and five hundred
people weren't killed. Other than that, the story is perfect. Yeah,
got lots of cliques. Sure,I got them a lot of clicks.
(11:26):
And the fact is that, unfortunatelywe had members of Congress who shared that
story and never never retracted it whenit was proven to be an outright line.
So I think much more important thanwhat the president's answer is comments are
on Israel, because let's be fair, it's a foreign country and the ultimate
decision will be with their government.Is what is our administration willing to do
(11:48):
to ensure that American Jews are safeon a college campus. I have Jewish
parents calling me and saying, mystudent is registered to go to the University
Kentucky next year, will my sonor daughter be safe on campus? It's
twenty twenty four in America. Ishould not have to answer that question.
That should not be a question thata campus rabbi receives. Rabbi, we're
(12:09):
out of time. I really appreciateyour insights, though, and thanks so
much for contacting. Thanks for havingme. You betcha Rabbi Shloma Littvin,
chairman of the Kentucky Jewish Council.You can follow him on Twitter. He's
Bluegrass Rabbi. Back in a minuteon news radio, Wait forty whas
As always, thank you for beinghere on news radio eight forty whs Terry
Miners. Here we cover a littlebit of everything on this show, world
events, little sports things, nowand again, local issues. People having
a little fun party here there.The parties continue, by the way,
the PGA Championship now lined up nextweek following our incredible Kentucky derby. We
(00:25):
also look out for our family,our family of citizens. I read a
lot on issues that go on inthe world, and I'm especially curious about
what's going on with the Israel andHamas war. I mean, what a
rough situation this is. So Ido read a lot of the social media
(00:49):
that's connected to various factions that areinvolved in this story. And one of
the people I find incredibly interesting isby Litvin. I want to bring you
in over the phone. Rabbi Litvin, you're there, I'm here. Excellent.
You are the chairman of Kentucky JewishCouncil, a voice for Jews and
(01:10):
Judaism in central Kentucky. And firstoff, I appreciate you. I love
your voice on social You do notback away from anything. I don't think
backing away from a struggle is agreat way to survive. Right you are.
I've seen you call out people thatare In fact, you called out
(01:33):
k E T for they were sayingthey were going to interview a certain candidate,
and you immediately came back and said, it's absolutely shameful that k ET
is having one of its most importantvoices in Kentucky media interview SHAWNA. Rudd,
a fringe candidate with extremist anti Semiticviews. Absolutely so. I mean
(01:57):
k ET's policy is that anyone thathas fifty thousand dollars in donations gets a
platform, and I understand that policy. However, when you have someone who
is spewing anti Semitic hate, thefact that they're able to raise theifty thousand
dollars to support those views is shameful. Now, I'm not concerned about her
(02:17):
candidacy. Thank God, she's runningagainst Andy Barr, who's going to beat
there by twenty five points if shedoes win the primary, and who has
been a tremendous voice fighting for Americanvalues, defending the Jewish community other minority
communities. But the fact that KETis allowing her a platform, especially one
(02:37):
with someone like Renee Shaw, whoautomatically gives legitimacy to anyone she speaks to
is a shameful choice. Well,some people will say that everybody gets a
chance to have their voice heard.So isn't that unfair to stiff arm one
person because you think their views arewrong? Why not have you as the
guest the next night to counter whatshe had to say. So if they
(03:00):
were to do that, if theywere to bring a counterpoint, that's one
thing. But to simply promote acandidate without giving a counterpoint, it's not
like they're bringing her on a debatewith anyone else. It's a one on
one interview. And I don't haveany issue with free speech. I'm a
big proponent of free speech. Butit's a difference in allowing someone free speech
(03:20):
and providing them with a platform tospread their hate. Understood, there was
you contacted me last week and wetalked about or we were texting anyway back
and forth about the various college proteststhat have been going on, and one
at the University of Kentucky you wantedto call attention to because that's here in
our home. So tell me whatyour take was, because it didn't seem
(03:42):
like that much of a message thatcame out of there. So I don't
know that they have a strong message. I don't know that any of the
students who took part could tell youwhy they were there or what they were
protesting. They're yelling from the riverto the sea, a call for the
genocide a seven million and Jews.And I don't think that ninety five percentage
people the protests can tell you whichriver and which sea they're talking about.
(04:06):
The protest was part of the nationwideprotest that we've seen, which again I
have no issue with protests free speechare great. The fact that after the
protest they harassed you were students,they vandalized the library, etc. That's
where we run into a problem.And it's interesting that while students have made
their voices heard in all sorts ofissues on campus every day, it is
(04:28):
specifically with this string of protests thatwe have seen illegal harassment of Jews,
breaking the laws, not free speech, Vandalism of public property, vandalism is
not free speech, etc. Thevery name of these protests, they've called
them the student intafada, So forthose unfamiliar, the Intafada was a campaign
of terror attacks in the late ninetiesand then again the early two thousands,
(04:50):
which killed over a thousand civilians,which was blowing up pizza shops and bus
stations, targeting children as they camehome from school, murdering old people at
a passover Satyr. That is whatthey want to name themselves after. They
want to name themselves after a campaignof terror. And then the central slogans
(05:11):
of the campaign has been globalized theIntifada, bring that violence that would regularly
attack his release. My aunt,who Blesser had sixteen children, used to
ensure that each one went on adifferent bus to school because the concern of
a terrorist trying to blow up schoolchildren was so high. Trying to bring
(05:32):
that violence here, globalize the Dafada. They said last week, no Jews
should be safe until their political meansare met. They're not talking just about
violence in Israel. They're talking aboutmy kids who live in Lexington. They
also bring up this phrase too well, and so we're not against Jews,
we're against Zionism. And they're tryingto blur this thing, and you're right.
(05:55):
I keep seeing these videos over andover where someone comes up with a
microphone says what are you protesting?And a lot of them say, well,
I don't know. I just wantedto be part of the rally that
they're having, or they'll say Ican't speak to you, speak to our
leader, and then it turns outthe leader is not a student at the
school. So yes, this isnot a student led issue. In fact,
(06:15):
there was not a single student groupassociated with the protest at the University
of Kentucky. It was led bylex for Palestine, which is a radical
hate group which has been harassing statecity council members, harassing our congressman,
our mayor, trying to get someoneto endorse their despicable views while screaming at
(06:35):
cops and comparing them to Nazis,and harassing Jews on campus and around the
city. Just in the forty eighthours after the rally at UK there was
a Jewish student who was harassed andhad to have people hold people back from
harming them at UK, and thenext night at a college bar just off
campus, another Jewish student who wasjust sitting there having a beer was harassed
(06:59):
and yelled at till he felt souncomfortable he left and then contacted the police.
So that is their intention. Soit's very very clear this is the
same as the campaign we saw inLouisville and in other cities to make a
ceasefire resolution in the city council.Okay, Israel does not care what the
Louisville City Council has to say,as well as they shouldn't. Certainly Hamas
(07:21):
doesn't care. The city councils didn'thave the courage to mention Hamas in their
resolution, which by the way,failed even in Louisville. The entire point
of the resolution was to bring morepower to these fringe voices, to these
hateful voices that are calling for thegenocide of Jews, that are calling for
violence against Jews, and for theirrecord hiding it behind saying Zionists. Doctor
(07:46):
King said it very well fifty yearsago, and nothing's changed. Seventy years
ago, nothing's changed today. Whenpeople say Zionis, they mean Jews.
They're talking anti Semitism. The factis, the majority of Zionists in America
aren't Jews. It's like the majorityof bankers aren't Jews. The majority of
globalists aren't Jews. But when someonesays the problem is bankers, we all
(08:07):
know what they're talking about. Fora little while, there were neo Nazis
on Twitter who would put quotations triplequotations around someone's name, as if no
one knew what they were saying whenthey said that. So the code words
that they're using, everyone understands theymean Jews. At Hanakah this year,
we have a grand mineral lating oncampus. My eight year old daughter was
(08:28):
walking to the mineral lating with ashirt on it that said Happy Hanukkah,
and someone cursed at her and toldher she's not welcome on campus. This
might shock people. My eight yearold daughter is not a representative of the
Israeli state. She doesn't get avote in their parliament. She's a child
who happens to be Jewish, wholives in Lexton, Kentucky. She is
their target. What should the Bidenadministration do next in terms of Hamad.
(08:52):
I know that Biden has said he'spushing for ceasefire, but they're holding hostages.
So can that be move one,release hostages, and then we can
talk about ceaseflyers. So it's thatsimple. I don't understand how any country
could say to Israel while they areholding fearbe Bus, a nine month old
(09:13):
baby, we want you to stopfighting to get him back, while they
are holding an eighty six year oldsurvivor. We want you to stop trying
to get him back. As longas there are one hundred and thirty three
people being held, many of whohave already been murdered. By the way,
we don't even know the correct number. I don't understand how anyone with
morality can say stop fighting, whichmeans allow these people to be held longer.
(09:33):
I don't understand how anyone could morallyor logically say, sign a ceasefire
that allows Hamas to stay in power. If you do, we will be
back here. Be it six months, be it eight months, be a
ten months. Hamas has said itthemselves, We're going to do October seventh
again and again. Obviously another Octoberseventh would go in another war. It's
worth noting that while Hamas has recentlylowered their number, they said they can
(09:56):
only confirm now twenty two thousand dead, not thirty thousand dead as they've been
saying for months, twelve thousand ofwho are Hamas members. They also haven't
said that anyone has died of naturalcauses in the last few months, so
this false blood libel of genocide isreally comes down to the deaths of four
to five thousand people. Which,while tragic, is the result of a
(10:16):
war that Hamas started. If theydidn't want people to die in war,
which again is just tragedy, theyshouldn't have started one by raping and killing
Jews anywhere they could, at anycall that doesn't surround the return of the
hostages. I think it's just asilly political statement that doesn't have any work.
That's the first step. Yeah,and the media dissemination of those numbers
(10:41):
that you were just talking about isastounding because they don't have verification of it,
and so they've been telling this grandiosestory that is apparently much less significant.
But every law quoting Hamas. Whenyou're quoting Hamas, you should expect
that the information serves Moss propaganda.I mean, the earlier in the war
(11:03):
they've ever run every major American CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, we're
all running with the story of ahospital that was bombed by Israeli plane,
and six hours later America's like,well, the bomb was in Israeli,
the explosion was in Israeli, itdidn't hit a hospital, and five hundred
people weren't killed. Other than that, the story is perfect. Yeah,
got lots of cliques. Sure,I got them a lot of clicks.
(11:26):
And the fact is that, unfortunatelywe had members of Congress who shared that
story and never never retracted it whenit was proven to be an outright line.
So I think much more important thanwhat the president's answer is comments are
on Israel, because let's be fair, it's a foreign country and the ultimate
decision will be with their government.Is what is our administration willing to do
(11:48):
to ensure that American Jews are safeon a college campus. I have Jewish
parents calling me and saying, mystudent is registered to go to the University
Kentucky next year, will my sonor daughter be safe on campus? It's
twenty twenty four in America. Ishould not have to answer that question.
That should not be a question thata campus rabbi receives. Rabbi, we're
(12:09):
out of time. I really appreciateyour insights, though, and thanks so
much for contacting. Thanks for havingme. You betcha Rabbi Shloma Littvin,
chairman of the Kentucky Jewish Council.You can follow him on Twitter. He's
Bluegrass Rabbi. Back in a minuteon news radio, Wait forty whas
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