This Past Weekend - E520 Rabbi David Wolpe

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

David Wolpe is a rabbi, author and speaker who spent 27 years leading the Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Widely regarded as one of the most prominent rabbis in America, he has led numerous missions to Israel, taught at the Harvard Divinity School, UCLA, and more. Rabbi David Wolpe joins Theo to talk about his journey in faith that led him to becoming one of the most prominent Rabbis in America, the history of Judaism and his perspective on the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, his take on what both sides could do to create peace, debunking common myths and stereotypes about Jewish people, why he believes faith matters, and much more.  Rabbi David Wolpe: https://www.instagram.com/davidjwolpe/?hl=en  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [e-mail] Hit the Hotline: [phone] Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I got a few tour dates to tell you about Wallingford, Connecticut, Portland, Maine, Banger, Maine, Moncton, Canada, Las Vegas, Nevada. We'll be back for the USC LSU football weekend. Oklahoma City, Northern Little Rock, Springfield, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Kansas City, Missouri, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Moline, Illinois. You can get tickets for those at theovon.com slash T-O-U-R. Thank you so much for your support.

Thanks for tuning in. Today's episodes are regarding the conflict in Israel and Palestine. I've heard a lot about this issue and I wanted to deepen my own understanding. I recognize that this is a sensitive topic, but the only way to learn is to seek knowledge. I decided to have guests from both sides of the aisle, if you will, to help me learn by sharing their views. I did it in separate episodes because I'm not a debate moderator.

I chose guests who I thought would share their views sincerely, and I think they both did. I'm very thankful to have the opportunity to learn, something that they don't even have in some countries. Today's guest has been called one of the most influential rabbis in America. Until recently, he led the Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and has also taught at UCLA, Harvard Divinity School, and more. He's written nine books, led numerous missions to Israel, and he's seen a lot in his time. I'm really grateful for his time today.

Today's guest is Rabbi David Wolpe. Shining light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I will sing singing just for you. Yeah, thank you so much for your time. Sure, happy to do it.

Yeah, I really appreciate it. Rabbi David Wolpe. Yeah, there's no way you would know by looking at it. No. No, not at all. I got WOLP all the time. Yeah, well The wolf of Wall Street was that ever It would be a different type of Wall Street. Yeah

You just got back from Israel yesterday Wow, welcome back. Thank you I've never gotten to go, you know, a lot of my friends have gotten to go like on birthright and that you know I mean, it's really an amazing thing to do. I Recommend it. Yeah, I always hear great things, you know, I would like to get to go like on birthright and that, you know? I mean, it's really an amazing thing to do. I recommend it. Yeah, I always hear great things. I would like to get to go. What was it like over there? What's the vibe?

It's resilient, but depressed. I met with these students at the Technion, which is like the science tech. It's like MIT of Israel. And they all serve. They miss 100 days of school, because they all, they like, literally when you're in Israel,

it's an hour's drive and you're at war. And then you drive home for the weekend and then you go back. It's crazy. It's not like here, where you have like Canada, Mexico and two oceans. There, right next door, are the people who want to kill you. Just always in the heat.

It feels so, does it feel like even, like how close were you to Gaza? You could see it from where you are. I mean, it's very easy. It's not hard. You can see the West Bank, it's just a bit. I mean, Israel's really tiny. It's like smaller than New Jersey.

So. Oh, wow. It's, yeah. New Jersey. So, Oh wow. It's yeah. Is there a general like sense of like, we are Israel going on? Is there people like that are on the fence about what's going on over there? Like what's kind of the, The general sense is of course we have to defend ourselves. Um, the government is very unpopular there right now. Like really unpopular. Like the unpopularity of governments here

doesn't compare to how unpopular that government is right now. Yeah. Because they feel like he's badly mishandled this. But the sense that there has to be some, that Hamas has to be eliminated, to the extent that you can eliminate it, I think almost everybody in Israel agrees with that.

Wow. So. How did he become so unfavorable? Do you feel like? I think, honestly, I mean, this is too easy, but he stayed too long. It's like at a certain point, you have to say, I've done what I could.

I'm getting complacent and not paying attention, and he's out of touch. And he just, I mean, Biden visited some of the families whose kids were taken hostages before Netanyahu did, which is insane. Not great. Yeah, he gives me the GB sometimes.

I don't know why exactly. They need someone new. Oh, wow. 66% of Israelis want Netanyahu to leave politics. 85. And 85% support an investigation into what happened on October 7th, and he was prime minister.

Do they believe, I mean, you hear rumors, you hear people say that they let their guard down on purpose, do you believe that that would ever have happened? I don't believe that, I really don't. Because the enormity of the destruction is far too great and no government would ever, let me put it the other way, any government would know that if you do that, like you will go down in history as having failed your people.

So I can't imagine they did. I think it was a monument. One of the things that just is true in general is I try never to attribute to maliciousness things that can be attributed to incompetence because it's almost always incompetence. People think, oh, well, that's so suspicious that why did they leave the shooter on the roof

for Trump and I think because it's so easy to get stuff wrong yeah it's so easy there are like a thousand ways to get stuff wrong and only one way to get it right and generally it's not always true but generally it's incompetence yeah so it's a good point it's like and we've become in such a place like with media where people I think don't trust media or uncertain. And there's so many, there's so much media now. Right. Like there's so many, there's AI versions of things. There's animations. It's like, you don't even know if the voice you're listening to is really of the person that you're listening

to. So it's almost impossible to, so I think that just creates even more option for fantasy. Distrust is gonna grow. There's no way it can't grow. I mean, it's scary what AI is doing and will do to people's perceptions of the world, for all of us. Oh yeah, and it's hard not to, because there's so much stuff you do that you're used to believing on your phone and on your.

Yeah, and it's hard not to believe your eyes. It's like they're my eyes, of course I believe it. Yeah, these are them. Yeah, anyway. Rabbi Wolpe, you were a professor at Harvard, right? You've had a storied history, and I could go into a lot of stats, and I'll put those in the beginning of this episode

so people know. You were working at Harvard? Yeah, I was a visiting scholar at the Divinity School. OK. Right. And you left after the October 7th? I didn't leave Harvard. I left.

What happened was, so when I got there, I was visiting scholar at the Divinity School after October 7th. The president asked me, would I be a member of the Anti-Semitism commission? She was really shaken up. This is Claudine Gay. Would I help her understand what happened? Would I give her some books?

Would I be part of the anti-Semitism committee? I said, of course. So I became part of the anti-Semitism committee, and to make a long story short, it was clear to me that they weren't doing anything. That Harvard wasn't? Harvard wasn't doing it, and didn't really intend to do anything.

And I think that the committee was kind of a cover for it. And so I resigned. I was gonna still teach my class next semester and I still did. By the way, the kids were great. They were great. And most of the students at Harvard, like students everywhere just wanna get a job,

wanna finish their degree, but not all. But when I resigned, it became a giant public thing, which I did not expect because I think people were so fed up with the idiocies and the radicalism and the just thoughtlessness of the demonstrations and also of some of the faculty. And so we're still, as you know, we're still fighting this. I mean, there are lawsuits now and testimony and-

I don't even know that. Oh yeah, it's an ongoing thing. So, and all of the universities are trying to recover. I've never seen any institution ever lose as much credibility overnight as Harvard. I mean, Harvard was Harvard. It's like I watched a season of the show Suits. I don't know if you've ever seen it.

Yeah, I've seen it. My friend used to be in it. She had a list too, actually. Oh, really? Yeah, but that doesn't matter. And it's all about, we only hire from Harvard. Yeah. Only hire from Harvard.

And it's so funny, because I'm watching this and I'm thinking, wait, you have no idea. You would never say that now. Because their stock has plummeted. Do you mean just amongst Jewish families who would send their children there, or do you just mean overall? Overall.

Overall. I mean, there are law firms, major law firms, some of them not Jewish law firms who said we're not hiring from Harvard because we don't want kids who the part of the part of the issue is that they were not solely anti-Israel anti-Jewish. They were anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Western anti-Jewish, they were anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Western. And so they don't want to hire from, I mean, it's all part of the same complex. Nobody's like, I really love America, I love freedom, I love capitalism, I just hate the Jews. That's really rare, certainly not on the left. Maybe it happens on the right, not on the left. Left anti-Semitism is America's bad, Israel's bad, colonialism is bad, all the culture they've created is bad.

Everything's bad. Where are the Native Americans? Exactly. Burn the Israeli flag and the American flag. They were cheering the Houthis. The Houthis have on their flag, this is the flag of the Houthis, I am not misquoting it. You can see it online.

It says, death to America, death to Israel, death to the Jews, God is great. Dear God. Wow, and they put it in Christmas colors too. That's a reach. There it is. There you go. There's that beautiful flag. The Houthis are? The Houthis are from Yemen, and they were blocking all the shipping in the Straits, and they were cheering them on Harvard's campus, and you think to yourself, what are you crazy?

So you're saying on the campus, it didn't become like a pro-Israel or anti-Israel, pro-Palestine or anti-daily, it became all this other stuff? It was much bigger, much bigger than that, yes. So as a result, and the fact that Harvard didn't, other places did take almost immediate action, and guess what, if you tell students you're not gonna be able to graduate

if you don't stop protesting, they stop protesting, amazingly enough. But Harvard didn't do that, and Columbia didn't do that, and Penn didn't do that, and then also, there were outside agitators too. It wasn't just students. A lot of the people who came onto campus were from the community who saw an opportunity to, you know.

Yeah, some people were looking for something to do even. I remember somebody sent me, it was an e-vite to a protest. I was like, they're doing e-vites to it? Did you feel, sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say, I said to somebody, the secret of all this is, they're doing e-vites to it? Did you feel, sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say, I said to somebody, the secret of all this is that they're having the time of their lives. They were ordering all sorts of,

what's a nice way for a rabbi to say this, sexual paraphernalia to be brought into the camps at all the different colleges, sure. The condoms, other stuff, because they were basically camping out for, and they're college students. Yeah, they think it's a rave almost to some. Yeah, it is kind of a rave, I know, so anyway.

Watch next year, there's like protest raves. Yeah, protest. It could easily happen. Did you feel like the students had a right to get out there and voice their thoughts? Yeah, I didn't have it. I don't know anyone who was reasonable, had a problem with the students had a right to get out there and voice their thoughts? Yeah, I didn't have it. I don't know anyone who was reasonable, had a problem with the students protesting.

I disagreed with a lot of what they said, but protesting was fine. The things that I objected to were, one, when they broke the rules, basically by interrupting classrooms, by interrupting people at the library, by those incidents where people were pushed or shoved or whatever. And also, like, I have to say, like, when a kid walks by and he has a head covering a

kippah and you know he's Jewish and you call him a baby killer, that's not really like, if I were the head of the university, I would say, look, we have limits on the way we speak to other students. And that, you can't do that, you know? So, but it's tricky because college is supposed to be the place where you can say whatever you want. Yeah, I remember we got in a protest, they were having the girls soccer team when I went to LSU, they were having them take different,

like new, something new had just come on the weightlifting and athletic market with creatine, some advanced form of creatine, and they were having all the girls take it, and some of my friends were on there, but we got out and protested. It was ridiculous, but next thing you know, like the news was there,

and it was like, we don't even know exactly what we're doing, but yeah, college was a time where you could do that sort of thing. Exactly. A lot of backers, financial backers of the institutions also pulled their finances, right? Yes, oh, a lot of them did. And that was another example.

So like, I would hear that people got upset, why are the Jews pulling their money? And I would explain to them, it's not the Jews pulling their money. What you call someone who gives money when they like what a place is doing and takes it away when they don't is a donor. Donors do that all over the world.

It's only when the donor is Jewish that people go, oh, look, look at the Jews doing that. And that was part of a preset prejudice that people had before that happened. I mean, these guys who were pulling their money, they also were people who originally were giving money to higher education. That's a good thing to do.

I think that that's very admirable. That's the only reason they were pulling it is because first they were giving it. There are a lot of rich people who don't give anything to anyone. So I... It's a really good point. I didn't think about that.

I mean, I agree. If a school is doing something that you don't support, if you're a donor to it, you certainly have... If I support your podcast and you get up tomorrow and you say something that I really object to and I come to you and I say, look, I'm not gonna support your podcast anymore, you might be upset, but it would make perfect sense.

Yeah, I have to be an understanding about it. Yeah, Robert Kraft, Bill Yvonneiro, polls funding from Columbia University to make protests, I remember that. It was Robert Kraft and Mark Rowan from Penn and Bill Ackman from Harvard. And all of them also felt like this is a way to draw attention to, and then they said, we're going to give to universities that do protect students.

It's not like they weren't going to give to universities, we're going to give to different ones. So you don't think it was that people were protesting one way or the other about the conflict? It was more about how they were doing it and what the school was allowing? So it's complicated. I would say this, that was a big part of it, what the school was allowing and how they were doing it.

Then there were two parts to the conflict and here some of your listeners might agree with me, some of them not, but I'll at least tell you what I think. If you're protesting the war and you think Israel shouldn't be fighting the war, shouldn't be fighting the war that way, or you think they're being indiscriminate and they're bombing, whatever. I may disagree with you, but I totally get that.

That is, I mean, that's as legitimate a protest as you could have. As soon as you say therefore Israel shouldn't exist, that shades into anti-Semitism. Because look, I went to the encampments and I talked to the kids, the ones that would talk to me, a lot of them wouldn't. And I said to them, Assad in Syria called a half a million people, the Chinese are putting the Uighurs into concentration camps,

the Myanmar is killing the Rohingya, millions of people were sent in refugee camps in Sudan, there's slavery, literal slavery in Mauritania, North Korea, I don't see you protesting any of those things. I see you protesting when the Jews do it, but not any of those other things. And not only that, Germany started two world wars. I never heard a protest there shouldn't be a Germany. The only country I have ever heard people say shouldn't exist happens to be the only country in the world where Jews have a country.

None of the 50 Muslim countries ever, ever, ever, I heard, shouldn't exist. And not only that, but if there wasn't a 3,000 year history of persecution of Jews that just happens to also coincide with the fact that that's the one country that shouldn't exist, I would also be a little less suspicious. But put all of that together and I would say

that's an anti-Semitic protest. There's enough proof of evidence for you to say that. Yeah. Wow, I hadn't thought about a lot of that stuff. And one of the reasons that we're here today is because we want to learn about the conflict and more about the history of it. Right?

Because there's a lot of like, even there's me, right? I don't know. I don't know a lot. Like, you know, it's been kind of tough because you feel certain things, but you don't know a lot of the history. And so yeah, that's why we're just really grateful that you're here today.

It's really hard. If I, I can give you a sort of capsule history in this way. I mean, obviously there were Jews in Israel for thousands of years and thousands of years ago, nobody reasonable disputes that. You can go and see. Biblical Jews. Biblical Jews and also in the time when Jesus, I mean, I used to say to people who say Jews have no history in Israel, you're about to sing about a Jew who was born in Bethlehem.

How can you say they have no history? Somebody was born in Bethlehem there. So Jews have been in Israel for a long time. They got kicked out by the Romans, basically. In all that time, they always prayed to go back. And in the 1800s, Jews started to buy their way. They started to go to Israel and buy land from Arabs who willingly sold them land.

And then the United Nations said, look, the Jews deserve a stay, especially after the Second World War, the Jews deserve a state. None, there Nations said, look, the Jews deserve a state, especially after the Second World War, the Jews deserve a state. None, there were actually, sadly, there were some Arab groups and families that said, okay, but the overwhelming Arab powers said, no, we're gonna destroy the Jews that don't get a state.

During the war, there is no question that the Israeli troops forced many Arabs out of their homes. Some fled on their own, some fled because their leader said just... During which war? During 1948, the founding war of Israel. That's the Israel independence? Was that the creation of Israel? Israel independence war, right. Because what was the Balfour...

The Balfour Declaration was long before that. That was when Britain said, basically, that both Jews and Arabs deserve a state. Okay. In, and then the United Nations said the same thing, but the Arabs felt like, no, there is, and why they felt that way is dependent on who you ask. There are, there is, in Islamic law, if you ever held a land, you're not allowed to give it up. And if you give it up, you have to reconquer it.

That was part of the issue with the Crusades. And that's part of, there was part of the, so for those who felt it religiously, it's a religious issue. Okay, so that's a religious element too. That's a religious element. If you ever give up your land, sell it or whatever, you need to conquer it back. And there are, by the way, people on the right wing of the Israeli society who feel the same way about the land. Like God promised it to us and we get all of it. Okay.

So that is a religious element that's, that weighs on some people on both sides. That one's hard. But then there is also- That's tough, dude. Yeah, that is tough. When your HOA is God or whatever, you know? That's a good way to put it, exactly.

Jesus. You sign the contract, I mean, what are you gonna do? Yeah. But Israel has, I mean, first of all, in 1948, all the Arab armies attacked Israel. Israel won that war. And was Israel established at that point? Just so I'm super, so I'm super, so.

It was a tiny strip of land that the UN gave them, but immediately all the Arab armies attacked and tried to, and said, even to some of the Arabs, leave your home because we're gonna wipe out all the Jews and then you can come back. And that was in 1948. That was 1948. Can you bring that up?

I just wanna see what it looks like. That was Palestinian land in 1948, and that was Jewish land. So Jewish had a- That was 46. That was 46. That was before the United Nations had a partition. Okay.

Then in 1947, that was the partition plan that the UN proposed, okay? Okay, so 47 was the partition plan the UN proposed. What you don't see, by the way, is all the bottom there that's Israel, almost all desert, almost all uncultivated land. All the best land is the Greenland. Then all the Arab nations said no,

we will not accept that, and launched a war. Israel fought a war, and you see the results of that war from 49 to 67. I see, so they conquered, in the war they won parts of that war. And actually again, the Arabs fought again in 56 and then again in 67. And by the way- And when you say the Arabs,

does it just mean Palestine or does it mean- No, no, no, no, no, all the Arab nations. Jordan, Syria, Egypt was actually the most significant enemy of Israel, the most powerful. And then in 1967, there was another war in which Israel conquered Jerusalem. And then in 1973, which- We won the series at that point, kind of. Right, 1973, there was another war called the Yom Kippur War.

And that's after that war, when finally Egypt said, we're not gonna win, we're not gonna win. That's when Sadat went to Jerusalem and said, we wanna make peace. And since then, Sadat was the head of Egypt. The head of Egypt. And since that moment, since 1973, Israel has had peace with Egypt

and then made peace with Jordan. Which to which I say there's Sadat. Sadat was assassinated unfortunately by his own people after he made peace. But. Somebody Sadat him, huh? But. Sorry, that's silly.

And I shouldn't say it. But he was actually, he was truly, he was a great man. He really was a great man. Was he? Yes, he was. And he was Egyptian. He was Egyptian. He was the Egyptian man. He really was a great man. Was he? Yes, he was. And he was Egyptian. He was Egyptian. He was the Egyptian leader who had the courage

to go to Israel and make peace. And so who's left in the other part of the country at this point? So then it's just Palestinians? Right. Like where are the Palestinians at? They live on the West Bank and in Gaza, those two places you see.

Okay. And there have been at least five, probably more, but at least five separate peace proposals that Israel has made to Palestinians, and they have said no each time for a variety of reasons for each one. But I always tell people, like, every time somebody's serious about making peace with Israel, Egypt, Jordan, now what are called the Abrahamic court countries, which is the UAE and Bahrain and so on. Every time, they have peace. The people that don't have peace are people who don't make peace with Israel. Because I was just in Israel and I will tell you, I mean, first of all,

what people in America don't realize is they think that Israelis are aggressors, but Israelis are aggressors, but Israelis are sending their kids. You go to sleep at night and you don't know where your kid is because the army can't tell you and you don't know if you're going to get a knock at the door. I know someone, when I was just in Israel now, someone told me that their friends have signs on the door, do not knock. If you come and visit them, you have to call them,

you have to let them know, you have to sing outside their door. They don't want that alarming moment. They don't want that knock because the knock means maybe your child is dead. So Israel doesn't want this war. Nobody wants this war, except people who do, unfortunately.

And so what I have said to many, many, many, you know, look, I've had the very uncomfortable, I don't like doing it, position of having to debate this with other people. I would much rather be making peace than debate. I'd rather debate religion and not debate politics. But I've asked every single one, every time I've had a debate about Israel and Palestine,

I've asked the same question and I've never gotten a good answer. I said, if tomorrow the Palestinians had the firepower of the Israelis and the Israelis had the firepower of the Palestinians, how many Jews do you think would be left in that country in a week? Probably not many.

I'm guessing not many. And so until that answer is different, that is until the Palestinians as a people, not, I mean there are many, many, many individuals who just want peace, but as a people and as leaders and people like Hamas, until they really want peace, it's impossible. I mean if we took right now, if we took, I don't know, Russia or Iran and we put them in Texas, how long do you think America would let them stay there? You have to know the people on your border.

We go nuts about Mexicans coming over the border and the vast majority come over because they wanna work. And America goes crazy. Can you imagine if it was a truly hostile population, how America would handle it? It's very hard. Israelis live in a very tough neighborhood. America has lucky enough to have Canada

and Mexico and two oceans. Yeah, oh, we certainly got, I mean, we're sitting in the dove's nest here. We're in a very special place. We are very lucky and very blessed. So, but is it understandable that Palestinians feel, because was Palestine a country? No, there never was a country in Israel since the, it was a succession of, so what happened was, after the Romans called it, they're the ones that named it Palestine, the Romans. After the Romans took over,

then there were a succession of empires. There was the Roman Empire, and then you had, among others, the Ottomans, the British, and the British were the ones who controlled it until Israel became Israel, and the Palestinian self-identification was in opposition to Israel. If you go back 200 years, you don't know the difference between a Palestinian and other Arabs who live in the area.

They were people who lived in the area and the identifications tended to be much more local. I am from the village of this, I am from the village of that, but there wasn't a Palestine as a country. Okay. Having said that, anybody whose heart doesn't break for the plight of the Palestinians, I mean, they are, first of all, for two reasons my heart breaks for the Palestinians. One is because nobody wants to live under someone else's rule. It doesn't matter even how nice the rule is, you don't want to. Although I will say what people don't realize is two million Arabs live in Israel proper with full rights. They

vote, they're on the Supreme Court, they're in the Knesset. Is it comfortable over there for them? Oh yeah, very. Not only that, I was just in in the National Library of Israel and they talked about the classes they give. 30% of their classes are in Arabic. So Arabs come to the National Library of Israel. Yeah, they come to the National Library of Israel and take classes. And they have representatives? They have representatives in the Parliament

called the Knesset. Palestine does? No, the Arab people do. Palestine doesn't. Palestine, those who are Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza, they have their own self-governing rule, but they're definitely under Israel. Okay.

Now, Gaza doesn't... Before October 7th, Gaza had no troops. I mean, Israel had no troops there. They'd completely withdrawn from Gaza. But unfortunately, instead of spending the billions of dollars in aid that Gaza got in building seaports and restaurants and they built tunnels underneath so that they could attack Israel, which is what they did. Some people say that it's like a group,

they feel like they have no choice but to elect like a dirty government, right? Or like, and excuse some of my question, like I'm not that great at like, I'm not always the best at figuring some of this stuff out. But some people say that it's basically like the Palestinian people have become kind of a caged people. And so they're at the point where they feel like

they'll elect the craziest element as their leader because that's the only chance they feel that they have. All I can say is they have done that for a long time and it hasn't worked. And if they would elect somebody who would actually make a deal, this would have been gone 50 years ago, 60 years ago, 70 years ago.

There were so many times when all they had to do was say, yes, look, I'll give you an anecdote. Arafat, who was the leader of the Palestinians for many years, at Camp David, where he was offered 95% of the West Bank plus land swaps to compensate, and this was under Clinton, he said no. And then he said to Clinton, you're a great man,

and Clinton said, no I'm not, I'm a failure, and you made me a failure. I think I know why he said no, I think he said no because he knew that if he said yes, he was in the same, he was gonna happen to him, what happened to Sadat? In fact, Clinton even said to Arafat, you and later on, Ehud Barak,

you might get assassinated for doing this. But think of how many of your people you will save. And that's true of Sadat. Sadat got assassinated, but do you know how many Egyptians are alive today because they never had to go to war again against Israel? Yeah. But you have to have courage.

The 2000 Camp David Summit was a summit meeting at Camp David between United States Bill Clinton, President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. The summit took place on July 2000. It was an effort to end the Israeli-Palestine conflict summit, ended with an agreement largely due to irreconcilable differences between the two parties

on the status of Jerusalem. Its failure is considered one of the main triggers of the second Intifada. Which was a big, which was basically- What was the issue with Jerusalem? The Intifada, both places wanted Jerusalem to be the capital, which eventually was able to be worked out. What couldn't be worked out was what's called the issue of return.

So there are two kinds of refugees in the world. There are Palestinian refugees and everybody else. And that's why there are two agencies from the United Nations who handle refugees. There's one that only does Palestinians and one that does everybody else. Palestinians are the only people whose refugee status is handed down. There are great-great-great-great grandchildren of the original conflict, maybe not great-great, great-grandchildren of the original conflict, who are still called refugees.

That's because they constantly cultivate that consciousness. We're gonna go back, we're gonna go back. And also because the other Arab nations never took them in. Jordan didn't take them in, right? Jordan, which is more than half Palestinian, didn't say come to Jordan. Why wouldn't they want more Palestinians? Because one of the things that antisemitism does

is it creates coalitions. And all these Arab nations, all of whom had trouble at home, they all have dicey governments. Like if I said to you, which Arab nation would you want to live in? The answer would be, I'll stay right where I am, thank you. And this is because for whatever reason, the Islamic culture, which used to be during the Golden Age, the most advanced culture in the world so it's not like Islam doesn't have in it to be the most advanced culture in the world for whatever reason and I'm not a historian

I have guesses but who knows right now they're not doing well culturally and as a result they've used the Palestinians to unify their own governments because look what Israel's doing to the Palestinians and a mutual hate is the best way to tie people together. So what is it that- So you're saying it bridges them and Israel? Of course, what do 27, 28, 29 Arab nations have in common? What they have in common is they can all see Israel

as hostile so they don't have to say, what is it that we're not doing with our people? I mean, because if you think about it, the biggest war by far in the Middle East in recent years was the Iran-Iraq War. Had nothing to do with Israel. But when people say, what would solve the Middle East, they always say, oh, if Israel would act differently. It's not true.

There are all sorts of local problems, but we do the same thing in this country. You know what the problem is? That other party and that other guy who's messing everything up, There are all sorts of local problems, but we do the same thing in this country. You know what the problem is? That other party and that other guy who's messing everything up. I, on the other hand, I'm guiltless. My people, we're great.

And so it's a human tendency. Wow. The Palestinians have lost more land over time. Even when we're looking at that chart, was there like a lease in the beginning? Like what did the original document say as far as what the land would be like? Oh my God, that is so complicated.

It depends who, because it's, well, you can see what the original UN partition was, but then what happened was the Palestinians launched a war and lost land. I see. And the only way you get it back is by making peace. So Israel lost, I mean Egypt lost the Sinai to Israel. The Sinai is about a third as big as the entire country of Israel.

When Egypt made peace, Israel gave the Sinai back. And that was a lot. It has oil fields, it has resorts, but that's what you do for peace. I think if the Palestinians made peace, again and again and again, they've been offered, but even if they did now, they'd get a lot of the West Bank back. And it would be such a good thing for the world because economically, with that region, I mean, you could have in the Middle East what you have like in Europe, or you could

have this huge economic engine. Israel has technology and so on. And a lot of the Arab neighbors want that. Like when I went to the Technion, there were Arab students there. They had nowhere to study really where they could study at that advanced level. But just imagine if there was cooperation,

but you have to want it. So you think that one of the biggest issues probably face in the, I mean, obviously there's huge like actual physical issues and emotional issues, but you think one of the issues facing the governments right now is that Palestine doesn't want peace? Yes, because, and part of that, by the way, is just downright anti-Semitism. Like when you hear, I mean, this is unfortunately pretty endemic in the Islamic world. So I don't know if you know-

What does endemic mean? Just tell us. Endemic means it's like they get it with their mother's milk. Okay, so it just means- When Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who grew up in Somalia. Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I spoke to her once. She wrote a book called Infidel.

She said, when I was growing up in Somalia, I didn't know a Jew. I didn't know anyone who knew a Jew, but I knew Jews were evil. Now, when you have that in kids, and that's true, that's Ayaan. When kids are taught that, and all through the West Bank, all through the Arab world, we know what children are taught that, and all through the West Bank,

all through the Arab world, we know what children are taught about Jews. They're evil, they control the banks, they run the world, everything bad comes sooner or later back to the Jews. Yeah, they can't drink milk. Right, so what do you do? I mean, how do you make peace when people believe

that you're subhuman and superhuman. That is, you're vermin but you control the world. That's a really weird and strange kind of prejudice. And you know you grew up in Louisiana. So you know that people still hold that kind of prejudice in the United States. It's not like that doesn't exist in our world. So take that and like toxify it a billion times in the Middle East and it becomes very, very difficult. Wow.

Yeah. So it's a tough sitting over there for Israel. It's a very tough setting. Has Israel ever thought of just moving to a new place? It's funny that you should say that. Originally, I'll tell you, I don't know if it's a funny story, it's kind of a funny story.

It's okay to be, it's okay. We're, everything can have some humor. Exactly. So the first president of Israel was named Chaim Weitzman. And he was testifying in front of the Peel Commission, which was the British commission that was trying to decide what to do with the, and one of them said,

Mr. Weitzman, why don't we just give you Uganda? Just take Uganda, by the way. I'm not sure the Ugandans would have loved that either, but that's, why don't, because there's so much strife in the Middle East. Why don't you just take Uganda? And Weitzman said, that's like my asking you, sir, why you didn't drive 50 kilometers, why you drove, rather, 50 kilometers to visit your mother in the next town when there are so many other old ladies

on your block. And it's the same thing. Like Israel, I mean, three times a day in my prayers, I pray for Jerusalem. And Jews have done that for thousands of years. That's where David walked. You know, that's what Moses was leading the people to. That's, I mean, that is the Jewish land.

In three different traditions, it's the Jewish land. It's even the Jewish land in Islamic tradition. It's why, you know, Muhammad started out, he originally faced Jerusalem when he prayed, and then when Jews eventually rejected Islam, he turned towards Mecca. But Jerusalem is sacred to all three traditions, and it just feels it not

only that but it feels to me like honestly you look there are like 40 40 flags in the world that have Christian symbols on them and there are probably 35 that have Muslim symbols on them and there is one that has the Jewish star and that one country is the one that the world's entire hostility is turned towards and I just feel like doesn't anyone see that? Isn't that weird just by its nature? I mean it's certainly I could certainly see how if I was from there I'd feel a real underdog mentality.

Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yes. Do you feel like we get fair coverage of, like a lot of media folks, there's a lot of Jewish media folks, right? Right. And they've made a lot of great stuff over the years. I like the movie Family Man. I like a lot of different stuff, but do you feel like we get a fair coverage of the war in Israel and Palestine or of the conflict? So it's really hard to fairly cover a conflict,

especially this one, because reporters can say whatever they want if they're in Israel. But if you're in Hamas controlled territory, you have to say what Hamas wants you to say. Really? Of course. I mean, there's no such thing as like,

we're reporting against what Hamas wants because Hamas is a terrorist authoritarian group. So that makes it hard. So you have the Palestinian people, right? Right. Are most of them good people? Yeah, of course. Most people, I think everywhere in the world are good people. Yeah, yeah, of course. Most people, I think, everywhere in the world

are good people. But I will say this, good people can be made to do bad things by ideology. So if you say to me, were most Germans good people? I would say absolutely, but they became Nazis. And not because they were any different than you are or I am. Well, it's like Raiders fans. I'm like, what are we doing here sometimes?

You know? And that's just a joke, guys, don't anybody fricking lose their mind or whatever. Hey listen, I go way back with the Raiders. I remember. You know I'm a Max Cosby fan. I remember Balitnikov. Oh wow, I thought he was a president of somewhere, was he?

No, he was a wide receiver. Oh damn, I failed that. So, but seriously, it's like, yes, people are good people, but they can be made to do very bad things if they believe bad stuff. And if you believe that everybody over there is evil, then you think you're being good by blowing up buses, which happened during the Intifada, blowing up cafes.

I mean, look what Hamas did, deliberately targeting women and children and so on. Why would you do that? Because they're evil. And it's easier, unfortunately, than people think to persuade human beings to not see other people as human. I mean, in war, that's what people do. It's like Judaism introduced this idea to the world that Christianity then spread to the world,

that every person is in the image of God. It's really hard to hold onto that when you think that person wants to kill my family. But that's, to me, that's the only salvation we have is to sort of double down on that message. Do you like support, or I don't know if that's the exact word, but how do you feel about the way that Israel is dealing with Palestine now?

Because it feels like there's just so many more casualties, right? Like, if you look at charts or bar graphs or something, or even maybe some. So I'll say two different things about it. One is, if you ask experts in war, they'll say that the reason that people are so surprised is because they never paid attention to a war before,

and in fact, the casualty rate is roughly one to 1.5. That is one soldier to 1.5 citizens, which is actually much better than almost every war, certainly much better than our wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. But we live in a different age where you can see the rubble and you can see the bombs and all of that stuff. And it is heartbreaking.

I mean, look, I see coffins of children. And I know that Israelis were responsible for that, responsible in one sense and not in another, and it's terrible. But I also know that tomorrow, literally tomorrow, if Hamas said, okay, we give up, that would be it. That would be it. The only one that, I mean, it's been in their power

since day one to stop this war. All they have to do is say, okay, we give up. On October 6th, there was a ceasefire. Israel didn't break the ceasefire. And then when they went in at any moment, if Hamas had said, you know what, since it was clear that Israel was gonna destroy Gaza, that would have been over.

And yet it's not. And so there are a lot of ways of looking at the same conflict, even while being able to hold the enormity of the suffering and pain that is there. Well, this says, is it really one to one? How this is it? Is this a word? I don't know what source this is.

Not one to one death of Israelis, one to 1.5 death of Hamas fighters to citizens. Of those, let's say it is 38, although that comes from the Hamas Health Authority. Of those 38, how many are Hamas terrorists? According to most estimates, somewhere between 20 and 25. Okay. I'm not between 15 and 20. So if it's 20, that means more terrorists than citizens.

If it's 15, that means like 1 to 1.2. There's a guy, John Spencer, who's the world's expert in this, who's gone on a bunch of podcasts and talked about how he's never seen a conflict, even though what people see doesn't accord with this where in fact The degree of civilian casualties has been as low in comparison to the degree of fighters in civilian areas where remember? Hamas again and again and again has in

houses in hospitals in schools in tunnels all those places where you have to kill citizens or you can't kill Hamas, and that's a really awful way to fight a war. Another thing I'll point out, just if people doubt this. If people are listening at home, just so you can't see, it says, this says Palestinians, 38,000, Israelis, 1,200, reported killed. Now killed now this is from this is from the United Nations right you know I wasn't saying one to 1.5 Israelis to Palestinian all those

Palestinian right how many are Hamas fighters how many are must fighters and here's the other issue if you go to an Israeli home mm-hmm which happens all the time and you hear like sirens above, you go to what's called a meimad, which is a shelter, which is a bomb shelter. Every Israeli home has a bomb shelter built into it and so do all the communities. Hamas built more than 500 miles worth of tunnels all through Gaza and not a single bomb shelter for its citizens, not one, which meant that if Israel bombed, they were counting, and Sinwar, the head of Hamas, even said this explicitly,

we have him on the record saying it, they were counting on civilians dying because every civilian who dies is a success for Hamas. Because they know they're not gonna win the war militarily, they can only win it reputationally and politically. Ah, so they're counting on this type of information? Sure, I mean, it's a terrible thing to say, but it does them good to have citizens killed because it turns the public opinion against Israel, which is the only way they can win the war.

Has Israel offered a, like, okay, almost like a Red Rover type of day where it's like, if you want to come over here, you can come over here and we'll take care of you. They had several, first of all, they had several weeks before they started the operation, but also they have safe zones. Now what has happened with the safe zones, and again, it's like agonizing.

They just killed Mohammed Daif, who is the number one or number two in, um, next to Sinwar in, uh, he's the one who, who planned, right, there he is. He's the one who planned the October 7th operation. He was like, he was like the most desirable target. And guess where they killed him in a safe zone. Oh, so they create, right. So they create safe zones and then Hamas

fighters invade the safe zones and people say, ah, you see the Israelis are bombing the safe zones. You can't win with people who don't care about their people. And I don't want to say Palestinians don't, of course they do. Like a mother who's bereaved in Palestine is

every bit as bereft as a mother who's bereaved in Palestine is every bit as bereft as a mother who's bereaved in Israel. It's not like one mother feels more than the other. But the leaders don't care. They care about getting what they get. And by the way, many of them aren't in Gaza. Instead, they're enjoying their billions of dollars that were given to them in aid in Switzerland, in the Canary Islands. And where they're just emailing stuff to do like that sort of thing. in Switzerland, in the Canary Islands. And whether it's emailing stuff to do, like that sort of thing.

Yes, right. Jesus. Because, so it's a very, very painful situation all around and I wish on both sides that there were visionary and courageous leaders who would figure out a way to stop what is this awful carnage, although I must say, every time somebody feels like, first of all, it's not true that it's going on forever,

and also conflicts that go on a long time like in Northern Ireland can be solved. I don't believe it's not true that it can't ever be solved. Like the IRA? The IRA. And even countries that were hostile to Israel, like Bahrain, like the UAE, now it looks very soon like Saudi Arabia, and Israel and Jordan have made peace. So whenever someone says they'll never make peace, I think you don't know.

You haven't lived long enough to see, for example, like I did, that people said the Soviet Union and the United States will always be enemies, and then the next day there was no Soviet Union. Things change, and I can't help it, I have faith. And so do you pray also then for you, you just pray for both sides of the conflict?

Oh, absolutely, I pray for peace, and I pray for the best outcome. And I mean, it's like, to see the images we've seen, how can you not? You know, it's funny, Rabbi, because like, yeah, I hear like, you know, I've been on the side like, you know, I don't even know if it's the side, but like you hear free Palestine, right?

And so I've always thought like, if something, if you start to hear the chant hear free Palestine, right? And so I've always thought like, if you start to hear the chant of free something, then that's the place that needs the help. Yes, of course. And so I guess a lot of my like, yeah, I think that's, and I guess you see more images of damage from there. And so you're just, your feelings can't help, but hurt. Absolutely. And I think there's no reason why they help but hurt.

Absolutely, and I think there's no reason why they shouldn't hurt. I mean, they're suffering terribly. And part of my head is like, and this is why I think I may have a tough time just evolving some of my thoughts, that Israel's the stronger country. They have more of a culture,

they have more charters and organization and it feels like it's their responsibility, right? To help or to figure out that's what that's just this is a blanket statement, right? It feels like they're the ones that should have to figure this out, right? And now that might be delusional, but it's just like, it might be emotionally motivated, a lot of that. But I totally get that. And what I would say to that is, first of all,

it does you credit, there's no reason not to feel that way. There's only so much you can do. It's almost like, this is not a great analogy, and I've just thought of it, and I hope it's not a terrible one, but it's like a parent who has a kid who's a drug addict and you say, well, look, it's the parent's responsibility. And they again and again and again and again and again, they enable and enable and enable and then they decide, okay, I'm going to cut them off and then they enable again and then

they cut them off. And you say, actually at a certain point, if the other side doesn't help, you can't do anything. A strong people can't, look, Israel tried, I mean America tried this. America said, okay, we're gonna impose democracy on Iraq. Look how well that worked, and we're much stronger than Israel is. Other people have to want to be helped

in order for you to help, and they not only have to want to be helped, but they have to not want to destroy the people that are helping them. Because although Israel is stronger, that's true, there are 30 Muslim nations around Israel, or 25. There's one Israel. So, there are, you know how many, like before the Holocaust there were 18 million Jews in the world. That's like 0.1% of the world.

Now there are about 15 million Jews in the world. That's like 0.1% of the world. Now there are about 15 million Jews in the world. There's a, we're very tiny. There are over a billion Christians, over a billion Muslims. There's 0.1% of Jews in the world. So... God probably knows 200. You probably do. You know? But that's, I mean, really 15 million is nothing. It's smaller than the population of LA, smaller than the population of New York, and that's it, over the entire world.

So Jews feel frightened, I think, for legitimate reasons. Yeah. Well, yes, certainly I would think if there's strength in numbers, you would have to be as, you would rely on so many other of your senses. And so many of my Jewish friends are so like, they're complex, I never,

Jewish people are super complex. The whole system, it's really fun, like funny joke around with a lot of my Jewish friends. If you think up a good joke, they like it. I have a theory about why that's true. Okay, so here's my theory about why Jews are the way they are. Not all, but I mean, there's a variety always. But there are two things about Jewish history

that actually, I think, gave Jews certain cultural tendencies. One is that our tradition is very book centered. If you go into a church, you see an image of Jesus. You go into a synagogue, you see a Torah, you see a book. We don't have a perfect life in Judaism, we have a perfect book. That makes it different, so you have to know,

like literacy, literacy was huge. And then the other thing is, when you have to wander from place to place to place, you have to start learning all sorts of different cultural cues, or you won't make it. And so you have to be intellectually agile, because if you're not, the host country is not going to have any use for you, and they're not

going to be able to use you. Wow. So both those things Jews learned, and that's why you have so many Jews in comedy, and so many Jews in music, and so many Jews in literature. And so they learned the cultural cues of wherever they had to wander which is you know good and bad good and bad well let's talk about anti-semitism then yeah if we can is that all right absolutely okay I talk about it all the time you do

I do yeah yeah because we had it so we had an episode um what a weird fucking weird let's talk about anti-semit of semantics, is that all right? We had, well sometimes, I'll be honest with you, you get scared to even say the word Jewish, or to say like Israel, like, you feel scared sometimes, like you feel like, well we had a podcast like Roseanne Barr was on, right, and she said, she made a sarcastic comment,

she goes, yeah, she goes, yeah, and six million Jews didn't die in the Holocaust, right? It was obvious sarcasm, right? It was obvious, I think, if you and me listened. Of course. But YouTube, they banned us for two weeks and they took our episode down because they said that we promoted.

Holocaust denialism. Something like that, right? And so it kind of affected me. I was like, well, shit, you know, like, she is Jewish. It was sort of like, you know, it made me kind of angry, kind of, not against Jewish people, but it made me angry that there was this like, that felt like there was another parameter

where you couldn't speak about things, you know? So look, antisemitism is a very, it's called the oldest hatred. It's extremely difficult and there are lots of factors why I think antisemitism exists. But at least a big part of it is because Judaism and Christianity, look Christianity came from Judaism and so-

So Judaism was first. Judaism was first by a couple thousand years. Oh damn, and they probably were then. Yeah, and that's why Jesus was born Jewish. Saul... Oh, he was Jewish. Turned to Paul. Paul's original name was Saul. Oh really?

Yes, he was Jewish. And what happened was the believers in Jesus were all Jews. The early disciples were all Jews. And the other Jews disagreed with them. And I don't know about you, but in my experience, family fights are sometimes the worst fights. And this was a family fight. It was like they all knew each other. They all grew together. It was a very small community. They were all Jews together, and now they disagreed about this

huge thing. It's like, you know, the fight over the Thanksgiving dinner table between the Democrats and the Republicans. Unfortunately, the family fight got put into a book called the New Testament that lasts forever. And so for thousands of years, Christians would read this not with a sense of, oh, that's my Jewish brother and I'm fighting him, but that's the person who killed and denied the God that I believe in. And that's a very powerful thing to, I mean, the history of Christian antisemitism is long and very ugly. They've had a lot of beef. And Christians and then Muslims have their own history of antisemitism, not for most

of history as bad as Christian, but still. And when you put that together and then Jews aren't allowed to own land in almost any land in medieval Europe, so what do you do if you don't own land? You become a money lender. It's the only other job you can do. You can't farm the land. You can't grow. So Jews were money. Nobody likes a money lender because then you owe them money. And Jews, every time

people owed too much money, you know what they would do? They would kick the Jews out of the country, then they don't know money anymore. And so Jews got kicked from land to land to land to land. And because they lived in all these different lands, it became easy to develop conspiracies about them. That land, Spain, or not Spain, actually, Spain kicked its Jews out in 1492, but let's say that land X or Y, that we kicked the Jews out, now they're attacking us.

Ah, it must be the Jews that did it. And it's always, always great to have someone to blame your own problems on. Well, yeah, everybody wants an enemy. Everybody wants somebody to point the finger at. So you put a lot of these things together and you get this enduring hatred and this very selective,

like people don't go on the internet and say, you know what, Jonas Salk gave us the polio vaccine and Einstein gave us modern relativity and Freud gave us psychology and Proust gave us the greatest modern novel. No, they say Jeffrey Epstein gave us pedophilia. And you can do that with any group. The difference is, of course, people don't do it with any group.

They don't look and say, okay, what white Anglo-Saxon Protestants have done terrible things. Let's make a huge chart of all of them and put it on the internet and say, you see white Anglo-Saxon Protestants are terrible. No, but they do it with Jews. Yeah, that's interesting, man. That's one way of thinking about it. I mean, it's unfortunate too, sorry.

No, no, no. I say weird sometimes, but it's like, I'd never thought about it. No, of course, I mean, it's not like. And I think some of maybe like, I don't know if like, I don't notice, I mean, I grew up in a place it was like racial division and stuff. We didn't have any Jewish folks.

My mom dated a Jewish guy actually for a little bit names and he would drive so far to get gas that was a little cheaper, but we just thought it was funny. And he got us tickets to like our first football game we ever went to and, you know, nice guy. And he was black and Jewish. I didn't even know that he could do that.

Yes, he could. And then... Well, that's the other thing is that Jews are white to the left, but they're not white to the right. It's weird. Like the Klan doesn't think of Jews as white, right? But all those kids on campus were saying

Jews are white colonialists. Well, if you go to Israel, more than 50% of the Jews in Israel are what are called Jews of color. Some from Ethiopia, the others from Arab lands. Wow. So. JOCs baby. Yeah.

That's cool. Yeah, they got some beautiful Jewish ladies I've seen on the internet. Probably men too. I haven't looked at them, but I believe that there are some. We got to get you to Israel. Yeah. Hey, look, dude, I could end up over there. A Jewish lady asked me to marry her one time, but she only gave me like seven hours to decide.

And I was like. That's a little bit of a deadline there. Dude, I asked for more time and she's like, I've had enough of you. I'm like, well, then this is too much. I think that you probably made a wise decision. Anybody gives you seven hours to decide. I was like, yeah, this marriage wouldn't last.

Why do Jewish people have so much success? Is that a fair question to ask you, Phil? Sure, sure. A lot of my Jewish friends are successful. It's like, dude, the more places I go where it's like, I see like, oh, this is a Jewish business owner or a Jewish thinker, facilitator. You know, it's almost like, sometimes I think of them

as like glue-ish, right? It's like, they're kind of the, like, they're, they're, they're just, they find ways to like create value, you know, like. So what I would say to you, yeah, I think first of all, what I would go back to what I said before about there's a tradition of literacy and they had to learn the cultural codes.

But remember that this is now. And yes, that's true that certain Jewish groups in the past have had, but there are, I mean, like if you think about the Jews of Eastern Europe, the ones who were killed by them, they were poor as dirt. I mean, they lived on farms. They like barely eked out a living. They were-

I can't even imagine that, that's crazy. But that's true, even now, even now, there's like, I think 10 to 12% of Jews live under the poverty line. There are always, but the people that you know, of course, are the people who are successful, and there are a disproportionate to our own proportion successful Jews, like I think it's like 20 to 22%

of all the Nobel prizes in the world have been won by Jews, even though we're 0 one percent of the world Damn, which is amazing pull it somebody's got to start a comeback or here's the question In reaction to that if you knew that about another group Would you automatically think well of them or think badly of them? The weird thing is that people look at that at Jews and they think badly of them if I told you for example Which is true, the highest ethnic or racial or religious earning group

in America is, do you know? Hold on, give me 30 seconds. Okay. The highest racial or ethnic earning group in America is, I would probably say, Persians. Nigerians. No way, because of this email stuff? Isn't that wild?

No, not the, I'm talking about in America. Oh, living here. Living here. Nigerians, which is amazing. And yet nobody says those damn Nigerians. Yeah. They take all our jobs. They do all these terrible, no, there's,

it's because there are these ancient prejudices that then people turn against the Jews. I would think if people, I mean, look, the people who took their money from Harvard and Penn and so on, their grandparents weren't wealthy. Right. I mean, these are people who made tremendous success and then turned around and turned philanthropic,

and then people say, look at those dirty Jews. Yeah. And I think, what do you want? What do you want from us? What do you want from the world? Right, exactly. I mean, nobody looks at Bill Gates again and says dirty Wasps.

They look at Mark Zuckerberg and say dirty Jew. What does Wasps mean? White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Oh, they do? Yep. Wasps, yeah. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It's interesting to think about,

I appreciate you talking about it with me too, because it's like, I always just get afraid. Like sometimes I think in Hollywood, like, you know, it's interesting. It's interesting to think about, I appreciate you talking about it with me too, because it's like, I always just get afraid. Like sometimes I think in Hollywood, like, you know, like, there's just a lot of Jewish folks. It's been, you know, and it's, I don't have any thoughts about it, except that sometimes you like, so at that point you build stereotype, you build like,

you know, you wonder like, oh, well do they have something against me if I'm not having successes or, so I can see how some people's schools of thoughts are like in Hollywood. Well, also we really, we have a tendency to group groups together. So people will say this about the blacks

and this about the Mexicans and this about the Jews and this about on and on about the Hicks, about the, it doesn't matter. Hicks, gays, people, Frankles, Irish, Jesus Christ. I know. And so that's also something that everybody fights against. Some of it's just normal. Some of it is normal, but it's also, we know,

like we know that it's not really, that it doesn't really work. Like, do some groups loosely have characteristics? Yes, but not enough that like, you know, this group is good and this group is bad. And also those characteristics change. I know that this shocks people, but when Jews first came in the early 1900s,

they didn't wanna let them in for immigration because they had low IQs. No way. That was what they said. Because we don't realize how quickly cultural stereotypes change from one thing to another. It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And it's tough too, because I don't know a ton of like Palestinian, you know, it's like,

I have more of a- Palestinians are amazing people. Yeah. I have to say the Palestinians I know- Tell me about that. Are- Because I don't even know, it's like, I have a couple of friends that are part Palestinian, maybe. There are now like a bunch of Palestinian poets and writers that are getting translated into English that are just like incredibly gifted, thoughtful, insightful people and it makes me that much sadder

that they don't have a leadership that they deserve. And like that's what I wish for very much. How do we get there? I don't know. To be, you know, and it can be vague, you know, we don't know. And that's what I wish for very much. How do we get there? I don't know. And it can be vague. We don't know. I think that you probably, there is this,

there have to be sort of entrepreneurs of courage. How did Egypt make peace with Israel? Because one guy said, you know what, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to Israel. And Sadat went to Israel and he changed. And people saw that, oh my God, you can do this. So you need these people who are willing to stand up and say, we've been doing this wrong. I mean, where has it gotten us for the past 70 years to tell our kids we're going to one

day destroy Israel, which is what the Palestinians have been telling their kids past 70 years to tell our kids, we're going to one day destroy Israel, which is what the Palestinians have been telling their kids for 70 years. We're going to destroy Israel just one day. When you grow up, you're going to fight, you're going to destroy Israel. And where has it gotten you? I mean, you saw that chart. It's gotten you less and less and less land and less and less and less happiness and most tragically fewer children.

So, and when I say fewer children, by the way, when people say that there's a genocide, you know, the two of the five fastest growing populations in the world are the West Bank and Gaza. So if Israel's actually prosecuting a genocide, they're doing a very bad job of it. Oh, the West Bank and Gaza are Palestinian? Are Palestinian.

Wow. They're doing a very bad job of it. They're making love over there. Yes, because they, and there are millions of people and like, you just want, I mean, you want them to have. I'd be able to, I could pick a blind too. It's like, we got about 40 minutes, babe, you know? Let's figure this out.

Exactly. What is Israel, what can Israel do, you think differently? Are you allowed to comment on that kind of stuff? Oh, sure, absolutely. I think, I think Israel, I think Israel is, so there are two things I'll say. One is hard to change and one is easier to change. When you get out of high school in America, you go to college, and we all know college kids,

even though they can be very talented and very smart and very, they're also stupid. And they're not only stupid, because they're 17, 18. Naive. Especially guys, but both. Yeah. But when you get out of high school in Israel, you go into the army.

And you give a 17 or 18 year old an Uzi, a machine gun, and you put them at a border guard, he's still a 17 year old. And then a 50 year old Palestinian comes and a 17 year old should not be able to control the life of a 50 year old Man or woman, but that's the situation. So first of all, the situation is messed up and that's And that is like intrinsic to it and that's tragic Messed up in the sense of the organization of the they're running the idea. In the sense of that armies are young and armies control people who are not young

and that built into that is this humiliation and humiliation is the worst. Yeah. Humiliation is the worst. Well, every 17 year old wants to be Rambo. Yeah, exactly. And what Israel could do better, I believe, is there are lots and lots and lots of small ways

in which they could constantly make it clear that they esteem the people and that they respect them and that they want to help them. Now, it is true that the people who did that most in Israel were actually the people whose kibbutzim were attacked on October 7th. Those were all peaceniks on the border. They were some of the people who were kidnapped and some of the people who were killed were people who ferried medicine to Gaza. But still, even so, I still think it is true that it's incredibly important

when you're in the driver's seat to constantly turn around and say, I really want this to be different. I hope for the day that it'll be different. And I think that Israel has not done that as much as it could or as much as it should. The people or the leadership? Both, both.

Because there's this great line from the poet Yeats, who after all was in Ireland and saw the trouble, what they call the troubles for years. He said, too long a sacrifice makes a stone of the heart. And like at a certain point you just go, I don't care. I don't care. Those people, I don't care. And that's, you have to fight against that.

You have to. Yeah, things edify kind of in you. Edify, is that the right word you think? Solidify. Solidify in you. Like if, they calcify kind of. Right, right. And like you can't stand your neighbor.

You know, when you first met them, you brought them a cup of sugar, but now you just can't stand, neighbor, you know, you when you first met them you brought them a cup of sugar But now you just can't stand or your landlord or whatever and and and it's very human But if we don't overcome that It's we go the way of the grave America and Britain after World War two or is it World War one when they free or one? Okay after World War one, or is it World War I, when they freed? World War I. Okay, after World War I, they helped create the space for Israel in the current space of Israel.

Especially Britain, yeah. Do you feel like they should help now? Is that part of it? After World War II, well after World War II was the actual creation of the state. After World War I was when Britain first did all the initiatives to do it. They try, they do try. America has tried again and again and again to do this, they have. But also part of this is that

for a long time the Soviet Union was the ally of the Arab nations and the Soviet Union also was deeply anti-Jewish and deeply anti-capitalist and anti-Western. There's a lot of Jewish people in the Soviet Union. There were. Oh, there were. But they all left, yeah. So now they, so now I think that there really has to be

like an ideological change, which is the kind of thing that you see happening in Saudi Arabia. With MBS, he's really trying to change his country. Now all of a sudden, his name is Mohammed bin Salman. Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. Right, there he is, Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud. He's like, for example, women can now drive in Saudi Arabia. I know that that seems like, but that's a huge thing.

Which is the other part of it, is that the culture. I would not want to be there the first week. The culture now, the culture... I would not want to be there the first week. The culture, no. The culture. The culture in the West Bank and Gaza, to women is... I mean, women are very second-class citizens there, and LGBTQs have no rights. Quite the opposite.

So, I think that there needs to be, like, a general sort of reckoning with the culture and an openness that would allow people to live in peace. And you think, so the responsibility really falls kind of 50-50, do you believe? No. I know people will disagree with me. I'm going to say 80-20. I really think if tomorrow the Palestinians said, we want peace, we don't want to destroy you, we want to live in peace and we want to thrive, there would be peace and they would thrive. Is there a way for them to even like verbalize that to the?

Only if they have the leaders who promise it, because nobody's going to believe it. If just, I mean, there are many people who say it, but unless the leaders promise it, it's not going to happen. Right. And the leaders are Hamas. Hamas. Is there a president outside of Hamas for the last time? There is, there is Abu Mazen in the Palestinian Authority,

but he's in his 80s, he's thought of as corrupt and- What the fuck's he doing? Not good. Yeah, I can't imagine that somebody would have a leader in their 80s, how could that happen? Right. So- What is he just milling around a fucking

bocce ball court, like get a fucking microphone, this is crazy. There is Mahmoud Abbas. So he's- And what does he say about it? Well, this is a guy who did his PhD in, I don't wanna get you canceled, but in Holocaust denial. So I don't think that he's as sympathetic to Jews as he might be. But he has been, I think he has been okay in the sense that he has done some cooperation with Israel, but is he a peacemaker?

Has he really reached out? Is he a courageous visionary leader? No, which is why he's not. I mean, and the Palestinian authority is notoriously corrupt. So he is not somebody who, you know, is going to be able to make peace. But by the way, the corrupt, I just want to say just, you know, one of the, one of the presidents of Israel was put away for, was put in jail for corruption. And it was an Arab female Supreme Court justice that put them away. So it's a very complex cultural picture over there.

It's not so easy. So they rarely even have that. Is that what you're saying? An Arab female Supreme Court justice? I'm saying that could happen in Israel, but it could never happen. When people say Israel is an apartheid state, it's kind of weird that you have Supreme Court justices who are Arab and Arab parties in the Knesset in the parliament and on and on and on.

So- The Knesset is the Israeli parliament? Yes. Okay, cool. Yeah, some of that is cool to like learn like a new term or something. Say if you are a Palestine supporter, right? How do you just still be supportive of your Jewish friends?

You know, like how to, is there ways that people can like manage that with their friends? Should they like? So here's, here's a- It's very painful. What's the difference between Israel, Jewish, Zion? What is the difference between some of that? Okay, I'll answer both of those.

I'll answer both of those, Grant. First of all, Zionism is the traditional Jewish desire to return to the land of Israel. It has different forms, it has a political form, it has a religious form, but it's the same basic thing. So in theory, some Jews say they're not Zionists, but the truth is that Zionism is sort of a part and parcel of being Jewish.

It's the bread and the butter. Right. Okay. What I would say to people who have Palestinian friends, have Israeli friends, and disagree is this. I was, until last year, the rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. I had a lot of people who, in that congregation, I had a large Persian community and others,

as well as the Persian community, who love Trump and other people in the congregation, I had a large Persian community and others as well as the Persian community who love Trump and other people in the congregation who hate Trump, okay? And I have to think to myself, like this is one congregation. I don't, I'm not gonna take a political position, but I wanna try to keep these people together. And the way to do it is we always start with politics. But if you start with what do you like to eat? How do you raise your kids?

What do you care about in your life? In other words, the things that are closest to you, then you know someone before, I like I buried their parents and I married their children and I went to visit them in the hospital. And by then, when I found out their political opinions, I really didn't care because most of the things in our life that affect our life are not what we see on the screen. People scream about Trump all the time, but the truth is, whether their kid is healthy

or sick means much more to their life than how they feel about him. So I try to get people to live locally. You can care about issues, you should care about issues. I do, obviously, we spent the whole hour and a half talking about issues. But I also know that I'm not gonna judge you as a human being based on your disagreement with me unless you hate, unless you hate, then I'll judge you.

Then I'll judge you. But if it's a disagreement of goodness and of love, then we can argue all day long. I got no problem with that. Yeah. Yeah, I wish you could find ways to do that more. I know, me too. It makes me sad.

Yeah, it is sad. It's painful in this country too. It's so painful because it's like, it doesn't take, I mean, it's not the first time we've seen someone try to assassinate a political figure, but it always like, it always reminds you that the difference between chaos and civilization, it's really thin.

It's like a bullet away. Yeah. And that's scary. Well, I've said that too. It's like all that needs to happen is a couple of police stations need to get kind of commandeered. Right. And then it's, the game could change.

I know. And you know one thing I noticed the other day, Rabbi Wolpe was, when that happened with Trump, a lot of people like, it didn't even make them feel, like it made them feel like something. But if that would have happened 20 years ago and you know right every it would have but it's like we're almost we've become so desensitized yeah to um I don't know pain I don't know what true and not only that but

don't forget like in in recent history we've had other political figures Gabby Gifford I don't remember I can't remember the name of the Republican Senator who shot at a baseball game. It's not like- Oh, was that um- Who was that? I wouldn't don- no, not Don Mattingly or something. Who was it? God knows who you're- Oh, Steve Scalisey.

Right, Steve Scalisey, right. Somebody popped off on that bad boy, dude. What was he in, Shortstop? Shortstop, this Sig Sauer, baby. They really- that's insane. Yeah. So I'm saying it's like, this is happening and we have to be aware of it and it's pretty awful. Yeah. Why do a lot of aid goes to Israel from America? People talk about that a lot.

It's like a point of like, why are we giving money to Israel? Why are we giving money to other countries? Why is there a bigger connection that we have with Israel? Like, are they the footprint in the Middle East? Or are they like the teammate in the Middle East? Or why is that? Because a lot of people are like, well, shit, we have people that are bleeding to death on our streets,

but we're sending billions of dollars to Israel. So there are two things to know. First of all, about foreign aid. Foreign aid is like 1%, less than 1%. I'd love for you to look this up of our budget. We think we're spending so much money on, it's nothing, it's negligible. That's a great question. Look that up, Nick. And we get what percentage of the budget? Less than 2%. US government's foreign aid budget is typically less than 2% of total federal spending. In 2022, the US obligated $70.4 billion in foreign aid,

which is about 1% of total spending. So that's first of all. When people say it's all this money, if only we brought it home, that's not true. It's less than 1% of the budget. That's not gonna change everything. But you buy a lot of influence around the world, and most of the money that goes to Israel,

we get in arms purchases back, and also in innovation back I mean Google has offices there Microsoft has off offices there like Israel is called startup nation because like your nav system was built in Israel and you know a lot of other a lot of other technological innovations were created in Israel so found whatever yeah, there's that. But also, I think the reason America is tied to Israel is not because there are Jews who lobby Congress, because there are lots of lobbies in the world.

There's a huge cigarette lobby and yet at a certain point people said, let's put warnings on cigarettes and cut down cigarette. And they had a lot more money to lobby than it has to be a community of interests or people won't care. Yeah, because there's like APAC, people talk about a lot recently. But the only reason people listen to APAC

is because APAC makes the case that here is a country in the Middle East that shares your Western values, that supports America, that listens in. You need a local listener in in the Middle East that can actually, you know, infiltrate these various countries. Look, if Iran gets a nuclear bomb, yes, it's terrible for Israel.

It's not good for America either, right? Iran says, we're the big Satan, and Israel's the little Satan. So our money to Israel is truly, I think, an investment. It's not just a gift. It's an investment. Yep. Understood. Do we give money to Palestine as truly, I think, an investment. It's not just a gift. It's an investment. Yep.

Understood. Do we give money to Palestine as well? Billions, billions of money. How many dollars do we give to Palestine? As you will see, and yet, despite this, and this is just the United States, that's additional. We give billions of dollars to Palestine. The United States.

I want to read it. I'm sorry, Mr. Wolpe. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, no. But I was just going to say this is just the past eight months. But I'm talking about every year, how much money? Since October 7th, a little over a billion. Since October 7th, a little over a billion.

And for Israel, it's $13.5 billion. And then also the UN and other agencies give money. No one else gives money to Israel, obviously, but other countries give money to Palestine as well. So we're the only country that gives money to Israel? Yes, we're not the only country that trades with Israel, but gives money to Israel. Oh, interesting. So there's a real ally ship there then.

Oh, it's very deep. In fact, Walter Russell Mead, who is the Foreign Affairs columnist of the Wall Street Journal, just wrote a long book that I actually blurbed, and I can't remember now the name of it. I think it has the word arc in the title. But it's all about the arc of a covenant. There it is, the arc of a covenant. And it's all about the long history of Israel, United States relationship, and what he says is,

you know, basically what Kissinger used to say, countries don't have friends, they have interests. And if Israel wasn't in the interest of the United States, the United States wouldn't be supporting Israel. So. Sometimes it feels like, like, because there's so many successful Jewish people in the US, it feels like that America kind of has become just like a, um, like a LLC or something, you know? Do you

feel like that, that Israel like owns America now? Is that a crazy question? Yeah, it is actually. Okay. Um, I, I mean, there's never been a Jewish president. It's never been a Jewish vice president. Have we ever tried to have we ever as any have a Jewish president ever run? Did Bloomberg almost won? Was he Jewish or not? Bloomberg, yes, Bloomberg is Jewish. He didn't really run that hard. He ran, well, he ran as hard as he could, but the point is he didn't win.

The majority of people who own wealth in America are not Jewish. If you look at the top 20 families, there are a number of Jews on them, but the majority aren't. So the idea, again, that is the- Maybe that's a stereotype. It's not a stereotype, it's conspiracy thinking. Which is actually more dangerous in some ways than a stereotype.

No group runs America. You hear all the time that like this group does or that group does or those kinds of conspiracies. I hope you're not set on ass jumping. No, no, no, no, no, I actually am really glad you I hope you're not saying I asked you. I'm just trying to. No, no, no, no, I actually am really glad you asked. I think it's really important. I'm just trying to be able to like.

I think it's really important. Conspiracy theories are almost always based on some previous prejudice that people have. Or would you even say in the beginning, what was the first thing we said? We've almost gone full circle here. Conspiracy theories are based sometimes on. Conspiracy theories are a desire to do two things. One is to explain a world that's inexplicable.

Why did these things happen? I know there are complex causes, but I'd like a simple one. And the other thing is it relieves you of any responsibility. Everything that's bad that happens, it's those other people that are doing it. But I gotta tell you, I've been a rabbi now for decades.

I know many of the most successful and powerful Jews in the world. Some of them I know very well. They haven't let me in on the conspiracy. And I would love to know. Okay, no, that's cool to know. Because sometimes you're like, yeah, you just, I think, I think sometimes that's some of that's Hollywood shit.

It's like, you just feel like that since so many people are Jewish, sometimes you feel like, oh, they all kind of work together and that you, if you're not Jewish, sometimes you feel like they don't care or that you're an outsider. And some of that could be your own thinking. It could be.

And there certainly is a function that every group works that way. Oh yeah. If you go to most of America. Oh, I said if you go to a farm and it's a lot of farmers and it's a lot of like Baptist farmers, they're going to, the same type of behavior is going to happen. I say that a lot. But also, you see Jews if you go to LA, New York, Chicago, Miami.

But you know, like growing up in Louisiana? Yeah, we had two, maybe two Jewish people maybe. And one guy, I don't even think he was, somebody just wrote Jewish person on his back or whatever. But no, I think it's great actually, it's much better to ask even the really difficult questions, the questions that might be offensive and let somebody answer them,

than to leave them unasked because then, you know, you think, ah, he had no answer for that one. That's why he didn't say that. I think it's great. Yeah, no, I don't ever think like that. I think like, okay, what am I maybe a little bit scared to ask right now or what it was like?

Well, that's the other thing I was gonna say is when you talked about how it's hard sometimes to talk about Jews, it's like every group is so sensitive now, so sensitive. Yeah. Yeah, you used to be able to make fun of like things. I know. I think it's coming back a little bit. Don Rickles, I don't know if you remember, he was a member of my congregation.

He was a member of my congregation. No way. You saw him there? Oh yeah. He was merciless. First time he met me, okay? I'm the rabbi. First time he met me, I was young, obviously the first time he met me, okay? I'm the rabbi. First time he met me, I was young, obviously the first time he met me.

I've never, and I'm introduced to Don Rickles, I'm like very intimidated. He looks at me for a second and he goes, don't worry, your skin will clear up. That was the first thing, the first thing. Fuck you, just an error. Yeah, right. And I just, and of course I cracked up,

but it's like, it's a shame that people can't. I think we're getting back to it. I think a lot of it has just been, just fucking some of society, sorry, some of society, sir, just like of, yeah, like, I don't know, we got into this crazy stuff in the media, things used to be able to be funnier.

Now live comedy, I think, is still very good. I think it's the stuff that you know. That one person can object to and put on social media two people. I mean obviously there are things you can say that are truly objectionable. It's not like I'm a rabbi, I take things seriously. But you have to be able to laugh at yourself.

You really do. If you can't, then you'll just find that other people do it for you. And when it comes to like different groups, like in the end, your thought always has to be when it comes to different groups, whether it's Jewish people, black people, illiterate people, Chinese or whatever, women, men, we all have to live together in the world, right? And so it's like, like, I think when I was younger, I was probably maybe like a little more dumb about stuff or whatever.

We all were. But yeah. We all were. Right, but then as you go, you're like, well, the only way this all, it either goes left or it goes like straight, it kind of conjoins more, you know? The world is a boat. And you know, you can't drill a hole only under your seat.

If it goes down, it goes down for everybody. That's interesting. And that kind of keeps us all having, it should keep us all making sure that our neighbor has a life vest in a way. Exactly, nice. You know, because that's really important. If it goes down for one of us,

it can go down for all of us. You wrote a book called called Why Faith Matters. And after having some health issues, can you tell me just a little bit about that? I had a brain tumor and then I had lymphoma. So I had a couple of cancers. And afterwards, there were all these, I mean, it's not as popular now,

but there were all these people who were like professional atheists, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, a couple others. And what they were describing about religion wasn't at all the religion that I experienced when I was sick. Because the religion I experienced when I was sick

was like people gather around you, they help you, they care about you. Like people in my congregation, I know they've been giving people meals for years and years and years who are in trouble. It was a human thing. And there's a human thing, but it's done also out of faith that this is what God wants you to do and like that other people are in the image of God. And so I wrote this book, like I mean, I talk about science and faith and other questions that people have and why God allows bad things to happen and so on, but essentially I want people to understand it's very hard to create that kind of lasting community outside of a house of worship, outside of a synagogue, a church, a mosque, and that these are really the people

who will, you know, one day your, like your gym is going to close, but they'll always be a house of worship. And if you come in, you get accepted and you belong. And so the book is about the different ways in our lives that faith matters. And one story that I tell in there, which actually is very apropos of everything we've been talking about, is this guy, an old story about a guy who looks up at the heavens and he says, God, there's so much trouble and there's so much pain and there's so much war in your world. Why don't you send help? And God says, I did, I sent you.

And I feel like that sense of personal agency, that's really important. Wow. Yeah, and it also even makes you feel, not some responsibility a little bit, but the other part of that is it makes you feel purposeful. Yes. Or like you were chosen. Right, yep. Wow, that's pretty cool.

I did, I sent you. How do you put together a sermon? We're gonna wrap up in a minute. I just, and if it's too big of a question. You just saw it. That's how. I think of a theme and a story, and then I speak more or less spontaneously.

I speak from- You'll start something maybe with a- A note or two. Okay. And I'll get up with a note or two and I'll just go. I don't know why, but from the time I was young, there are a lot of things that I don't do well, but words don't fail me. For whatever reason, and I know if I have an idea,

I can get up and I can give you my 15 minutes on the idea and somehow it will tie together. And that's just, I've just been very lucky to be able to do that, and I love to do it also. I really do, so. That's cool, so. That's cool, man. Yeah, it's interesting, because I think a lot of my thoughts have just been about Israel-Palestine is just like,

yeah, feeling so much for the Palestinian people, you know? And. And I think that does you credit. And I would never say. Yeah, I would never say to somebody they shouldn't feel. I mean, how could you not? When people suffer, the first reaction should be, that's terrible that people are suffering.

Then you get to the causes, but the first reaction should just be, that's awful. Well, it's nice to have just some more, it's nice to have more information. It's nice to have information from a Jewish person. You're fully Jewish? I am fully Jewish. It's nice to have information from a Jewish person. You're you're fully Jewish. I am fully Jewish it's nice to have information from a Jewish person and Yeah, it's just nice to learn. Do you think Israel has a preference in the presidential election?

Hmm, I think it depends which is really as you ask Trump has been pretty popular in Israel though. He's gotten pretty high marks in part because a lot of presidents promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem and didn't, and he did. And also because I think he eggs on some belligerence in Israel and that makes Israelis feel like you know, we'll be okay with him. So I think that that's probably true but ultimately what I always tell people, which I really deeply believe is true, is the best president for Israel will be the best president for America because Israel needs a strong America more than it needs any particular policy. So I'm

not here to tell you who the best president for America is, but whoever it is, that's who I want for Israel because Israel needs America to be strong and prosperous and healthy in the world because it's by far Israel's major ally. And so I want America to do well, not only because I'm an American, but also because I think, and not only for Israel, but also I really, I like, I have a deep belief in America as, you know,

it's been called the last best hope of mankind. I hope it's not the last hope, but I think it's the best. And so when America is at its best, it's really a beacon for the world. And for that, I want the best leadership we can have. What is a rabbi? I know it's like a priest, right?

It's like a priest. Rabbi means teacher. Okay. So you do many of the things, like you visit hospitals, you do weddings, you do funerals, you do bar and bat mitzvahs, you do all those things, you preach and your central role is to teach, to teach the Jewish tradition and to teach values

and so on and I was lucky enough that my father was a rabbi. His father, by the way, was a song and dance man. He was a vaudevillian. So maybe that's all the same thing, I don't know. I always wondered. Because sometimes people tell me like, man, one day you should preach or pastor, you know, or get into that world. And I don't know really what God has in store for me, you know, like, but I do really, there are moments where I'll be on stage doing comedy and I'll feel like I wish what I was saying was the most important thing

it could be. Not from me, but just whatever needs to be said. I wish that whatever I was saying, that God would use me to just, would just make it as important as possible. What I will tell you is you never know in this life who you've influenced and how. Like all of a sudden someone comes up to you, I'm sure, and says, you know,

remember that thing you said at a comedy show 12 years ago, and you don't remember it all, but they remember. And they say, that changed my life. Because you're like, you're in different places at different times. I know we're ending, but I'll end with a story. So there was a famous, he grew up to be a famous rabbi, but when he was a kid, his name was called

the Seer of Lublin, and he used to go into the forest, and one day his father pulls him aside and he says, why do you keep going into the forest? And he says, well, I go there to find God. And his father said, that's beautiful, but don't you know that God is the same everywhere? And he says, well, God is, but I'm not. And so you have to find the places in the world where you are at the place where you can teach whatever it is you have to teach. And maybe the comedy stage is the place where that you have found that you have to teach. It doesn't have to be a pulpit for everybody. Everybody has their own place. Yes, sometimes we all feel, yeah, everybody has their own place.

And so does Israel and so does Palestine and hopefully they'll figure it out. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Rabbi David Wolpe. We appreciate you. Thank you. Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this piece of my life out I can feel it in my bones But it's gonna take a little