In this episode, I sit down with Rabbi Ami kozak to discuss anti-Semitism in the Jewish community, and the role of the media in perpetuating anti-Semitic ideas. Ami is a friend of mine, and I think he has a point of view on the matter. I think it's important to make clear that there's a difference between what goes on internally, and what's going on externally. And I think Ami's perspective on this is right on point. I hope you enjoy this episode and that it makes you think about what it means to be pro-Israel and pro-Zionism in the modern world, and how to deal with anti-Semites and anti-Israel activists who are out to delegitimize the existence of the Jewish people and their right to self-identify as "Jew-haters." Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast, and tweet me if you liked it! with any thoughts or suggestions on what you think of this episode. Timestamps: 1:00:00 - Ami s response to the "anti-Semitism" controversy 4:30 - What does it mean to be anti-Jew? 5:40 - How do we deal with it? 6:00 7:15 - What do we need to do to combat it 8:20 - What are we doing? 9:30 Is it a problem? 11: What should we do? 12:15 13:00 | What do you think? 15: What is anti-jewish? 16:10 - How can we do to address it 17:10 18:10 | What is the real issue? 19:30 | How do you feel? 21:40 | What are you feel about this? 22:40 Can we move forward? 23:30 // Is it possible to be more anti-anti-Semitic? 26:15 | Are we better than the other people? 27: Is it more than just one thing? 29: How do I know that I'm anti-Judea? 30:30 Do you have a problem or am I anti-heavily pro-Jew ? 32:00 / 33:00 +33:00 Do you feel like I don't have hostility towards Jews? 35:00 Are you pro-Or Jewish?
00:00:42.000I guess he's at the age where I just sort of go, oh, well, it's just kind of like he's just like a crazy old man.
00:00:46.000But anyways, I did previously have Ami Kozak on, and I think that he was just a way more sensible voice on pro-Israel issues.
00:00:54.300And I know that because he saw these clips going viral and saw people pulling it out and pretending that Rabbi Barclay was the voice for pro-Israel, of course he's going to take offense to that because who wouldn't when you feel like this person doesn't actually represent your beliefs.
00:01:06.980And so I wanted to give Ami a platform to kind of respond to that and to say and ask anything that he wanted to.
00:01:40.640But no, what I'll say is in all seriousness, I think where I'm identifying the problem as you're coming up and clashing with the Jewish community broadly, let's say, is that there is a difference between what's going on internally with you and what you feel in your own heart and mind.
00:02:00.560And I am not comfortable telling anybody that they are something inside internally that they claim not to be.
00:02:08.700I think someone knows who they are and what they are and what they feel.
00:02:11.800So when people label you an anti-Semite, you are this.
00:02:16.340Naturally, your your defenses go up because, you know, inside what you are, what you feel, that you have relationships with Jews, that you've had enriching relationships with Jews and Jewish people and have no hate in your heart when it comes to this.
00:02:27.940But the distinction I'm going to make is between what you feel internally and what goes on externally.
00:02:33.160And my concern as to what you've been doing, and I think for a lot of Jewish people, but I'll speak for myself here, is that externally, the rhetoric, the the types of things you've been engaged in on Twitter, the types of language you're using, this kind of conspiratorial, suggestive nature of talking about issues.
00:02:51.740And we can get into the specifics of that, saying things like, what's really going on here?
00:02:58.620There's Jewish there's Jewish gangs going on and taking the actions of particular Jews that you've had bad interactions with or nefarious Jews in history and extrapolating off of that and generalizing off of that is emboldening anti-Semitism broadly and adding to a climate.
00:03:13.920That's very disconcerting for Jews and for me and for me, too, to see that.
00:03:18.200And in a world post-October 7th, when we've seen mobs of people on the street supporting it, and I know that's not you, and I know that's not David we had a discussion with, but there are people who do support it proudly.
00:03:27.860And to see rises in anti-Semitic incidences, have there been mistakes in the past where we called that anti-Semitism, where it wasn't there?
00:03:34.700Yes, but when we're seeing it now, for you to engage in this kind of rhetoric repeatedly in a pattern going on here, whatever's going on internally with you, saying you're not anti-Semitic and you don't have hostility towards Jews, I believe you.
00:03:44.060But to call out what's been going on externally and what you've been engaged in, to me, is not us trying or me trying to cancel you or control you or doing any of those things.
00:03:52.960It's engaging with you and making you aware of such things.
00:03:56.360And in our last conversation, there was a point you made that I wanted to address.
00:03:59.960We didn't get to it, but the idea of like Jews are doing well, you know, this perception that Jews are just doing well and we're comfortable.
00:04:06.220Now, if you took a snapshot in history right now, like I will not disagree that there's a lot of prominent Jews and we've made a lot of impact and made a lot of positive contributions and are represented in a lot of ways.
00:04:16.680We're proud of that. And the reasons for that are because of, are very clear, like because we, in terms of culture and what we value, there are things that you've advocated for during BLM and during Blexit, two-parent families and education and scholarship and commitment to those things.
00:04:33.120That's accomplished. That's been very positive for our community.
00:04:36.080And so I wonder why there's not more admiration for that as much as it seems like there's suspicion for that.
00:04:41.300And I'll just close by saying in this opening part that for us to engage with you on this issue and to call your attention to it is just to make you aware that even though Jews you perceive as doing well in this current moment, the history, it reveals to me a certain lack of awareness and ignorance to the history of repeated cyclical anti-Semitism that Jewish people in the Jewish community has faced for decades.
00:05:03.120A hundred years, a hundred years, millennia throughout history in every society we've ever been in.
00:05:07.000And to not be aware of that or sensitive to that, to make you aware that you are contributing to this climate, I think is important and it's important to engage on that.
00:05:14.660And I'm curious to hear if that's something that concerns you.
00:05:17.720Yeah, no, it doesn't concern me at all, really, because I think it's just overblown.
00:05:21.840I mean, I don't know why anybody would be offended to say that Jews are doing well in America.
00:05:41.360It's like I don't – I'm not going to apologize for saying something that's abundantly true, and it's not – it's literally abundantly true.
00:05:46.800You could go and look at statistics that Jewish Americans are living really well, so I'm not going to pretend that they're not.
00:05:51.740But to the second point about you saying that I'm engaging in conspiracy, even something as simple as saying when you say they, when did Jewish people suddenly get the right to the word they?
00:06:03.300Like that's even like when did now they always means Jewish people.
00:06:06.520That's a – like to me that is such a leftist.
00:06:09.200Now we are taking this word and it implies that every time you use this English word that you've been using since you could speak English, this automatically means that you're talking about Jewish people.
00:06:17.760And you need to be extra sensitive every time you type out this word because of October 7th.
00:06:22.700I just can't – I just can't subject myself to that.
00:06:25.500So if there's a specific allegation regarding a conspiracy that you think that I've perpetuated, I would like to answer for it.
00:06:30.940But I would like a specific allegation and not just like you say they sometimes because they is a word and I have a right to use it.
00:06:39.700I'm talking about in specifically when you're talking about a Jewish person that you feel that you've clashed with and then jump from that to say what's really going on here and not focusing on the actions of individual people but to say I'm just going to say it like there's Jewish gangs out there.
00:06:56.760Or I'm just going to say it like this pattern of focusing on – not a lot of people know that in Nazi Germany when they were burning books, the first book they burned was a Jewish pedophile.
00:07:08.480Was that not something you talked about on the show?
00:07:10.520So I'm just saying in an isolated context of if we're having an academic discussion about certain things in history, I can understand wanting to be able to cover everything.
00:07:19.160But, you know, I'll give an example like – remember the incident you had with Ted Lieu where he deliberately took you out of context to make you look guilty of saying something you didn't say?
00:07:30.140Like it was so obvious that what he was doing at the time.
00:07:32.000But I think sometimes what you're doing, perhaps inadvertently, is in resenting being taken out of context to make yourself look guilty, you take yourself out of context to make yourself look innocent.
00:07:41.580Yeah, but I don't take myself out of context.
00:07:43.660I say an entire episode of what I want to say very plainly and then I'm taking it out of context because I think that after October 7th, a lot of people have grown hysterical.
00:07:52.940And they're looking for every time you talk about a Jewish person.
00:07:55.440Case in point, obviously, rather notoriously when Andrew Klavan, and you just referenced it, talking about Magnus Hirschfeld and his institute being burned to the ground.
00:08:03.280You know, this Jewish pervert happens to be Jewish pervert.
00:08:06.260Out of context, meaning that you stripped that I mentioned for Christians in that exact same monologue for Christians that I was talking about psychology and the fact that it was created by a lot of perverts.
00:08:17.040And I talked about for Christians before I got to Magnus Hirschfeld.
00:08:20.860How do you just completely strip that out and pretend that this was a monologue about Jewish people?
00:08:25.320Actually, what's really happening is that you are defending Jewish people because every time you hear a Jewish name, you think that you somehow have a right to, you know, defend it.
00:08:34.560And to the second point, I'll tell you what really bothers me about this.
00:08:37.100When you say you're talking about Jewish gangs, Jewish gangs have always existed in America.
00:08:40.440So I don't know why this is like suddenly something that we're going, you can't say that there could plausibly be a Jewish gang.
00:08:45.440Yeah. You know who else has always existed? Black gangs.
00:08:47.540I talked about it regularly all throughout BLM, talked about gangs.
00:08:50.700I talked about black gang violence the entire time today on my show.
00:08:53.700I was talking about Lil RT and how he's going to end up in prison.
00:08:56.440But for some reason, Jewish people think that they're just like in a special category where you're just not allowed to ever allege that they were in gangs, even though there's nonstop evidence in American history that Jewish gangs did exist.
00:09:10.860You know, you can go back to prohibition.
00:09:12.860You can go back to the Jewish gangs that, you know, were quite literally the Jewish Defense League that were putting bombs under people's cars.
00:09:19.600So to say that you can't imply and it wasn't even me who implied, by the way, I was actually going back historically and talking about what Michael Jackson was implying as I was reading Diddy Docs and saying that we keep hearing this allegation that's being made in Hollywood.
00:09:32.340To say that you don't have a right to even imply there's a Jewish gang is just a nonsense.
00:09:35.700If I have a right to imply there are black gangs and talk about black gangs, I certainly have a right to say that there are Jewish gangs and imply that there could be a Jewish gang.
00:09:42.580I'm not saying you don't have a right or a legal right to say these things, but I'm just in terms of a pattern of things and an inference of things and assuming something, you know, one of the things that you were a student pointing out during BLM, right, was that what was the fundamental flaw there?
00:09:56.920OK, it's that. They were assuming that because of an incident with a white police officer and and somebody on a black individual and something took place or somebody was killed, that must mean that there is a systemic problem of white racism targeting black people in the United States.
00:10:14.520And you and you spoke out against that. And so the generalization taking single incidences and assuming there's something bigger or grander going on is seems to me what you're doing with the Jewish community when you take certain instances that have happened historically or whatever and jumping to these conclusions in the way you're engaging with it.
00:10:31.600I didn't jump to a conclusion. That episode was me quite literally reading through the Diddy Docs and the allegations that were made in the lawsuit.
00:10:38.120And then a tick tocker did an entire video talking about how these were the same allegations that were made by Michael Jackson.
00:10:44.340And he didn't do that to create a conspiracy. It was quite literally the person that was involved in the Diddy lawsuit was the person that was there when Michael Jackson died.
00:10:53.040So there was a direct tie. So, again, you say I take myself out of context. You're taking me out of context.
00:10:58.260I wasn't like, here's an episode where I think that Jews are conspiring to control Hollywood.
00:11:02.640And, again, like I said, if the feedback from these individuals during the time of BLM was, Candace, you can't talk about black people conspiring to commit crimes and gangs that are rising up because of BLM, because slavery existed and this isn't a racism, then I'd say, OK, fine, fair bait.
00:11:18.100But it feels exceptional to me that the same people who applauded me for this exact same rhetoric, and I'm going to give you an example here, David Horowitz, David Horowitz of the Horowitz Freedom Center, he's a despicable human being.
00:11:29.860How dare you give me a literal award, an award, and say you are so brave for tackling BLM and talking about all of the ills of Black Lives Matter and talking about how we're using this one issue and they're destroying communities and they're doing all of that.
00:11:43.080And then when I say, oh, wow, look at this issue going on post-October 7th, you suddenly go, no, you're an anti-Semite of the week and you deserve to have your entire life destroyed.
00:11:53.720I just, I don't accept Jewish supremacy.
00:11:55.580And that's what it sounds like to me when you have individuals who didn't care when I said the exact same thing, who still don't care, as I still cover Black American issues like Sexy Red and Cardi B and talk about how their fame is completely fake and that there's some system that allows this fame to float to the top.
00:12:11.100And yet you're so sensitive if it has to do with a Jewish person.
00:12:46.340A brand that is not afraid to stand by me as I do that.
00:12:48.960A brand that allows me a platform to speak freely about the most important issues that we are facing as a country.
00:12:53.860That's why I'm so happy to say Pure Talk is still my wireless company.
00:12:57.420If you haven't made the switch yet, I encourage you to switch now.
00:12:59.800Pure Talk puts you on America's most dependable 5G network and offers unlimited talk, text, and plenty of data for just $20 a month.
00:13:06.740Why would you still be with Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile?
00:13:09.320You can literally get the best coverage, 100% U.S.-based customer service team, plus your family can save up to $1,000 per year.
00:13:17.580And you'll also be supporting American Jobs, a U.S. veteran-led company, and the great charities that Pure Talk supports as well, like America's Warrior Partnership, who is on the front lines of preventing veteran suicide.
00:13:28.480So go to puretalk.com slash Owens, and you'll save an additional 50% off your first month when you make the switch today.
00:13:35.600Again, go to puretalk.com slash Owens and support a wireless company who shares your values.
00:13:41.340Right. Well, I mean, I find it really interesting because I think the way you're coming at it is as if the Jewish community is acting woke and snowflakey.
00:13:49.900And the way I'm coming at it from seeing what you're saying is that, is like using woke collectivist sort of leftist tactics and sort of generalizing about groups and using Jewish, like using the identity as paramount, as if that's relevant in any way to the stories you're covering.
00:14:08.460That's what I'm saying. I never said that it was relevant that Magnus Hirschfeld was a Jew, no more than I said that the four other people that I had mentioned before I got to Magnus Hirschfeld.
00:14:17.580Sigmund Freud was also in that segment. He happens to be Jewish.
00:14:20.860But I also didn't say that their Judaism was the reason for this, or if you view it as a race, that because they're racially Jewish, that this was the reason for this.
00:14:30.140I never connected that dot. I simply said their names, and Jewish people got offended.
00:14:34.460They just cannot handle that there could have been a Jewish pervert that existed and had a weird sex institute, and he wasn't pervert.
00:14:42.040I'm sorry. Magnus Hirschfeld was a pervert.
00:14:43.760I find it weird and extraordinary that someone would race to defend a pervert.
00:14:47.520Like if someone was like, hey, here's a black pedophile.
00:14:50.280I'm not like, how dare you talk about this black pedophile?
00:14:53.340We're going to defend this black pedophile.
00:14:58.860Like you don't, you're actually not required because you're a Jewish person, and this guy happens to be Jewish, to defend him, Magnus Hirschfeld, because he has nothing to do with the Jewish faith.
00:15:09.320Right, but if you went on to say in several pattern of episodes in which every time you said, I'm just asking questions as a black pedophile, I don't know what's going on with black people, but something's going on here.
00:15:20.180And then when black people got offended, you would say, why can't I, like making it part of the narrative is what's very concerning.
00:15:26.040You don't have several episodes where I said, I'm not going to, that's just you kind of saying that right now.
00:15:31.200You gave a specific example about Magnus Hirschfeld, and I told you this was an episode where I was talking about psychology, and I had listed four Christians in that exact same monologue.
00:15:39.760No Christians, no Christians were outraged because no Christians are snowflakes, right?
00:15:44.400So they weren't like, why is Candace pointing out what the Christians are, that there were Christian perverts in the past?
00:15:50.600And yet the Jewish community post-October 7th has gotten a little snowflakey.
00:15:54.320Everybody can see that, except even speaking to your point, by the way, and I'm sorry to cut you off here because this kind of even proves it further.
00:16:01.580When we first began that conversation with Dave Smith, and you were talking about these people online that hate Jews, you know, these anonymous accounts.
00:16:08.680And I had a Jewish friend who had messaged me and asked me, can you publicly disavow these people that are saying bad stuff about Jews?
00:17:09.580I didn't bring this up in the last conversation because I think it just would have distracted from the issue that we were discussing.
00:17:13.900But something—a clear example of this that I'd say raises legitimate concerns.
00:17:18.440So—and I saw you talk about this with Piers Morgan, too, when he brought up Kanye West and those remarks.
00:17:22.620Okay, so I know you're bored of the subject, but just for the sake of clarity, what Kanye West said, I'm going DEFCON 3 on Jewish people, nothing to do with Israel, nothing to do with policies at DEFCON 3 on Jewish people.
00:17:35.240And you admitted, I think, in videos after that, from what I've seen, and it could be stuff I haven't seen, but from what I've seen, you admitted I fumbled on that a little bit and I could have been more clear.
00:17:42.200The amount of—does it concern you, or you can see why it concerns us, that while you may have had a lot of information going on behind the scenes that may have clouded your judgment on how to respond to that,
00:17:55.720I would simply say, first of all, you can have a personal relationship with somebody and a friendship with someone and care about them and not condemn—and not condone what they say.
00:18:05.760In other words, so the inability to make that separation, like, this is clearly not anti-Semitic if you're thinking about this.
00:18:11.200I mean, it clearly was, and does it concern you?
00:18:14.240And you see how it concerns us that many millions of people, lots and lots and lots of people, responded positively to that.
00:18:20.280And when we see things like Kanye speaks truth or he's on to something, and then subsequent after that, going on, Alex Jones and speaking the way he spoke about Jews,
00:18:29.420and for that to be received the way it is, it's very, very, very unsettling for us.
00:18:44.600That Candace, it seems like she's not saying enough or she's not being defensive enough.
00:18:49.100And I also did an episode saying I can understand how my friends like Dennis Prager and Marisha Street may have read that.
00:18:56.740But also—and this, again, gets into the conversation that we just had—when you're sitting with your friend and they're receiving text messages from someone that's threatening to take their children and drug them,
00:19:06.500and they snap, like, you can be also understanding to that.
00:19:10.440And obviously, I had assumed he would tell that to the public sooner than he had told them.
00:19:16.880And so, yeah, did I perfectly deal with that situation with one of the most famous people in the world who I happen to be friends with,
00:19:24.260and knowing what he was going through, not just from one person who happens to be Jewish, Harley Pasternak,
00:19:28.980but also multiple people who were doing those things to him.
00:19:32.300It's just—it was an imperfect situation.
00:19:34.200It was almost an impossible situation.
00:19:36.740I've said, listen, I totally get how you perceived that, and I am sorry that you felt that way.
00:19:42.120I dealt with the hand, you know, and people said, I'll never listen to you again for it.
00:19:46.940You know, I've taken my punishment for it, and I'm, you know—
00:19:51.440But to call it a perception, when so clearly it was very clear what he said was so anti-Semitic, unapologetically.
00:19:58.740But he was not talking about—when he specifically wrote that tweet, he was talking about Jewish people in his life who he felt were messing with him.
00:20:07.500And I could give you more names than Harley Pasternak, okay?
00:20:37.060Yeah, you're talking about my instant response to the DEFCON 3 tweet.
00:20:39.760That was the only statement that I had made, which was immediately after that there was stuff going on in his personal life that had inspired those tweets.
00:20:45.320But now to kind of hold the mirror up to you, and this is what I said to Piers Morgan, like, the Jewish community reaction to that, very strong.
00:22:04.780If we can't call that Jewish supremacy, what can we call it?
00:22:07.920Okay, so first of all, the comments that Kanye made on their own, you knowing all that information is irrelevant to the fact that what he said was inflammatory and anti-Semitic.
00:22:36.760Yeah, but it was very clear that he was talking about something that was wrong.
00:22:39.220You could have guessed there was more here.
00:22:40.880There was more here because he said, who have been messing with me for too long, okay?
00:22:45.940Right, but then as you, look, as you agreed, weeks later, he went on to Alex Jones and these things and said, I love Hitler and just doubled down on the anti-Semitism.
00:22:56.960Exactly, because what you're asking me is you're saying, Candace, your initial response when he said this tweet, this is what people have tried to hang me on.
00:23:03.880This was an example of anti-Semitism, was that you said, hold on here, he's not going to go blow up Israel, okay?
00:23:11.180He's not going to war with Jewish people.
00:23:12.860Let's just hang on and allow him to explain this.
00:23:15.160That's literally all I said, and there was a cancel Candace campaign.
00:23:18.400That is what started Rabbi Shrulli's nonstop harassment of me.
00:23:21.680Me saying, let's hang on and hear what else he has to say.
00:23:25.000Like, that was the greatest example of anti-Semitism that people could ever pull of Candace Owens.
00:23:28.720And I'm like, well, if that's your greatest example, like, you're not sounding like you're not exactly presenting very strong evidence that I'm anti-Semitic, especially because I have owned that in the moment, again, me having too much information, did I fumble the ball?
00:23:41.560I wish I could have said more, but it wasn't my place to say what he was going through personally.
00:23:45.940And again, it is annoying that people always cut his tweet in half, because he said more that would let people know that he didn't mean all Jews in the world, you know?
00:24:00.420What's interesting is, from my perspective, just so you can understand, it's like, from my perspective, Jews are one of the few people you can say, you know, there's two different things.
00:24:09.640People are watching two different screens here, Candace.
00:24:11.380It's like, you're saying Jews are supremacists and you can't say anything about them.
00:24:15.620And I'm saying Jews are one of the few people you can say, and probably white people too, generally speaking, and it gets bundled to do that as far as the left is concerned.
00:24:21.540You can say whatever you want about it and pretty much get away with it.
00:24:24.320Do you think if Kanye dropped an album tomorrow, it would do well?
00:24:27.280Well, he dropped an album and it went to number one.
00:24:48.820And listen, I'm not here to litigate whether or not Kanye deserved it.
00:24:52.660I'm here only to defend what I actually said and how taken and how extraordinarily blown up it was as if I had actually sent the tweet that he said.
00:25:00.120And yes, the rest of his tweet was, the funny thing is I actually can't be anti-Semitic because black people are also Jews, are actually Jews also, pardon.
00:25:08.440You guys have toyed with me and you've tried to blackball anyone, whoever opposes your agenda.
00:25:24.460I'm a bit sleepy tonight, but when I wake up, like, did you think that he was actually going to kill Jewish people when he woke up?
00:25:29.000Like, I'm going to ask you that question.
00:25:30.220Did you think that when Kanye woke up, he was going to actually kill Jewish people or did you think that he was going to go after certain Jewish people?
00:25:36.220Did you think Jews were going to try to kill you, the ones who were canceling you?
00:25:39.400And I literally never said that the guy, the people who were canceling me were going to kill me.
00:26:08.480Because you said this album went to number one, certainly not with the Jewish community, but with the black community who sympathized with what Kanye was saying.
00:26:14.920Like, growing up, like, did you, was there a lot of anti-white racism you came up against in the black community growing up, like, against white people?
00:26:24.460It's a personal question, because I'm just curious.
00:26:26.980What I, that I came up against, like, as a black person?
00:26:31.420Just, like, witnessing it in the community, in your experience growing up.
00:26:35.760In my experience growing up, everyone got along.
00:26:36.340Did you notice a lot of anti-white racism?
00:26:38.500And things have since gotten worse, which is quite weird to me.
00:26:41.520And it's something that I think I've been trying to understand.
00:26:43.260And I think a lot of it has to do with politics and has to do with sensitivities that are being perpetuated, really, in the media.
00:26:49.300Like, people are being propagandized into believing that they should see each other as other.
00:26:53.220But I feel like, I always say the 90s was, like, the golden decade.
00:27:18.240And I'm curious as far as, regarding the subject of anti-Semitism generally, I think this whole notion that you keep bringing back to of Jewish supremacy, which is interesting to me.
00:27:33.580Jews don't want to be held to a different standard than everybody else in terms of criticism.
00:27:37.420We just want to be held to the same standard.
00:27:39.340And I'm speaking for myself, seeing it as being held to the same standard as far as criticism.
00:27:44.300And like you said, Kanye's album went to number one, so therefore, I don't know if the social consequences of saying certain things-
00:27:51.480And listen, free speech, free speech, even hate speech can be protected speech.
00:27:55.140That makes you free from legal consequences, but it doesn't make you free from any consequences when you say certain things.
00:28:00.720So to conflate the two, I think, has been a mistake in this conversation about free speech.
00:28:04.600And my larger point was that in terms of supremacy, which is such a loaded word, first of all, yeah, I don't think anybody's inherent identity or immutable characteristic makes them better than anyone else.
00:28:19.900So I agree with you about equality, that we're all equal under the law, and whoever we're born to and whatever group we belong to doesn't make us better or worse than anyone else.
00:28:29.700But culture and practice and ritual, we all make kinds of different decisions and value judgments.
00:28:36.340For example, and everyone has sort of the groups they're close to and communities we come from, and we take pride in those things.
00:28:44.540So, for example, do you think- your whole contention is, like, Jews think they're above scrutiny and better than everybody else?
00:29:02.260I don't want to speak for him, but my point to you is, like, you know, do you think Christianity and Christians who follow is better than other religions?
00:29:24.700Honestly, that's the first time I've heard that, because if you ask other people that are pro-Israel, they'll say that they view Jew as a race.
00:29:31.040Like, if you ask them what they're racial-
00:30:35.160We're the ones who really delved into this whole idea of Jews being a race by blood.
00:30:39.300And therefore, there's a racial component to being Jewish, but there are black Jews, there are white Jews, Hispanic Jews, multiracial, multiethnic that are all Jews.
00:30:46.100So just to dispel the notion narrowly that Jews is race, we also- people can convert to Judaism, as you mentioned before.
00:30:50.560Right, so that's why it's very confusing.
00:30:51.280And therefore, you can't change your race, but you can't-
00:30:53.500So Rabbi Wolpe, a man I really admire, who phrased it this way, that to be Jewish is to be part of a Jewish family, that you come from a peoplehood, from a culture.
00:31:03.160And there's nothing wrong with Jews feeling, to me, like they're mission-driven to have a certain role in the world.
00:31:10.080To me, that's okay, just like you are mission-driven as an individual and as a Christian, to feel that you have a role in the world to play.
00:31:16.500And part of the Jewish role that we believe is in terms of bringing godliness into the world, like, these are values that I would think you would also stand by and advocate for.
00:31:25.100And everybody, in other words, the fact that you think Christianity should- everyone should be, like, it doesn't bother me that you believe that.
00:31:30.940In a world that we can respect each other's differences and we have- we are a tolerant society, like, you can believe that.
00:31:36.600And as long as you're not forcing me to do anything, like, I think that's great.
00:31:49.660So there's supremacists in terms of- the word supremacy is what I'm really objecting to when you use that word, because it is such a loaded term in terms of- I think it's just a misnomer for the situation to believe that you have a role to play, that you're proud of coming from a common culture and a common people that has contributed in a lot of ways.
00:32:05.780And even Christianity and Judaism have a shared history, and that's a beautiful thing.
00:32:10.100So I just don't- I reject that use of that language.
00:32:13.920I don't think it's helpful, and I think it's-
00:32:15.880Well, I think people just shouldn't be Jew supremacists, right?
00:32:18.040So it's like saying, like, I reject the idea.
00:32:36.600But you have to call it out when you see it, right?
00:32:39.000But is everyone who criticizes you a Jewish supremacist?
00:32:40.760Supremacy will thrive if you don't have the courage to call it out.
00:32:42.360And unfortunately, I think any person objectively listening to the conversation between me and Rabbi Barclay would reasonably acknowledge that he is a supremacist.
00:32:50.700Now, I don't find that to be problematic because what he says has not become law.
00:34:23.720Because, yes, there are Semitic peoples, and academically it's understood that there are different Semitic peoples.
00:34:28.440In today's current language, in the vernacular, when we talk about anti-Semitism, we're talking about Jews.
00:34:33.040But let's just say Jew hatred for the sake of argument and for the conversation.
00:34:37.040It's not that the definition of Jew hatred changes and evolves and is a shape-shifting definition.
00:34:44.360It's the reasons and causes of anti-Semitism change throughout time.
00:34:48.020There are so many different sources of it throughout history, of hatred towards Jews, whether it's theological, in the early days of Crusades or Islamic, having to do with hostility towards Jews.
00:34:59.500There's a theological component to it.
00:35:01.240Economic and social and racial, as we see from Nazi Germany, deeming Jews as this other race, this dirty race, polluting our people, and we need to cleanse our society of these dirty Jews.
00:35:10.780And this notion that some of the narratives you hear on the far right, that Jews are somehow co-opting, this sort of, they're controlling our government, they're cabals, they're behind the scenes.
00:35:21.140The left-wing anti-Semitism, which is that the Jews are the capitalists and the exploiters.
00:35:25.260And whenever we see wealth and power, we presume it must be exploitative.
00:35:28.820And who's at the top of the wealth and power and who has all that?
00:35:31.420It's the Jews or in the form of anti-Zionism against Israel.
00:35:34.220So it just comes from different places, but we end at the same place.
00:35:48.680Like, I'm just—I'm not afraid to offend a Jew.
00:35:50.620That's—whatever that is, whatever word you've got to give that, I'm not afraid to call out Jewish people when they're behaving badly, okay?
00:35:56.420And that is offensive to some people who think that there's some special category, doesn't exist in my head or anywhere else.
00:36:02.480So they just get offended when I say this was a bad person who was Jewish.
00:36:07.660What have Jewish people done bad in human history?
00:36:13.720What have Jewish people done bad as a whole?
00:36:16.800Yeah, because—and don't say, like, you can't say as a whole because you just—we just had a whole conversation about, like, you know, Palestinians.
00:38:35.360But the context of what we're saying matters, too.
00:38:37.800So I would say that obviously any Jewish individual who does a bad thing should be condemned.
00:38:42.280But if you were in a context of—if you were in the south, in the KKK South at one point, and started profiling black individuals who were bad, but you continued to do it.
00:38:53.400And it's not like you're excusing their individual behavior, but you were surrounded in a way by a culture or something that used it as red meat, who do have nefarious intentions towards innocent African Americans.
00:39:02.740To simply be mindful of that, that that is out there, and be sensitive to that, that your words could inadvertently be used to provide.
00:39:09.960And I'm not saying that you're doing that intentionally, and that's not what's in your heart, and that's not what your intentions are.
00:39:14.900But for us as a community that's experiencing it and seeing it, to be mindful of that is okay.
00:39:20.440I mean, not everything that can be said is necessarily relevant and should be said, just because it could be something true.
00:39:28.380It's okay to be mindful of the communities around that are going through certain things, and I don't think it compromises your ability to freely express yourself or speak the truth as you see it.
00:39:38.480Us to engage with you and let you know that this stuff is out there and brewing, and there is a deep-rooted cyclical history of this, even though in a snapshot in this moment there's certainly a lot of comfortable Jews doing okay.
00:39:49.120In the last episode, I was moved by the fact that you told me about, and you've spoken about, your grandfather who was an extremely influential figure in your life, right?
00:39:57.520My parents grew up on both sides, and they didn't have grandparents, and none of their friends in their community had grandparents.
00:40:07.520And one of the ways that that happened, if you look at it, historically in Germany leading up to the Holocaust and trying to figure out what exactly happened was a lot of propaganda and rhetoric over time, as Jordan Peterson has said, things get bad one small step at a time.
00:40:21.280And it's true that incrementally, with time, building suspicion, creating a sense that Jews are above this and this and this, there's some special class, it can feed into something really, really dangerous, really nasty, really incendiary that I know you don't intend to do, and I know you care a lot about the Jewish people in your life.
00:40:37.080So making you aware of those things is all I'm trying to do here.
00:40:40.320Yeah, and I think that's totally fair.
00:40:41.400You know, I think if there's any chip on my shoulder, obviously it's because, like, you just watched me take on the entire black community over George Floyd, and people were saying the same stuff.
00:40:51.060You know, don't talk about the fact that he was a drug dealer.
00:40:52.780Don't talk about the fact that he had all these arrests, because there's all this history in black America and all this stuff and police brutality.
00:40:57.840And I'm like, guys, the truth is the truth.
00:41:00.480So it is my personality, and I hope that people acknowledge that, that, okay, actually, no, for seven years she's been going at her own community over BLM.
00:41:08.300So this is, like, not as, especially because it's Jewish people that she's doing this.
00:41:12.440I just don't like bad faith actors, and sometimes those bad faith actors happen to be Jewish.
00:41:17.120And if you're reading a document and that person's Jewish, or if you're reading into history and you're talking about psychology, and by the way, a lot of, you know, those early psychologists were perverts.
00:41:26.220That's just a fact, you know, and some of them were Jewish, you know, and maybe for people that makes them uncomfortable.
00:41:31.800But it's like, guys, just call it out, because actually that dilutes the conspiracy.
00:41:36.540I think the conspiracy actually thrives when Jewish people defend a pervert.
00:41:55.940Like, Sigmund Freud was defending pedophiles.
00:41:57.980Like, it's like, let's not defend Sigmund Freud's actions on that just because he's, you know, racially a Galician Jew, you know?
00:42:04.940Well, subjects aside, I think trust from the vehicle that information is coming from is super important.
00:42:11.720And building that trust and establishing that trust matters.
00:42:15.500And that's why I think you're getting the backlash, and you are connecting it to what was happening to you during the BLM-Blexit campaign.
00:42:21.280That someone is trying to strip you of your blackness and your legitimacy as a person to comment on these issues, and all you're doing is kind of speaking the truth.
00:42:28.220And I can see why you're connecting those dots.
00:42:30.240The first thing I opened with in our last episode was that it's true that calling out racism or antisemitism where it doesn't exist is an unproductive thing to do, and then you don't see the real antisemitism where it does exist.
00:42:41.820And that's what I'm drawing here is highlighting the fact that I've seen as someone who pre-October 7th did agree that, you know, Charlottesville happened, but it's those guys, and it's marginal, and it's not something we have to be super concerned about.
00:42:56.900And there was a derangement there and a hysteria under Trump that I always downplayed as well, even as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors.
00:43:02.760But when Israel, for example, the only Jewish state in the world, the only Jewish state, 50-plus Muslim states, there's Christian countries, other countries with ethnic characters to it, but the only Jewish state gets attacked in the way that it did, and to see mobs of people supporting it, cheering for it more and more and more, and to see criticism and not any sort of sympathy at first, in some sort of broad way, to not see that or to see the first reactions to not be sympathetic in some way was just so rattling.
00:43:31.680And it did change my perspective in that, okay, it's not the right-wing anti-summits at first I'm really worried about.
00:43:36.300They're marginal, and the worst ideas of the right, I think you'd agree on this, are not ascendant in society.
00:43:41.260You don't see Nazi KKK shows on Disney+.
00:43:48.620Corporate America, you know, children's programming, it's everywhere, the worst ideas of that, and viewing people in groups and hierarchies and group identity, politics and all that stuff.
00:43:56.980But after seeing that, the anti-Semitism of the left come out, and then I'm starting to see this new sort of really troubling thing happening on the far right.
00:44:07.380And I know Twitter's an ugly place, but I want to just talk to you, and because you have such a huge platform and such impact, and I know you want to be consistent, and I appreciate you always being open to the dialogue of it.
00:44:17.300And that's my role here, to try to convey how that's being perceived, and I know that your intentions are good.
00:44:22.860And I totally get that perception, by the way, because I've heard this as well, and I've tried to make people understand it, especially from the U.K., because they're saying this too, like the conservative right seems to be kind of changing on Jews.
00:44:33.560And I had to clarify for them, no, actually, you are seeing a sentiment that's changing against Israel.
00:44:40.000And the reason for that has got absolutely nothing to do with Jews.
00:44:42.600Let me tell you, if October 7th happened in Boca Raton, there would not have been a question of unfettered allegiance to what was going on with Jews in America.
00:44:52.340Israel is a different equation, and that conversation is starting to shift because, A, we see that as a foreign country.
00:44:57.620B, people are starting to call into question a lot of things Bibi Netanyahu has said, that to me, to hear a foreign leader speak about America as if he controls it makes me uncomfortable.
00:45:06.800And then the third thing is AIPAC, ADL, shoving through laws through Congress, John Greenblatt getting caught.
00:45:12.920You know, if you want to talk about not giving in to Jewish conspiracies, John Greenblatt getting caught on the ADL on the hot mic, talking about how we got to get rid of TikTok, and then tomorrow it gets passed through Congress, isn't good.
00:45:23.920You know, we want separation. We don't want Israel in any capacity controlling our speech.
00:45:30.260The anti-Semitism bill was absolutely horrific, and it caused a reaction.
00:45:36.820That was against a foreign country having influence on American politics.
00:45:42.320And I think because it's all happening at the same time, it can be hard to dilute that and go, okay, actually, this isn't about Jewish people.
00:45:48.180They really just don't like what Israel is doing and the impact that AIPAC and ADL is having for specific reasons.
00:45:55.920But what we should agree on is that actually that's nothing like, I'm free speech, more speech.
00:46:00.320You're going to make an enemy of me if you're caught on a hot mic like Bibi Netanyahu was saying that if you criticize Israel, we're getting laws passed in America.
00:46:08.600If you criticize Israel, it's going to be a problem in your life.
00:46:11.460If that's gangster talk, don't care what his religion is, don't care what he thinks his race is, you got to now get out of American pockets.
00:46:20.540That's my view on Bibi Netanyahu, which I think a lot of conservative Americans feel as well.
00:46:24.800Taking a brief break here to inform you guys that according to a recent report, Planned Parenthood continues to rake in billions despite dwindling clients.
00:46:33.600The biggest takeaway is that Planned Parenthood is generating vast profits, including millions in taxpayer funding, which is awful.
00:46:38.940With Preborn, that's you and me, we are actively stealing away their clientele, meaning the babies that they are trying to kill.
00:46:46.700Preborn operates on a very slim budget, rescuing over 200 babies' lives every single day with no government funding.
00:46:53.140Preborn's network of clinics are situated in the darkest corners of the nation, competing head-to-head with the abortion giants.
00:46:58.900And they need our help now more than ever.
00:47:01.720When you donate $28 to Preborn, you will offer a free ultrasound to an expectant mother caught in a crisis.
00:47:06.960Once she hears that baby's heartbeat and sees that precious life, her baby's chance at life doubles.
00:47:13.200So sponsor a precious baby's life today.
00:47:15.600Your tax-deductible gift will go directly towards saving babies' lives.
00:47:19.740You just dial pound 250 and say the keyword, baby.
00:47:31.860Do you find it interesting or does it spark your curiosity at all as to why, when Israel is involved in a conflict or defending itself or in any sort of armed war or whatever, that it animates the world in no other way than Israel?
00:47:47.820Like, it's like, there's so many different things going on and suffering going on around the world and innocent people and Muslims being slaughtered in Syria by Assad and all these things.
00:55:50.540If people started to say, like, criticizing the UK when it's the one that's been attacked or criticizing the UK's response to try to get UK citizens out of being in captivity and being kidnapped, it would make you suspect of the people who continually only see it on that one side.
00:56:06.080Yeah, I guess if it was, like I said, the issue is very complicated.
00:56:10.220We just went over this for an hour and a half with Dave.