Dan Live from Michigan’s Temple Israel

0:00There's never been more coverage of Israel in the Jewish world, and there's never been less of it worth trusting. Our ARC Plus members provide the funding that allows us to cover Israel and the Jewish world honestly, without compromise. When you join ARC Plus, you support our mission and get access to exclusive content as well as ad-free listening across all ARC Media podcasts. Sign up at ARCmedia.org. And to our members, thank you.

0:31You are listening to an ARC Media Podcast. What I do know is that in 2026, the question of the Jews in America is in a meaningful sense on the ballot, just as it's going to be in a more pressing sense on the ballot in 2028. if Israel becomes as toxic in American politics as it now is in European politics, we are all in a world of trouble. People are scared right now. I hear from our Jewish community, especially our young people, who have experienced the horrors of a post-October 7th moment on their college campuses. They're afraid to wear the Star of David. They're afraid to express their Judaism.

1:16We are getting attacked left and right. It is a very hostile moment. we're focused. We know what we need to do to actually overcome it, but overcoming socialism and overcoming anti-Semitism. So I would say we can do this if we stick together, focus and fight. And Hillary and I, believe me, are not going quietly. Like they're going to come at us, the socialists. And by the way, we're coming at them.

1:51It's 6.30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 13th here in New York City. It's 1.30 a.m. on Wednesday, October 14th in Israel as Israelis turn to a new day. Before today's episode, a quick housekeeping note. On Thursday, October 22nd, just five days ahead of the Israeli elections, Call Me Back will hold a live taping at the Stryker Center in New York City, where I'll sit down with Dan Shapiro, Dahlia Scheinlin, and Brett Stevens to discuss what's at stake in Israel's 2026 election and what its results will mean for the U.S.-Israel relationship. Tickets have gone on sale, so if you want to join us, please follow the link in the episode description.

2:31Now on to today's episode. We're just three weeks away from the midterm elections here in the United States, and in Michigan, a state that could determine the control of the United States Senate, Jewish Democrats are facing a difficult choice. For decades, American Jews have been among the Democratic Party's most loyal constituencies. For many, the Democratic Party was their political home. But what happens when that home begins to feel less welcoming? In August, Michigan Democrats nominated Abdul Al-Sayed to be their candidate for the United States Senate. Al-Sayed, a fierce critic of Israel who doesn't even recognize the Jewish state's right to exist, which he has called a genocidal and apartheid state.

3:16And then there was the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, last March, when an armed attacker drove his truck into the temple where over 100 young children were present. Al-Sayed condemned the attack, but then justified it by adding, and I quote here, hurt people hurt people, a remark that deeply offended many Jewish voters and not only Jewish voters. Al-Sayed defeated the more moderate Congresswoman Haley Stevens. For many Jewish Democrats, his nomination represents a profound shift in the political party they've supported all their adult lives. Al-Sayed has already become a national figure in democratic politics.

3:55If he is elected to the Senate, where will he go from there? Now, consider this dilemma. You're a Democrat. You hold progressive positions on a range of issues. You strongly oppose Donald Trump and much of what he represents. But you also care deeply about the U.S.-Israel relationship. about Jewish safety at home in your own communities in Michigan, and about whether your political party still understands what matters to you as an American Jew. On November 3rd, you have to cast a ballot. Do you still vote for the Democratic nominee? Do you cross party lines or do you sit this one out? And beyond this election, there's a much larger question.

4:35Is the relationship between American Jews and the Democratic Party going through a temporary crisis? or are we witnessing the beginning of a historic political realignment? On Monday night, seven months after the attack at Temple Israel, I hosted conversations before a live audience of over 1 ,000 members of the local Jewish community in the metro Detroit area at Temple Israel. Our conversations touched on some of these issues that I've laid out here. Nobody was told who to vote for or how to think specifically about this election, but we wrestled with these issues, and it's hard to imagine a more fitting place to ask these questions.

5:15We will begin this episode with remarks I delivered to frame the conversations that evening. Then I had a conversation with New York Times columnist Brett Stevens, who was also editor-in-chief of Superior Journal. And following that conversation with Brett, I led a conversation with two Democratic members of Congress, Hillary Scholten of Michigan and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey. Those conversations right after this short message.

6:07Yeah, I can't. You could say it. I just don't want to say it. What did I say? We both did. Yeah. Like we're not. Why are we doing that? It sounds so. Sorry for those listening and editing this. It's going to get worse from here, by the way. Listen to our show. Chosen people problems. This should actually be the intro. OK. Chosen people problems. We're like a meat and a dove, but more so. Please tune in or Dan Cena will be mad at us. You can find chosen people problems wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free and get access to our weekly exclusive bonus episode by joining ARK Plus at ARK Media dot org.

6:46It's 730 p.m. on Monday, October 12th here at Temple Israel. You see, Steve assured me there are actual listeners of Call Me Back in the audience. But the true test is if they react to the timestamp. You pass the test. It's wonderful to be here. It's wonderful to be home because I spent some of my formative years in politics, in my professional life here, not far from here. I was squatting in our friends, the Weiner's home in the mid 90s. I won't say what exact year in the 90s because I will date myself, but working on political campaigns back in the 90s. So and there's so many familiar faces here.

7:29So, like I said, it's great to be home. Over the last three years, I have spent a lot of time in rooms like this one. Synagogues, day schools, JCCs, campus, Chabads, and Hillels. I've even davened at the JRC at the University of Michigan.

7:50By the way, there is a contingent of students here tonight from the University of Michigan that schlepped here from Ann Arbor.

8:00and as i've traveled around this country and not just this country over the past three years i've come to appreciate that just about every jew in the diaspora has over the past three years a before and an after folks in bondi beach have a before and an after jews at that synagogue in Manchester in the UK have a before and the after. Jews throughout places like Toronto and Montreal and in cities across America have a before and the after. And for this community, the after began on March 12th. And I would be remiss if I didn't say that it is a true miracle, but not only a miracle, that all of those children from that day came out of this place physically unharmed.

8:48and it is a part attribute to the staff and security that work for this institution and some of whom are here tonight. And I just want to acknowledge them.

9:09I have was invited tonight to talk about the stakes for our community in these politically polarizing times. I'm not going to tell anyone in this room how to vote. I'm not even going to discuss the upcoming election of 2026. I won't be talking about the characters or the candidates or the dynamics. I won't be engaged in any rank punditry. But I do want to spend a few moments, not necessarily on 2026, but on another year. And that year is 1144. We can learn a lot about today by looking back at the year 1144. Because whether it's 2026 or 1144, the issues that bring us together here tonight are in a sense the same.

9:54They are part of a three-step playbook. And if I can leave you with anything tonight, it is that clear recognition of this three-step playbook. Step one is the accusation. A Jew is accused of a crime. That story begins in Norwich, England in 1144 with a dead boy named William. A Jew is accused of the murder. Step two is the expansion. The crime doesn't belong to just one Jew. It belongs to all Jews. Collective complicity. In 1144, the crime was a ritual, a Jewish ritual. Therefore, all Jews were complicit. It may have been one man accused, but the entire community, the Jewish people, were complicit.

10:44Step three is the punishment. Once every Jew is deemed guilty, any Jew can be punished anywhere. That's the blood libel. It began in England in 1144, and it traveled across Europe for the next eight centuries. Now fast forward to today. Step one, within days of October 7th, before Israel had even responded to the massacre that killed more than 1 ,000 Israelis and stole more than 250 people into Gaza, including, I should add, dozens of American citizens, Israel is accused of genocide. And the image at the center of the accusation, on every screen and every rally, is dead Palestinian children. Step two, the accusation doesn't stay with the Israeli government.

11:35It expands to every Jewish day school in the diaspora, every JCC, every synagogue, every kosher restaurant, every Jewish cultural institution, anywhere where Jewish students or Jewish congregants gather and convene in a place where there's an Israeli flag or recites the prayer for the state of Israel or faces Jerusalem when its congregants or students pray. They are all, and listen for this word, because once you hear this word, you will hear it everywhere. They are all complicit. That word is doing all the work. Complicit is step two. It's how you get expansion to all Jews. And step three, well, rather than describe step three, I'll illustrate step three, which is the punishment.

12:25You remember from the three-step playbook. The third step is always the punishment. And I'll give you a contemporary snapshot of what that step three looks like. I'll do it with a seven week stretch in the spring of 2025. And I'll give you one example after the other. April 13th, 2025, the first night of Passover. Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania hosts a Seder at the governor's residence. Hours later, after his family has gone to bed, a man firebombs the residence. Then that same terrorist calls 911 to explain himself. The governor, this firebomber said, needed to know that the firebomber would not take part in Governor Shapiro's plans for the Palestinian people.

13:11Josh Shapiro does not run Israel's war in Gaza. He is a Jewish governor of an American state who had just finished his Seder with his family. Josh Shapiro was complicit. May 21st, Washington, D.C., Yaron Lashinsky and Sarah Milgram, a young couple who worked at the Israeli embassy, they were to be engaged the following week in Jerusalem, walk out of an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum. A gunman shoots them from behind and keeps firing after they have fallen. Within the hour, a manifesto in his name is online. The word at its center is genocide. genocide the genocide's quote perpetrators and abettors he wrote had forfeited their humanity abettors that is another word for complicit yaron and sarah were complicit june 1st boulder colorado a small group mostly older people is doing what they've done every week for more than a year and a half up to that point walking down pearl street calling for the hostages to be returned home a man disguised as a gardener throws Molotov cocktails into the crowd.

14:23He tells investigators he wanted to kill all Zionist people. Karen Diamond, 82 years old, a member of her local synagogue, dies of her injuries. Karen Diamond was complicit. Three attacks, three states over the course of seven weeks. Different men, different backgrounds, different politics, but one logic, a logic that is repeatedly reinforced by some of this country's leading politicians from New York City, where I live, to here in Michigan, where you live. And then this past March here, the man who attacked this building didn't go to a military base to protest the war. He didn't go to an embassy.

15:09He came to a reform synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, with a children's center just down the hall. The over 100 children in this building were complicit. Accusation, expansion, punishment. Same playbook. And then you add that word that I mentioned earlier, genocide. Why genocide? Why that word? Because it does two things no other word can do. First, it encompasses all of us. However false the charge, and to be clear, it is false. It makes every Jew who feels any connection to Israel, which is the overwhelming majority of American Jews, an accessory to the worst crime humanity has a name for.

15:55Second, and this is the part that I hope you will sit with, the word genocide settles the question of Israel's existence. Ask yourself, can a decent person believe that a genocidal state has a right to exist? How could a responsible member of the U.S. Senate support defensive aid if it's going to a genocidal state? Once you accept the label, wanting Israel gone isn't bigotry anymore. It's virtue. The label turns the elimination of the Jewish state, the place where the majority of Jews in the world live, into a cause. And it's a cause for good people. And it's spreading. Last Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize went to Navi Pillai, who chaired the UN Commission that declared Israel guilty of genocide.

16:48Before that, UN rapporteurs, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, an association of genocide scholars, then heads of government, Spain, Brazil, Turkey, Colombia, I can go on, and now increasingly American politicians. So here's why it matters in 2026. The genocide label has moved from the campus to the street to the platforms of people asking for your vote. when an elected official adopts that word, they aren't just making a foreign policy argument. Whether they intend it or not, they are completing step two of the three-step playbook I described. They are telling the man with the rifle or the man with the Molotov cocktail who is complicit and who is not.

17:36So I'll just close with this before introducing my guests for these conversations. I believe the Jewish people will outlast this libel the way we outlasted everyone before it. The question for this community, though, in this building a few weeks before an election, isn't what the world believes about us. It's about what we are willing to stand up for. Will we let this libel go mainstream on our watch? Or will we insist loudly and in every party, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party that it stops here.

18:23Natan Sharansky, the famous Soviet refusenik and one of my heroes, wrote powerfully this past weekend in Tablet Magazine about the blood libel, about the blood libel I'm speaking about tonight, the genocide blood libel. And I just want to quote from what he said. But Sharansky writes, Our goal should not be to convince the rest of the world that we are right. Our existence does not depend on a vote in the United Nations. It depends in our own belief in the righteousness of Jewish civilization. Of course, Sharansky writes, we're not above criticism, and we must acknowledge and correct course when we deviate from our own standards.

19:03But remaining vigilant about our shortcomings is not the same as accepting guilt we do not deserve.

19:15And so Sharansky goes on, when our children and grandchildren ask us how the whole world can believe there is a genocide, if in fact there is no genocide, we should stand firm in the conviction of what we know to be true. That's Sharansky. So what will we tell our children and grandchildren? This was not a theoretical question for Sharansky when he was in the Gulag. And sadly, it is not a theoretical question for us here today. Those children and grandchildren include the 100 plus children who were in this building on March 12th. I thought about them a lot as I was coming over here tonight. 18 years from now, God willing, they will be walking onto college quads all over this country.

20:03Who they become in ways that we don't always realize will be the result of the example we all set during these times. My prayer is that they will walk onto those quads as proud Jews, knowing who they are and where they come from, and that no one anywhere will accuse them of being complicit. Thank you.

20:33Now, I know this event was billed as Dan Sinor and Friends, and you're all probably wondering who the friends are. And one of the most interesting things I enjoy about my podcast is I often have conversations with people with whom I sometimes agree, sometimes disagree, but share a set of values and a worldview and we can have spirited conversations. And one of those frequent guests who has challenged my thinking on a number of matters agreed to join us tonight. Brett Stevens is.

21:14Brett Stevens is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist previously with The Wall Street Journal. Today he is with The New York Times. I'm sure his column is required reading for many people in this room here tonight. He is a best-selling author, and I would say he's one of the most intellectually curious and morally consistent and morally clear public intellectuals I know in American life today. Please join me in welcoming Brett Stevens.

21:56Welcome to West Bluefield. I want to cut right to it because I think a question on a lot of people's minds, and you and I were talking about this earlier, is on the one hand, our politics have gotten so toxic that for many Jews, they feel during an election season that they are presented with the choice of having to act in some way to protect the Jewish community, Jewish life, however one wants to characterize that. And what I often hear is, but democracy's on the ballot. And these elections, whether they're the midterm elections or the next presidential, whatever it may be, democracy's on the ballot.

22:33And there's a tension between those two. And how am I going to make that choice? Now, again, we're not talking about individual candidates. We're not talking about individual races. That wasn't a joke. But how do you, Brett Stevens, think about resolving that tension? First of all, it's really a delight to be here and amazing how many people came on such short notice for you, Dan. And friends. And friends. Mystery friends. Look, I've now reached an age when I can remember when democracy was on the ballot in 1984, 2000, 2008, 2016, 20, 24, now 26. And we're going to be saying the same thing in two years' time.

23:16And I'm pretty sure that come January 20th, 21st, 2029, some other person is going to be president of the United States.

23:29So on that score, my advice is to relax. However, what really is on the ballot, I think, is the question not of democracy, but of liberalism. And by that, I don't mean contemporary left-of-center politics. I mean maintaining a spirit of liberty alive in the minds of people, which means an independence of thought, a reverence for pluralism, a belief in argument for the sake of heaven, a powerful commitment to the ideals that have sustained America as a free society. And that's because an illiberal spirit has taken over both parties. Tomorrow morning, if you read the New York Times online, you will wake up and you'll see, I know this because I wrote it at five o 'clock this morning in order to get here on time, a pretty, I think, powerful polemic about the current administration.

24:30I am a right-of-center commentator who believed it was my duty, because I was on the right-of-center, to police what I thought were the illiberal currents running through a Republican party for which I used to vote. I think it's equally incumbent on people on the other side to ask themselves, what are the illiberal currents running through the other party? And what is their responsibility to maintain moral hygiene on their side? And I know how difficult that is when you are a partisan, when you are told that the other party coming to power is the end of the world or the end of democracy. Resisting that tide takes immense moral clarity and political courage.

25:18And I salute those politicians, some of whom may be in this room, I'm not going to say, but I salute those politicians who display that clarity and courage. What I do know is that in 2026, the question of the Jews in America is in a meaningful sense on the ballot, just as it's going to be in a more pressing sense on the ballot in 2028. If Israel becomes as toxic in American politics as it now is in European politics, we are all in a world of trouble. And I can tell you this from my experience as a New Yorker. We have now a mayor who seems to think that his principal job is not to fix our broken schools, not to fix our broken roads, but to denounce and pronounce on matters of foreign policy.

26:08And it has become worse since our mayor in New York, I'm sorry to say my mayor in New York, has gotten into office. This is a kind of a permission to other politicians to treat Israel in this way. you'll notice that in his statement the other day, ostensibly commemorating October 7th, the genocide blood libel was front and center. And that's making conditions for honorable and decent Democratic politicians to oppose him and denounce him very difficult. So that's what's really at stake here. You know, there's an old saying, what begins with the Jews rarely ends with the Jews. Well, it is beginning with the Jews.

26:51And this is, I think, what's at stake in the coming weeks towards election day.

26:58Brett, you may not remember this, but on October 8th, 2023, you were in my home. I remember it vividly. And you, we were recording a podcast in my apartment and you came late afternoon, early evening, and you came from a rally in Times Square, a DSA rally in Times Square. And I remember you came to my apartment on the upper you go so weird i went to this rally i mean they're still like gathering bodies and body parts in southern israel and i'm on this i'm in this rally that you said this weekend the weekend of october 7th and the rally was accusing israel of genocide already and the phrase i'm always like gobsmacked by on october 8th is they were ceasefire now they're calling now to call for a ceasefire on october 8th while there's over 250 hostages in gaza and is to say israel can't defend itself.

27:49That's what you're basically saying. And you and I had this conversation. You're like, you know, I don't know if this is kind of like a fringe thing. I mean, there weren't that many people there and it seemed kind of obscure. And now we know that the mayor of New York City was of that crowd, that October 8th ceasefire now crowd. Candidates for Congress that will most certainly be elected, they've won their nominations in very deep blue districts in New York, were at that rally. So what about that did you get wrong? In other words, you came away from that thinking, this is kind of fringy. Like, I don't even think you had fully anticipated we would get from that to this.

28:27I don't think I got something wrong. Yeah. And you have nothing to say about my humility, Dan. That's what I'm here for. That was the moment the concept of the October 8th Jew began taking shape in my mind. And I think maybe my claim to fame in the afterlife will be that I coined that expression. Because what I saw on the faces of those demonstrators in Times Square, who then marched to the Israeli consulate on Third Avenue, was euphoria. I remember turning to a friend who was watching this at the same time, and I said, you know, they remind me of the Argentines after Argentina won the World Cup the last time around.

29:10Like, it was the best day of their lives. There were 1 ,200 slaughtered human beings in a foreign country, 250 people being visibly taken away in horrific circumstances. Women, it was clear they had been raped. Clear. And these people were cheering. This was marvelous to them. And at the time, In this respect, I think I got something wrong. It's a big concession. It's a concession. When I looked at them, I realized I wasn't the only Jew who was seeing this. And by the way, not just in Times Square, the student statement at Harvard University, the encampment movement, the very quickly gathered pace at elite colleges and universities around the country, the deafening silence from institutional leaders, university presidents, and so on.

29:59And at the time, I said, you know, on October 8th, the Jewish community is discovering who its friends are not. You know, the Jewish community has been there for so many other groups that have suffered bigotry and oppression and have been marginalized. And on that day, the worst day in Jewish history since the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, since the end of the Shoah, the friends for whom we had stood firm and tall hadn't been there for us. And so my initial idea of the October 8th Jew was kind of waking up and realizing that the call was coming from inside the house, that our neighbors weren't the people we thought they were.

30:40It took me a while to realize, I think I got that definition only half right. I think on October 8th, Jews, particularly Jews whose loyalty and affinity and sense of identification had been fairly weak before then, woke up and started trying to remember who we are and what we're about and why it's so important for our Jewishness. And I say Jewishness, not Judaism, because I'm not just meaning this religiously. I'm meaning this culturally and civilizationally. Why it needs to become the centering fact of our lives. You know, our mutual friend Dara Horn said something to me over lox and bagels a couple weeks, a few weeks ago.

31:22She said, you know, what matters about what kind of Jew you are isn't whether your grandparents were Jewish. What matters is whether your grandchildren are going to be Jewish. What are you doing to make sure of that? And what I hope every October 8th Jew is doing is thinking on that question.

31:46Another response to, I think, what you are articulating that many will come back with is, okay, Israel's not guilty of genocide. We, the Jewish people, are not complicit in a genocidal campaign. But come on, Brett, there is serious Palestinian suffering going on in Gaza and the West Bank. and don't you believe Israel and the Jewish people around the world that are supportive of Israel have some kind of responsibility to address that? Let me begin with something basic. Israel didn't come into history, didn't become a state, so that we could showcase Jewish victimization. Israel came into existence with one overriding purpose, which was to end Jewish victimization.

32:40And I was just in Israel less than a week ago. You came back just yesterday. I landed at 4.15 this morning. 4.15 this morning. What you see overwhelmingly when you go to Israel is young men and women who are putting their life on the line in innumerable ways to make sure that Israel fulfills that basic promise, not just to the Jewish people in Israel, but to all of us in this room, particularly in this room.

33:10I want to make two slightly separate points. One is that Israel is not a nation of saints. And part of the problem that we have is that when we think of Israel as a nation of saints, any fall from that standard seems to condemn us as sinners. But we're not a nation of saints. There's some terrible people. They're doing awful things. I call it out in my column. Just as here in America, there are bad people doing bad things. I'm still a proud American. I am proud of myself as an American, even as I am aware that this country has done wrong by other people. It's not impossible to hold those two thoughts in your mind, that there is wrongdoing in America, And yet the overwhelming spirit of this country has been, like Israel, to be a light unto the nations, right?

33:59Point one. And there is no sane person on earth who can't feel brokenhearted about the pain of innocent Palestinian civilians, elderly women, children who are caught in the crossfire. But we're also a morally astute nation who ought to know where blame for that belongs. In Ukraine, and I've been to Kiev, you know, where the alerts are sounding and Russian missiles and cruise missiles and drones are attacking Kiev. In Kiev, when Russians are attacking, civilians go underground into the metro station and very brave Ukrainians are above ground trying to shoot down the drones. In Gaza, Hamas was underground protecting itself in a warren of tunnels, eating food stolen from civilian people and civilian aid agencies, and they were allowing the civilians to be outdoors, to be up there.

34:56The cynicism of using your own population for the purpose of being human shields and propaganda tools is a staggering form of evil. You know, my wife is a convert. Her father was born in Hamburg. She's German. Her father was born in Hamburg in 1934. His father was killed as a political prisoner in Buchenwald. In 1943, 1944, when the Allies were firebombing German cities, the Nazis, the most evil regime imaginable, actually sent women and children into the countryside. And civil defense forces stayed in the cities, but the women and children got out of the city. Hamas, from the very beginning of the war, from right after October 7, 2023, was insisting that Gazan civilians not obey IDF orders to evacuate from areas where they knew there were military installations in place or dug underground.

35:56That is the wretchedness of that is appalling. But what's also appalling is that so many people who claim to be intelligent people in the West are falling for the most despicable kind of propaganda from a terrorist organization. and let me add something else anyone who cares for the right of women anyone who cares for the right of gays and lesbians anyone who cares for the right of dissent anyone who cares to one day have a palestinian state that will live in peace and prosperity side by side with israel should want the destruction of hamas because there will never be a palestinian state until that happens until that happens, until this cult is eliminated, just as we could never have had a West Germany with which we could live in peace and have as an ally until we defeated the regime that came before it.

36:52These are not difficult concepts. What's frightening is that they've become so difficult to explain in today's political environment. When you were in Israel in recent days, you made this observation that the topics we're talking about tonight really are not, I mean, we are talking about issues related to the Jewish community, but the fate of the Jewish community is not just about the Jewish community, that it also is about the fate of civilizations of the West, of America, of great cities, of great states like Michigan. And if the Jews are driven underground, it's not only the Jews, it's not just this point about what starts with the Jews doesn't end with the Jews, that there's actually real macro implications for Jews being made to feel the way Jews are being made to feel today.

37:42Can you talk a little about that? Look, you gave a magnificent speech just before I got on stage. It's also a historical fact that every state, empire, kingdom that has driven away its Jews or pushed down its Jews has ended up poor and worse, whether that was in Spain or in Iraq or in Egypt or in Persia or in Germany, you name it. And there is a link, by the way, between the tidal wave of anti-Semitism that is sweeping Europe today, which is a terrible development, and the fact that Europe is becoming a diminishing factor or diminished factor in international life. You know, the question I always ask myself, Dan, is what form of Jewish time are we living in?

38:32And what I mean by that is that as an American Jew, as American Jews, we inhabit two distinct forms of time. One is diasporic time. And if you look at the course of the diaspora, what you find is that our zenith always becomes our precipice. The Jews rise. They become influential. They become established. They become comfortable. They become a little blind to what's going on around them. And there is a very sudden collapse for Jewish communities, like the ones I just mentioned. If I were to draw on a chart, the history of Jews in the diaspora would kind of look like this. In the 1920s, just to give you an example, the most powerful man in Germany was Jewish, Walter Ratnauer.

39:14The greatest scientist in Germany was Jewish, Albert Einstein. The greatest philosopher in Germany was Jewish, Edmund Husserl. I could go on. Greatest doctor, Otto von Meierhoff. That was the 1920s. That's just on the eve of the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich. And so there are moments, and this is one of those moments, when I wonder, is America part of the same pattern? Is this going to be the way for us, too? On the other hand, if you look at American history, it moves in a different way. You know, in 1654, a bunch of Jews get off the boat in New Amsterdam. The anti-Semitic mayor of the joint wants to kick him out.

39:50He has no idea that in 300 years, the smartest Jews who will ever live will go to a high school named after him. Stuyvesant. And he writes to say, I want to kick these guys out. And his colonial masters in Holland say, no, they stay. And in 1862, to his later shame, Ulysses Grant wants to kick out the Jews from Paducah, Kentucky. And he's remanded by Abraham Lincoln and says, the Jews stay. This is not the American way. 1939, we turn back the St. Louis, tragically. But in 1948, the best picture winner is a gentleman's agreement. America felt revolted. And there's a beautiful line in Bill Clinton's first inaugural address, really a great line.

40:32He says there is nothing wrong in America that can't be cured by what is right in America. And I think this is one of those moments in our history when that proposition from Clinton is being put to the test. Will the forces in America, the right forces in America, I don't mean right wing, I mean the good forces in America be able to cure what is wrong in America? My prayer is that they will be.

41:02in order to do that you and i and i think many people in this room as you've alluded to have lamented the people over the last three years who have let us down you know what i mean this like whoever you might be and i don't whoever you might be um causes non-profit organizations schools universities the workplace your children's schools whatever it may be you're sort of like, wait, what? Like you're kind of shocked by these people who you thought were standing shoulder to shoulder with you. And then you are kind of jostled when you realize how at best they're just quiet. They're just silent. That's like at best.

41:40And I think I said, we spent a lot of time lamenting that and lamenting those people. And I don't think we put enough of a spotlight on those people who have truly stuck their necks out. I think of this great line by Douglas Murray, who he says that, you know, after October 7th, there are moments in history, throughout history, where there's like a flash in the sky. Like the sky's like illuminated, like lightning. And in that flash, you can look around and you can see who's standing with you and who's not. And October 7th was one of those flashes, one of those moments where we looked around, saw who was with us and who was not.

42:14And two of those people who have taken risks themselves are with us tonight. I want to first thank you, Brett, for this conversation and for being here. We'll be back in a minute. At ARK Media, we're not sponsored by a government, nor are we an advocacy group. We are only accountable to our listeners. That means we're free to cover Israel and Jewish life honestly and without compromise. When you join ARK Plus, you support that mission. And you also get access to members-only episodes of Call Me Back, For Heaven's Sake, ARC News Daily, and Chosen People Problems. Each of these shows covers everything from Israel's security and rising anti-Semitism to American politics and what it means to be Jewish in this moment.

43:02If you're able to, consider becoming a member. You can sign up for ARC Plus at arcmedia.org or follow the link in our show notes. and we're back with part two of my live event at temple israel in west bloomfield in michigan

43:22and i want to bring up our next two guests congressman josh gottheimer who is here from new jersey and congresswoman hillary schulton who's here from michigan so please you two come up

43:50So I guess, Representative Shulton, I'll start with you. There is a Jewish community in your district, not a large community, but there is a Jewish community. Just let's pick right up from where Brett left off. Tell me what, when you talk to your Jewish constituents, what's on their mind in this moment? What are you hearing from them? Yeah, well, first of all, I just want to say thank you so much, Dan, for doing this event. Thank you to the wonderful community here at Temple Israel for hosting us. I got emotional pulling in here. And I want to say to this Jewish community here tonight that we're with you.

44:23Josh rearranged a lot of things to be here tonight as well, as did I, because it's so important for us to communicate to you that we are with you in this moment. So I'd be remiss if I didn't mention we are in the home district of our good friend Haley Stevens, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who is an incredible ally on this issue. And we are also joined by her incredible future successor and our future colleague, Jeremy Moss. You could not have a better leader. And I am so excited to have him in the Congress with us. People are scared. People are scared right now. I hear from our Jewish community, especially our young people who have experienced the horrors of a post-October 7th moment on their college campuses.

45:12They're afraid to wear the Star of David. They're afraid to express their Judaism. They're afraid to really wrestle with some of the biggest issues as we see this far-left progressive movement. And you were so right in the comments you made before that this goes so far beyond these issues. And they're feeling really outnumbered. And I think that's one of the main reasons why I have felt so compelled to not be shy in speaking out in this moment is that I want American Jews, Michigan Jews to feel like they have an ally and a champion. And especially those of you who identify as Democrats, the regardless of party, that there's a place for you and you don't have to be silent or afraid in this moment.

45:57Representative Gondheimer, you, first of all, thank you for being here and thank you for schlepping here because I know you and I talked a lot over the last few days. this was not easy for you to be here. You are a national voice. You also represent a district in New Jersey. You, like I have seen firsthand, this steamroller of the rise of the DSA in our neck of the woods. How would you describe to us what you are seeing firsthand? Because you sort of saw it early, what was happening, and you were outspoken early. So what is going on and what is the threat? And I'll be honest with you. I think most people, most Jewish people who come up to me don't understand what's happening or what's happened in just a very short period of time.

46:41They're trying to make sense of it, but yet they open the paper every day, turn on the TV, look on social media, and especially on social media, and see the torrent of what's coming at them and are saying, well, should I still, what should my party be? What do I do with my kids? I'm worried about their safety. And then you have a whole nother problem, which I think probably many of you can relate to in here, which is the other day I was at a town fair and there was the town environment table and I walked up, the mayor's walking me around. And I said, hey, you should meet this young woman. She's the star of our town.

47:14So I said, hi, nice to meet you. And she said, I won't shake your hand. I'm sorry, Congressman. You're a genocider and I'm Jewish and I don't like genociders. And there's a young Jewish woman. And you know what I'm talking about here. We have a huge problem. And I root so much of this in disinformation and misinformation. And it's spread not just in our communities, not just among Jewish people, but broadly, of course, and really in the halls of Congress. And it's like a wildfire. And it's very difficult. I now feel right now it's very hard to stop and to figure out how we stop it. And that's kind of the moment we're in right now of just, and you were mentioning this, it's just coming at us.

47:51And do you feel like it's sort of like a hinge moment? Like, it's not like, oh, we can punt. It does feel like it's coming at us and we've got to deal with it now. I feel that we are experiencing a moment where we will actually have seven avowed members of the DSA who will be members of Congress, will be our colleagues in Congress. And I think about the fact that we've seen this before in American history, right? When after World War II, as the New Deal started rolling out and the rising threat of communism, the Roosevelts took this on in a very profound way, right? Right. And Eleanor Roosevelt, in particular, who was a great supporter of Israel, really took on communism and said, yes, we're going to have these strong social programs.

48:37Right. Which many people feel attracted to the message of the DSA right now because of the emphasis on health care, on jobs. Right. That's where you see some of these candidates rise up and people don't even recognize the underlying current of the U.S.-Israel relationship or the anti-Semitism that is a part of that. I know we see that across Michigan where many folks are saying, well, wait a second, I wasn't even really thinking about that aspect. I was just thinking about health care and taking on corruption. We've seen this before. Right. And I think we have an incredible example in Eleanor Roosevelt, who is one of my political heroes, who really took this on and said, we're not going to do McCarthyism, but we're also not going to allow communism to creep up.

49:20And look, to build on that, look what the other side has done very effectively. I say the other side of our views in the Democratic, the broader Democratic Party. I don't consider socialist Democrats, in my opinion. I think they're socialists and they should not try to hijack our party.

49:39but what they've done is they've said okay we're going to play on people's anxiety and the situation they're living in which by the way with gas prices and food prices and health care prices people are getting crushed right now and and we get that but what they've done is in a crafty way kind of threw the jewish thing into there and they kind of melded it together and it became a popular thing as part of like venting their anger, like, oh yeah, it's on them. And by the way, the money that they're spending, we're sending to Israel, the money. But this is not about money to Israel. When you boycott outside a temple, when you protest outside a temple or boycott a Democratic member of Congress from buying coffee at his coffee shop in his own district, there's nothing to do with your position on Israel.

50:23That's just finding a great scapegoat like history. And that's what's going on right now. So I want to stay on that. So Brett mentioned Dara Horn before, and she has this excellent book out now. And I was just in Israel and I was meeting with someone who made the point, was acknowledging that the book deserves the universal acclaim that it is getting and explaining this moment. But this Israeli said to me, he says, but you know, Dara's book does an excellent job of explaining why antisemitism is such a useful tool among politicians. It's like a power play. He said, but what her book doesn't address is this like cult like following it seems to have right now.

50:59I mean, the thing I keep coming back to the event is that ridiculous that Venice Film Festival where they premiered that film Nasa, where there was a 26 minute standing ovation. I know you guys got a big applause when you came in and it seemed like fulsome and it was sort of overlap with breadth. So maybe add a few. We were talking about like maybe 70 seconds 26 minutes is like a really long time and it was almost like this soviet-like and you could imagine being in that room where they're applauding for 26 minutes which means nobody people were afraid to stop clapping because they're like looking around saying well he isn't stopping she isn't i gotta keep clapping but and it was like this social pressure that was almost cult-like so coming to back to your point do you think the jews and the obsession with the Jews is actually a way to make some of these otherwise probably unattractive socialist ideas attractive.

51:51I mean, it's hard to understand the mentality from people in politics. As you know, there are just issues that work. So when you find an easy issue, and keep in mind, most of our colleagues in Congress, this isn't a big issue for them back home. Either they don't represent not a lot of Jewish people or, you know, they're focused on other things. This is not their big issue. And they were getting protested all over the place. People chasing them around, yelling at them. And they would go home, get screamed at in the halls of the Capitol. We get screamed at. And all you had to do is say this magic word and it would all go away.

52:26And all you just say is genocide. And then the thing goes, I mean, oh, what? They stopped protesting me. This is great. And like, I, of course, care, but this is not my issue. That's your issue. Right. And so that's, I think, how this thing started. And then the disinformation gets out there. And of course, it's everywhere, the disinformation. And they have protests and rallies by these groups who are talking about the economic issues, but melding them with the Israel stuff and the Jewish stuff, which all gets mixed together. I'm not a big believer that you could separate these things out. These things all get melded together.

52:55And so I believe that's what's really going on. It just becomes a throwaway issue. You're kind of nuts right now in democratic politics to run around and talk about this stuff in the way that we do. It's not popular, right? You get harassed for it. So it's all downside. It's all that, like you lose, people cancel fundraisers, people, like you should see what's going on. And so people who were there all the time are now just saying, hey, Josh, I'll be there with you, but in the end on the vote, but please don't make me stick my head up above the parapet. Just let me just hide away in the corner.

53:28Hillary hasn't hidden for a second, but major blowback for not hiding. It takes a certain courage to do that. And I'll just tell you, Dan, like right now in the Democratic Party and by the way, growing in the Republican Party. I agree. Right. You have a this is a negative, very negative issue. And and, you know, to do this, of course, is a risky move. I want to piggyback on that briefly to say Josh is 100 percent right. I mean, we are getting attacked left and right. It is a very hostile moment. Josh actually gave me the phrase, you know, these are some of the toughest political issues that you could take, but these are not tough moral issues to take.

54:11And I think that we need more elected officials that are willing to lead, not from a position of fear, but from a position of strength based on their values and strong moral courage. That's what the American people want. And it's so important to lead in that moment. And I also think, though it is a vocal minority and a rabid minority, and I think they're causing a lot of other people in the center who don't necessarily know what to think about this to sort of stay silent, it's important to remember that sympathy towards the socialist position is still a minority position, even within the Democratic Party.

54:48again you would josh called me this summer apoplectic do you remember this i'm gonna tell a funny story i've told some of you in this room he was like i can't believe this new poll that just came out i just i can't believe this a third a third of the democratic party now says that they're okay with socialism you were freaking out and i was just calm i was like do you know what that means joshua two-thirds are not two-thirds are not so let's remember the majority in this party and not be afraid to speak up for them so see she's she's way too optimistic to be jewish You know, it's like really, it's really this whole glass half full thing.

55:21It's like not how we, it's not how we roll. That's very funny. Exactly. But here's the part that's tough, I think, for us to understand. We've talked about this a lot. When Hassan Piker is on a tear, right? Either anti-American, which this is anti-American, not just anti-Semitic, on a tear. And you would think, how hard would it be to condemn somebody who's made the comments that he has made about Jews, about our country blaming 9-11 on America, calling Jews pig dogs? You would think that should be so easy. Yet our colleagues are silent. You would have thought this summer that when Dan Goldman, who is a member of Congress in New York City, the suburb, he goes to a coffee shop to buy coffee with his daughter and they refund his money and say, we don't serve your kind here.

56:09Two members of Congress said anything, any statement. Imagine if that had been Rashida Tlaib being refused to refuse coffee. What would happen? There would have been resolutions in Congress. There would have been massive condemnation. Right. Nobody said a thing. And I'm looking around saying, is anyone going to talk out? No, because why? To the point, it takes moral courage and it's politically risky. And too many people take the easy way out. And that's the moment that we're in right now and what makes this so difficult. So, Hillary, I got a lot of questions. We asked people to submit questions and I used some of those questions to kind of synthesize a lot of the conversation tonight, both with you and Brett.

56:51And one of the questions I got, and I'm going to paraphrase, was something along the lines of when you're with your colleagues in Congress, what do you wish they understood? Because Josh really described the scene where they're like, look, I don't deal with it in my district. It's not a big deal. Why do I have to, like, just make this thing go away? You know what I mean? Can't I just check the genocide box and everyone will leave me alone? And you, as Josh said, you're not Jewish, as we know from your incredible optimism. and yet you've really, you know, staked, I think, very courageous ground here.

57:24And when you're dealing with your colleagues and they're saying, are you crazy? Like, why are you doing this? Including what you're doing right now, like this fall in Michigan. They're like, are you crazy? What do you wish they understood that they don't? I'm not a radical. In fact, I am radically not radical. It almost seems like in today's politics to be not radical is almost a radical position, right? Everyone is trying to pull you farther and farther to the extremes. But it is actually a very bold and noble position to stake out this position in the center, to see your party going in the wrong direction and say, I don't think we want to go there.

58:06And we get pushback from the extremes in our party, the far left, right, for being too moderate. Right. You're not strong enough is a lot of the words that people might use to describe you. And that it's it's actually it takes a lot of courage and a lot of strength to stake out these positions in the middle. And I just I wish that there was more respect across the board from our colleagues to say, you know what, I was elected to serve my constituents with the values that I bring to this position and more intellectual curiosity instead of just an immediate rejection or retribution of the position that we have taken out.

58:46I want to push back on one thing, right? Not all Jews are negative. You know, there's this great line about the definition of a Jewish optimist, where a Jew says, things could not get any worse. And the Jewish optimist says, yes, they can. to that point. And since Brett, I think, quoted Clinton, who I just worked for, I believe tomorrow is better than today. So the worst thing you could do is walk out of here going, oh, it's over. Just the opposite. I believe the best thing we could do is actually know who our friends are and who our friends aren't, which we've learned. I think it's a very important thing.

59:22The second thing is, I believe as a people, we are closer to each other than ever before. Right? We know we got to look out for each other and that only we can overcome this by working together. We got to stay focused. They spent a long time, decades, focused on how they're going to tear it apart between foreign money on college campuses and K-12, you name it. So we understand that. And we were a little sleep at the switch, I think. But now we're up and we're focused. We know what we need to do to actually overcome it, overcoming socialism and overcoming anti-Semitism. So I would say we can do this if we stick together, focus and fight.

59:57And Hillary and I, believe me, are not going quietly. Like, they're going to come at us, the socialists. And by the way, we're coming at them.

1:00:08So, Josh, actually, I want to ask you about it before we wrap, because you lead this common sense problem solvers caucus. So maybe folks don't know what that is. Just 30 seconds on what that is. And then my real question is, are the ranks growing or are they shrinking? The problem solvers caucus is a bipartisan group of about 30 and 30. And we actually do the craziest thing. We actually work together and try to get things done. And we've got a lot of stuff done. Josh is being modest. He started it.

1:00:39The ranks potentially could grow depending upon what happens in this election. There's going to be more reasonable common sense people like Hillary than there are going to be extremists. They're just loud. And by the way, our enemies want to get on. They overwhelm you on social media, right? More people should listen to Dan's podcast than some of the other crazy podcasts. But why don't they? Because the crazies are better at marketing. They get picked up more because they say crazy things and you're too rational and reasonable. So it doesn't do as well. And that's just how it is in this world.

1:01:10But I believe the good news is we have a lot of really rational, great people coming, like Jeremy, and people who actually want to get stuff done.

1:01:21Brett alluded to mention that I landed this morning at 4.15 a.m. from Israel. So the real reason for my trip to Israel is my niece got married on Thursday night. And she's the youngest daughter of my sister who made Aliyah. And I will say being at that wedding, which was in an area right overlooking, like in the Judean desert, Like it was outdoors overlooking the Judean hills. And you're with this young couple and her now husband served hundreds of days in reserve duty, was called up in Gaza and Lebanon and seeing these young Israelis who were there from his unit who had served with him. and there they were celebrating and celebrating the start of a new family and truly loving life.

1:02:09And you're sitting there, like I said, like in the Judean hills where like the Jews actually came into the land of Israel and the wedding was on October 8th. So it was the day after the three-year anniversary of October 7th. And you can say whatever you want about the policies of Israel or, you know, but you watch these young people, many of whom were in uniform and they are good people. They are not complicit of in genocide. It's so preposterous. They just want a normal, vital and vibrant life. And a conversation that came up over and over and over on this trip. I'm not, I'm, this is, it's bizarre to me on this trip when I talk to Israelis is they're all asking about Mamdani.

1:02:48These Israelis are like obsessed with Mamdani. And they're saying to me and saying to other Americans, how are you holding up over there? Like, and I'm sitting there looking at these Israelis who've been fighting the seven front war and I'm like we're going to be okay you know and they're like they're looking at me saying you sure like they're saying we're going to be okay but we're really worried because we're seeing all this crazy stuff going on in your country and what I really want to say to them is you need to focus less on Mamdani although it's important it's good that you're aware of Mamdani is and you need to know that there are people like Josh Gottheimer and Hillary Scholten who are absolutely as worthy if not more worthy of them knowing and you are friends of the Jewish people here and everywhere and I just want to thank you both for being here.

1:03:36Thank you so much for having us.

1:03:44And whoa, whoa, oh, thank you. Yeah, they're giving you the standing ovation. We're going to count 26 minutes here. We'll see if we can get to 26 minutes.

1:04:13ARK Media is funded in large part by our ARK Plus members. They allow us to cover Israel and the Jewish world honestly, without compromise. When you join ARK Plus, you support our mission and get access to exclusive content, as well as ad-free listening across all ARK Media podcasts. Join us at arkmedia.org. And to our members, thank you.