Sneak Peek: Jon Polin answers questions from young Jewish adults

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0:58Welcome to Inside Call Me Back, our members-only edition where we open the door and let you shape the conversation. Today we have a special episode. Over the past few months, we have gotten some very personal and moving questions, most of them coming from our younger listeners. It wasn't clear which one of us should take them on, but then I remembered an event I was at with John Polin at the Heschel School in New York, and he just clicked with them, with a lot of these teenagers, these young Jews in the diaspora. So I thought, why not have John come on Inside and Call Me Back to answer questions coming from young adults and teenagers?

1:34So with that, John, welcome to Inside and Call Me Back. Thank you, Dan, and to the whole Call Me Back community. I say this at the risk of offending perhaps some of your listener base, Dan. But you mentioned at the Heschel event in New York. And I do always say Rachel and I do a lot of speaking in Israel in the diaspora to all kinds of audiences. It's all supportive and we appreciate it. But we particularly get energized when we talk to young people. So that conversation in Heschel was one of numerous high school conversations we've had. And we love it. We love talking to the younger people. Yeah.

2:08And the energy between you and them, like just watching all these students engage with you guys, was very moving, was very inspiring and is especially nice, as you know, which I didn't fully appreciate at the time, was you and Rachel insisting that not only the questions, obviously the questions were going to come from the students in the audience, but that the people moderating the conversations with you at these high school events should not be teachers or faculty or staff. It should be students. I think there's been talk over the last couple of years about the younger people and condescending away of the TikTok generation and short attention span and gross generalizations.

2:45Maybe some of it's true, but I got to tell you, in our meetings with thousands at this point of young people, high school kids, I have been nothing but impressed by their ability to carry a conversation, to sit and moderate with people, Rachel and me, who are tough. Right. We are sensitive and we bring out sensitivity in people. And I've seen young people carry it with tremendous maturity. So we look forward to doing more of that. We get questions a lot from young people. So we figured given how much you connected with them, this would be the perfect conversation to put a bunch of those questions forward to you.

3:20So I'm going to get right into them. And they're from all over the place. So the first question, John, is from Ben from Chicago, who writes, Hi, Call Me Back team. I'm new to the podcast. so sorry if you've already talked about this before. I'm 17 years old, I'm a Zionist, and I'm really proud of being Jewish. But there's something I've been struggling with. There are settlers, meaning in Israel, who commit really extreme violence against innocent Palestinians, sometimes even murder. They see themselves, and are often seen by others, as among the most committed Zionists in Israel. And at this point, it happens often enough that I have a hard time believing it's just a few crazy people or quote-unquote bad apples.

4:01So I guess my question is this. How is their Zionism different from mine, meaning from Ben's? I believe in Israel and in the Jewish people having a country, but I feel embarrassed and honestly kind of ashamed when people do these things and call it Zionism too. How am I supposed to understand the difference between their Zionism and mine? Thank you, Ben, for the question from my hometown. Ben, let me start by saying your instinct is spot on to feel a sense of embarrassment and shame. I don't think there's any way to sugarcoat this. We could talk about, can people try to do this? How many are they and who are they that are perpetrating this violence in the last few weeks?

4:40Those are details that I think don't matter. What matters is criminals are criminals. And I said this on social media earlier in the week because I was so bothered by it. I think I wrote something like, criminals are criminals. They could wear a kippah on their head, a hijab, a kafia, no head covering at all. They could be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist. All those things don't matter. Criminal activity is criminal activity. It should be condemned and it should be prosecuted. So Ben, first of all, spot on on your instincts. I think that historically, when it comes to connecting that behavior to a level of Zionism, we have numerous examples throughout history.

5:19the KKK in their heyday in the United States believed that what they were doing was the most patriotic. I stay away from those definitions and I stay away from them when it regards Zionism, which is to say, I don't look at Zionism as a scale of more or less Zionist. Ben, these people have nothing on you when it comes to their Zionism. I will say that I don't have data on what's happening. Again, people are looking for how many are these and what do people really think? Like, I can tell you that qualitatively, this feels to me like maybe the closest thing there is today in Israel to a consensus issue that it is wrong.

5:58Transcends left and right. Transcends left and right. Yeah. Are there some people who are justifying it or looking the other way? There must be. But I can tell you, I have friends who live in, quote unquote, settlements in the West Bank or Judea and Samaria. They flat out condemn this and are also embarrassed and ashamed. And I'm not hearing anybody speaking publicly in a way that is anything but condemning this behavior. So, Ben, you should do the same thing. We have historically had a very vibrant debate in the Zionist movement, going back to pre-statehood, of what does Zionism mean? So we can come up with some definition of an independent, sovereign Jewish state.

6:39There are textbooks written on the debates historically within Zionism, but those are debates on what kind of Zionism we want to have. They're not about level of Zionism. And again, this is just wrong, and we all need to call that out, and we all need to say that. Okay. Adam from New Jersey writes, Hi, Dan and team. I'm 18 years old and about to start college. My aunt gave me a subscription to Inside Call Me Back, and I've learned a lot from the podcast. One thing I rarely hear discussed is the social cost young people pay for being openly pro-Israel. Some of my friends have become very anti-Israel, and while I deeply disagree with them, I don't think calling them useful idiots really helps.

7:19At 18, speaking up can mean losing close friends, your social circle, or even a romantic relationship. To someone older and more established, that might not sound huge, but at our age, it can feel like social suicide, especially when you're being asked to make that sacrifice for a country you increasingly don't understand or feel connected to. I don't really have a question. I just think older generations need to understand this reality. So, John, what is your reaction to this reality? Okay. First of all, I'm going to agree once again, calling people with opposing views useful idiots, not helpful.

7:53So let me throw out that easy one at you. I agree. I will also validate what you're saying, not that you need it, but I hear this issue from Israel. I hear about how many people in America, close friends of mine, are dealing with social or familial issues of just strife and disagreement over this issue of Israel, Zionism, etc. I know it's real. I have friends who are in family therapy over this issue, and it's terrible to see it happening, and it's just been painful, and it still is. I guess I would say a couple things. Number one, my starting premise is definitely within families and also true within close friendships.

8:32We need to not let our disagreements get in the way or destroy those bonds. We say in our tradition, How sweet and pleasant is it when brothers get along, when brothers are in something together? That's what needs to be the overarching premise here. So I don't know if, at least for some period of time, people need to step back from difficult conversations. I really think what we all need to be working on is how do we have difficult conversations without letting them tear us apart. It's been said by many people, but we Jews have a thousands of year rich history of vehement disagreement in a productive, healthy way.

9:17That is effectively what the concept of Hebrutah, sitting and learning texts together, is all about. I have a friend, Daniel Taub, former ambassador, lawyer, been involved over many years in negotiations and conflict resolution. He's recently written a great book called Beyond Dispute that tells the story of the history of Jewish disagreement and how to potentially turn it now into something productive for the world. That's it for our sneak peek today. If you want to catch the full episode, please subscribe to Inside Call Me Back by following the link in the description or by going to arkmedia.org.

9:55That's A-R-K-M-E-D-I-A dot org. Your support is what allows us to do what we do here at Ark Media. I hope to see you there.