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How To Do Activism Right, with Jay Ruderman, Tuly Weisz, and Pesach Wolicki
In this episode of Ruthless, Leah Liebowitz explores the evolving landscape of activism with guests Jay Ruderman, Tuly Weisz, and Pesach Wolicki. They discuss the shift from traditional advocacy to mo...
How To Do Activism Right, with Jay Ruderman, Tuly Weisz, and Pesach Wolicki
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Interactive Transcript
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Hey there and welcome back to Ruthless.
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I'm Leah Liebowitz and I am not what you would call an activist.
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I used to be one.
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Back when I was young in Israel, demonstrating for peace between Israelis and Palestinians
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for a better treatment of migrant workers and for lower tuition, especially for underprivileged
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students struggling to attend college.
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But then it seems something happened.
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Something happened to the very idea of activism.
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First of all, it seemed like now everyone felt compelled to be an activist.
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Like activism was something we ought to teach kids in elementary school, insisting not
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that they learned their ABCs, but that they learned to see themselves as little partisans
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of their parents' favorite causes.
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And even more troubling, activism itself seemed to have morphed into something different.
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It's now less about organizing communities and advocating for legislation and more about
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blocking roads and intimidating those who disagree with you, portraying them as purely
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and irredeemably evil.
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So in today's episode, we're going to take a peek into the state of activism by talking
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to three very different people espousing very different causes in very different ways.
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First, we'll talk to philanthropist Jay Ruderman, author of the new book Find Your Fight
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about his experience advocating for disability rights and working to bring American and Israeli
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Jews closer together.
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And then we'll talk to Tully Weiss and Pesach Wooleky, who will tell us about a little
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known election coming up in just a few days, an election we are all eligible to vote in.
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And that, our guests say, is more influential than most people realize.
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Hey there and welcome back to Rutlis, I'm Liel Libewitz.
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And today, I have the pleasure of talking to a person who has done a lot of things in a lot
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of different areas of life that don't always receive the attention that they deserve.
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He is philanthropist, activist, and now author of Find Your Fight.
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Jay Ruderman, welcome to the podcast.
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Thank you.
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I'm here to meet you with you.
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I want to start, as you always should with people you admire, with the roughest,
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toughest question I can imagine.
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Your book, which is wonderful, it's not only a personal memoir, it's also kind of a sort of a
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crede-curr, if you will, a guide to activists, it's sort of like making their voices really heard
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for causes that matter to them.
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But I want to start on a kind of frisky, perky note.
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Okay.
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Because this sentiment activism that you very gallantly and very kind of candidly embrace in your book
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is one that in recent years, I would say, has not seen the best time.
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We see a lot of people who kind of portray themselves as professional activists.
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We see a lot of these people being paid by organizations that are not always as above ground
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as they should.
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And furthermore, we see a kind of call it an inflation in the status of activism in which people
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feel like, hey, if I have a cause I'm passionate about, that permits me to do whatever the flip-by-please,
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including, I don't know, blocking access to a cancer hospital or kind of sabotaging the
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Macy's Thanksgiving.
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They parade because, hey, man, I'm an activist.
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And we also kind of seem to train kids to do this thing.
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It seems that everywhere you turn, no one is content unless someone is disrupting,
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destroying, standing in a way of something in order to be an activist.
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Kindly share your vision of sort of, you know, sunny activism in an age in which the brand is sort
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of somewhat tarnished.
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So first of all, I think you have a correct.
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I think that there's a lot that we see under the guise of activism.
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And first of all, it's not effective.
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Second of all, in many cases, it's violent and it's intimidating.
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And that is not effective activism.
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What activism should be is a way to creatively and intelligently get the attention of the public
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for an issue that you care about.
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And then once you have that attention, find your allies and learn how to speak to the powers
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that can actually change the world to have a positive impact and to create the change.
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You're looking to change.
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That's not what's happening right now.
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And, you know, I'm speaking as someone whose daughter is in her first year at Barnard
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and dropping her off at school.
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I saw this, you know, firsthand.
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It's intimidation.
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That is not activism.
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I'm not sure what to call it.
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In many cases, it's violence and it's intimidation and it's hate.
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And it's many different things.
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But that's not an effective activist.
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They're not going to create any change whatsoever.
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Look at it. It's very, very easy to be me and say, ah, you know, this world of activism that
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is so beautifully described in his book, that world is gone.
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You know, no one cares about facts anymore.
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It's all kind of just like road blocking and shouting and violence.
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We could dispose of it.
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But I'm not convinced that that's true.
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And I'm convinced that it's not entirely helpful,
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which is why I'm so grateful for all the work that you do.
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So give us an example.
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We have plenty of examples of you all know.
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Of horrible, terrible, totally alienating, non-helpful activism.
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Pick one thing, maybe from your long and illustrious career.
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And we'll soon, you know, kind of dive right into it.
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One example of a bit of activism that worked
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more than you believed it would.
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So I'll give my personal example.
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But, you know, the book was written as sort of like a how-to guide to become more effective activist.
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And from choosing the causes that matter to you most,
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to going about it and finding the right people to work with,
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to creating controversy, and then actually creating impact.
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So our activism for a long time has been disability rights.
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And by accident, I got into the entertainment industry.
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I'm not of the entertainment industry.
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I don't live in Hollywood or New York.
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But we became very critical of the portrayal or the inauthentic portrayal
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of disability and film and TV.
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And we did it very vocally.
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We criticized several films that had able-bodied actors playing people with disabilities.
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But then we backed it up with research papers.
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And we came to the entertainment industry.
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First, we had to have some notoriety.
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People had to know who we were.
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So we were very critical of these films.
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And it got a lot of press.
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The press picked it up.
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The press loves to have, you know, critical issues before them.
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But after we did that,
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we had to find allies that believed what we believed in,
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that had access to the studios.
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And it was only at that point,
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because I used to make the rounds to studios and talk to them and say,
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listen, the way you're doing it is wrong.
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You have to open your auditions to actors with disabilities.
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And most times, I would have the meeting and they would say,
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thank you very much.
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And nothing would happen.
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But when I got to know Peter and Bobby Farley,
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who are very successful directors and Peters and Academy Award winner,
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and they picked up the phone and called the heads of studios.
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Then studios decided to change their policy.
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And that was a way of creating some controversy,
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getting some attention,
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getting some facts behind what you were saying.
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But then working with real allies that were able to really change policy.
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That's my own example.
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So let's go on a trip in the way back machine.
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And so often in the beginning, you know, you begin your career.
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It's a prosecutor.
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You went to law school.
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You picked Salem, Massachusetts,
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a town known for its history of trials.
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And as you describe it in the book, you saw first hand the way in which the legal
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criminal justice system left much, much, much to be desired in America.
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Just share that brief stop in your life.
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Well, first of all, I probably went to law school for the wrong reason.
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I went to Brandeis and I got involved in politics.
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And I thought, you know, legal education would be the best way for me to enter into politics.
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And as someone who came from what I considered a privileged background,
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I wanted to get back.
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And that's the way I wanted to get back.
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What I've learned through trial and error is that the politics in our country and other
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countries is broken.
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You don't have people standing up and espousing what they think is right.
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And then, you know, doing their time and going home and going back to,
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I don't know, being a lawyer, a doctor, a businessman, a farmer, whatever they are.
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You have people who are career politicians.
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We have a, we have a Senator, Massachusetts,
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who was elected when I was 10 years old to Congress.
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He's been in Congress for 49 years.
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That's right.
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That is not the way the founding fathers of America saw the political leadership going.
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And furthermore, they're not leading.
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They're looking at their constituency.
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I happen to live in one of the most liberal parts of the country.
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They look at their constituency and they vote and they espouse positions based on their constituency.
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And at the same time, they essentially become professional fundraisers.
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That's not the way I wanted to spend my life raising money and worrying what every poll says.
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And you know, what the positions of my constituents were.
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I wanted to go out and work on the issues that I really cared about.
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And so I left the world of politics and I started my career becoming an activist.
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And one of your first stops and this is the part in the book I think that kind of spoke
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most to me for a variety of obvious biographical reasons was going to Israel.
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And here you are with lots of experience and lots of ability and you arrive and you said,
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I want to serve in the army.
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I want to do the right thing and you enlist and you're there and you're ready to help and you have
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all the things to make to the table.
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And almost immediately you encounter a bunch of Israelis saying,
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the things that we know better than anyone else in the world.
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But you did not let this experience that you had in Israel sort of dampen your enthusiasm.
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The foundation that the two of you had did a lot in Israel.
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Anyone who's for example taken a train in Israel recently or bus knows that a lot of the
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sort of like public accessibility changes that have happened blissfully in Israel over the last
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20 years or I'll say in large part.
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Do you guys tell us a little bit about your work in Israel?
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When we came to Israel, we had the opportunity to partner as a private foundation with the
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Israeli government and the joint, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee,
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to further the rights of people with disabilities.
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And we would do pilot projects with the government where they would put in money,
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we put in money, the joint, we put in money.
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And then the ones that were successful would be implemented as governmental policy.
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So the government was already bought into this.
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They already knew that they had to become more accessible and more inclusive of people with
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disabilities.
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I should add the other thing as an American Jew.
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I saw the conversation between American Jews and Israel, always focused on Israel,
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usually focused on the threats that Israel was facing.
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And it was always an Israeli-based conversation.
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But as I got to know more journalists and people in Knesset and ministers,
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I realized that they did not have a full understanding of the American Jewish community.
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So that's the other thing that we focused a lot of time on is educating the Israeli society
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on the American Jewish community and bringing journalists, Knesset members, establishing the only
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academic program on the American Jewish community at the University of Khaifa,
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which has been around for 13 years.
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So that's another big part of our work in Israel.
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Isn't it funny that you have to do this to basically say, hey, Jews,
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maybe we ought to really spend a moment and get to know each other as we are partners in destiny?
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You know, I think about this a lot.
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I used to speak to Israelis and say, listen, America is vital for Israel.
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The role of the Jewish community plays in speaking to members of Congress and the administration,
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ensuring that Israel has the security that they need to protect the country is vital.
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And, you know, American Jews do not have the same outlook that Israeli Jews.
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And you have to get to know them. You can't expect this to be an automatic.
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Things have changed greatly.
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And since our government...
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Tell me, how, how, in what way?
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What do you see the change being since the beginning of your involvement with this effort
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until now?
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I think there's been a huge change since October 7th.
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And I think you've probably experienced it also.
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So in my experience, my friends and family members who are Orthodox,
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many of them, my children are teenage, early 20s.
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Many of them are moving to Israel to making a Leadeh serving the army.
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They're getting married. They're settling down.
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They're going to university in Israel.
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There's another facet of the American Jewish community that is what I would say,
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more typical of diaspora Jews throughout history.
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Meaning, we have to fit in.
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Our society, which tends to be, for most Jews, a more liberal society,
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doesn't like certain things that the government is doing.
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And so we're going to now sign letters saying,
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we don't like trackdowns on universities that are overtly anti-Semitic,
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that that's causing the population to be more anti-Semitic.
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And they're slowly moving.
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I feel away from Israel.
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I think there's a widening gap.
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And I'm concerned about that.
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I want to take four steps back and get back to the original premise of the book,
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which again, like all good books, is a combination of several things.
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It's your story, but it's also a guide for aspiring activists to really enter into the arena
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in the correct way.
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So give us ten commandments, guide to life advice.
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If I'm a young college student or a high school student,
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and I'm, you know, burning with passion for this cause or that,
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and I instinctively feel that the way of the thug and the vandal,
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the roadblocker and the, you know, violent attacker is not my path,
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yet I still want to do something to make a change.
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Give us a mantra.
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How are we to approach this sacred time-honored pursuit?
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I think you have to identify your cause.
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You have to identify a cause that is very meaningful to you and go narrow and deep.
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That has to be your cause.
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That has to be the thing that you focus on and that you speak about.
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And this is somewhat controversial because I think when someone who's an environmentalist,
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all of a sudden becomes an activist for the Palestinians,
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I think the cause is weak and the environmental cause is weak.
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That's my take on it.
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You have to focus on your cause.
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You have to go narrow and deep.
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You have to learn about it.
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You have to know it backwards and forwards.
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And you have to, you know, come up with data.
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Now, you don't have to do everything yourself.
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You have to find allies and friends and people that like, you know,
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like, I have friends that love to do research.
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And I have friends that love to, you know, speak out.
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And, you know, go on TV and the radio and be on social media.
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But you need to have that group of people that works together.
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And when you speak, you have to know what you're speaking about.
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Then you have to create some controversy.
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You have to get some attention.
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There's to be something about what you're doing that will get some attention.
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And there's a lot of ways to do that.
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And by the way, the book is not just about my story.
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It's many different people that that I've interviewed, like Nicole Hawkeley,
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who lost his son in the Sandy Hook shooting and became an activist
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against guns and schools and identifying potential mass murderers.
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And, you know, she's been successful espousing her cause and making a difference.
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There's someone like Leroy Torres who served in the Iraq War and was a victim of the burn pits
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and had terrible respiratory problems and came back to Texas and was actually let go by the state
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police where he worked and was denied benefits by the VA and worked with Congress and was able to,
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you know, sponsor and legislation that was passed into law.
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So, you know, there are so many people out there because of their life circumstances,
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take on a cause and they just keep going with it and they meet the right people and the right
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allies. And, you know, you're going to meet people and you're going to say, well,
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that person, I can't work with them, but these people I can work with.
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And then eventually you have to be able to get into the door.
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You have to get into the, you know, whether you're trying to influence corporate America,
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you're trying to influence the political system, you're trying to influence the entertainment
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industry, people have to notice you. You have to find a way to be noticed, but once your notice,
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you have to get in the door and have those conversations that are actually going to result in change.
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And then realize that, you know, activism is a lifelong pursuit.
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When you contemplate the future of activism, your own and the world's in general and
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look at all these changes, not all of them beneficial and benevolent. When you look at the sort of
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waning attention to detail, fact and rational argument, when you look at the growing sectarianism,
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when you look at anti-Semitism, and you look at all these challenges that we've discussed,
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are you hopeful for the future of activism? Are we going to see a new golden age of people who are
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sort of bringing the pendulum back to where it needs to be to all these great changes that we have
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seen done for the better over the last 30, 40 years? Are we going into this dark age of just trying
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to keep our heads above water? I'm hopeful because I believe that most people are good
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and most people believe in justice. You know, I know that where I live and you live, you know,
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we hear a lot of anti-Semitism. I experience it. We've been sponsoring panels on mental health and
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gaming conferences, and you know, with very famous gamers and they talk about the mental health,
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and it's been hugely impactful. We did it in Las Vegas and in San Diego in Boston. They said,
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oh, Ruderman, you're too political. It's not that's climate.
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You know, what is that? That's anti-Semitism. They're very creative about how they say it,
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but it's out there and it's pervasive, and our leadership, our political leadership
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either turns a blind eye or is willing to step up and back people that are actually supporting
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terrorist organizations. It's a very trying time. I do not think most of America is anti-Semitic.
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I don't think most of America hates Israel, but it feels uncomfortable. We've talked about it
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where we live. It can feel very uncomfortable. I don't think the Jewish people are going anywhere.
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I don't think Israel is going anywhere. I think that people who have just causes and they want to
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make the world a better place. Ultimately, they will have success. I think those who are just want
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to rip people down and be destructive. I think we live in a dark time right now. It's not the darkest
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that we've ever lived in. I think it's dark, but I think I'm hopeful that it'll pass.
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And I do not believe, this is my personal thing. I don't think evil wins. I just don't think it
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wins out. I think if you believe that people are generally good and I think people react to
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injustice. I think that's what we experienced in Hollywood. I think that they understood that
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the inauthentic portrayal of disability was an injustice. I think that's why it was successful.
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Bo Gashem, Javrooderman, for this optimism for your book, for your decades of activism and for
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being our guest. Thank you so much. Thanks.
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Hey there and welcome back to Ruteless. I'm Leah Lieberwitz and we are at the CUSP
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of an important election. Some say which election the one you've probably never heard of and the
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one that my guests today say matters a lot more than you think. They are truly wise and Pesach Ooleki
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gentlemen. Welcome to Ruteless. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thank you.
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Okay, so what election are we talking about here? We've just survived one. In November,
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it doesn't look like Israel is going into an election anytime soon, although in Israel you never know.
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What election is that of which we speak? Like you said, it's the most important election that no one
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has ever heard of. It's the world Zionist Congress election and we are at double the engagement
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as last time. So, so far as many people voted this time then in the entire election. So there's a
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lot more engagement. About 250,000 people are going to vote, which out of 7.5 million,
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two, this is a very small percentage obviously. However, it's very important because the world
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Zionist Congress is the parliament of the Jewish people and drives the policy of designist movement
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and is therefore like a referendum on important issues. Our party is making it all about the two
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states solution. And we're trying to turn it into a referendum on the two states solution by
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forcing the Jewish community to reject Palestinian statehood and the conventional wisdom that has
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captured the imagination of American Jews for the last 30 years. Tulip, we'll get to that in a
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second, but I have to be completely honest here. When I hear things like the parliament of the
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Jewish people, my initial reaction is to run to the nearest bar, have six martinis and cleanse myself
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of what I thoroughly believe is a very kind of skewed ratio between self-importance and actual
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importance in the Jewish community, by which I mean to say, please explain to those jaded
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cynics like myself. I understand that there is some money at stake, but when you say,
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oh, it's a referendum about the opinions of world jury, I can easily say, first of all, no, it's not
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because even a two million people vote which never happened before, still hardly representative
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second of all, does it actually really matter in the real world what these people who so nicely
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paid whatever it is at the cost of register and voted think about anything really in the world
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when there's powerful institutions, powerful donors, the state of Israel that matter much more.
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So, Leo, I was in the position that you're describing of kind of thinking to myself, is this really
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matter. Back in 1897, when theater rehearsal started, the Zionist movement started the world's
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Zionist Congress, it represented this from all over the world. The purpose of it was to build
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institutions and build a financial engine on a political engine in order to create the state of
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Israel. After the state of Israel founded, the world's Zionist Congress did not go away. There was
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even a debate about it in the time, whether it should go away. David Bighurian actually argued
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that the world's Zionist Congress should have been disbanded because of the fulfillment's purpose,
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but it was decided to keep it going so that world jury would still have some input
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into the national institutions of the Jewish people and of the state of Israel. And what most Jews
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like myself, I've never voted in the world's Zionist Congress elections. I've lived for so many
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years in the United States and Canada, but in Israel, and I've never given a second thought. And I've
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been involved in Jewish life and communal Jewish life my entire adult life. And I never gave a second
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thought, like most Jews, but most of your listeners, to the world's Zionist Congress elections, who
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cares which politically motivated Jews who were like really into synagogue politics, you know,
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have decided to ramp it up a notch and get involved with the world's Zionist Congress. But there's
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actually a lot of it's stay. Back in those early years when the national institutions were being
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formed, most Jews are aware that Jews all over the world were raising funds, purchased land,
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and what was then known as Palestine, and that land ended up becoming the areas with a
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people's sin and the Jewish settlement started. And ultimately, the UN partition plan was
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based very much on it. Well, those resources, those Jewish communal resources, purchasing land
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in the land of Israel, never got disbanded. And today, what was known then as the Jewish National
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Fund, it shouldn't be confused with the JNF today. The JNF outside of Israel today is not related
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anymore to Karen Kayan at Israel as an institution, their different organization, but Karen Kayan
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at Israel, which is really the land of the public lands in Israel, and it's responsible for real estate
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of the nation of Israel, is really owned by the Jewish people still for this day. And the world's
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Zionist Congress, that august body, which still has representatives from all over the world,
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make decisions about how revenues from all of the billions and billions of dollars of accidents
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of the Jewish people are spent. And they're spent on Zionist programming, Zionist education,
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their spent on infrastructure projects within Israel, their spent all over the world on so many
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projects and programs that influenced Jewish life and influenced Jewish communal life everywhere
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in the world. And right now, as with every five years in 1897, there's an election going on for
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the world's highest Congress. And most Jews are unaware of this and unaware of how much it
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impacts their lives, how the money raised by our grandparents and great-grandparents and the
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Sudaka boxes to create a state of Israel is still being controlled by the world's Zionist Congress
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and Jews everywhere in the world. Have a say in that.
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Pesach, that's that was a beautiful, very eloquent answer. I'm like a quarter of the way convinced
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now, but before we even get there, how much money are we talking about? And give me an example
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of like one or two programs that could be influenced by this thing or rather give me an example of
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the sort of the direction this could go if one political faction wins as opposed to another.
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So first of all, how much cash? How many shakles?
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Well, that's a great question. And sometimes they'll advertise nearly a billion dollars
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is allocated per year annually per year, but sometimes they'll say almost a billion dollars,
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sometimes they'll say over a billion dollars. And that's a big difference, right? That's a
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lot of what he really knows. There's not a lot a whole lot of transparency around this very old
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Jewish alphabet soup of organizations. And that's part of what we're looking to try to bring some
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more transparency and hold leadership accountable to how the funds are allocated. What we do know is
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that the largest party in America is the reform party and they advertise how they're able to
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earmark tens of millions of dollars towards their agenda and their issues that are important to
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reform and introducing a lot of very progressive programming into Zionism, not only in Israel,
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but really all over the world. And if we are successful and if the other parties that are more
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conservative or successful will be able to do a major shift and reallocate the resources away
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from the progressive agenda. Some of us realize that the Jewish institutions, especially in this
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country, are out of step, not just where the Jewish people are, but where any measure of observable
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reality is and has been for a very long time. But now that I'm suspending this belief a little
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bit about this institution, the election and why it matters, let's get down to brass text. You
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correctly said and thank you for this introduction that a Palestinian state is something that the
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overwhelming majority of Israelis right now understand, sadly having learned a very hard way,
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is an absolute disastrous move that would spell great doom and suffering for years to come,
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however, here in America, not just arguably the Jewish institutions, as you said, for the
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centrist American Jews, maybe woke up a little bit frazzled after October 7th, maybe have their
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doubts and fears, but would promote some version of the following argument that I want you guys to
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take seriously. Okay, look, I understand goes this argument that Hamas is very bad. I also understand
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that there are quote unquote moderate Palestinians. Therefore, our job right now should be to fight
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Hamas, enable those great American educated, technocratic Palestinians who just want to build
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roads and shopping malls and, you know, cell phone networks for their children to have a better
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future. And if that happens, you know, then we really hope, you know, our great grandchildren and
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theirs would live side by side and two thriving nations, because after all, who are we who fought so
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hard for the right to have our own state to deny the same right to the Palestinians who really
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are just kind of a mirror image of our national struggle that we have to at least acknowledge if
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not respect and help outright, kindly deflate the balloon that I've just put up in here.
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Wow. That I, I, Haysef is jumping into the camera. I could tell that he really wants to get into
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that because he really introduced even like on October, what was it? October 10, Pisa made a great
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video. We really almost is almost prophetic in the way that he said that this is how it's going to
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go. And, but he early on within Israel 365 helped to deflate the fantasy of, you know, this Palestinian
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narrative that the Jewish people have sold this bill of goods to ourselves because there is no
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moderate Palestinian community at all. We haven't seen any of that. There's no evidence what's
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so ever of this fantasy land that, you know, the American Jewish community has created. If anything,
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we've seen really such evil. You know, we're not, I'm not such a hot blooded kind of person from the
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Midwest, not from the mid east. However, you know, thinking a lot about my own past over time, my grandma,
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there, you know, was a Holocaust survivor and has all these great stories about her past over during
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the Holocaust. But there were righteous Gentiles in every step of the way, even in Nazi Germany,
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right? There wasn't a, there isn't a single righteous Gentile from Gaza who lifted a finger and we
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still have so many hostages living in the homes living in the, with the people of Gaza. And so it's sad
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and it's unfortunate, but we are not living in that reality. We have to have our eyes wide open to
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the reality we are living in the middle east and the only way to have the peace is the restraints,
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you know, peace the restraint. It's not just a plighted to you. It is something that we better learn
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that lesson because we've already learned it the hard way. And where our party is around 365
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action is very much influenced by the thinking of Ambassador David Friedman who in his book really
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articulates exactly how not only is a one state solution better for Israel, we all understand that,
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but it's also better for the Palestinian air force. Let me add something to what's
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written saying, let's get down to actual breath political tax here. You're right, L. There's plenty
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of Americans, plenty of American Jews who are still clinging to this idea that there's got to be
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some sort of, you know, a ton of your Palestinian state. And that is exactly the point of why we are
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running because whatever weather is a minority, a majority, or whatever of American Jews who
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understand the absolute disaster and danger of Palestinians that made an understand that that's not
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where Israelis are anymore. I struggle to understand how people can call themselves pro-Israel
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when they take up the Jews in America. And call themselves pro-Israel when they take up a position
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that not a single Jewish person as a member would support in a recent vote. To me, they're not
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pro-Israel, they're pro- an idea that they would like Israel to be that it isn't. So as far as I'm
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concerned, we need to stop this orthodoxy about how the only solution to this is a two state
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solution at the Palestinian state. And that's why we're running this election. This comes down to
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politics, this comes down to numbers. A third of the Congress is represented by Israelis, by these
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Israeli political parties. A third of it is other countries in the world, approximately a third of
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it is the United States. And the United States has been, has been trumpeting this idea of the Palestinian
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state. They've been at the forefront. Like I said, the federation, the, you know, the American Jewish
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Committee, the American, the American Jewish leadership has been pulling in the direction of
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the Palestinian state. And we need to upset that. So whatever we can shave off from their power,
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in the world's highest Congress, however many seats we can pull away from this, from this
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disastrous two state solution thinking, will increase the likelihood that the anti-two state
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solution people, the one stateers in the world's highest Congress will finally be able to rest
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control from these people who would jeopardize the security of their fellow Jews in Judea
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and Samaritavia because they're opposed to Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. That's
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all good and well. But again, playing the role, which does not come easy for me, of the sort of
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skeptical, well-meaning, middle of the road American Joe, it's okay, guys, look, I understand
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that this is a very complicated situation. But really, Tully, what's the alternative here? I mean,
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you cannot continue to basically be in control of so many Palestinian civilians. They're right there.
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The quote-unquote settlements are creating so much strife. I propose a solution in which we dismantle
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the settlements. We bring those Jews back to internationally recognized borders within the
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green line. And then we set up some security mechanism and we keep Israel safe. And hey, Tully,
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if things go wrong, we have a strong army. We could always go back and fight. That is a position
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that every kind of middle of the road dinner party have ever attended. And trust me, I don't get
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invited to many of these anymore, advocated. Please, attack that position.
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You know, the evidence doesn't support it. You know, the facts don't care about your feelings
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is kind of what it comes down to. When we pulled out of Gaza, so it led to October 7th. And
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we are hearing from them not that we want to stay next to Israel, but we want to stay instead
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of Israel from the river to the sea. That's just what they're saying over and over again. And
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if we allow this status, we're inviting more and more October 7th over and over again.
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So we have to just wake up to the new reality that we're in after October 7th. We have to be
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strong and firm and even recognize that this is the best thing for the Palestinian Arabs.
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And in fact, there are so many examples of this that don't get reported widely in the news. But
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and they gave the Palestinian villages the choice. Do you want to be in Israel? Or do you want to be
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in the Palestinian authority? They all want it to be in Israel. Palestinians who live there who
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want a good life want to be ruled by Israel, which is the only country in the whole region where
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they have any kind of rights whatsoever. They know that. And honestly, we know that. And so
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this if we have to we have to end the fantasy. And it will be better for them to be under Israeli
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sovereignty. And that's what will happen to them. So a free movement. Is that something to
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is that something that that we should want as Israelis? You know, another million or so Palestinians
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who clearly do not support the goals of the Jewish state living as quasi citizens with not
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equal rights to Israeli citizens. How does that work? You know, as an American. So we don't think a lot
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about people who live off of the mainland. But you know, if you look at the Puerto Rican, they
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don't have the same citizenship rights that Americans do even though they're allowed to vote in
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municipal elections, but not in federal elections. And that's what Freakman says the same thing for
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the Palestinians. If they would be allowed to vote in municipal elections, but not have full rights
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to demographically do to us what they can't do militarily, we just have to realize that Israel
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is not the same as the United States. And I think that you know, it's a it's a healthy way of looking
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at it. The security needs in Israel are very, very severe. And and not everyone can have the same
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rights and privileges that the Jewish residents of Israel have. And that doesn't necessarily sound
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good, but it is the reality. We need to like acknowledge our national heritage and our connection to
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this land being power land. And it's not a land that we're meant to to split and to share.
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Well, gentlemen, these are not easy questions to resolve. These are discussions that we ought to
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have for years and years to come. But this as you argued successfully is precisely why we have
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elections. To Lee, very briefly, what do people have to do to participate in this great democratic
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parliament of the Jewish people? And what is your party's platform again? What does the name of the
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party tell us what to do where to go to? We made it easy. We want everyone just to visit our website
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at Israel 365action.com. And we'll walk you through the steps to vote. Our platform is to stop the
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two-state solution. It takes five minutes and costs five dollars, but you could really have a
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analysis impact on preventing the next October 7th, stopping the two-state solution. And Israel 365
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action, we're slate number seven, we're a new party, so we don't have the same benefits and
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infrastructure that the elite establishment legacy parties do have. Every vote counts and every vote
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matters. To Lee, Pesach, thank you so much for being my guest.
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Leo, it was an absolute honor to speak with you in your audience anytime.
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Thank you, Leo.
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We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ruthless. We will be back next week with more
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much-needed, real talk. Ruthless is a production of Tablet Studios, a show is hosted by me.
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Leo Liebo, it's our executive producer, his Courtney Hazel. The show is produced and edited by
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Josh Cross, Prince Waller, and Leah Dunn. If you want to let us know what you think about this show
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or have ideas for future guest episode topics you should cover, drop us a line at podcasts at tabletmag.com.