Transcript [00:00] When they come for us, they're not going [00:02] to really care which petition you [00:03] signed. They're going to come for all of [00:05] us. [00:07] >> [music] [00:09] >> I understand why early American Jews [00:11] wanted to make that claim that the Jews [00:13] are not a people, we're just a religion, [00:15] Protestant, Catholic, Jew. And America [00:17] is our Zion. But in fact, that is not [00:19] true. We are a people [00:22] and America is not Zion. No American Jew [00:25] ever went to war because she or he was [00:28] an American Jew. Israelis go to war [00:30] because [music] we're Jews and the whole [00:32] idea of of Zionism was to get the Jews [00:34] back into the thickness and the [00:36] messiness [music] of history. Shortly [00:38] after the war began, I got a call from a [00:39] European journalist. She wrote me and [00:41] she said, "I've just come to Israel from [00:43] wherever it was, Sweden, Germany, I [00:44] forget already where it was. [00:46] Uh, and she said, you know, I've been [00:47] following all these leaders of the [00:48] protest movement and I wanted interview [00:51] them now about what they think about the [00:52] war, but I can't reach them." And I [00:55] wrote her back and I said, "Okay, [00:56] they're in cockpits and they're in [00:57] tanks." And that's the difference [00:59] between the left here and the left here [01:00] at the end of the day [01:01] >> [music] [01:01] >> uh serves in the army. The left here at [01:03] the end of the day is proud of serving [01:05] in the army. The left here, except for a [01:07] very small [music] sliver, the left here [01:09] no longer talks at all about a two-state [01:11] solution. That's like the tooth fairy. [01:14] And I think what American Jews need to [01:16] try to learn to understand [music] is [01:17] the depth of the brokenness here. The [01:20] depth of the exhaustion. [01:23] The depth of the the fear. Hopeful is a [01:27] command. You have to be hopeful. You [01:29] don't have to be optimistic cuz maybe [01:30] you're not, but you have to be hopeful. [01:33] But I think what what gives me hope [01:34] [music] is finding those people whose [01:35] lives embody hope. [01:37] Speaking to those people who [music] are [01:39] writing the books and singing the songs [01:41] and telling the stories and living the [01:43] life and trying to create political [01:45] change here who believe that we can make [01:47] this right. [01:53] >> [music]
American Jews and Israeli Jews share a history, an identity, and a future. But do they still understand each other?
October 7 exposed a divide that had been growing for decades.
On this episode of The Honest Take, Ben Chertoff sits down with author Daniel Gordis to discuss why American and Israeli Jews see the world so differently, how antisemitism and the war have reshaped their relationship, and whether the growing rift can be repaired.
Two communities. Two very different realities. One Jewish people.
Listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.
