Dan Live from Michigan’s Temple Israel

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There's never been more coverage of Israel in the Jewish world, and there's never been less of it worth trusting.
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Our Arc Plus members provide the funding that allows us to cover Israel and the Jewish world honestly without compromise.
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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.
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[Instrumental music] You are listening to an Arc Media podcast.
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What I do know is that in twenty twenty-six, 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 twenty twenty-eight.
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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.
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I hear from our Jewish community, especially our young people who have experienced the horrors of a post-October seventh moment on their college campuses. They're afraid to wear the Star of David.
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They're afraid to express their Judaism. We 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.
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But overcoming socialism and overcoming antisemitism. So I, I would say we can do this if we stick together, focus, and fight. And Hillary and I, believe me, are not going quietly.
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Like, they're going to come at us, the socialists, and by the way, we're coming at them. [Instrumental music] It's six thirty p.m.
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on Tuesday, October thirteenth here in New York City. It's one thirty a.m. on Wednesday, October fourteenth in Israel as Israelis turn to a new day. Before today's episode, a quick housekeeping note.
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On Thursday, October twenty-second, just five days ahead of the Israeli elections, Call Me Back will hold a live taping at the Striker Center in New York City, where I'll sit down with Dan Shapiro, Dahlia Sheinlin, and Bret Stephens to discuss what's at stake in Israel's twenty twenty-six election and what its results will mean for the U.S.-Israel relationship.
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Tickets have gone on sale, so if you want to join us, please follow the link in the episode description. Now on to today's episode.
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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.
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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?
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In August, Michigan Democrats nominated Abdul El-Sayed to be their candidate for the United States Senate.
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El-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.
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And 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 one hundred young children were present.
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El-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.
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El-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.
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El-Sayed has already become a national figure in Democratic politics. If he is elected to the Senate, where will he go from there? Now, consider this dilemma. You're a Democrat.
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You hold progressive positions on a range of issues. You strongly oppose Donald Trump and much of what he represents.
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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.
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On November third, 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.
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Is 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?
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On Monday night, seven months after the attack at Temple Israel, I hosted conversations before a live audience of over one thousand members of the local Jewish community in the Metro Detroit area at Temple Israel.
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Our conversations touched on some of these issues that I've laid out here.
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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.
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We will begin this episode with remarks I delivered to frame the conversations that evening. Then I had a conversation with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who is also editor-in-chief of Superior Journal.
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And following that conversation with Bret, 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.
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[Instrumental music] Ever listen to Call Me Back and think to yourself, "This would be so much better if Amit went on a rant about the latest celebrity who said something stupid about Israel?"
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Or if Nadav ranked every member of Knesset by how hot they are. Tune into our show, Chosen People Problems, for the real news. Yeah, because that's what the world needs, more Jews in media.
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Yeah, like more Jews with strong opinions about things. [beep] I think we do it one more time. I don't want to do "Yeah." I can't s- Yeah You could say it. I just don't wanna say it. What did I say? We both did, "Yeah."
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Like, we're not... Why are we doing that? It sounds so [beep]. Sorry- [laughs]... for those listening and editing this. It's gonna get worse from here, by the way.
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[laughs] Listen to our [beep] show, Chosen People Problems. [laughs] This should actually be the intro. Okay. Chosen People Problems. We're like Amit and Adav, but more so.
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Please tune in, or Dan Seiner will be mad at us. You can find Chosen People Problems wherever you get your podcasts.
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You can also listen ad -free and get access to our weekly exclusive bonus episode by joining ArcPlus at arcmedia.org. It's 7:30 PM on Monday, October 12th here at Temple Israel. [applause] You see, Steve assured me
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there are actual listeners of Call Me Back in the audience, but- [cheers] [applause] The true test is if they react to the timestamp. You passed the test. [laughs] It's wonderful to be here.
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It's wonderful to be home, 'cause I spent some of my formative years in politics and my professional life here, not far from here. I was squatting in our friends, the Weiner's home, in the mid-'90s.
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I won't say what exact year in the '90s, 'cause I will date myself. But, uh, working on political campaigns, uh, back in the '90s, so... And there are so many familiar faces here. So, like I said, it's great to be home.
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Over the last three years, I have spent a lot of time in rooms like this one. Synagogues, day schools, JCCs, campus Chabadds and Hillels. I've even davened at the JRC at the University of Michigan.
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[applause] By the way, there is a contingent of students here tonight from the University of Michigan that schlepped here from Ann Arbor.
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[applause] And 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.
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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.
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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.
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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, and it is a part a tribute to the staff and security that work for this institution, and some of whom are here tonight, and I just wanna acknowledge them.
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[applause] I have-- was invited tonight to talk about the stakes for our community in these politically polarizing times.
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I'm not gonna 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.
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I won't be engaged in any rank punditry. But I do wanna 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.
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Because whether it's 2026 or 1144, the issues that bring us together here tonight are, in a sense, the same. They are part of a three-step playbook.
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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.
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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.
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It belongs to all Jews. Collective complicity. In 1144, the crime was a ritual, a Jewish ritual. Therefore, all Jews were complicit.
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It may have been one man accused, but the entire community, the Jewish people, were complicit. Step three is the punishment. Once every Jew is deemed guilty, any Jew can be punished anywhere. That's the blood libel.
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It began in England in 1144, and it traveled across Europe for the next eight centuries. Now fast-forward to today.
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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.
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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.
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It expands to every Jewish day school in the diaspora, every JCC, every synagogue, every kosher restaurant, every Jewish cultural institution.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You 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.
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I'll do it with a seven-week stretch in the spring of twenty twenty-five, and I'll give you one example after the other.
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April thirteenth, twenty twenty-five, the first night of Passover, Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania hosts a Seder at the governor's residence.
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Hours later, after his family has gone to bed, a man firebombs the residence. Then that same terrorist calls nine one one to explain himself.
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The governor, this firebomber said, needed to know that the firebomber would not take part in Governor Shapiro's plans for the Palestinian people. Josh Shapiro does not run Israel's war in Gaza.
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He's a Jewish governor of an American state who had just finished his Seder with his family. Josh Shapiro was complicit.
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May twenty-first, 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 Capital Jewish Museum.
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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.
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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 first, Boulder, Colorado.
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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.
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A man disguised as a gardener throws Molotov cocktails into the crowd. He tells investigators he wanted to kill all Zionist people.
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Karen Diamond, eighty-two 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.
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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.
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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.
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He came to a reformed synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, with a children's center just down the hall. The over one hundred children in this building were complicit. Accusation, expansion, punishment, same playbook.
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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.
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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.
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Second, 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?
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How could a responsible member of the US 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.
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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.
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Last Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize went to Navi Pillay, who chaired the UN commission that declared Israel guilty of genocide.
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Before 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.
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So here's why it matters in twenty twenty-six. The genocide label has moved from the campus to the street to the platforms of people asking for your vote.
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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.
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They are telling the man with the rifle or the man with the Molotov cocktail who is complicit and who is not. So I'll just close with this before introducing my guests for these conversations.
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I believe the Jewish people will outlast this libel the way we outlasted everyone before it.
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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.
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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?
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Natan 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.
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And I just wanna quote from what he said. Natan 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.
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It depends on 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.
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But remaining vigilant about our shortcomings is not the same as accepting guilt we do not deserve."
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[audience clapping] And 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."
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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.
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Those children and grandchildren include the hundred -plus children who were in this building on March 12th. I thought about them a lot as I was coming over here tonight.
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Eighteen years from now, God willing, they will be walking onto college quads all over this country. Who they become in ways that we don't always realize will be the result of the example we all set during these times.
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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.
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[audience clapping] Now, I know this event was billed as Dan Senor and friends, and you're all probably wondering who the friends are.
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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.
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And one of those frequent guests who has challenged my thinking on a number of matters agreed to join us tonight.
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Bret Stephens is [audience clapping] Bret Stephens is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, previously with The Wall Street Journal. Today he is with The New York Times.
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I'm sure his column is required reading for many people in this room here tonight.
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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.
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Please join me in welcoming Bret Stephens. [audience clapping] Welcome to West Bluefield.
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I wanna 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.
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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, and there's a tension between those two, and how am I gonna make that choice?"
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Now, again, we're not talking about individual candidates. We're not talking about individual races. [audience laughing] That wasn't a joke.
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[audience laughing] But how do you, Bret Stephens, think about resolving that tension?
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First of all, it's really a, a delight to be here and amazing how many people came on such short notice for you, Dan, um [audience laughing] And friends. And friends. Mystery friends.
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Look, I've now reached an age when I can remember when democracy was on the ballot in nineteen eighty-four, two thousand, two thousand eight, two thousand sixteen, twenty, twenty-four, now twenty-six, and we're gonna be saying the same thing in two years' time.
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And I'm pretty sure that come January twentieth, twenty-first, two thousand twenty-nine, some other person is gonna be president of the United States.
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[audience clapping] Um, so on that score, my advice is to relax.
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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.
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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.
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And that's because an illiberal spirit has taken over both parties.
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Tomorrow morning, if you read The New York Times online, you will wake up and you will see, I know this because I- Wrote it at five o 'clock this morning in order to get here on time.
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A pretty, I think, powerful polemic about the current administration.
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I 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.
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I think it's equally incumbent on people to, 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?
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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.
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Resisting that tide takes immense moral clarity and political courage.
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And 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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And 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.
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You'll notice that in his statement the other day, ostensibly commemorating October 7th, the genocide blood libel was front and center.
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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.
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You know, there's an old saying, what begins with the Jews rarely ends with the Jews. Well, it is beginning with the Jews. And this is, I think, what's at stake in the coming weeks towards election day.
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Bret, you may not remember this, but on October 8th, 2023, you were in my home. I remember it vividly.
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And you, we were recording a podcast at my apartment and you came late afternoon, early evening, and you came from a rally in Times Square, a DSA rally in Times Square.
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And I remember you came to my apartment on the Upper West Side. You go, so weird. I went to this rally. I mean, they're still like gathering bodies and body parts in Southern Israel.
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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.
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And the phrase I'm always like gobsmacked by on October 8th is they were ceasefire now.
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They were 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. That's what you're basically saying that there.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Like I don't even think you had fully anticipated we would get from that to this. I don't think I got something wrong. Well. Yeah. And you have nothing to say about my humility, Dan. Yes. That's what I'm here for.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Like 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 was clear they had been raped, clear.
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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.
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When I looked at them, I realized I wasn't the only Jew who was seeing this.
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And by the way, not just in Times Square, the student statement at Harvard University, the encampment movement that very quickly gathered pace at elite colleges and universities around the country, the deafening silence from institutional leaders, university presidents, and so on.
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And at the time I said, you know, on October 8th, the Jewish community is discovering who its friends are not.
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You know, the Jewish community has been there for so many other groups that have suffered bigotry and oppression and have been marginalized.
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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.
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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.
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It took me a while to realize I think I got that definition only half right.
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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.
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And I say Jewishness, not Judaism, because it's-- 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.
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You know, our, our mutual friend Dara Horn said something to me over lox and bagels a, a couple weeks, a few weeks ago.
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She 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 gonna be Jewish. What are you doing to make sure of that?"
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And what I hope every October 8th Jew is doing is thinking on that question.
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[audience applauding] Another response to I think what you are articulating that many will come back with is, "Okay, Israel's not guilty of genocide.
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We, the Jewish people, are not complicit in a genocidal campaign.
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But come on, Bret, 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?"
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Let me begin with something basic. Israel didn't come into history, didn't become a state so that we could showcase Jewish victimization.
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Israel came into existence with one overriding purpose, which was to end Jewish victimization. [audience applauding] And I was just in Israel less than a week ago. You came back just yesterday.
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I landed at four fifteen this morning. Four fifteen this morning.
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[audience laughing] 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.
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[audience applauding] I wanna make two slightly separate points. One is that Israel is not a nation of saints.
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And part of the problem that we have is that when we think of Israel as a nation of s-saints, any fall from that standard seems to condemn us as sinners. But we're not a nation of saints. There are some terrible people.
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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.
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I am proud of myself as an American, even as I am aware that this country has done wrong by other people.
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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? Point one.
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[audience applauding] 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.
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But we're also a morally astute nation who ought to know where blame for that belongs.
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In Ukraine, and I've been to Kyiv, you know, where the alerts are sounding and Russian m-missiles and, and cruise missiles and drones are attacking Kyiv.
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In Kyiv, when Russians are attacking, civilians go underground into the metro station, and very brave Ukrainians are above ground trying to shoot down the drones.
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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.
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The 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.
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Her father was born in Hamburg in nineteen thirty-four. His father was killed as a political prisoner in Buchenwald.
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In nineteen forty-three, nineteen forty-four, when the Allies were firebombing German cities, the Nazis, the most evil regime imaginable, actually sent women and children into the countryside.
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And civil defense forces stayed in the cities, but the women and children got out of the city.
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Hamas, from the very beginning of the war, from right after October seventh, two thousand and twenty-three, 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.
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That 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.
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[audience applauding] And let me add something else.
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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, [audience clapping]
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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.
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These are not difficult concepts. What's frightening is it's, they've become so difficult to explain in today's political environment.
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[audience clapping] 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.
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Can you talk a little about that? Look, you gave a magnificent speech just before I got on stage.
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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 poorer and worse, whether that was in Spain or in Iraq or in Egypt or in Persia or in Germany, you name it.
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And there is a link, by the way, between the tidal wave of antisemitism that is sweeping Europe today, which is a terrible development, and the fact that Europe is becoming a diminishing factor or a diminished factor in international life.
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You know, the question I always ask myself, Dan, is, um, what form of Jewish time are we living in? And what I mean by that is that as a, as an American Jew, as American Jews, we inhabit two distinct forms of time.
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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.
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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.
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If, if I were to draw on a chart the history of Jews in the diaspora, it would kind of look like this. In the 1920s, just to give you an example, the most powerful man in Germany was Jewish, Walter Rathenau.
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The 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 Meyerhof. That was the 1920s.
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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 gonna be the way for us, too?
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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 antisemitic mayor of the joint wants to kick them out.
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He has no idea that in three hundred years, the smartest Jews who will ever live will go to a high school named after him. [audience laughing] Stuyvesant.
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And, uh, he writes to say, "I want to kick these guys out," and his colonial masters in Holland say, "No, they stay."
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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 who says, "The Jews stay. This is not the American way." 1939, we turn back the St.
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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.
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He 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.
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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.
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[audience clapping] In 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?
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This like- Whoever sh- might be, and I don't... Yeah Whoever you might be.
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Um, causes, nonprofit organizations, schools, universities, the workplace, your children's schools, whatever it may be, you're sort of like, "Wait, what?"
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Like, you're, you're, 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.
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They're just silent. That's like at best.
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And 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.
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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.
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Like, the sky's like illuminated, like with lightning, and in that flash, you can look around, and you can see who's standing with you and who's not.
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And October 7th was one of those flashes, one of those moments where we looked around and saw who was with us and who was not. And two of those people who have taken risks themselves are with us tonight.
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I wanna first thank you, Bret, for this conversation and for being here. [audience clapping] We'll be back in a minute. [whooshing sound]At Arc Media, we're not sponsored by a government, nor are we an advocacy group.
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We are only accountable to our listeners. That means we're free to cover Israel and Jewish life honestly and without compromise.
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When you join Arc 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.
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Each of these shows covers everything from Israel's security and rising antisemitism to American politics and what it means to be Jewish in this moment. If you're able to, consider becoming a member.
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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.
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[applause] And I want to bring up our next two guests, Congressman Josh Gottheimer, who is here from New Jersey, and Congresswoman Hillary Scholten, who's here from Michigan.
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So please, you two, come up. [applause] So I guess, Representative Scholten, I'll start with you.
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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.
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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.
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Thank you to, uh, the wonderful community here at, at Temple Israel for hosting us. I got emotional pulling in here, and, and I, I want to say to this Jewish community here tonight that we're with you.
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Uh, you know, Josh 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
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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.
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Uh, and, and we are also joined by, uh, 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.
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People are scared. People are scared right now.
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I hear from our Jewish community, especially our young people who have experienced the horrors of a post-October seventh moment on their college campuses, they'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.
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A- 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, and especially those of you who identify as Democrats, though regardless of party, that there's a place for you, and you don't have to be silent or afraid in this moment.
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[applause] Representative Gottheimer, 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.
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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.
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How would you describe to us what you s- are seeing firsthand? 'Cause you sort of saw it early, what was happening, and you were, you were outspoken early. So what is going on, and what is the threat?
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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, in a very short period of time.
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They're trying to make sense of it, but yet they, 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?
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What do I do about 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 in, in, uh...
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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 then said, "Hey, you should meet this young woman.
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She's the star of our town, the envi-" So 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."
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And as a young Jewish woman. And you know what I'm talking about here.
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We have a huge problem, and, and I, 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.
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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, of just-- And you were mentioning this. It's just coming at us.
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And 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.
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I feel that, you know, we are experiencing a, a moment where we will actually have seven avowed members of the DSA who will be members of Congress, will be our colleagues in, in Congress.
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And I think about the fact that we've seen this before in American history, right?
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When, uh, after World War II, as the, the New Deal started rolling out and, and the rising threat of communism, the Roosevelts took this on in a very profound way, right?
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And Eleanor Roosevelt in particular, who was a great supporter of Israel, you know, really took on communism and said, "Yes, we're gonna have these strong social programs," right?
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Which many people feel attracted to the message of the DSA right now because of the emphasis on healthcare, on jobs, right?
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That's where you see some of these candidates rise up, and people don't even recognize the underlying current of the US-Israel relationship or the antisemitism that is a part of that.
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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 healthcare and taking on corruption."
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We've seen this before, right?
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And I think a- a- we have an incredible example in Eleanor Roosevelt, who is one of my political heroes, who, who really took this on and said, "We're not gonna do McCarthyism, but we're also g- not going to allow communism to creep up."
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And 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.
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I think they're socialists, and they should not try to hijack our party.
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[applause] But what they've done is they've said, "Okay, we're gonna play on people's anxiety and the situation they're living in," which by the way, with gas prices and food prices and healthcare prices, people are getting crushed right now, and, and we get that.
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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.
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Like, "Oh yeah, it's on them," and l- "Oh yeah, and by the way, the money that they're spend- we're sending to Israel, the m- the money." But this is not about money to Israel.
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When you boycott outside a temple, when, right, when, when you protest outside a temple or boycott a Democratic member of Congress from buying coffee at his coffee shop in his own district, it has nothing to do with your position on Israel.
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That's just finding a great scapegoat like history, and that's what's going on right now. So I wanna stay on that.
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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, who was acknowledging that the book deserves the universal acclaim that it is getting in explaining this moment.
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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."
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He said, "But what her book doesn't address is this, like, cult-like following it seems to have right now."
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I mean, the, the thing I keep coming back to the event is that ridiculous, that Venice Film Festival where they premiered that film Nazah, where there was a 26-minute standing ovation.
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Now, I know you guys got a big applause when you came in, and it seemed like fulsome, and it was sort of overlap with Brett, so maybe add a few. We were talking about, like, maybe 70 seconds.
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26 minutes is, like, a really long time, and it was almost like this Soviet-like...
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And you could imagine being in that room where they were applauding for 26 minutes, which means nobody-- Like, people were afraid to stop clapping 'cause they're, like, looking around saying, "Well, he hasn't stopped cla- she hasn't stop- I gotta keep clapping."
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B- And, and it was like this social pressure that was almost cult-like.
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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?
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I mean, it's hard to understand the mentality from people in politics, as you know. There are just issues that work.
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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.
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Either they don't represent a lot of Jewish people, or, you know, they're focused on other things. This is not their big issue.
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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'd get screamed at.
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And all you had to do was say this magic word, and it would all go away. And all you have to say is "genocide," and then the thing goes... And then, "Oh, what? They stopped protesting me. This is great."
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And, like, I, I of course care, but this is not my issue. That's your issue, right?
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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.
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I'm not a big believer that you could separate these things out. These things all get melded together. And so I believe that's what's really going on. It just becomes a throwaway issue.
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You're kinda 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.
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It's all down- Like, you, you, like, you lose. People cancel fundraisers. People-- Like, you should see what's going on.
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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, but please don't make me stick my head up above the parapet.
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Just let, let me just hide away in the corner." Hillary hasn't hidden for a second, but major blowback for not hiding, no, for not hiding.
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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?
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You, you have a, this is a, a negative, very negative issue and, and, you know, to do this, of course, is a risky move. I wanna piggyback on that briefly to say Josh is 100% right.
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I, I mean, we are getting attacked left and right. It is a very hostile moment.
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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.
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And 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.
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That's what the American people want, and, and it's so important to lead in that moment.
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And I also think, though it is a vocal minority and a rabid minority, and I think they're, they're causing, you know, 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.
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Again, you know, 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, I just...
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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.
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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. [laughs] You know, it's like, really... It's really...
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This whole glass half full thing, it's like, not how we, it's not how we roll. That's very funny, exactly. [laughs] But here's the part that's tough, I think, for us to understand. We've talked about this a lot.
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When Hasan Piker is on a tear, right, either anti-American, which he- th- this is anti-American, not just anti-Semitic, on a tear, and you would think, how hard would it be to condemn somebody who, who's made the comments that he has made about Jews, about our country, blaming, uh, 9/11 on America, calling Jews pig dogs?
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You would think that should be so easy, yet our colleagues are silent.
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You would have thought this summer that when Dan Goldman, who's 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."
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Two members of Congress said anything, any statement. Imagine if that had been Rashida Tlaib being refused to serve, uh, refused coffee. What would happen? There would have been resolutions in Congress.
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There would have been massive condemnation, right? Nobody said a thing, and I'm looking around saying, "Is anyone gonna talk out?" No, because why?
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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.
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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, um, and Brett.
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And one of the questions I got, and I'm gonna paraphrase, was something along the lines of, when you're with your colleagues in Congress, what do you wish they understood?
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'Cause Josh really described the scene where they're like, "Look, uh, 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?
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I- can't I just check the genocide box and everyone'll leave me alone?"
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And you, as Josh said, you're not Jewish, as we know from your incredible optimism, and yet you've, you've, you've really, you know, staked, I think, very courageous ground here.
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And when you're dealing with your colleagues and they're saying, "Are you crazy? Like, what? Why are you doing this?" Including what you're doing right now, like this fall in Michigan. They're like, "Are you crazy?"
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What do you wish they understood that they don't? I'm not a radical. Uh, 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?
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Everyone is trying to pull you farther and farther to the extremes, uh, 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 wanna go there."
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And we get pushback from the extremes, uh, in our party, the far left, right, for being too moderate, right?
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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 l- a lot of courage and a lot of strength to stake out these positions in the middle.
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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."
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And, and more intellectual curiosity instead of just an immediate rejection or, or retribution of the position that we have taken out. I wanna push back on one thing, right? Not all Jews are negative.
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You know, there's this great line about the definition of a Jewish optimist, whereas a Jew says- "Things could not get any worse." And the Jewish optimist says, "Yes, they can."
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[laughs] To that point, and since Brett, I think, quoted Clinton, who I used to work for, like, I, I believe tomorrow is better than today.
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So I-- the worst thing you could do is walk out of here going, "Oi," like, "It's over." Just the opposite.
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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.
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The second thing is, I believe as a people, we are closer to, to each other than ever before, right? We know we gotta look out for each other, and that only we can overcome this by working together.
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We gotta stay focused. They spent a long time, decades, like, focused on how they're gonna tear it apart between foreign money on college campuses and K-12, you name it.
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So we understand that, and we were a little asleep 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, but overcoming socialism and overcoming antisemitism.
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So I, 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 gonna come at us, the socialists, and by the way, we're coming at them.
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[clapping] So Josh, actually, I wanna ask you about it before we wrap, 'cause you lead this common sense problem solvers caucus.
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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?
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The Palm Stars 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.
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He started it. [laughs] The 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.
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They're just loud. And by the way, our enemies want to get on, 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?
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Because the crazies are better at marketing, right? They're just be- they get picked up more because they say crazy things, and you're too rational and reasonable, so it doesn't do as well, right?
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And that's just how it is in this world. But 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.
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Bret alluded to mention that I, I landed this morning at four fifteen AM from Israel.
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So the real reason for my trip to Israel is my niece got married on Thursday night, and, um, she's the youngest daughter of my sister who, who, uh, made Aliyah.
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And I will say being at that wedding, which was in, uh, 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, uh, who had served with him, and there they were celebrating, and celebrating the start of a new family and truly loving life.
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And 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 eighth.
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So it was the day after the three-year anniversary of October seventh.
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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.
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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.
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On this trip, when I talk to Israelis, is, is they're all asking about Mamdani. These Israelis are, like, obsessed with Mamdani, and they're saying to me and saying to other Americans, "How you holding up over there?"
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[laughing] Like, and, and I'm sitting there looking at these Israelis who've been fighting the seven-front war, and I'm like, "We're gonna be okay," you know?
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[laughing] And, um, and they're like, they're looking at me saying, "You sure?"
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Like we're-- they're saying, "We're gonna be okay, but we're really worried because we're seeing all this crazy stuff going on in your country."
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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 who Mamdani is.
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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.
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[applause] And you are friends of the Jewish people here and everywhere, and I just want to thank you both for being here. Thank you so much for having us. [applause] And whoa, whoa. Oh, thank you.
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Yeah, they're giving you the standing ovation. We're gonna count twenty-six minutes here. We'll see if we can get to twenty-six minutes.
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