Book Event—”The Case for Dual Loyalty”
Nolan Lebovitz, Senior Rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom in Los Angeles and Z3 Adjunct Fellow, responded to October 7 with a call for American Jews to radically change the way they engage with both Israel and the United States. Challenging the trope of 'dual loyalty' commonly cast against Jews in the Diaspora, his book argues that Jews in America and elsewhere should choose to define themselves as no less loyal to their people than to their host nations.
It's a bold proposal, and it stems from a profound commitment to both the Jewish people and the Jewish state, as well as Rabbi Lebovitz's love of America.
The Begin Center, in collaboration with the Z3 Project, was delighted to host the Israeli launch of this courageous new book, with the author in conversation with David Hazony, Director and Steinhardt Senior Fellow at the Z3 Institute.
Video Transcript
Paul Gross (00:07)
Shalom, good evening to those with us here in Jerusalem and good afternoon to those watching ⁓ in the comforts of your homes in North America. My name is Paul Gross. I'm a senior fellow here at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. ⁓ And it's my great pleasure to welcome you to the latest in our series of collaborations with the Z3 Institute, where we bring speakers that have contributing to the world of ideas.
in ⁓ Israel and Zionism, and in particular, ⁓ authors of important and certainly in this case, think, especially ⁓ courageous new books. ⁓ We're to be hearing from the author of The Case for Dual Loyalty, Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz ⁓ momentarily. ⁓ I just want to add that ⁓ the intriguing thing for me when I saw this was that I recalled a
an experience when I was at a Zionist youth movement growing up in the UK. And we were asked by our councillors who we would support were Israel to be playing England in the World Cup final. Leaving aside the fact that I think it's more likely that the Ayatollah Khamenei would convert the Judaism and make aliyah than Israel would reach the World Cup final. But aside from that, what was intriguing was that there was an assumption that
It needed to be one or the other. There wasn't the option that the game could go to a tie. ⁓ And ⁓ as I think we'll hear, ⁓ the thesis of this book is that we diaspora Jews, and maybe specifically American Jews, it'll be interesting to hear about that because clearly American Jewry is in a ⁓ unique situation in the diaspora in terms of its size and ⁓ success.
in the diaspora, that we don't need to choose. Not only do we not need to choose, but we shouldn't. That there is actually a case to be made for American Jews, in this case, be passionately patriotic Americans and also deeply committed Zionists and Jews. So I really look forward to hearing from Rabbi Lebovitz from his thesis.
With him, asking the questions, putting the questions to him, leading the discussion is our friend David Hazony I'm going to introduce them both and then I will leave the stage and they will have the chance to hear from them and then there'll be a bit of time for questions afterwards. So firstly, I'll introduce Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz, who's the senior rabbi at Valley Beshalom in Encino, California.
He's on the executive board of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition, and he is also an adjunct fellow at the Z3 Institute. ⁓ He wrote this book following the events of October 7th, which I think is also notable and important. ⁓ He is a Fulbright scholar and spent time here in Israel studying at Bar-Ilan University. He wrote and directed two documentaries, Roadmap Jerusalem in 2018 and Roadmap Genesis in 2015.
He has rabbinic ordination with a master's degree from the American Jewish University's Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and also a PhD from Claremont Graduate University's religion department focusing on his study of the Hebrew Bible. He's a grandson of four survivors of the Shoah and carries an obligation to teach the lessons of our past in hopes that we can chart a more hopeful future hereabout. And as I said, we're very fortunate to have back with us
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (03:48)
We will.
Paul Gross (03:54)
David Hazony, award-winning editor, translator and author, and the director and Steinhardt Senior Fellow at the Z3 Institute. We've heard a long time of viewers, listeners, attendees of our events will know that he's been here speaking about many of the books that he's been involved in, including very recently, Jewish Priorities and Young Zionist Voices. He's the former editor-in-chief of Azure and the founding editor of The Tower.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (04:03)
you
Paul Gross (04:22)
His book, The Ten Commandments, was the finest for the National Jewish Book Award and his translation of Uri Bar-Joseph's the Angel was a winner of the National Jewish Book Award. So I'm really happy to welcome David Hazony and Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz
David Hazony (04:34)
Good to see you again. You David. I just saw you on a zoom yesterday. ⁓ but I'm also very much looking forward to see you seeing you again in November at the Z3 conference on November 9th. November 9th. ⁓ Let's talk a little bit. First of all, thank you everyone here in Jerusalem and everyone who's watching us on Zoom. Thank you all for coming. ⁓ Let's dive right in. So.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (04:35)
Good to see you.
David Hazony (05:04)
Did you deliberately pick the most potentially controversial, scary, ⁓ in-your-face title that you could possibly come up with and then write the book because that was the title you came up with, or was there some other process?
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (05:22)
No, that wasn't the process. actually David knows that wasn't the process because David was part of the process the entire time. David was the editor of the book, is the editor of the book. And ⁓ the process of writing this book actually began before this book because the very first high holiday sermon I gave at Valley Beth Shalom ⁓ was about an experience standing in JFK with my family. Before I started my pulpit there, we went on a long vacation to Israel and I was standing in the hallway at JFK. ⁓
And on one side, we were getting ready to board an LL flight. And I don't know if anybody's boarded an LL flight in their life at JFK, but somehow everybody starts inching towards the gate. Like, we just feel it's coming and they tell you back up, back up. We just inch toward it. And it was chaos. It's like the Red Sea. The Red Sea, right. Exactly. Yeah. And on the opposite side was this totally serene, tranquil boarding of a flight to Maui.
They looked as happy as could be. They had the laser on there. They were wearing flip-flops in New York. They were like already in Maui. And the people on the right side boarding the flight to Israel were already in Israel. That's exactly right. And I stood there my first high holidays and I explained to the congregation, I think it's my job to encourage them to choose the flight on the right. That's part of what my job is to be a rabbi in the 21st century.
David Hazony (06:30)
already in
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (06:47)
is as calm and serene and refreshing that flight on the left is, part of our experience is to choose that flight on the right. I didn't know how important that sermon would be.
David Hazony (06:59)
Paul, we've got a little echo feedback. you just maybe turn down the mics a little bit?
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (07:03)
So I didn't know how important that sermon would be, but somebody recommended that David reach out and then sermon ended up being part of the Jewish priorities book ⁓ that was 65 essays about the Jewish future. And that book was published on what day?
David Hazony (07:20)
October 24th.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (07:22)
October
24th, 2023. So we all worked very hard to get that book out and then October 7th happened. And then suddenly I woke up and of course it'll tell the story of October 7th, which is very similar to most rabbinic stories of what it was like on October 7th. But there was an email shortly thereafter sent by Wicked Son, the publisher that said, we hope everyone continues to support Jewish priorities. And by the way, if you have an idea for a book,
Following October 7th and the events that are ongoing Please let us know as soon as possible because we feel like timely books are are meant to come out in this time period and that of course was the invitation that I needed but I ⁓ Because of because of who I am and because of my family and because Even tonight I felt it walking into the the Menachem Begin heritage center. It's an incredible honor to be here I think that my grandparents could not have imagined that ⁓ that I would be ⁓
speaking here at the the Begin Center tonight in Jerusalem about about a book that I wrote about American Jewish identity. So I appreciate it in that sense. And because I talk about my grandparents a lot, people like to come up and play this game with me all the time. And the game is, Rabbi, do you think that right now this is comparable to Germany in 1933 or Germany in 1939? And that leads me really to two different understandings at the same time about American Jews.
Number one, we really see everything through the framework of the Shoah experience because most of our families were impacted by it. Even if we came before the war, that's part of what we understand Jewish history to be, especially in the diaspora, especially the way that we're brought up. Everybody takes field trips to the Holocaust Museum. Everybody takes field trips. know, this is part of our upbringing. And it also leads me to believe that most Jews
in America and I would argue in Israel as well are totally uneducated about all other episodes in Jewish history. And so it's the one framework, the context that we can all use. It's a language that we can all use to share our anxiety. Because if people understood, if I ever responded to somebody and said, no, I actually think it's more like Spain in 1391, they would have no idea what I'm talking about.
And if they understood the show as real context of what was going on in Germany, 1939, like God forbid any of us be here if we thought it was Germany, 1939 or Germany, 1933 for that answer. so that on top of the atrocities of October 7th, on top of the day in day out, we in LA are in an area heavily populated with.
not only Jewish families, thank God, but also Israeli families, thank God. And Israeli families are a little bit different in the sense that they're not necessarily members of our community, but when things happen like October 7th, suddenly the floodgates open. I happened to be one of the first rabbis in the area that began every Shabbos offering a prayer for the soldiers, a prayer for the state of Israel. And I began reading the names, every Shabbos of soldiers who had been killed.
I began reading the names following October 7th of those who were kidnapped. I began reading the names and the names and the names because this was not a war that was happening somewhere else. This was happening to our families. I wanted people to understand that this was happened. These were happening to real people in the Jewish family that we all knew. And of course it became very personal for my wife and myself and the congregation for that matter because I walked in on October 7th and I began talking about the one text message that we received.
that didn't say we're okay. It was written to my wife by Rachel Goldberg-Polin and John and Rachel are friends and in many ways my congregation walked that path. We tried our best to walk that path with that family and ⁓ all the way to the funeral that I flew out for last year. so ⁓ it was a very emotional time and I sat there every week, week in, week out and I wondered, why isn't there a book
that tells us about the significance of peoplehood and the importance of Jews seeing each other as family and the centrality of Israel, not only as a land, not only as a state, but as an idea to who we are no matter where you live in the world, whether you live in America or you live in Israel or whether you live in some other place at this point, and that some other place is becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of global Jewry with each and every day, each and every passing day.
Why isn't there a place, a book that captures our hopes and dreams and tells us that the promise of tomorrow for the Jewish people is always supposed to be optimistic? And we're always supposed to be creative in terms of shaping our own tomorrow with a certain degree of agency that people wouldn't think that we have, but we have, we always have. Why don't we have that? And as I was thinking that and thinking that and thinking that on the Bema, in my very fancy chair that I sit on the Bema off to the side,
All of a sudden I got up at some point as I was thinking this how sad it is that that book doesn't exist. And I walked up to the microphone on Shabbos morning and I said into the microphone, please rise page 139. And everybody turned around and they opened the Ark. And I thought to myself, my God, there is a book that says all of those things. There's a book that says all those things that it's located in the synagogue and the Ark in every single Ark across the world. We don't read it like that. So I don't think that I don't think that the ideas that I put forth in the book are
original, let's just say, or uniquely mine. I think it's an interpretation of ideas that have existed for a long time. And I just distilled them all down for this moment, to speak to this moment and appeal to the readership, primarily American Jews, but I'm flattered by how many Israelis have reached out as well and how many are here tonight.
David Hazony (13:33)
So let's talk a little bit about the actual structure of your argument, because it's a great title. I love the title of the book. ⁓ But I often find myself saying, ⁓ it sounds crazy, but it's actually a really serious argument. And then the argument ends up carrying the weight of the book much more than the title. So you talk about dual loyalty as a,
deliberately chosen phrase because of the extreme sensitivity that the accusation of dual loyalty has for American Jews. And you're basically saying, stop running away from it, lean into it. But you say much, much more than that. Let's take, for example, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you call the Jewish double helix? I think that's kind of the theoretical centerpiece, and it's a beautiful image.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (14:26)
And that was the original title of the book, which was, you know, ⁓ thrown out, of course, because it sounded like a crazy science experiment. but. Jacob, I have to this might be rudimentary for everybody in this in this crowd, but maybe from some people on Zoom or but please forgive me just giving a little bit of background. In safer brace sheet, Chapter 28, Jacob decides to leave Eretz Yisrael for the first time.
Okay. And in leaving Eretz Yisrael into the diaspora, he gets tired walking as my kids have gotten tired walking so much for the last couple of weeks here in Israel. And he decides to lay down and put his kepi down on a rock. He puts his kepi down on a rock and he has a dream. He has this incredible, incredible dream. And the dream image that I use usually on the, on the display behind me is the dream image off of, um, my teacher's book that he wrote on the parasha Rabbi Vernon Kurtz, who's here.
the Jacob's ladder image, that piece of art is usually behind, I usually give him credit for selecting that image. Jacob lays down and he has a dream. And in the dream, he sees angels going up and angels coming down. And Rashi, the great commentator, explains that so different is the diaspora from Eretz Israel, so different is the diaspora from Israel, that there needed to be an entire, essentially a line shift of angels, like in a hockey game, right?
that angels needed to get off the ice, new angels need to get on the ice because that's how different the two are in Jacob's travel.
Now we're all the children of Jacob. We're all been Israel where that's that's where we get our name from. Right. And so this journey between these two opposite poles of the ladder between these two opposite poles of the ladder that's all of our journey as a people. And I talk about this a lot in the book. I use a lot of I use some statistics ⁓ at this moment in time where the 90 percent of global jury live in two places. So.
I hate to be, you know.
unsympathetic, know, or cast any kind of negative light on the Jews of England or France or South Africa or Australia or whatever. But basically the future of the Jewish people rests on the future of two Jewish communities. There will be less Jews in France next year than there were this year. And after the following year, there will be less Jews in France then and then and then those that number 90 % will continue to rise in terms of how many Jews are in the United States and Israel.
Israel, the United States. We stand today is the two poles of that ladder. And the only way we ascend up towards the heavens to a better future is actually by strengthening the rungs that connect the two poles of the letter. Now, this isn't a brilliant idea. This is this is the latter image, right? Of course, that is presented to us in the Torah itself. And that image seems to me a little bit outdated, and so I took the latter and I began to
twisted around in my mind that I turned it into the double helix of the DNA. And that double helix image, I think, is actually embedded in every Jew. Every Jewish family story involves some travel between Israel and Hul, which is my favorite way of expressing diaspora, of course. Hul, right? And chutzvah arets, like Israel is this, like they're equal in some way in terms of size. But...
There are very few families that I've met in my life that say, you know, I go back 100 generations inside of Israel. We've all traveled to a certain extent. We've all traveled. We've all been outside. We've all been inside at different times. And I think that for the success and for the hope of a better Jewish tomorrow, both for American Jews and Israeli Jews, we have to understand that strengthening this relationship between us is essential.
to ascending the ladder towards a heavenly future. And so I think that's actually embedded, that promise of the Jewish genes embedded in each one of us.
David Hazony (18:29)
It's a really beautiful image, and thank you for that. ⁓ I wanted to ask you.
So we've had, know, some time has passed. You wrote the book in the months after October 7th. It's now, you were writing, say, in the fall of 24.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (18:48)
I was writing in the spring of 2014.
David Hazony (18:50)
Spring
of 24, okay, so now we're within a year after that. And there's been an explosion of antisemitic hatred across the world. The war here has continued with battlefield successes that really upset the antisemites around the rest of the world a lot.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (19:14)
There's a lot that upsets the anti-Semites.
David Hazony (19:16)
A lot that upsets them. ⁓ I want to ask you, but you will need to answer in the mic because of the people on Zoom. Do you think there's anything you would have written differently if you were writing the book now than more than a year ago? Or do you think it's deepened your consciousness of this issue in some way?
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (19:38)
I think the book is more relevant today than it was a year ago in some ways. I think that, ⁓ I think that, you know, podcasters like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan have called, have called into question Jewish loyalty on a couple of occasions in the last several months. They've called into question, you know, whether or not the United States should support the state of Israel in
Iran, whether we should get engaged or we should not get engaged, who's pulling the strings because they engage in all of these, you know, ⁓ all of this nefarious, new blood libel type telling of ⁓ scapegoating that's going on. And I think that that's, you can clearly see that's coming from the right, the far right in terms of the media. And the far left might be even scarier. The far left is the rise of Mamdani and...
and talking about how, you know, globalized the intifada and intifada in the streets of New York City might not be a bad thing. And how he doesn't know, he doesn't want to police anybody's language so that these calls, ⁓ they should just be, they should be allowed because we shouldn't police one another's language. Even though he wants to police everyone's ideology in pocketbooks, we should allow him to say that. I think that... ⁓
It's clear to everybody who lives in the United States that every time Jews are murdered in the street and people scream free Palestine, river to the sea, globalize the Intifada, like those phrases were used when they murdered two Jewish young people in Washington, D.C. or when there was the attack in Boulder, Colorado or on and on and on and on. I think that it's clear that those that that
that language isn't just language, that language calls for violence. And we see the repercussions of it in the United States over and over. So I think that the book, ⁓ I try my best to not be, to not adhere to either ideology, right or left in the United States. I talk about in the book and I gave ⁓ this talk at VBS, I don't see any merit anymore
in being loyal to either party.
Right? No Jew should see themselves as absolutely a "D" or an "R". We're much better, and this is part of the message of the book, we're much better off as a people if we see all of ourselves as J's. All of ourselves as J's. And we begin to judge people in terms of how they will be a J candidate. Once we start doing that, we have a much better shot.
I'm not saying that just for Jews, by the way. I give the same talk whenever I'm in churches. I think, tell me, I've said this in front of church congregations, ⁓ tell me your view on Israel and I'll tell you the merits of your character. I don't need to know a whole lot more. You tell me, let's start the conversation. I used to go to interfaith breakfasts as a rabbi and we would have a talk. The Jewish group would have a talk ahead of time, like what we wanted to engage in and what we didn't want to engage in.
And it was just understood that what we wanted to talk about were local issues and how everybody could get along. And Israel was usually tabled and not discussed for any reason. Because if somebody held different positions on Israel, that shouldn't prevent us from being friendly with one another. And the dominant thought at that time was we should all know clergy in our neighborhood, irrespective of ideologies and whatnot. I don't believe that anymore.
I don't believe that. believe in opening with Israel. I believe in opening with Zionism. I believe in opening with transparency and saying, these are the things that I believe. When you walk onto Vali Beth Shalom's campus, the first things you see are the American Israeli flag. As you walk through, you might see, you see the, all of the faces and names of all of the hostages that are still being held in captivity. You walk past signs that say, you know, we stand in solidarity with Israel over and over again, whether you're in
synagogue or the day school or the preschool, you see flags all around. ⁓ There's not only no reason to hide it, there's reason today to make sure that the generation that we raise behind us is is prouder than ever before because they're going to face challenges that the previous generation couldn't have even found.
David Hazony (24:11)
I'm so much of what you say is intuitive. And I'm trying to put myself back into a pre-October 7th lens to recall what the Jewish world looked like at the time. And I lived in Washington for four years in the 20 teens during a period that in Washington is called Obama II. Everywhere else is called 2013 to 2016.
I remember driving by a synagogue and had a big sign out front that said, we stand for Israel, in big letters. And then in small letters, it said, in its quest for peace. OK? Which struck me as a tremendous conditionality that was being placed. It was basically saying, Israel's making peace, we're there. When Israel's being all those horrible
other people who are not successfully achieving peace in their eyes, then we don't. And that was completely normal. That was, in many ways, ⁓ a regular way of threading the needle between a very specific ideology about what needs to happen in the Middle East ⁓ versus those who want to see support for Israel expressed.
But you're coming from something different. You're describing Israel as essentially loyalty to Israel, and also simple fact that it's not just your synagogue that has two flags.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (25:49)
No, it's every synagogue I've ever attended in the United States.
David Hazony (25:52)
Yes.
It was completely normal to have two flags and then to say, don't don't accuse us of dual loyalty because we're completely Americans and we love Israel in its quest for peace. You're coming from a very different perspective. saying the I mean, it's almost as though you're saying the point isn't exactly Israel. The point is a much more ancient or Jewish principle, which is loyalty to the Jewish people. And Israel is
a very big chunk of the Jewish people.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (26:24)
Israel is the most significant last chapter of that story of Jewish peoplehood. But the concept of Jewish people that I think is one that got lost. this is the part of the talk when I do it, synagogues that sometimes upsets rabbis who are sitting on the other side with me. I think that ⁓ we have to accept a certain responsibility that the pie chart of Jewish values that's been taught in America needs to be recalibrated to a certain extent, right?
When I came out of rabbinical school, we were prepared to teach tikkun olam day and night because we were prepped with Talmudic suyot that supported tikkun olam. We were prepped with sermon material that supported tikkun olam. We were introduced to organizations that supported tikkun olam. And tikkun olam means repair the world, but it really meant like a ⁓
Paul Gross (26:56)
teach.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (27:22)
progressivism, ⁓ a kind of social justice Judaism that we thought was the future for young people that could get attached to. What that meant was that the pie of Tikkun Olam had to be really big because you only get so much time with people in synagogue. And the truth is that the Zionism and the peoplehood and all the things that I grew up with, both as a result of the institution in which I was raised, the institutions in which I was raised, and the family in which I was raised, they were all
somewhat more muted because they got relegated to a smaller slice. So we really need to understand what the North Star is here, how we correct ourselves. And ⁓ I think that I stand in that way on the shoulders of giants. The reason I have the iPad is so I can pull out ⁓ quotes when I need it. And of course, one of the great quotes of the book is,
Louis Brandeis in 1915, just because I want people to know that these ideas existed for a long time. He wrote, there's no inconsistency between loyalty to America and loyalty to Jewry. The Jewish spirit, the product of our religion and experiences is essentially modern and essentially American. Indeed, loyalty to America demands rather that each American Jew become a Zionist. And I would add onto that a final sentence and that loyalty to America demands that each American become a Zionist.
That's the claim that I'm making for Americans. The claim that I'm making for Jews is that we need to once again devote ourselves to Jewish peoplehood. And in that quest for Jewish peoplehood, we actually become loyal to two different great ideas, a great idea of America and a great idea of Israel.
David Hazony (29:04)
So how did this happen? mean, you go back to Brandeis. You go back to the Joint Distribution Committee ⁓ that helped Jews around the world. You go back to all of these philanthropists in the early 20th century who were very involved, not just in helping build the state of Israel, also in helping, know, HIAS was created to help Jews escaping Europe. I mean, there was always this
family instinct to help Jews around the world. By the time I was in Washington, I was in Washington when anti-Semitism blew up in France, the Heber-Kasher attack and all of that. And I remember feeling like, where is American Jewry for French Jewry right now? Why aren't we seeing massive delegations of major Jewish leaders flying to France and supporting people? There's no like,
know, ⁓ efforts to raise money for the Jews of France. I mean, it feels like that piece of the pie shrank at a certain point for some reason. And I'm wondering, maybe we need to kind of get behind, get under that, or to understand that in order to be able to know how to fix it.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (30:22)
So I think that ⁓ a good example of how we've corrected it following October 7th is the pogrom that happened in Amsterdam. I don't know if everybody remembers the pogrom that happened in Amsterdam, right? But ⁓ as the pogrom was unfolding in Amsterdam, there was already an uproar among American Jews calling congressmen and senators and officials to offer help.
Paul Gross (30:28)
is
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (30:49)
American Jewry has acted in a way following October 7th. Statistically speaking, ⁓ most of us colloquially call it the surge, but statistically speaking, it's like nothing we've seen in many, many, decades, both in terms of resources and advocacy and trips to volunteer trips to Israel, even though I would argue the trips to Israel keep occurring with the same people over and over again. This is my sixth.
Paul Gross (31:17)
visit
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (31:17)
to
Israel following October 7th, I think that ⁓ the American Jewish community has activated. Also, I would argue Israel has activated, right? So ⁓ I forget if it was two or if it was three, LL flights took off from Ben Gurion. Those planes took off before they had permission to land in Amsterdam. So the days when we wait for permission from people to go rescue Jews from around the world, those days are long gone.
Those days are long gone. In some ways, we've come back to an Entebbe mindset. ⁓ And I think that we have to have an Entebbe mindset at this point. We're searching for heroes. And I think that the answer is, and this comes at the very end of Herzl's introduction to the Jewish state, at the very end, he said, old prisoners do not willingly leave their cells. It's going to take a younger generation to push this rock up the hill.
There's been a whole lot of ire at the younger generation in the United States and about everything that's been happening on college campus. And I think there's a whole lot of promise with the younger generation as well, both in Israel and the United States. Following October 7th, we came here on a, my first trip was part of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. It came here in the end of November. So it was like six weeks, seven weeks after October 7th.
And then two weeks later I returned with the first VBS mission. That mission was something special and those were incredible Zionists from our community. 25 of us came and we went to volunteer at a place called Shokida. Okay, Shokida was a checkpoint that ⁓ served soldiers coming off the front lines. My phone told me we were in Gaza. Then I should turn back, I was entering a war zone.
But the guy told me not to worry Gaza was like in another 20 feet. So it wasn't a problem, okay? The Israeli guy, he laid all of our fears, not to worry, we're not in Gaza. Gaza's there, we're right here. So we stood there and we made sandwiches and we made shakshuka and we did laundry and soldiers came with humvees covered in schmutz and with faces like they had seen the worst, you know, of humanity. And...
They would come and we would make them sandwiches and offer them Coke Zeroes and coffee and they'd smoke cigarettes and they'd sit by themselves or they would sit and talk to us. And I have to tell you that I brought my son on that trip who's sitting here today. And it was right before his bar mitzvah, he was 12 years old and he made sandwiches for soldiers. Now, just to give you an idea about the Rahmanis of those soldiers, okay, the compassion. My son doesn't make sandwiches for himself in Los Angeles. So whatever the sandwiches were that he made for those soldiers, they took them, they were so grateful. They told them that it was delicious.
hope to God that it was because they were getting off the front lines of that moment. And a soldier put his hand on my son's shoulder and said, I'm fighting for you.
In what world does that make sense? In what world does it make sense that a 19 or a 20 year old from somewhere here that is fighting in a battle because of a border dispute or because of border incursion, because of a massacre that happened somewhere across the world would be fighting for a child across the world, that it only makes sense within the context of peoplehood?
And it only makes sense in the context that this isn't a war that's focused on a territory or a border. This is a global war against the Jewish people. And the only way that you can understand the explosion of anti-Semitism that's in New York, the explosion in London, the explosion in France, the explosion in every corner of the earth is to understand this as a global attack on the Jewish people. And once people understand that,
I think then it becomes apparent that peoplehood is the only response that I actually carry with me an obligation not only to that young man who's fighting in Gaza. I carry with me an obligation to the Jews who were hiding that night in Amsterdam. I carry with me an obligation to the Jews that were attacked today in Rhodes. I carry with me an obligation to Jews everywhere because those kids could be my kids and my kids are those kids. And the two kids that were killed in Washington, D.C.
Any Jewish American, any Jewish American would have loved to have their daughter get that internship and work their way up their way on the embassy ladder. And the idea that Sarah Milgram was murdered and the entire Jewish world didn't just lose our minds shows a certain in acceptance and complacency that can't be acceptable to anybody.
We can't accommodate this anymore. We can't accommodate. But that's in our nature. Our nature is that we accommodate and we accommodate and we accommodate. And ⁓ the moment that she was murdered and the person came into the museum and we offered the murderer a cup of water.
and the murderer stood and screamed free Palestine. That phrase should have been outlawed or at the very least should have been frowned upon immediately throughout the United States. The idea that it's not is a Shonda not only for the Jewish people, but for the American people. And that's my point because the future of America rests
in so many ways, on the future of American Jews.
David Hazony (36:53)
I think I'm detecting between your very, very strong and harsh words ⁓ an undercurrent of optimism. Am I right?
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (37:04)
Now there is an undercurrent of optimism. There is an undercurrent of optimism. Because I think that there's a core group of American Jews who have woken up. There's been an awakening. And I think that ⁓ following October 7th, there was a misunderstanding that we were profoundly alone. We're not alone. We're not alone. So ⁓ I went ⁓ to a conference in Washington, DC with the leadership of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition. And an evangelical pastor stood up.
in front of us and said, ⁓ Jews in the United States are not alone. My kids will go and march and fight for your kids, even though you wouldn't want my kids to necessarily come into your house and share Shabbos dinner.
I thought to myself, could that be true? His kids would come and fight for... I didn't have any sense that there was anybody out there standing up for us anywhere. So I did the craziest thing possible. I came back to Los Angeles and I called a colleague in a church that's located three miles from our synagogue. And I said, timidly, would you like to have coffee with me? He said, sure. So he came to the synagogue.
We had a cup of coffee in Los Angeles. Now we have a gourmet barista stand when you walk into our synagogue. It's absolutely lovely and people get very impressed by it. So we have our gourmet coffee and then we walk around the campus and he sees all the expansion that's been going on. He hasn't been there in years, blah, blah, And ⁓ he's the senior pastor of Bel Air Church. Bel Air Church is a giant church community. President Reagan attended services every Sunday famously at Bel Air Church.
And ⁓ when Pastor Drew gave me a tour of Bel Air Church, just to give you an idea of how different the perspective is between Jewish and ⁓ Christian, let's say, tzachol, ⁓ he walked me through the sanctuary and he pointed, said, do you see this seat right here, this pew? I said, yeah. And he said, you see this little star? Now, David, I'm telling you, the star, it was smaller than a penny.
It was a golden star, it was smaller than a penny, and it sat on the back of a pew on the aisle. He said, this star is here to remind us that this is where the President of the United States sat on Sundays. And I smiled and started to giggle. And he said, what are you smiling about, Nolan? I said, I'm smiling because if ever a President of the United States walked into our synagogue, we would cover that chair with lucite glass and we would have a donor put a giant plaque on the side of that lucite glass. would say,
Here sits the chair where President of United States sat on this day, donated by the Strauss family. Thank you to the Strauss family forever and ever for putting this lose like that. But here it was, was a mate. So anyhow, he came to the synagogue and I, so we've become friends since this point. He came to the synagogue and I said, I said, Pastor Drew, ⁓ I built up the courage and said, what have you done since October 7th in your community to discuss Israel in any way?
I was terrified, terrified because I expected in my office that he was about to say nothing or even worse. We've had talks about, you know, genocide or, you know, some other blood libel. He said, really, Nolan, we haven't done enough. All that we've done is we'd have several visits from hostage families.
We've had two IDF soldiers come and speak on Sunday mornings to the congregation. We've had Patricia Heaton come and talk to us about the noble nature of this war. And we've had the Israeli consulate come and visit and speak to us about why the war is continuing and what the aims are for the state of Israel.
And I thought to myself, he's three miles from us and we have no idea that any of this is happening. Any of it. And I'm not the only, I'd like to think that I'm the most dim of all the rabbis in the community. None of us knew. Nobody knew around the country that we had so many friends, that there were people around the country who agreed with us, profoundly agreed with us. And I would say, I think that the vast majority of Americans agree with us because if you look at the last election, most of the people who won their elections
whether for the Democrats or the Republicans, were candidates that had positive views of Israel. Meaning to say Americans were watching the same newsreels that we were watching, the same protests on college campuses that we were watching, the same insane congressional hearings that we were watching. I mean, our minds were exploding and we thought we were the only people who were watching this who understood it the way we did. It's not true.
It's not true. Tons of Americans believe this. It's just that we're not very good as a people to fighting our battle and reaching out to others and say, what do you think? Can you come along with us and building alliances based on the truths that exist here? For a long time, for a long time, ⁓ I tried to build relationships with black churches in Los Angeles. And when I went to visit, ⁓
The first question that I would always get was a question by one of the parents in the black church about why Israel behaved the way that it did.
Following October 7th, I thought to myself, this isn't a Los Angeles issue anymore, this is a national issue. And I reached out to now somebody who I'm proud to call a good friend. I reached out to Pastor Dumasani Washington, right? Of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel. And I brought him to Valley Beth Shalom. I brought him to Los Angeles. He spoke at our Yom Ha'atzma'ut celebration, as well with Pastor Drew Simms spoke from Bel Air Church.
because I wanted people to know that the message is that we are no longer alone in this world. And I think that actually the promise of America, the promise of America is that we're not alone and there's a promise of self-correction. Now granted in America, we don't know how to self-correct, we only know how to over-correct because we only get two choices. So you only, you like what you got or you want to change. So people...
that's the only two choices that you get. So we only overcorrect and then we overcorrect from the overcorrect and then we overcorrect from the overcorrect and that's kind of how the pendulum swings in the United States. ⁓
But I really have a hope and a faith in the American spirit, in American values, that the majority of Americans understand that the values that bind us as an American society bind us together with Israel. Not because there are Jews in America and Jews in Israel, but because we both carry the kinds of liberal light that's meant to illuminate the world.
And I think it's the only hope for tomorrow. It's not just a hope for tomorrow. It's the only hope for tomorrow. So the idea that America and Israel stand together, it's not meant to just be a slogan that makes Jews feel better. It actually is a guiding, should be a guiding principle that sets the path forward for how we as Americans see ourselves moving into the next generation.
David Hazony (44:24)
Thank you so much, Rabbi Nolan-Lievowitz, for sharing with us tonight. I would love to open this up now for if we have questions, whether it's a microphone being magically materialized as we speak. I will take this moment to say that I, am optimistic, which is why we published Young Zionist Voices, which we did a great event for here.
when it came out ⁓ and we have another student facing book coming out ⁓ by Isabella Tabarovsky who happens to be here with us tonight. I'm very honored to you here Isabella.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (45:00)
I was a little bit upset and offended by young Zionist thought, young Zionist voice because I was considered not young anymore. That's exactly right. I realized when the book came out that I was not asked because I was not young.
David Hazony (45:03)
Because you're not young.
don't know how many people I know who got mad at me because they weren't included because they were too old. ⁓ But the book is called Be a Refusenik, a Jewish student survival guide, and it's coming out this fall. ⁓
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (45:24)
Can't wait to bring Isabelle to Valley Bass Shalom.
David Hazony (45:26)
That's right. ⁓ Okay, questions.
Start with Isabella. So I'm curious, first of all, thank you so much for a fantastic talk, really captivating. I'm curious what reception you had, the book, what's been the reaction to the book? Obviously it's a complex issue just based on the title alone. So what have you seen and heard so far?
Paul Gross (45:37)
You've had to.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (45:47)
Right. So, ⁓ most of the complexity of the reaction is by, ⁓ Jews who are loyal to one party in America or the other, meaning to say, ⁓ I have congregants and people around the country who have read the book who say, I, I paint the Democrats in a bad light or I paint the Republicans in a bad light. Right. I shouldn't focus so much on,
President Obama's final kick at Israel, right, on his way out the door. I shouldn't focus so much on Charlesville in that episode, and back and forth. So that says to me in many ways, ⁓ those people are not ready for this conversation, right, because they're locked into ⁓ the mindset of a pre-October, of an October 6th mindset.
And we can't be October 6 Jews any longer. Something has to change. So the question is, if you're not ready to admit that that wasn't a good path, that didn't lead us to success, I never make an argument in the book that any particular politician is my cup of tea. I can only talk about the people who have been elected in the last dozen or so years. So that's been one reaction. ⁓
Other pushback has come from rabbis who think that I paint the rabbinic endeavor and our relationship to Tikkun Olam. I paint Tikkun Olam is too simplistic. ⁓ That also has been pushback. Outside of those two categories, the book has largely been well received. And I think that's good. mean, that means people are reading the book. Put it this way. I've never been in kiddish after services. And the congregation walk up to me and say, rabbi.
That service was amazing and the kiddish is delicious. Thank you. Right. So I've been I don't know how many Shabbat services I've been in my life. A thousand. It's never happened to me. So and the membership at our shows it grew last year. So people seem to like what's happening. But the way the Jews say we appreciate what you're doing is by offering suggestions. Right. So ⁓ that's what we do. That's what we do to show appreciation. So you know Rabbi the service went a little bit long. Tuna is not so great. I say thank you very much because
That's an A plus in Judaism. And ⁓ amongst the Jewish people, if we're fighting for peoplehood, I suggest Israel really step up its tuna game, because it's going to be really important to the Jews that come here from this point forward. ⁓ so there's been a lot of pushback. There's also been a lot of very positive reception. The book is sold really well. ⁓ I've done more than 20-something talks around the United States so far, both in person and virtually. And I...
tell communities all the time. It's wonderful to travel around the country. It's wonderful to get a taste of all these different beautiful communities. And most communities that I visit, whether it be in Encino, California, or Highland Park, Illinois, or Summerlin, Nevada, or Bel Air, Houston, or Highland Park, Texas, or Pepper Pike, Ohio, it's all Encino, or it's all Highland Park, or it's all Pepper Pike. Meaning the congregation feels familiar. The Jews feel familiar.
We're all family. I understand the kind of talk that we're gonna have. There are local issues that face all of us a little bit different. I would argue that, know, especially New York right now is in a crisis of a different nature than the rest of the country, but because of the election that's upcoming. But I think that there are so many thoughtful, engaged communities that it's been an inspiring process for me to go and it's been an inspiring process to get to
spend time with colleagues and travel around the country and get to see all of these different synagogues thriving during this period of surge.
David Hazony (49:41)
Okay, next. Yes.
If you could just say your name. Thanks.
Paul Gross (49:45)
Hello, I'm Barbara Diamond. I'm a journalist. I used to be a member of Valley Beth Shalom, but about 50 years ago. You were not there at the time. ⁓ I respect everything that you said and I'm happy to hear everything you've said, but I see this enormous void in what you're covering. You're talking about people who go to synagogue. And we know that the bulk of the Jewish
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (49:53)
It's great to meet you.
Paul Gross (50:13)
world in America or the Jewish population in America is not being found in synagogues. And I would like to know if you would address the concept of young people having Jewish loyalty or having been disabused of that right by their education, whether it's public school or university.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (50:34)
So I'm actually more optimistic about young people than most rabbis in the sense that LA Jewish community did a survey, the Federation last year or the year before, and it went decade by decade in terms of the Jewish population and engaged or not engaged. The group of the 20s demographic is the least engaged in terms of synagogue membership.
and one of the most engaged in terms of Shabbat dinner observance.
Right? So I look at that and I say, as a rabbi whose congregation is predicated on membership, I think that's fantastic news. Fantastic news. That means that those young people were raised in communities, in schools, by families that taught them that on Friday nights they're not supposed to be at the Lakers game. They're supposed to be around a table, eating dinner with friends and family and community. And whatever that looks like for them,
to step in a positive direction. Because what happens to people who are disengaged in their 20s and 30s is that they become engaged at this magic point when they have kids and suddenly need a preschool to join in the Jewish community. Listen, you go back to the book and all these different biblical images that I point out, I always tell my congregation, I can see when I'm reading the book of Bamidbar, Moses and Aaron standing at the Mishkan talking about why more teenagers don't come to the Mishkan.
It's for sure, it for sure happened. It didn't make it in because they thought it was embarrassing. But basically, this has been a problem that's faced every generation is, what about the Jews that are not in this room? How about we start by thinking about how do we cater to the Jews who do show up in this room? Because the Jews outside of this room are going to take the lead from most of the people who come out of this room and say, I really heard this, you know.
Amazing talk even though he ignored this very important thing that's happening in the Jewish world, right? All right, listen I heard this most amazing sermon in the service even though the kiddish was schvach or we went to this whatever you wouldn't believe it I went to the LA Jewish Symphony. I went to the Jewish theater. went to Yiddish theater I went to whatever it was very inspiring for my Jewish identity I think that those of us who do show up need to spread the message of what it is that we really appreciate Because I think that from the outside it's difficult
to just look at the membership dues number and say, or the ticket price number or the whatever it might be and say, is it worth it? I think that people don't hear enough, yes, it's worth it. It's more worth it than the price you pay for your country club or the dinners you go out to or whatever it might be. I think that we don't make the case enough straight on to the people who are not engaged. ⁓ And I think that ⁓ the number of Jews who are not engaged is going to shrink in light of this new
post October 7th context.
David Hazony (53:30)
I would just add to that. think that our tradition of looking at synagogue affiliation and membership as kind of the bellwether of Jewish engagement, it's a bit out of date. I think there's a lot of studies that show that there are many other forms of engagement, especially things like One Table and JCCs, which I to be close with. But I did a little research and found that
The total number of people who walk through a JCC monthly is about a million and a half. Two thirds of them are Jews, which means about a million Jews each month are finding something at the JCC that's not just the gym, something that is disproportionately bringing them ⁓ to the JCC. So there are all these other pathways of affiliation, of engagement. And part of the challenge it faces, ⁓ the Jewish, sort of, overall Jewish establishment,
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (54:08)
Right.
David Hazony (54:30)
is how to bring what you're describing to meet people where they are and to engage with them on these issues, such as Jewish loyalty, through the channels that match their relationship with engagement, which I is a little different. We have time for two more questions. Yes, Steve? Yes.
and then guilt.
Paul Gross (54:54)
I'm Vernon Kurtz. It's a pleasure to listen to Nolan. We go back a long way. I was his family's rabbi. ⁓ So as you know, I served the American Jewish Committee for 43 years. We live here now for six years. So I have interesting perspectives in that realm. Pre-October 7th, this was a very divided country. Judicial reform was just one of the issues. Post-October 7th, we became very united.
We're basically back to a very divided country again. How do you deal with the sense of loyalty and criticism of Israel, which is both rabbinic is a sense of the prophets, and at the same time, a sense of loyalty, making sure the congregants come to it on a sense of love and not just out of critical nature of what they see, hear, do, et cetera.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (55:48)
So thank you, Rabbi Kurtz. Thank you for everything, by the way. But ⁓ that question comes out in most of my talks in this form.
How should I support Israel if I disagree with its government? And I say, well, that's a question that more than 50 % of Israeli citizens struggle with each and every day, right? How do they support Israel and not support the government? Because they don't support, they don't particularly like this government. So here we are in a moment where I feel like, and again, I talk about this a little bit in the book.
I think American Jews and Israeli Jews are actually more united than they think in this issue, in the sense that most American Jews want to support Israel and most American Jews want to understand best how to stand in some way in opposition at the same time. ⁓ I think that standing in opposition is a tricky, tricky position.
when you're living in the diaspora. I think standing in opposition ⁓ has to be dealt with ⁓ in a really sensitive way. But I often tell people there are plenty of great organizations in Israel that do great work that are either non-political completely, right? And we support them as a synagogue community. support.
Leket, we support Yimmin Orde, we support amazing organizations all throughout Israel to help Israel without, you know, ⁓ necessarily doing something to support the state of Israel in terms of the government officials. And at the same time, I think that people have to understand in America, they're not citizens. So they're not going to get a chance to vote. Their kids, by and large, don't go off to serve. There's a different relationship that we have with the state of Israel.
than citizens of Israel have with the state of Israel. I think just in the same way that citizens of Israel have a different relationship with the United States of America than citizens of the United States of America have. ⁓ But I'll tell you, there's seldom a cab ride that I'm in where the cab driver doesn't tell me his opinion of the president of the United States. ⁓ And I think that ⁓ I've never once been offended by any Israeli who walked up to me to say,
the of the United States is the Mashiach or the president of the United States is the devil, because I know plenty of Americans that I think of as friends who think both of those things. And so this is, I think that we have to understand the stake of the Jewish, you know, the future of the Jewish people doesn't rest on one person alone. I know that's hard to believe. I really do. I have a faith in the, in the,
in Catholic Israel. I have a faith in the nature of our peoplehood. I have a faith in the idea that we will be able to solve the problems that challenge us. ⁓ And if you think that one of those challenges is the idea that a prime minister should not serve for 25 years in office, I think there's a lot of Americans who would agree with that idea because of the nature of the way that we're raised. And I think if you think that a prime minister who serves in 25 years in office has so much experience and wisdom to offer,
that he should stay during times of ⁓ tumultuous challenge, I think there's a great argument to be made there too. And I don't think that that should determine whether or not you support our brothers and sisters that live here. That's the best answer that I've had, that I've come up with at this point.
Paul Gross (59:33)
Thank you, David. Thank you, Rabbi. I love the book that you gave me when we met in LA. And thank you for writing it. ⁓ so since the October 7th attacks that took the Israeli political, military, and intelligence leadership by surprise, all of those leaders have been replaced except one, very obvious one. Since the October 7th attacks that took the American Jewish leadership
establishment by surprise. None of them have been replaced except one that I can say privately if people don't know who it is. Should that be different? How should the American Jewish community leadership been reacted differently should they have toward that surprise that they were taken by basically?
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (1:00:26)
Right. So I think that the circumstance of saying that the Israeli military was taken by surprise and the leaders of Jewish American organizations were taken by surprise, the context and the stakes involved in those two professions being taken by surprise are obviously very different. So just the comparison of the two from the outset, just want to, it's different. At the same time,
There are a lot of Jewish organizations in America who have ⁓ changed tunes since October 7th. And ⁓ Jewish leaders who I think have been courageous in speaking differently since October 7th than they had been before. And they've met challenges within their organizations for doing so. And some of them ⁓ have stepped down, been replaced ⁓ in LA because of COVID, because of a whole host of reasons.
Most of the senior leadership of major organizations in Los Angeles have all changed within the last five years. This is now a new generation trying to figure out where LA is going tomorrow. I'm actually very hopeful about the Los Angeles Jewish community. I'm hopeful about the American Jewish community. I'm very hopeful about the Israeli Jewish community, most of all. So I don't know that it necessarily means, and I'll go, this now goes to all of them.
I don't know necessarily that it means that they need to step down. It seems to me to be a ⁓ major misstep if they don't accept at least responsibility. And I know of many Jewish leaders in America who have accepted responsibility, who have said, we're going to do better. We're going to do better. ⁓ It seems like that here in Israel, there are many waiting for that same moment here as well.
⁓ and I'm, confident, I'm confident that Jewish people is going to figure it out in America. There's two different views of the American Jewish experience. I teach this in a class. Okay. There are two different models. I could be canceled for using these two different models, but I'm going to, I'm going to be courageous right now and say it. Okay. And that is there's the Mel Brooks model and there's the Woody Allen model of American Judaism. Those are the two models of American Judaism. It goes like this.
The Woody Allen model of American Judaism comes from Annie Hall and that says, no matter how successful you'll become in America, you will always be an outsider to the club on the Upper East Side of New York. Right? You'll always be on the outside of the tennis club looking in. Even if you're a member, you'll never quite be a member. That's Woody Allen's perspective on America. Mel Brooks's perspective on American Judaism is that
The story of American Judaism is so embedded into the story of America that in blazing saddles, even the Native Americans speak Yiddish, right? That's how Jewish America is from its very conception. I have no problem saying that I'm a Mel Brooks Jew. None. I think that ⁓ I was raised in a city of Chicago that's going through a lot of Tziris right now. I just visited.
I was raised in a city of Chicago that boasts a statue of George Washington and Chaim Solomon arm in arm. Seemingly, no matter what the field trip was, where we were intended to go growing up in the day school that I was with Solomon Schechter, where I was raised, if we were going to Wrigley Field to see a Cubs game, or if we were going to the Art Institute to see a painting, we stopped at that statue, got off the bus and looked at Chaim Solomon and George Washington. Meaning to say, Jews have always been part of America. And in the book, I talk about
the chapter of the French Revolution, and how in Napoleon's rise, there's a question about whether Jews can be loyal citizens. There has never, ever been a question in America whether Jews can be loyal citizens. Never. And so I really believe that America holds a different kind of promise for diaspora. I think that's going to be the first diaspora that bucks the trend. I hope, I hope, I hope that we buck the trend. I hope, I hope, I hope that we won't go the way of
all the other diasporas that have come before us. And in saying that, I hope that ⁓ Jewish leaders in America understand what's at stake at this moment and that we sit kind of as a precipice. And if we understand what's happening in New York and if we understand ⁓ what is rising up on both sides of us, threatening the middle, which is where I think most American Jews sit, is mostly in the middle. ⁓
I think that we have to be able to advocate for ourselves. We have to be able to solve for solutions. We have to be able to brainstorm and work together. And I actually think that ⁓ us being able to do it will prove to the American people that it's actually possible and it's possible for America as well.
David Hazony (1:05:28)
Thank you so much. That's so inspiring. And I really, really appreciate the case for dual loyalty and their copies ⁓ on sale outside.
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (1:05:37)
I'd like to do one more thing before we conclude. It's my wife's birthday today and her birthday wish was definitely not to hear me speak for another hour. She spends a lot of time, a lot of time listening to me talk in her life. Okay. So for the group of, of, people here in, in, Jerusalem, ⁓ do you know how to sing Yom Hu'ledet Sameach? Is that possible? Yes. You've heard it. Okay. Let's all try. I have a horrible voice. Are you a good singer, David? You'll carry that me. Here we go.
Paul Gross (1:06:07)
Happy birthday. ⁓ I want to very quickly firstly thank you Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz for this wonderful book for your ⁓ moral clarity and your unapologetic
Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz (1:06:09)
Yeah, yo, yo
Happy birthday.
David Hazony (1:06:22)
Thank
you.
Paul Gross (1:06:35)
Zionism and Jewish pride. It's something we very much appreciate here at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center. Thank you, David Hazony, as ever. Happy birthday to Rabbi Lebovitz's wife. Thank you all for coming. Thank you for watching on Zoom. Good night. Bye.
Books on sale upstairs.
