Being Jewish with Jonah Platt

[00:00:00] Jonah: Recently, I had someone reach out to me for some advice. This person, let's call them Rivka, identifies as a member of both the Jewish and queer communities and wanted my input on how to deal with some conflicting feelings she was experiencing around the realm of politics. Now, this was the day after President elect Trump posted his threat that there would be all hell to pay if Hamas did not release the hostages before his inauguration.

[00:00:24] Jonah: And Rivka's Jewish friends were taken to social media to celebrate this strong, no nonsense language. Personally, I'm more of an action speak louder than words kind of guy, and the truly meaningful test still waits ahead. But, I can certainly understand that after not having someone of authority speak this directly and aggressively towards Hamas in quite a while, just posting these words was, in many ways, an action in itself.

[00:00:49] Jonah: And something to be celebrated. So, Rivka. On the one hand, she saw her Jewish friends admiring Trump in this moment. And on the other hand, as a queer identifying person, she remained [00:01:00] extremely worried about how his administration might seek to roll back LGBTQ plus rights, which is unfortunately a valid concern and in certain respects is already in motion.

[00:01:10] Jonah: Totally reasonable that someone like Rivka might be torn in this moment. And so she wanted to know. What do we do with these conflicting ideas? Do we celebrate Trump standing up for Jews? Or do we oppose him for the threat he represents to the queer community and others? What I told her was that the answer, of course, was both.

[00:01:31] Jonah: Which may sound obvious and so simplistic as to almost sound condescending, but it's actually not the default way contemporary society has discordant notions. We live in an aggressively polarized country in an aggressively polarized world. Over the past several decades, we have been slowly pushed into this more tribalistic model by a number of factors.

[00:01:55] Jonah: Our politicians who demonize their opponents, our news media who [00:02:00] denigrate those who don't agree with their point of view. Our social media that creates echo chambers and promotes incendiary rhetoric. Elements of modern social justice movements that have framed our society as an oversimplified binary of oppressors versus the oppressed.

[00:02:14] Jonah: And of course, all these ideas are often reinforced in our schools and universities. The notion that polarization is just the way the world is, is so ubiquitous it may as well be in the water. By design, our brains already love to categorize and put things in neat little boxes. Our minds absorb so much data every single second, mental shortcuts are a necessity for our brains to be able to handle all the vital tasks required of them.

[00:02:42] Jonah: So when you add this innate process to the culture's constant whisper of choose a side, the impulse for many is to do just that. Sort everything into one of two boxes. It's either or. Black or white. Good or bad. Life and its [00:03:00] intricacies are far more complex than a simple binary can explain. We know this, and yet we seem to have forgotten how capable we are of processing that complexity without having to pick a team, or smush everything into a box that doesn't quite fit.

[00:03:16] Jonah: The notion that we must choose sides is a false paradigm. We don't actually have to do that. No matter what our peers on social media or in real life may think. And in fact, we shouldn't do that if we want to have a more communicative, cooperative, and stable society. There is no shame or controversy in acknowledging two competing truths.

[00:03:39] Jonah: Any negative response to an accurate grasp of reality is due to the small mindedness of the observer, not any shortcoming in the person who's actually getting things right. So bringing it back to Rifka, there is nothing wrong with saying, I applaud Trump standing up against terrorists, and I worry about his agenda towards the queer community.

[00:03:58] Jonah: I mean, we could do this all day, on [00:04:00] any subject, right? You love your kids the most, and they annoy you the most. Non gender conforming people deserve dignity in the workplace. And, changing all shared restrooms to gender neutral can be extremely uncomfortable to gendered men and women who have no desire to poop next to someone of the opposite sex, which is something that happened to me in the middle of a show I was working on.

[00:04:23] Jonah: Republican attitudes towards climate change are catastrophically self centered, and we can't afford to just abandon fossil fuels without endangering our economy and stability. Israel is one of the most amazing, democratic, and innovative places in the world, and its Prime Minister is an untrustworthy, power hungry stain on liberal values.

[00:04:44] Jonah: Trans people deserve respect and dignity, and student athletes deserve respect and consideration when they're forced into an uncomfortable or unfair competition with someone whose biology is objectively different than their own. Life is hard. [00:05:00] And life is beautiful. Now, perhaps you may disagree with me on one or more of the specific points I addressed, and that's totally fine.

[00:05:08] Jonah: The simple fact that there are competing, equally valid truths to each situation is undebatable. Anyone who would take these statements and label one side as evil or anti or even biased is being disingenuously defensive because they are so invested in their own position they struggle to even allow a counterpoint to be introduced to the conversation.

[00:05:29] Jonah: That doesn't make it any less true or valid, it just makes that person unreasonable. Ask yourself, what's more reasonable? Acknowledging the complexity of life's challenges? Or asserting that everything has only a single right answer and it's yours. Holding two truths simultaneously? Like much of what I discuss on this show, it's just another muscle you have to exercise.

[00:05:51] Jonah: The more you do it, the easier it gets. Because it's actually a much more natural and logical way of approaching the world than binary tunnel vision. [00:06:00] In closing, I will leave you with a final double truth. You enjoyed this monologue. And you're ready for it to be over now. Totally with you. This is the 14th episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.

[00:06:43] Jonah: My guest today is a quickly rising star of the New York theater scene. His work as a director, however, is about much more than just entertainment. Through his activism and advocacy, he has used art as a vehicle to foster dialogue, provide education, and bridge gaps between communities in today's [00:07:00] fragmented world.

[00:07:01] Jonah: He's involved with several arts advocacy organizations, including one for which I am a board member. He's also the youngest Black director to ever have a show on Broadway, which maybe he's getting sick of hearing about, I don't know, I'll ask him. Please welcome the very talented and very humble Jalen Livingston.

[00:07:16] Zhalion: Hey,

[00:07:17] Jonah: what's up? You know,

[00:07:18] Zhalion: just doing a

[00:07:18] Jonah: little

[00:07:19] Zhalion: interview show. How are you doing? Podcast. It's all good. Yeah, I'm good. I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you for being. I'm grateful to have you.

[00:07:25] Jonah: So I want to start with the obvious. What is this not Jewish theater maker doing on a show called being Jewish because of your work as artistic director of an organization called the Inheritance Theater Project, which I'm a board member.

[00:07:40] Jonah: I wanted to bring you on so we could explore that work, and that can be our Entree into the rest of the conversation. So first, why don't you tell us what inheritance theater project is and what it's all about?

[00:07:50] Zhalion: Sure. So the inheritance theater project is a national nonprofit founded by John Adam Ross, who is our executive director.

[00:07:59] Zhalion: Shout out to jar. [00:08:00] Shout out to jar. Very close collaborator, colleague, and. Friend, and I started with the organization maybe around 2017 just as an associate artist. Um, and, uh, last year became the artistic director and what the inheritance theater project does is we go around to different communities in the country and we ask a set of questions.

[00:08:23] Zhalion: One of being, what is the history of this place? What are the stories of the people who live in the place today, and then what does it mean to bring an inherited text to this community as a kind of orienting a foundational conversation starter?

[00:08:40] Jonah: What do you mean when you say inherited text?

[00:08:42] Zhalion: So we think of inherited text as these kind of foundational stories or narratives that.

[00:08:53] Zhalion: Multiple generations have had some kind of relationship to and so, uh, a great example within our [00:09:00] work of an inherited text or an inherited narrative. A story would be like the story of Exodus, right? Um, it's cross generational, obviously, but also cross denominational. Christians know the story. Jewish people know the story.

[00:09:15] Zhalion: People who watch cartoons know the story, right? And so this story of a people being freed from bondage and making a kind of voyage to a promised land is a narrative that has been inherited. And What do we do with those inherited narratives? Why are they still around today? How do we wrestle with them and how do they actually help reflect and refract back to us the narratives that are emerging and our society today?

[00:09:46] Jonah: That was an awesome recap. I feel like that was a really good, hopefully John will be proud. Yeah, it's, it's tricky to, to give the elevator pitch cause it's so unique and it's so involved. It's not like a, here's a thing we do in a week. It's a nine month. Really involved [00:10:00] process, uh, which I got to actually experience.

[00:10:02] Jonah: We'll get into that a little bit later I want to talk more about that. It isn't a jewish organization But it has a very jewish soul to it. It was founded by jews. It's supported a lot by jews Uh, very jewish ethos of social justice and tikkun olam and sacredness of text. Do you feel that like do you feel?

[00:10:20] Jonah: A connection to what Judaism

[00:10:22] Zhalion: is about through the work. I totally do. I feel like sometimes and I identify as a Christian, but I feel like sometimes I want to lean into the Judaism of the organization, sometimes even more than the Jews involved because. I think sometimes as an outsider, you just have a certain objective view of the technology, you know, where I didn't grow up doing Seder, I didn't grow up really knowing any Jewish people, I'm from Shreveport, Louisiana, I knew one Jewish boy.

[00:10:56] Zhalion: In elementary school named Ron DeBettadetti. I don't know where he is [00:11:00] now. Shout out to Ron. Shout out to Ron. And he would eat a bagel every lunch. And he would put cream cheese on the bagel. Eating a bagel

[00:11:07] Jonah: every day. We

[00:11:08] Zhalion: can do better than that. But then he would put Cheetos on the bagel. And I was like, that's so dope.

[00:11:12] Zhalion: Ron with the Cheetos and the bagel. And I remember one time I tried it and I was like, nah, that's really just for Ron. That's because I don't know if that sounds that dope to me. It wasn't great. I really knew nothing about Judaism outside of what like maybe questionable education might have. Told me right which then left me with lots of like big broad questions I think a lot of people have yeah grow up around Jewish people.

[00:11:38] Zhalion: And so I didn't really like Interface intimately with Jewish people at all until a little bit in college But I went to college in Los Angeles and I lived in Hollywood and so there was more there but really wasn't until I moved to New York and was actually like Collaborating professionally that I was able to have intimate [00:12:00] relationships with Jewish people, which is to say, see the ways in which their cultural technology and religious technology could be used to create spaces that I was interested in.

[00:12:12] Zhalion: So there's always going to be a kind of inherent Jewishness. to the Inheritance Theater Project. And I think that's a gift. And I think that just like I bring everything that I love about my cultural background and also religious background to my work um, without it having to be overtly labeled anywhere.

[00:12:39] Zhalion: You know, it just is what it is. If it's a real culture, it finds its way into the room.

[00:12:43] Jonah: I want to dial in on your use of the word technology. You've said that word a lot. How do you define technology? Because you're using it in places that I Haven't typically heard it used.

[00:12:51] Zhalion: Yeah. I mean, I think of technology as something that helps you achieve something you couldn't do by yourself.

[00:12:59] Zhalion: [00:13:00] And, you know, arts is a kind of technology, right? And I also use the word technology because it's active, you know, technology is powered by the human. But it's an assist, you know, and so it still takes you coming to the table and using this thing and then creating a different reality that you would have had without it.

[00:13:21] Zhalion: And so when I think of, you know, one of my, my, I always make John laugh because when I learn a new Jewish word, I'm like, I've learned this word now and this will now be my hyper fixation for a while now. But, uh, me and Rebecca Schorsch, who is a dramaturgical scholar in residency. For the inheritance theater project, work very close to create workshops and methodologies, um, within our spaces.

[00:13:45] Zhalion: And we are in Havruta together and like learning about Havruta. It's like that, that is, that's my jam, like long term study with another over time, you know, like, it's like, I love that stuff.

[00:13:59] Jonah: Well [00:14:00] define it for us. Cause not all my audience is going to know what Havruta means.

[00:14:03] Zhalion: And I'm gonna probably, like, not give the most accurate, but my understanding of it is, like, rigorous, long term wrestling with another person over a long period of time.

[00:14:16] Zhalion: Wrestling over what? Wrestling over an

[00:14:18] Jonah: idea. Wrestling over text. Were those conversations between you and Rebecca about devising The methodology or you're saying you two were debating the text yourselves.

[00:14:29] Zhalion: It was a little bit of both. I mean, in trying to create a space where people could wrestle with text.

[00:14:33] Zhalion: We're also wrestling with the text, um, and trying to negotiate it and figure it out. And what I kind of. What emerged out of that work was maybe an answer to our divided times isn't necessarily a mass quantity of people agreeing to anything at once, but maybe more intimate, small. Intense and [00:15:00] rigorous long term relationships being built and then tasking those relationships with creating something for multiple people or a large group of people to experience.

[00:15:11] Zhalion: I'm a southern black queer male Christian. Rebecca is a Jewish academic in her 60s, not from the South. It felt like the perfect structure to hold people who have, um, who come from different backgrounds. And so that's a long way of saying, like, that's how I see part of the Jewish technology being used to, um, impact the work that I do.

[00:15:39] Zhalion: Pretty

[00:15:39] Jonah: ancient technology.

[00:15:41] Zhalion: Very ancient technology.

[00:15:43] Jonah: Specifically about these salons that you did over the past year. I don't know if this was the sole text or one of the texts, but it was, there was a James Baldwin text you were working with said the Negro is anti semitic because the Negro is anti white.

[00:15:55] Jonah: How did that go discussing that? I mean, that's how did that go? [00:16:00] Interesting and interesting, certainly ripe for discussion.

[00:16:04] Zhalion: Yeah, well, we were trying to find a text that people could wrestle with that didn't feel like it was necessarily being didactic about the times we're in in terms of like telling you what to think about anything, but also kind of diving you into a rich, um, tradition of, of conversation.

[00:16:23] Zhalion: And what I had been told was that, you know, Black people and Jewish people had a certain kind of solidarity with each other in the 60s, and over time, that solidarity had started to fracture for however many reasons, you know, that could happen. Um, there's multiple reasons. And in finding that text, what I realized is it was published in 1968, which is right in the center of when this narrative.

[00:16:57] Zhalion: Was being kind of like passed down [00:17:00] that like this was the good times and now we're living in this bad time and I found that complicated because There was a lot of Jewish and black solidarity. Yeah in the 60s and also there were real Complications about what does it mean for us to hold these identities and live in the Empire that is America?

[00:17:20] Zhalion: What does that do to us? What does that do to our relationships? And so, we felt like that could be a really ripe text to bring Jewish storytellers and black storytellers together around. And after our first salon, what we were really kind of rocked by was the realization that the chances that James Baldwin titled that text himself, very slim, most likely he was commissioned.

[00:17:50] Zhalion: And then a white power base said, this is what this article is called interesting. And so that changes the [00:18:00] relationship to like the overt provocativeness of The title which is not found anywhere in the text itself Is

[00:18:08] Jonah: what the the quote I read is the title of the piece the title of the piece Not

[00:18:12] Zhalion: titled by james baldwin interesting and not appearing itself within the piece and not appearing itself within the piece And so there's already this outside Kind of thing trying to frame how you enter, and so it was interesting to be like, Oh, well, then we need to figure out a different way to enter the text and a lot of the black storytellers in the room were like, Either I've read this before, and I've heard this before, and I really don't want to be in a room trying to explain something that James Baldwin was asked to explain 50 years ago.

[00:18:51] Zhalion: It feels like. His legacy to us is not to continue to labor in this way. And so that was like [00:19:00] my ego being like, Oh shit, did I bring the wrong text in? Oh no. What does this mean? And then the Jewish people in the room, particularly what I would consider white Jewish people in the room, because I think it's important to say in this particular salon, there were no black Jews and that has changed as we've gone along, but there was a lot of silence.

[00:19:23] Zhalion: And I was just like, this is not my experience. Of wrestling with Jewish people, my experience is like deep conversation and challenging and pull and tug and learning and capacity building and that that felt central to the cultural identity, right? And there was something about that framing of that text, that conversation, what it meant to be in a room with other black people that actually.

[00:19:54] Zhalion: Turned the room white as opposed to Jewish [00:20:00] and what I mean by that is I see a kind of like silence to difficult conversation or a kind of overt performance of politeness as. A non Jewish, uh, characteristic.

[00:20:16] Jonah: Mm hmm.

[00:20:17] Zhalion: And so, what felt like it was coming up in the room were all the ways in which America shapes us as identities to be together.

[00:20:25] Zhalion: That if I'm in the room with these black people, I am white, not Jewish. And if I'm in the room with these Jewish people I'm a black person who has an answer to an existential question, and it's up to me to to build the capacity and what, you know, me and Rebecca found this other great text by a writer named Kevin Quashie.

[00:20:48] Zhalion: It's from a book called the Black Aliveness and Poetics of Being and basically what it posits is that we read text with. Read black text with a kind of racist framework [00:21:00] that says if this is a black writer, it is either exposing or a trauma that, um, we all need to look at, or it is trying to teach me something, or if I don't understand it, I'm constantly.

[00:21:14] Zhalion: In a state of hoping to be taught or or to understand and that actually an alternative to that is just to be in a black world and in a black world. There's room for everyone in a black world. My color is not just my color. Blackness is a way of being together and that to me elevated. The condition of blackness in the way that I have seen the condition of Jewishness be elevated as a real cultural practice and a real way of being in the world differently.

[00:21:51] Zhalion: And what came out of our conversations was how can we create a space wherein black people are expressing from a place of [00:22:00] aliveness to Jewish people. Expressing from a place of aliveness and that cultural whiteness is decentered, not forgotten about, not, not accounted for, but not the given, not the norm that actually how do we put each other in relationships with our most infinite beings and an infinite selves, as opposed to our most politically reductive selves.

[00:22:25] Jonah: I love that. I love everything you just said. So something you and I worked on together. through the inheritance project was a project bringing together black Jewish and black Jewish communities in Los Angeles, my hometown around the idea of a Juneteenth Seder. Yep. So first, you know, what and why a Juneteenth Seder?

[00:22:43] Zhalion: Well, I mean, both Juneteenth as in holiday and the Seder tradition is rooted around, uh, a kind of Exodus narrative. And so they are cousins in terms of their relevancy to each other. The idea [00:23:00] of of trying to understand a people trapped in empire back in that time. And what does it mean to be people who are trying to free themselves in America?

[00:23:14] Zhalion: Obviously clear links. And so it felt like a natural merging of cultural stories and traditions and felt like a way in which both Jewish folk and black folk could come together around a common theme of liberation that wasn't simple, but. Possible.

[00:23:31] Jonah: What was this process like? And what did you learn from this

[00:23:34] Zhalion: experience?

[00:23:35] Zhalion: Well, we really come to these cities to really hear what the community wants to say what's emerging. Yeah. But because we've done this work a while, we kind of know when certain things aren't being said in a room. What does that mean when certain things are said in a room? What does that mean? And So part of what we do is we build these workshops with communities and we have a kind of prompt based [00:24:00] approach to generating work with them and Rebecca was there to kind of use the tenants of the Seder ritual to like lead people through talking about themes around their own city.

[00:24:13] Zhalion: Um, and so we would hold different workshops. Which I got to participate in a couple. Yeah. And eventually those workshops go from kind of common identities to identities that start to get more mixed. And we call that going from a kind of like, um, home base or safe space to a braver space. And then by the time we start to make art together, we're trying to create emergent space together.

[00:24:35] Zhalion: Something we haven't seen together before. Um, and so it was really fascinating in Los Angeles. To hear from Jewish citizens who also consider themselves lifelong Los Angelenos, um, in the stories of antisemitism that they experienced as people who have been in LA for a very long [00:25:00] time, what my grandmother experienced or, and, you know, it's not.

[00:25:05] Zhalion: Always, I think, centered the ways in which maybe anti Semitism might have found its way on the West Coast. And so, it was interesting to be in multi generational rooms, hear some of those stories, and then see younger participants be like, Whoa, that happened here? That was going on here? Whoa, what does

[00:25:24] Jonah: that mean?

[00:25:25] Jonah: What were you surprised to find was maybe a commonality between these communities that you hadn't realized existed? Just

[00:25:33] Zhalion: How much voyage and journey is still so central to the existential questions still driving both communities? You know, what does it mean to really have a relationship to the promised land today?

[00:25:52] Zhalion: What does that mean? And the ways in which both communities have never forgotten about a certain [00:26:00] kind of promise, but also kind of have come to a really kind of radical piece with the ways in which the idea of. A final destination where all your problems will be solved is not attainable.

[00:26:15] Jonah: Right. Doesn't quite exist.

[00:26:17] Zhalion: Doesn't quite exist, turns out.

[00:26:19] Jonah: Did you learn anything surprising about Jews that you didn't know through that process?

[00:26:24] Zhalion: Just like no one Jewish person is the same. Right. You know what I mean? Just in the way that no one black person is the same.

[00:26:29] Jonah: Yeah.

[00:26:30] Zhalion: Um, and so continuing to understand the tapestry, the spectrum.

[00:26:35] Zhalion: I don't know if it's like surprising in that like if I thought about it I would. Probably come to that conclusion right to just be around it. Um, I think was really humanizing.

[00:26:44] Jonah: That's cool That's great. I mean, that's literally one of the main reasons this show exists. Yeah, it's to to show off that spectrum I like the word tapestry though.

[00:26:52] Jonah: I haven't used that one yet. So i'm gonna What is something that you feel like maybe jews don't understand about black folks?

[00:26:59] Zhalion: I [00:27:00] think still a lot of jewish people, especially jewish people who identify as culturally jewish Um, ethnically Jewish, religiously Jewish, who have the traditions passed down to them, who keep the traditions.

[00:27:17] Zhalion: I think it's really hard for them to understand just how white they can be to a black person.

[00:27:23] Jonah: How white they can be, meaning they're acting in a way that is white, or how white they seem to a black person?

[00:27:29] Zhalion: Sometimes both. I mean, it depends on what your relationship is. Your proximity to Jewish people, obviously, to use technology in a much darker sense, the kind of technology of racism that America invented for it to be so purely based on the color of your skin means that without you even trying.

[00:27:50] Zhalion: All the best intentions in the world. You can walk into a room and a set of conditions start to unlock that have nothing to do with anything you might have said or might have [00:28:00] done, but that things start to move differently. And I think that that can still be. Challenge, especially for people who understand how ridiculous phrase can be as a concept in this country, that despite that, it's still a real socio political reality.

[00:28:19] Zhalion: And there are still things that a white passing Jewish person can do in ways of being in the world that they can be that are still really hard for a 15 year old boy in Compton to do and be.

[00:28:34] Jonah: Yeah, I think that's a good way to frame that. How has exposure to the Jewish community and Jewish ways of thinking through Inheritance Theater Project, if at all, changed the way you think about certain things or move through the non Jewish world?

[00:28:48] Jonah: My mind

[00:28:50] Zhalion: has been so validated by Jewish people. What do you mean? Like I said, I wasn't around Jewish people a lot growing up. And what I'm going to say is not because of something [00:29:00] I didn't get from my family or from my culture, but in hindsight, understanding that I'm a person who's part of my day job is wrestling with ideas as a director, as an artist, that that's so central to the work of the rabbi.

[00:29:17] Zhalion: Yeah. Um, and. That was always my way into my own faith is actually really trying to wrestle with it Um and not always being in a context where it was safe to wrestle with

[00:29:30] Jonah: I was gonna say I mean generally that's not That's or it's very associated with judaism. You question everything not so associated with christianity, you know often the opposite,

[00:29:38] Zhalion: right?

[00:29:38] Zhalion: and I just knew that, like, whatever that opposite was, was not my relationship to God. My relationship to God was someone or some being that actually allowed me to wrestle, allowed me to ask questions that really scared me, that the questions that I was asking at 15, 16, 17, I actually [00:30:00] only felt safe asking God, even though they were about God.

[00:30:04] Zhalion: Um, And so as I started to get older and work with Jewish people and they would kind of like sniff out the kind of like, I don't even know what you call it, the sense that I had to want to, to, to wrestle with ideas and to really never have the question be answered. They validated me as. Smart. Um, and I grew up with undiagnosed ADHD,

[00:30:33] Jonah: you and me

[00:30:33] Zhalion: both, my man, that's a whole nother podcast.

[00:30:37] Zhalion: Um, but because of that, I told myself many different kinds of narratives about my worth and my value and what I could, what kind of space I could be in and not be in. Um. And so it was much later when, uh, um, you know, a 60 year old Jewish woman was like, come co teach this class at Columbia Law School with me.

[00:30:59] Zhalion: I was [00:31:00] like, Columbia Law? I barely got out of high school. What do you mean? You know, that was the beginning of me understanding there are multiple ways of being smart. And just because you're not a person who was born to be on an assembly line doesn't mean that you don't have great intellectual value.

[00:31:16] Zhalion: Oh, yeah. And some of our biggest institutions. Amazing,

[00:31:20] Jonah: you know in regards to the response to the war going on in the middle east Many in the theater community in the black community the queer communities have have used This response to express some pretty virile and anti jewish bigotry. I mean, is that something that you've seen?

[00:31:37] Zhalion: I think i've seen a lot of Ignorance. Yeah What I mean by ignorance is a need to respond that is greater than your need to learn. Our phones, social media, television, kind of the mass media landscape that we live [00:32:00] in, every force, both good and bad, filters itself there. And there's no way to turn it off. I mean, yeah, you get rid of your phone, but it's not like when you were growing up, you could watch TV and then the commercial would come on and you would go run outside and then it's back.

[00:32:15] Zhalion: No, you can turn on the television and have a constant stream that never stops of information and inundation. And then to feel like, well, what do I do with that? And to only feel like you have the tools to go on your phone. And I think that like for a certain generation, that is actually a real place. And I think where a lot of crosstalk and miscommunication happens is cross generationally, wherein older generations don't see social media or the platforms on which young people are trying to just express their ideas as a real place.

[00:32:53] Zhalion: They see, I think, the darker sides of it, the ways in which it's been used as a weapon, the way in which other [00:33:00] forces have used social media to brainwash and inundate. But conversely, because of. Sometimes only seeing it from that point of view. It's really hard to see the ways in which social media is literally providing a space for people to find a vocabulary.

[00:33:16] Zhalion: To find a way of being and talking to each other. And so I think there's just so many confluences that end up happening in one space. And we're only given like or dislike. Share or delete, but we're supposed to talk about one of the more complex issues of our time through that funnel. And so what I actually really see is.

[00:33:39] Zhalion: You know, I, I see a lot of great advocacy happening in the world. I tend to look at advocacy through kind of my own lens of someone who is anti war just in general. I tend to believe if we're in a war, then we've already failed. That the war is not the problem, it is a solution to a problem, and it's the wrong solution.

[00:33:58] Zhalion: And so I can I [00:34:00] think with that framework, I kind of can be in multiple spaces in terms of where people fall on any one issue. But what I think I see the most, especially coming out of my generation. Is a desire to indict this place and not being given the space platform tool, ability, understanding, knowledge to do it.

[00:34:27] Zhalion: And so a lot gets projected onto the Israel Gaza conflict when really what's underneath it is we don't like that this is the solution to this problem.

[00:34:39] Music: We don't

[00:34:41] Zhalion: like it. And I don't think. That is the most unusual response in the, you know, many years of, of conflict that has happened in the world. I mean, who would?

[00:34:55] Zhalion: Who would like it? You know? But we're contending with this brand new [00:35:00] way of expressing it. And with this brand new way of expressing it, it's much harder for people who maybe shouldn't be talking. To feel like they shouldn't be talking.

[00:35:10] Music: Yeah

[00:35:11] Zhalion: So there's just so much more noise what the media chooses to pick up and and to not pick up is goes Constantly unchallenged.

[00:35:23] Jonah: Yeah

[00:35:23] Zhalion: in ways that I think are really really detrimental And, you know, I used to say this about millennials, and I think it's even more so about Gen Z is that like millennials were taught that, like all these divisions were settled and welcome to the world where in the divisions were settled. And then what I felt growing up is that, like, you slowly realize, wait, no, this stuff is still going on.

[00:35:46] Zhalion: And then there's a rage that comes from that Gen Z. I think it just has no patience for it. No patience for the world that they see that doesn't make any [00:36:00] sense. What do you mean we're fighting over X, Y, and Z? What is the value of even fighting over that? Why is this happening? All I see on my phone is that there's a dead baby in front of me.

[00:36:12] Jonah: Yeah.

[00:36:12] Zhalion: And I need to respond. So what's the alternative? Where is the alternative? For a 17 year old in their bed on their phone, doom scrolling, a war, what is the actual alternative in terms of expression? There has to be more outlets. If not, then the same kind of algorithmic poisoning that happens. Through social media is happening now through the context of a real international conflict and It only benefits those who are invested in war on either side.

[00:36:55] Jonah: You're a smart dude jalen I don't know. Let's get into your theater work a little bit on the [00:37:00] commercial side of things um, you have Had a very fruitful partnership with playwright Douglas Lyons. Yeah. Shout out to Doug. Um, famously Chicken and Biscuits and Table 17 most recently. Yeah. Both of these shows are what might be considered kind of old school.

[00:37:17] Jonah: You know, that one is sort of a broader family comedy. One is sort of a classic rom com. You guys are kind of zigging while a lot of theater is zagging. You know, it's not. overtly political or psychologically challenging or agenda driven. It's got heart. It's entertaining. It's, it's nostalgic in a way. What makes you guys want to create theater like that?

[00:37:41] Zhalion: Well, one, I, that's just how Douglas writes. That is his natural pen. He has a kind of broad commercial sensibility about how he writes in the kind of rooms he wants to be in. And I think actually there are things that are Deeply political [00:38:00] about the theatrical event of Douglas's work and and and me working with him that aren't squarely situated on the play itself to be able to hold.

[00:38:11] Zhalion: So he's able to tell these kind of like heartfelt comedic. Uh, stories of black life that are accessible to all different kinds of communities without ever not being what they are, which are black stories. But what we're doing with the audience and their orientation to the story and what and the way we're asking them to participate in the world, um, I think is actually something that's quite political.

[00:38:39] Zhalion: We did chicken and biscuits in the middle of the pandemic.

[00:38:43] Jonah: Yeah.

[00:38:43] Zhalion: And so to do a comedy. In the middle of a pandemic, wherein the centerpiece of the comedy is a funeral, and wherein people are coming into the space wearing masks, we're like, what does it mean to do a comedy where you may not even be able to see people [00:39:00] laughing?

[00:39:00] Zhalion: That there's a lot that's working on the audience subconsciously, you know. For us to be making comedy in a deeply divided time, I think actually drives home the deeply democratic nature of theater. Theater is the first democracy. So if you can get a room of people to laugh together in the first five minutes, you've proven something about us that the mass media doesn't want you to know.

[00:39:26] Zhalion: Which is what, which is that we are more spiritually connected than someone might suggest. Right. And so if that is true, what else can we hold together? What else can we hold to that? We, we may be able to hold conflict tonight together. So in table 17, the story of this couple that had a breakup and come together after a certain amount of time to see each other at a restaurant, we put all the audience at the restaurant.

[00:39:54] Zhalion: And we make you eavesdroppers on a conversation at a restaurant, but then we have these two characters actually [00:40:00] talk to the audience like they're in a comedy club, and because you've already laughed with these people, because you've seen certain tropes you think you are ahead of, then when it's up to you to make certain kind of judgments, you respond in a way that then the play actually reappears.

[00:40:16] Zhalion: Actually reflects you back to you, and so there is a moment where the male character says something that the audience really doesn't like. He reveals something about something he has done, and some nights we get everyone going boo, boo, boo, but we know that's going to happen. So then he has a monologue where he's explaining himself, and because we allowed you to express your judgment, you then have to express your empathy.

[00:40:46] Zhalion: So now we've begun to really pull at, you know, what the fabric of society is in this moment.

[00:40:55] Jonah: It's so interesting, like, being able to take the sort of macro view of [00:41:00] your body of work over the last few years, and see so clearly, like, such a common thread through Such different things through the advocacy arts work through cats jellicle ball to chicken and biscuits It's all you sort of have your lane like your mission and what you're trying to do and you're doing it in all these different ways It's cool to see.

[00:41:20] Zhalion: Yeah, I think I want the shows to feel quite different But I want you as an audience to feel like there's something familiar About what i've been charged to do in this space

[00:41:31] Jonah: considering, you know chicken and biscuits and table 17 I felt a little bit of a Similarity to how I feel and like the kind of narratives I want to see in Jewish representation where I'm kind of.

[00:41:46] Jonah: I've seen a lot of holocaust shows. I've seen a lot of shows about bigotry or whatever, and I'm looking for more just sort of contemporary Jewish stories are just people who are Jewish, [00:42:00] and I was just curious. Is that is that a piece of all at all of the shows that you guys are doing this desire to just Thanks.

[00:42:08] Jonah: Tell these black stories that don't have to be about slavery. They don't have to be about it. It

[00:42:12] Zhalion: feels like what I hear is that you want to see a Jewish world in a show. Yeah, that is not burdened by having to be exclusively your condition. And. I think when that happens, we actually are able to hold things that are more complex than our conditions, um, that are more universal than our conditions.

[00:42:42] Zhalion: And I think it's definitely a part of the work that I choose to do because people who are much smarter than me. have written about racism. People who are much more courageous than me have died over it. And [00:43:00] so if I am to wear the crowns of my ancestors, part of honoring that is to not put myself in a situation where I am made to do the work that they did so eloquently.

[00:43:11] Zhalion: I need to be figuring out what is distinctive about the work I'm here to do and how can I continue to push the, the, the ball forward in terms of. When we say representation, what do we really mean? Um, and, you know, to our, I remember when empire came out, the TV show, obviously a black show, not explicitly about the black condition, um, but also had major queer representation on that show.

[00:43:42] Zhalion: And. I kind of mark it as a very pivotal moment in kind of middle of America where people had a relationship to a queer person on television that could get them to understand maybe their own queer family [00:44:00] member better, particularly in the black community. Um, and you can go, you could go, Oh yeah, they're not all like one way or the other way.

[00:44:09] Zhalion: Like this is a very specific kind of care and I'm really rooting for him. And. You know, I can see how you could desire to have something that explains, not even explains, but shows, um, the Jewish context in a way that is driven purely by empathy and the questions we are all asking as humans.

[00:44:34] Jonah: Yeah, it's all about humanizing.

[00:44:35] Jonah: Yeah. Yeah. So. Are you sick of hearing that you're the youngest director, black director on Broadway? Or is it still like fun to hear every time? Because I'm sure it's like, now it's like the thing that follows you around everywhere. I'm not sick of hearing it. Okay, good. There's a Jewish character in the show.

[00:44:51] Jonah: Yes. Uh, the partner of the son of the main family. How, how did you guys, you know, work to authentically [00:45:00] present this character? Do you guys feel like you nailed it? What were considerations around fleshing him out?

[00:45:05] Zhalion: Oh, I don't think we nailed it at all. I'm sure there have been other productions around the country that have been able to be even more culturally specific about the Jewish character in that show, primarily because I think that.

[00:45:25] Zhalion: He's really functioning in a very particular way. He's really feeling a particular kind of archetype of outsider. And so I think kind of the, some of the more comedic tropes of what it means to be a Jewish outsider in a world that is not your world shows up in that character and shows showed up in that performance.

[00:45:47] Zhalion: But I definitely don't think we nailed a kind of sense of like holding both identities in a way that was even remotely. Um, what we were trying to do with, with the black bodies on [00:46:00] stage. Do you feel like that's a problem? I think that there's definitely room for deepening and, and also room for critique of that representation.

[00:46:17] Zhalion: Because I think identifiably Jewish about the character outside of the fact that The script says he is Jewish, um, because we don't go into his backstory that much. We don't go into his kind of specific cultural lens on where he is. There are a couple of, of, of references that, that help suggest that, but it's just like not what he's there to do.

[00:46:47] Zhalion: Yeah, I think if I felt like I was watching a play and the black character, I wanted his particular cultural context to come out into the piece more. Yeah, I would be like, yeah, there's room for growth

[00:46:59] Jonah: [00:47:00] there.

[00:47:00] Zhalion: But it, it, it's hard to say in hindsight what that would have done or not done to the play. So I don't know if I, like, regret it.

[00:47:14] Zhalion: Outside of the fact that like if someone gave the prompt, is there more of this person's Jewish identity to be found in this role? Heck yeah. Is it, is it the most produced play in America? The year it was, um, licensed and went out. It was the number one most produced play, right? I'm pretty sure it was the number one, either one or two, but I'm pretty sure it was the most produced.

[00:47:36] Zhalion: I mean, that's amazing. Yeah, it was incredible.

[00:47:38] Jonah: Congratulations Mazel Tov on that, first of all.

[00:47:41] Zhalion: What do you attribute that to? There's a need. Like, there are really, really, really talented black women all around this country who are of a certain age, who aren't given an opportunity to be fun and funny and heartfelt on stage.

[00:47:57] Zhalion: Um, and so you had all these theater companies that were [00:48:00] like, finally, I can ask this person, that person, and that person to be in one play together. Finally, that can happen. I also think it gets produced a lot because it's hilarious and it's really, really funny and it's really surprising and you really end up feeling for these characters.

[00:48:16] Zhalion: I think even if you walk away, even with the, um, Jewish character, Logan, even if you walk away, not Feeling like you knew that much about his Jewishness outside of what it means for him to show up in his white skin in front of his black family as a gay person, you still are rooting for a character in a certain social context that is unusual for the audiences that come around Chicken and Biscuits.

[00:48:47] Zhalion: And so there is. A kind of, like I said, work that Douglas's plays are doing ever so gently to just kind of force you through joy into [00:49:00] relationship. And then from there, I think people are changed in really unique ways. And so I think people sense that in the in the play when you're doing it.

[00:49:07] Jonah: What are some stage pieces of content that you feel have moved the needle in terms of creating understanding or bridge building?

[00:49:15] Zhalion: The first play that actually came to mind Was the normal heart. So powerful. And it really changed me. In terms of what the event of theater could do and be. And I was, I went by myself. It was the first time my mom let me go to a play by myself without her. And I sat in between two different generations of men who were there watching the play.

[00:49:46] Zhalion: And so I started to understand something about generational identity, that there's something we can share, even at different ages. George C. Woolf, in between the transitions, would project the names of people [00:50:00] who had died from AIDS. And there would be times in the audience where you would hear someone gasp in seeing someone's name that they knew.

[00:50:11] Zhalion: And so I started to understand that the power of theater really is about what floods out from the proscenium and not just what you get projecting onto the proscenium or onto the fourth wall. And then after the show, everyone like quietly got up and walked out into the noisy, like Times Square Street.

[00:50:34] Zhalion: And I was like, what? This is still on me. Oh yeah. Like I felt it. And so I knew that theater had the impact. Or the ability to impact you in ways you couldn't see, but you could feel. And so I stopped, you know, I think about that when I, when I, my ego wants to know the way in which this play is working on a person or is it changing the world or what's going to happen?

[00:50:55] Zhalion: You know, it's like it's things can move people [00:51:00] in ways that your desire to see the mood will never account for.

[00:51:04] Jonah: Right. As an ally to the Jewish community, what's something you want my Jewish audience to hear, and what's something you want my non Jewish audience to take away?

[00:51:13] Zhalion: Everyone is wrestling with the same questions, and if you're not wrestling, you're not alive.

[00:51:20] Zhalion: And so if you're so comfortable that someone else's wrestling makes you uncomfortable, then it's a mirror. To how dead you are. And I think so often we can feel as if the debates that we're having, the arguments we're having, the fights that we're having, is somehow shutting us down. It's because that the powers that be don't want us to know the truth about us, which is that we can withstand uncomfortable conversation, we can I would stand you as a Jewish person building my capacity, me as a black person building your capacity and that that can sometimes be really joyful and sometimes be really, really hard, but that if you're [00:52:00] a person who is open to the ways in which we are all connected, then you will see everything as your business and whether or not you understand a thing or agree with the thing has nothing to do with your Take care.

[00:52:15] Zhalion: responsibility as an alive human to be paying attention. And I think that it is not our political affiliations that divide us the most. We are divided among people who choose to be alive and people who do not.

[00:52:33] Jonah: I like that distinction. Was that message for the Jews or the non Jews? Both. Um, okay, I want to finish off something a little more light hearted.

[00:52:42] Jonah: We'll do a little lightning round. Have you ever been to Shabbat? Yes. What was the first Shabbat you ever went to? John Adam Ross.

[00:52:49] Music: Oh, that makes sense.

[00:52:51] Jonah: Uh, yeah. What's your go to bagel order?

[00:52:54] Zhalion: I think it's probably a crime, my go to bagel order. Let's hear it. It's a [00:53:00] blueberry bagel.

[00:53:01] Jonah: There's nothing wrong with the blueberry.

[00:53:02] Jonah: It's, it's unusual to be a favorite. Really blueberry raisin. Blue, I, I didn't know. It's a thing. That's pretty specific. It's a thing. I like it. With what on it?

[00:53:12] Zhalion: I'll do a, just a regular cream cheese moment.

[00:53:14] Jonah: I mean, cream cheese and blueberries, that's a natural

[00:53:17] Zhalion: fit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but you know, I'll also mess with everything bagel.

[00:53:21] Jonah: Yeah. It's very good though. Have you ever celebrated other than Shabbat a Jewish holiday? No, not celebrated. All right, we got to get you an invite somewhere in the next year. Which

[00:53:28] Zhalion: one though? Which, there's so many. There are so

[00:53:30] Jonah: many, so you have a lot of options. Someone's got to get you over for Hanukkah, that's coming up.

[00:53:35] Zhalion: Right, I've never been over for

[00:53:37] Jonah: Hanukkah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, you got to be over for, for Hanukkah's a good one. Purim, have you heard of Purim? Purim, you basically wear costumes and get drunk. It's like a big party. Oh, great. And there's like, just literally people have parties and go wild. It's like wild night for the Jews.

[00:53:53] Jonah: That's a good one. You should get, someone should invite you to a Seder. I mean, clearly. Well, I

[00:53:57] Zhalion: have been, I have been [00:54:00] to multiple Seders. Oh, you have? I did not count that as holiday, unfortunately. Oh, that counts. I know that is the holiday, but I was thinking about how many holidays. Yeah. That Jewish people have.

[00:54:09] Zhalion: Yeah. I have no one like understanding. All right. I'm going to,

[00:54:12] Jonah: if I'm celebrating one in New York, you'll get a call. Great. And to end on a high, what's the best advice you've ever received? I don't

[00:54:19] Zhalion: even know if it's advice, but I'll tell this story. When I was contemplating going to New York, my move from Los Angeles to New York after college, um, I was really like struggling to figure out how to make it make sense.

[00:54:34] Zhalion: And I had a teacher who was like, well, let's flip a coin. Heads, you move to New York, tails, you stay in L. A. I was like, okay. And so we flipped the coin, he caught it, and he was like, what did you want when the coin was in the air? And I was like, well, I wanted it to be heads so I could go to New York. And he was like, well, then this doesn't matter.

[00:54:52] Zhalion: And he never showed me what I'd actually flip. And I think that that's so, like, Indicative of how I [00:55:00] move. Um, and so just really trusting that the jump that your intuition is asking you to take is the right jump.

[00:55:08] Jonah: Love that. Let's end on that. Jaylen, thank you so much for all the insight and for being so candid about everything.

[00:55:15] Jonah: It's really been a pleasure chatting

[00:55:16] Zhalion: with you. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:55:20] Jonah: Thank you to Jalen for sitting down with me today and for all the work you do for so many different communities. You're definitely doing your part for Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. Thanks to everyone here at Hoff Studios. And of course, thanks to all of you watching or listening to this podcast right now.

[00:55:36] Jonah: You know, I love you. I'll see you back in LA for the next sensational episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.