Being Jewish with Jonah Platt

episode-15-the-importance-of-allies-haredi-real-estate-mogul-david-lichtenstein
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[00:00:00] Last weekend, my family and I attended the first annual California Assembly District 51 Community Excellence Awards. District 51 encompasses nearly all of Los Angeles, from Santa Monica in the west to Griffith Park in the east. So it shouldn't surprise you to know that our district is both the state's gayest and most Jewish.

Shout out to my bros. Many awards were bestowed. Small Business of the Year, Nonprofit of the Year, Man of the Year, which was not me. I, along with two other outstanding Angelenos, was honored with the Community Excellence Award for Combating Anti Semitism. Or, Anti Jew Bigotry, as we call it on this show. My parents, wife, and children came with me, and I certainly felt good seeing how proud they were of me.

But honestly, and as I said in my acceptance speech, I wish this award did not exist for me to receive. Man, how I wish that today, in America, in Los Angeles, we didn't need to recognize people for [00:01:00] defending Jews from bigots. Not a great look, 2024. Not a great look. I also remarked on how amazing it was to receive a Jewish honor in a decidedly non Jewish forum.

That's rather unusual. In fact, this monologue is not about me winning the award. It's actually about the man who presented it to me. You see, the Community Excellence Awards are the brainchild of Rick Chavez Ziber. My District 51 California State Assembly member. Rick is not your typical politician.

There's not a whiff of deal seeking or personal ambition or insincerity about him. He's just a guy. Humble, kind, and approachable. Who cares about people and wants to help them. Rick has a long career of serving others. Most notably as a leading activist for the gay community, of which he is a part, in particular serving as executive director of the country's largest statewide LGBTQ plus civil rights organization, [00:02:00] Equality California.

So it's reasonable to expect he'd continue to be a strong leader for his own community as a state politician. But what's reasonable to expect of a person in regards to a community that is not his or her own? Well, let's look at more evidence. It was Rick who first connected with me and asked me to dinner to better understand the needs of the L.

A. Jewish community. It was Rick who told me our district was the most Jewish in the state and how seriously he took that responsibility. It was Rick who joined the 18 person state legislative Jewish caucus, despite, you know, not being Jewish. And it was Rick who issued a firm, clear statement of solidarity with Israel after October 7th, without equivocation or the progressive word salad so in fashion with many democratic politicians today.

So I'll ask the question again. How much responsibility is it reasonable to expect someone outside your identity based community to shoulder on your behalf? The [00:03:00] answer, epitomized by Rick Zuber, is a lot. We have enormous capacity to take responsibility for the well being of our fellow human beings, regardless of if they're one of us or not.

We used to know this. To be sincere in our desire to feel connected to humanity, Before our cynicism told us it was lame, or Pollyanna ish, or passé, somewhere along the line. But we all need help at one time or another. And right now, the Jews need help. To my thoughtful, engaged, open hearted, non Jewish audience, if you're even hearing this monologue, you're already showing up.

And that really matters. But, I'm afraid we must ask more of you, because we cannot turn the overwhelming tide of hate alone. We need your hands in ours right now, and for the long haul. We need your love and support like never before. I'm reminded of something my dad's mom, [00:04:00] my dear Grandma Sue, of blessed memory, taught me.

Whenever someone we care about experiences the death of someone they care about, there's that moment of hesitation, the pause, the pause. Do I say something now? Do I go over to their house? Do I text? Do I call? Do I wait? What's the appropriate move? And what my grandma Sue would always say, and do, is just go.

When someone is in need, you go. None of the other considerations matter. Let's be honest, they're mostly self generated attempts to protect you from having to encounter a difficult emotional moment. But believe me, those pure, proactive moments of light in the darkest hours often mean the most. Allyship is no different.

Don't hesitate. If you've been waiting for permission to take on our charge as your own, consider this it. We want you involved, enmeshed, responsible. Send the text, make the [00:05:00] call, share the post, call out the bigotry, buy the Hanukkah gift, score an invite for Shabbat. We need you with us in any and every way.

If you ever feel Or hit that moment of hesitation, I also give you permission to think of my grandma Sue's words of wisdom. Just do it. Go. This is the 15th episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.

One of the questions I received most frequently since I launched being Jewish is, when are you going to have an Orthodox guest on? [00:06:00] After all, one of the goals of this podcast is to illuminate the full spectrum of Jewish identity. Well, my friends, I'm in New York City, home to the second largest population of Jews in the world.

So, it wasn't too hard to find a really interesting Orthodox one. My esteemed guest is a Haredi thought leader and scholar, offering insight on Jewish texts through a number of platforms, including his successful podcast, Headlines Halakha, which explores current events through the prism of Torah. He is the author of several books of halakhic commentary, husband and father, and, oh yeah, a billionaire real estate mogul whose Lightstone Group is one of the top 30 apartment owners in the United States.

Please welcome David Lichtenstein. Nice to be here, Jun. Thank you for coming. I really appreciate it. Do you prefer to go by David or Dovid or do you quote code switch for audiences? Code switch for audiences. All right, nice. So, Dovid, David, it all works. Also, are you a rabbi? Because the internet is inconclusive on that point.

I was [00:07:00] trained as a rabbi, but I don't like to be a practicing rabbi because when you get into the world of business, Mistakes happen and I don't need somebody saying oh the rabbi did this or the rabbi did that So I you know, I don't I go as unrabbi. Okay. There you go. I like it, but you've got the training I got this.

Okay, fantastic So usually my conversations on this program are focused very much on the individual and of course This still will be, but I'm also looking for you to be somewhat of an ambassador, uh, for the Haredi community, as you're the first I've had on the show, and it's a world that's quite unfamiliar to those outside of it.

So, to begin, how would you define just what it means to be Haredi, and is your own personal connection to it different in any way from the standard definition? Uh, the word Haredi means to be fearful, and it means to be fearful of God. Something that's not in abundance in the world right now. Right. Or certainly not in the United States.

So it means people who live their life based upon the Torah, and [00:08:00] it's their, the main focus of their lives. And that's what they think about, and that's what they worry about. So if you ask a Haredi fellow, like, what are you most worried about vis a vis somebody else? I'm going to say, well, I'm worried about my business.

Oh, I'm worried about my relationship. I'm worried about how my kids will do. I'm worried about the economy, global warming. If you ask that question to a Haredi I would say I'm worried about what God, my relationship with God. Because that sort of controls all of the above. Right. So it's not like you're not considering all of the above.

It's just under an umbrella of, first and foremost, it's about the connection to God. Yes, we believe that, for the most part, God runs the world. Can you break down these labels for me? Haredi, ultra orthodox, modern orthodox, just orthodox. Like, what is the difference or overlap between those? So Haredi and ultra orthodox would very often have very similar connotations.

Modern orthodox are people who have sort of integrated more into the world. So their kids can go [00:09:00] to Ivy League schools. Uh, NYU has its own college. Great and for the most part are not particularly fond of college. They do do training post Yeshiva like vocational training vocational training, you know real estate training insurance training, etc, etc code training accounting training Um lakewood, which has the largest orthodox yeshiva Outside of israel has almost 2 000 guys have graduated and become accountants And over 600 of them are in big four firms.

Wow Yeah, of course. I mean, the scholars, so it's very easy for them to sort of move from being a scholar here to a scholar there. Right. So, um, that's how I would define a Haredi or altered Orthodox and, um, vis a vis modern Orthodox. Orthodox is someplace in the middle. In other words, where are you part of the family of Haredi, or you believe in some of the Haredi teachings, but not all of the Haredi teachings.

I'll give you an example. Yeah. Going to the army in Israel. Mm hmm. Hotly disputed. Yeah. The Haredi will not do it. Right. The [00:10:00] modern Orthodox will. The orthodox, maybe they'll go up familiar way, maybe they'll do partial service. So it's sort of like, you know, yeah, there's the, there's our spectrum. Yeah. When you say that Haredim, not into college, what's that about?

I have a friend who was the head of a major department in Columbia, and she said that every single semester, every single semester, kids come into her class wearing a kippah, right? Yeah. Yeah. And leave without a keypad. Mm hmm. Because the overriding, I mean, kids believe what they're taught by their professors.

Right. I mean, we see that. Yeah. You know, in so many different areas. for worse. For better or for worse. There is a tremendous power to teaching, in teaching young people. And we have a very sacred path that goes back to the oldest, we go back three and a half thousand years. Mm hmm. Right before Muhammad was even a twinkle in his mother's eye over that matter of Jesus, et cetera.

Right? So we have, and it's very [00:11:00] sacred to us to keep it. I think that we're very aware of the tremendous sacrifice of our grandparents had, a life threatening sacrifice to keep us as Jewish. And when somebody goes away, they're breaking a chain of three and a half thousand years, and that's what they're scared about.

What if there were some way, and I know this is so hypothetical, what if there was a way to safeguard, like, No, I promise no matter what i'm gonna remain completely faithful to the my jewish traditions my identity everything And I still want to go doing all this other stuff in the modern world. Would that change the calculus?

I mean, I just think that's difficult. I mean you really really believe it until you meet a beautiful girl. Who's Not orthodox. Mm hmm. Well, maybe not Jewish and we've all seen that right? So, you know commitment, you know, I think that psychologists say that willpower is remarkably weak You know How many times have people thought I'm gonna lose those pounds and they keep at it for a day and then they go to?

A party and there's a seven layer [00:12:00] cake There's a strawberry shortcake the end the cream is luscious and this and that and suddenly it goes out the window So we know that willpower is and and therefore Creating sort of social barriers, creating things that go beyond willpower. I think a much better way to diet is not to say, I'm going to, when I look at that strawberry shortcake, I'm just going to look the other way, and the better thing is, you know.

Maybe stay away from restaurants that have really good food for a few months. It's a much better recipe to lose weight. You're also missing out on some pretty great restaurants. That's for sure. What are the biggest misconceptions about the Orthodox community that you've seen or heard? I think one big misconception is, is that people look at Orthodox as almost like a different sect.

You know, just like humans, if you say an animal and a, and a human, they're 99 percent genetically. I think most of the struggles they have are just so similar to everybody else's struggles. Struggles about, um, health issues, or weight issues, or love [00:13:00] issues, or spousal issues, or family issues. So much of it is, so it's tinted by a belief, but for the most part, they really like you.

When I say you, I don't mean you personally. I mean in general. Yeah, right. And what would you say are One of or some of the biggest challenges that the orthodox community is facing internally I think one big challenge is that the iphone has torn down barriers Like it used to be when we were young if you wanted to see some illicit material You had to steal someplace in and you had to lie about your age and this and that And today you have 12 year old kids with unfettered access to the internet Yeah You know, which is really bizarre in a way.

You know, there was just a story where a mother, um, some kid got involved with a chatbot and committed suicide. And the mother is saying, um, she's suing the chatbot and he shot himself with his father's gun. And like, my first thing is like, why did his father give him access to his gun? But why did the kid at [00:14:00] 12 or 13 have unfettered access to the internet?

So the internet has broken down all barriers when it comes to, you know, you can look at anything. Any faith issue gets challenged. Any sexual identity issue gets challenged. Right now, they're really scared, I think rightfully so. Yeah. There are really lots of bad people out there. And the iPhone has broken down these barriers and I think that that is something that is particular concern to the, rightfully so, to the Orthodox community.

Just so people don't think we have an Apple animus, I think you mean smartphones in general, right? I think we'll smartphones, I'm not, yeah. How much of your Jewish identity, if you can even separate this out, is based in faith and spirituality versus text, values, ritual? I think it's both. Rituals really are an integral part of who we are, of what our identity is.

That's certainly a big part of religion, is the cultural part. But then Judaism is much deeper than that. We have, we have faith, we have learning. We [00:15:00] have study and we have study on almost every imaginable topic, you know, it's like I write on on Jewish law contemporary Jewish law So I'm writing about now if they can attach a bionic arm to a soldier who lost his arm Could he put his fill in on that arm?

Interesting and and there's sources in Talmud that would bring you, so our study is just so rich. And when you look at the Jewish people and the amount of the collective amount of wisdom and the collective amount of science and math and just brains that they brought to the world, it mostly comes from Talmudic training.

All right, so we have such a history of being literate Do you know that you go back to nineteen hundred and seventy percent of people were not literate, right? And the jewish community was ninety percent were literate So it's it's both tradition. It's both culture, but it's also study and faith. I love that answer last thing I want you to help me define for the audience.

I [00:16:00] mentioned the word halakha A number of times in my intro I've actually said it on this show before but how do you define it? And why is unpacking it so central to how you spend your life? So halacha means Jewish law It's based it starts with the bible goes to the missionary goes to the talmud and then goes afterwards To the book of laws of shulchan aruch our daily life and we live according to those laws, right?

But those laws have to keep unfolding Right? I mean, if you go to a rabbi about internet addiction, he'll tell you what to do and he'll give you a, a, a recipe. Moses never heard of internet addiction. Of course not. Right? Well, like when I spoke about bionic arms. Right. Exactly. It just goes on and on. The change, the rapid, you know, tattoos.

I mean, there are just so endless things that have halachic surrogate motherhood. And so we have to take the ancient law, right, but it's written to be eternal and make it contemporary, bring it into contemporary. And that's what halakhas have been doing for the last 2, 000 [00:17:00] years. Studying Torah, as you said, is, you know, the focal point of rad life study, but also your father was a rabbi, if I'm not mistaken.

So, um, how much of a role do you think his rabbinic influence played on your path versus just, you know, your general upbringing? I think my father was the most influential person in my life. Hmm. Ironically, my father had no interest in business. He was a rabbi. Mm-hmm . And, um. He, on a few occasions, told me, he said, Why do you work anymore?

Like, how many pieces of chicken can you eat? He had no understanding of it, right? He lived in a very spiritual world. So, I've taken some of what he taught. Um, the world I live in is a much more integrated world. If I was a truly spiritual person, I wouldn't be doing what I was doing. Right. He had other, other interests.

My father once told me a story. He said there was once a scholar who said, you know, this world, it's not for me. I want to live in a [00:18:00] spiritual world. He started giving away all his clothing, his artifacts. He kept a cup to be able to drink from. And then he went down to the river and he saw a farmer bending down and drinking from his hands.

He took the cup and he threw it away. And I think that he, to a certain extent, did live that way. It's like people sometimes ask me, you know, was your father wealthy and I say my father was very very wealthy He just didn't have any money Okay, so let's get into to your business life a little bit the light stone group Uh in in 1986 you purchased a multi family home in new jersey on credit card debt And now you have a multi billion dollar real estate empire What was the feeling like taking that first big risk, you know, i'll tell you the story.

I was You My wife was expecting our second kid. How many children do you have? Five. Five. My wife was expecting our second [00:19:00] kid. I was in yeshiva and they were paying me, uh, 40 a month, a week. It was just impossible. Right. And my wife just looked at me and said, how are we going to pay the rent? And I said, I better get a job.

But I was unhirable because, um, outside of a rabbi, which also would have paid minimally. Right. I, you know, you go, hi, I'm, what's your background? Like Talmud? Right. Right. So it's amazing how necessity. Drives you to afford, you know Willingly or unwillingly. Mm hmm, you know and that's what happened It was a sort of I had to do what I had no choice How has halakha and your jewish values guided your business decisions?

Hr just sent me a note that we were rated out of 100 000 companies in new york city top 40 to work for wow Congratulations, but what does that mean? That means people rarely leave they're treated with respect We have more Vacation days than anybody we have more holidays than everybody and it's [00:20:00] treat others as you would like to be treated And to a certain extent I say hey, that's part of my my you know Where I was brought up, right?

Those are the guiding values and there they are in your company. Yeah, what about How they've guided you as a property owner those values because as i'm sure you're aware There is a perception whether it's true or not I'm not qualified to say that some orthodox jewish landlords, especially in low income neighborhoods of color are you know, like slum lords it's very easy to take an orthodox owner and say he's so different looking and he's the owner and he's the Landlord like put it this way in the united states.

There are um, there are I don't know You 30 40 million apartments. Okay, all the orthodox owners in the world own 50 000 Apartments so that means it's it's a fraction of of a percent of a percent But they're so colorable, you know what I mean? But could we do things better? The answer is absolutely What about and I and I [00:21:00] wasn't trying to sort of lump you in as a as with the whole group I'm i'm interested individually how you bring You Jewish principles to the way that you are as a landlord as having religion as part of the recipe of how will you behave?

Does it make a difference? I think it does and I don't even think it's judaism I think it's if you're christian, it's the same thing when we look at um charity, right? I mean these are studies that have been done Religious people give more charity, right? That's part of the value system. So I think having part of your value system is due as to others as you would, the golden rule is more valuable than somebody says I don't have those rules.

Right. So do I think it's particularly orthodox? I think Christian would be the same thing. Anybody with values. What are your key criteria for a good investment? Real estate should be about investing. There's a very big difference between investing and speculating. I think that people are going to come back to the office, that's speculating.

Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think malls will go back into style. That's speculating. [00:22:00] So I would say if you want to know, to me it's about investing as opposed to speculating. I love that. I think that's smart and easy for my audience to take away. From 2009 to 2013 You went through quite an ordeal over your company's purchase of the extended stay hotel chain that cost your company and you personally hundreds of millions How did your Judaic learning support you through that adversity and and what did you learn from that whole experience?

It turned out to be very valuable if you're a religious person almost any faith and you say look i'm a child of god's I have a mission I'm one of a kind, I mean, Judaism teaches us one of the most essential parts of Judaism is Adam Nivrei Yechidi, that means every person is a one time creation, nobody, Jonah, from the beginning of time till the end of time will ever have your DNA, will ever have your fingerprint.

The shape of your ear, et [00:23:00] cetera, et cetera. Every person is a one time creation and he certainly wasn't brought here to buy buildings, right? So when, when we look at our lives and we say, I have a mission, I brought here for a reason. I'm going to give an answer. There's a great accountant in heaven, better than the big four, right?

So when you lose money, it's devastating, but it's devastating to one part, one carrot, one facet of who you are. And the rest of you could say is, I'm a wonderful father. I'm a wonderful husband. I study. I'm a good neighbor. I'm religious. I have faith. I try to help the next person. And you know what? And I really had a terrible mistake over here.

Did you have this, um, view of it as you were going through it? Or was this something you realized sort of after the fact as you're? Trying to talk yourself out of you know anxiety over what's going on. No, I absolutely had it at the time In fact, you know part of what I do is since I [00:24:00] publish is I study Torah, right?

Right. My best studying was those years. Hmm. I said, you know what? There's just too much noise out there I would lock myself in my study and go for hours And I think it's a very powerful message you said just a few moments ago that you know We're not here to to buy buildings. We're here for a mission, right?

How would you define that mission? I think everybody has their own mission, right? You can have the mother whose job it was to bring up fabulous kids who are going to have a Impact on the world you can have somebody like you who's trying to say Wow, let me explain to so many people what being jewish is all about right?

Um, so everybody has the unique mission And nobody's mission is like the other persons, right? And I think that it's so important to remember that because sometimes a person feels like who am I and what am I doing? And i'm all depressed. That's a terrible mistake. Remember you are here You are unique. You are one of a kind.

And it was never anybody like you. You have your mission. You may have to search for it, but it's there. That's [00:25:00] beautiful. It's good positive thinking. Yeah. Have you ever faced challenges being an observant Jew in the business world, like missing an opportunity because it's a holiday or something like that?

I would say the other, the other, the opposite. I would say that I have a lot of friends who've gotten totally burned out and smoked because it's really tough to run a big business. Sure. Right. But when, you know, Shabbat comes and whether you want it or not, the world is off. Right. And it's one day of total return to self.

I mean, the word Shabbat means to return. Right? And it said God returned. Well, where did he return to? Where was he? And the answer was, when you create, you become involved in what you're creating. And when you stop creating, you return back to yourself. So, so I think that it's an advantage in the respect that it'll, it's a total de plug, it's a total de frag, it allows the body to re nourish itself.

[00:26:00] And the greatest alienation. that we have so much of in our generation is not alienation from God, not alienation from man. The greatest alienation that we have in this generation is alienation from self. That when people are living on TikTok and scrolling and scrolling and they, they never spend time with themselves.

That's right. And Shabbat is to return. Return to who? To you. I love that. That's great. You may not have attended college, but you did spend five years studying at Yeshivas Mir, a Jewish learning community with an amazing history that runs from Belarus to Japan to Shanghai and finally Brooklyn and Jerusalem.

What can you tell us about this special place and what you gained from your time there? The mirror was, is, and was famous for its intellectual acumen. And it's where the smartest Jewish people go to debate. And the noise level, and the history of debates, and [00:27:00] remember, they're debating Talmud. So they have over there a century and a half of Talmudic conclusions from prior debates.

Professors, from prior rabbis, from prior yeshivas, that they are attacking, examining, and this and that. So if you enjoy study, if you enjoy debate, if you enjoy Enlightenment, it's like a circus. It's like, it's like being in heaven. Some of the best years of my life was spent there. And just for my listeners who don't know, will you break down what the Talmud is?

Yeah, the Talmud is, we have the Bible, the Torah, right? But the Torah in itself is very difficult to understand. It's mostly metaphors. Right. Right? Keep the Shabbat. Like, what does that mean, keep the Shabbat? So it's the oral law that comes along with it. That explains the Torah, right? Mm hmm. So the oral law was first codified as the Mishnah Around in the year 500 give or take that period maybe a little earlier Maybe 400 and then three for the [00:28:00] next three or four hundred years afterwards The Talmud then took every word of the Mishnah and just bloodied it out.

Like what does this mean? You know just constant commentary on the commentary commentary Yeah, and then the commentaries continued further down and Um, and, and that's how, you know, so much of our lives are not Talmudic if you just read a Talmud, like electricity. How long has electricity been around?

Edison discovered electricity a hundred years ago, it changed, right? So how do you react to electricity? So it's all about extracting proofs from prior situations and bringing them into this one. Love that. To somebody that says, aren't you lonely in your study for hours? I said, I open up the Talmud and I get stuck and I look on the right hand side and Rashi, that's a commentator from around the year 1100, has an opinion.

He speaks up. Then I look at the left side of the Gemara and the Tosafos who lived post Rashi, they disagree and they're, they're both arguing. I said, geez, [00:29:00] that's interesting. Then I opened up Maimonides and he has this whole different opinion. He lived in Spain and in Arabia. He looked at the Talmud totally differently.

Then I look at the commentators and 15 minutes later my study is full of 50 people all yelling at each other, all debating and all bringing proofs. Everything of the day just goes away. It just disappears. I love that image You were telling me about a new endeavor you're involved with that was actually before we started rolling So I'd love for you to mention it now.

So many kids today have discovered the Jewish on October 7th Yeah, but they don't know what Jewish means and guess what the parents don't know either. The parents know they make a Seder They go to the temple on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and that's about it. Well, it's very hard to To embrace something where I'm only against.

I'm going to show them that, that the Jews are, you need something more essential. You need, you have to have a gravamen that [00:30:00] you believe in that is greater than I'm against. Like I hate when people say, and I had X number of kids just to show Hitler. And I said, really? It's like your kid's name is anti Hitler 1, anti Hitler 2, and anti Hitler 3.

That doesn't feel like a meaningful reason to have a, you know what I mean? I think we have to embrace something because there's real value there. And there's nothing, there's very little, I mean, I check TikTok, there's almost nothing there. Yeah, there's very little Jewish content. So I said, I am going to try to create a yeshiva for Jews who know nothing about Judaism, but who are interested.

And do it in a way where you have to know absolutely nothing. So, trying to make it really accessible from the ground floor. Yeah. It's, I, I relate so much to what you just said that the impetus for this podcast really was wanting to do something that was not just being reflexive and defensive, as we've been so much over the past year, being proactive and celebratory about [00:31:00] Jewish identity and sort of getting back to like our core mission of just, you know, being loudly and proudly Jewish.

The Chida was, uh, lived in the early 1800s. He writes in one of his commentaries on a certain verse in the bible He says there's another a fifth a sixth book of the torah being written now as we speak And he says we'll be finished when the messiah comes and you know What's going to say in that book all the people who handed over the keys to the next generation and kept the chain alive So when that book comes the last book one day when we open it when the messiah comes you may find your paragraph there One can only hope so you've covered Really interesting topics.

I went through a few of your podcast episodes in Ozempic using Alexa on Shabbat, LL Price gouging Clearly you and your audience are engaging with the modern world What is the process you apply to understand if Jews should engage with [00:32:00] these aspects of the modern world or not? I don't think we have a choice.

I mean, you know somebody once said we shouldn't be on the internet and I said it's like The internet is like oxygen. It's like, it's like not saying I'm not going to use electricity. I mean, these are all things that are part of our lives. We have no choice but to engage in them. And if we ignore them, it's at our own peril.

Take every one of them. I mean, price gouging. Well, you're flying. Oh, I'll Ozempic. Somebody, you know, needs it. Being obese is very dangerous, you know what I mean? So these are all things that, but they're very essence. Am I wrong in saying that there are some within the Haredi community who would feel like they shouldn't engage with any of this stuff?

I think that there are topics that I cover that are particularly controversial to the religious world that they would feel should not be engaged. So I would say it's 70 or 80 percent they would and 20 percent topics they wouldn't. There are many Haredi rabbis who won't come on to the program because we discuss these cutting [00:33:00] edge topics.

Wow. Yeah, how does that feel or what you know, what do you make of that? You know, I want to tell you something that the torah teaches us and it's very important Never outsource your self image to third parties. You're not right because People tell you you're right and you're not wrong because people tell you you're wrong You're right if you're doing the right thing and you're wrong if you're doing the wrong thing And if you don't live by that premise, you're a prisoner to the entire world.

I like that and I tell you why it's so important Abraham is called avraham haivri and what it means is The entire world is on one side of the river and he was on the other side of the river. He's the first dissenter of humanity. You can't be a dissenter if you live waiting for the approbations of other people.

So it goes to the essence of who we are. If you're Jewish and your life is focused around what others think of you, you're missing one of the essential caveats of Judaism. [00:34:00] I hope a lot of people hear what you just said, uh, within our community, because it's certainly a needed lesson today when we need, you know, every Jew to be standing up together in this moment.

And many. So concerned with what others think of them or not Yeah Is there an episode that sticks out as having been one of your most impactful for your audience that you know? You got a lot of really grateful response from I think some of the episodes that we did Um, we when we started talking about child molestation, which was a total.

Um topic that you weren't allowed to speak about. And I got leading rabbis on to talk about how it's, you know, these are killers, people are murderers. And yes, you should be going to the authorities and it's, you know, uh, and that you should be talking to your children about it. I think it turned the corner for many years it had been and it changed the entire outlook.

And you're talking about within the the Haredi community? Yeah, within every community, every [00:35:00] community, the, the Ten Commandments, you shall not steal, you shall not kill, you shall not be, uh, sexually, uh, an adulterer. These are given to Jews, they weren't given to non Jews. The non Jews are welcome to have them too.

So when we say, what, there's somebody in the, in the Orthodox community who was a murderer? Well, that's what the Bible says, it predicts it. So of course there's going to be, there are people who are ill and they molest children, and they're going to be in every community. Mm hmm, but there was a certain element in our community that held it's demeaning for us to talk about it Well, it's more demeaning if it's gonna happen to the next kid.

Yeah, that's more demeaning. So it's it's balancing Which is more impactful which does more damage? I mean it seems like a pretty easy Decision to me. What what is the strong argument when in something like that for not? You know, wanting to protect children versus its demeaning to discuss. I think that talking to children about sex is, has to be done really carefully and it's dangerous.

Sure. Because [00:36:00] once the genie is out of the bottle, it doesn't go back in. Mm hmm. So we live in a hyper sexualized society. All the celebrities, are, how beautiful they are, and how attractive they are, and who's marrying who, and who's having an affair with who. So there was sort of like the third rail, um, we don't want to talk to our children about this.

And it took very intelligent educators to say, you can talk to your children about it without talking about sex, like talking about, nobody's allowed to touch you in an area that's covered. Yeah, and if an area is so it was it was an evolution. Hmm. Well, i'm glad we got there. What about a Really controversial episode something that sticks out that sparked a lot of debate.

Well, whenever you speak about the army, it's Creates a lot of debate because as you know, most of the kharedim won't go to the army, right? Right, anytime you speak about, um, gays, et cetera, it's, these are hyper, you know, you know, sensitive issues. Um, [00:37:00] there are a few others, but those, you know, those come out, you know, women's, you know, women in halacha.

These are very, you know, areas that you have to be tread on very carefully and very thoughtfully, but whenever you do it, there's always going to be somebody who's insulted, who's hurt, who thinks you were too open, you were too close, etc. This summer, there was a fascinating episode that I listened to, which you weren't the host of, but I still want to get into it with you, called, uh, What Should We Think About Non Jews and the Non Jewish World?

To sum up a two hour odd episode for my audience, the idea was basically that Jews should maintain warm, generous, respectful relationships with non Jews, but also keep a distinctly separate existence. Why? If we keep to ourselves and our traditions proudly, non Jews will respect us and leave us alone. And B, intermingling with the goyim outside of some specific practical purpose, automatically creates more opportunity for the possibility of intermarriage, and the, Dreaded disappearance of the tribe in the episode There's a [00:38:00] story told of a mother superior who said that the orthodox jews always crossed the street or avoided eye contact with her When they saw her except for one rabbi who was the nicest friendliest guy she'd ever met So while that rabbi is obviously the one to model What does it say about the difficulty of being taught to remain separate?

But also needing to safeguard against being seen as condescending or to aloof or disconnected from society as a whole You know whenever you have tension like that It's, it requires balancing when you consider 70%. 70% plus of Jews today are in intermarried. Really? Yeah. We Google. Google that 70%, which means their children will or won't be Jewish.

You know that in the census. The prior census, there was 6. 7 million Jews. The one directly following there were 5. 2 million Jews, a million and a half Jews in the United States disappeared and they disappeared into the colleges and into the Ivy league and into ignorance. And so [00:39:00] their parents had died on the sword, literally fallen on the sword to avoid that.

And today with friendliness, We can accomplish so much more than with the Jews we were able to do with the sword. At Masada, they killed themselves. Right. Right? And today, you know, a warm smile, let's go to the bar and this and that, and the next thing you know, the children aren't Jewish anymore. If you look at us as a whole, we are disappearing.

Those who aren't disappearing are those who put up gates. Now, gates are very stressful. You want to be friendly. You know, when the Torah teaches us, When it says man is made in the image of God, the non Jew is made in the image of God. So now you have people who are in the image of God, right? And you have to love.

But on the other hand, the other side of that is, well, my grandchildren be Jewish. So that's a real tension. And some people handle it better and some people handle it worse. I can't help, but. You know, feel there's some [00:40:00] middle ground. Uh, I am myself an example of that middle ground. I fell in love with someone who wasn't Jewish, who now is Jewish.

Um, we're raising our kids very Jewish and she converted and Orthodox conversion, the whole shebang. So. And that happened because, you know, my Jewish identity is so important to me. And I brought it up with her on our very first date. That if this went all the way, would you be open to talking about converting?

Because if not, then we're gonna have a problem here. So, you know, I'm living proof that there is some, some middle something that we're not talking about. Tapping into fully, um, because there is that very real fear and clearly based in statistical evidence that, you know, there's a danger there, but it also feels like we're not quite, um, open to another possible alternative route.

So I would just go back to statistics again. You're the anomaly. Mm. When it says 70 some, I think it's 72 or 73 [00:41:00] percent and the disappearing census numbers and disappearance of, you know, the, the, the reform movement, how they don't have a minion anymore, et cetera, et cetera. It's like anything else. There are people who have strong willpower who had great education, maybe at home.

Once you open that up, you're opening it up for the guy who had no education at home and whose father really, you know, didn't have much of a feeling about anything. Right. No nation from the beginning of time has ever been more committed to a belief that time and time again they've died for. And we look at destruction of the temple.

You look at, um, going back to the, the, uh, the Crusades, all the pogroms of Martin Luther. You go back to Helminitsky and all the, ultimately all the pogroms of the late 1800s and 1900s. And then now what's going on in Israel. I mean it's, so, and when you think of the amount of, what we call in Hebrew, mesirat nefesh.

Which means dedication and [00:42:00] devotion, right? To, to keep the candle alive. A lot of them are saying is we're going to err to the side of safety. But then it brings up this interesting question for me. Um, if all Jews stayed totally separate, we wouldn't have the advocacy of all of the assimilated Jews who were able to use their relationships and presence within the secular world to, you know, be on the front lines when, Um, as you mentioned in Israel, we see this kind of writ large with, when the ultra Orthodox refuse to serve in the IDF, uh, they literally owe their lives to more secular Jews who are willing to do what they are not.

So how do we reconcile the, the Halakha with the real world necessity of having some Jews who Are intermingled within the non-Jewish world or more secular world. I think that the, the Irreligious Jews of this country play an invaluable part for the survival of Israel through legislation, getting arms to Israel, et cetera, right?

Mm-hmm . Um, invaluable. And the soldiers in [00:43:00] Israel who many, you know, some who are not religious, some who are, my son-in-law is in the army and he's certainly religious play a tremendous, but I also understand the one who says. I'd rather my kid look like his grandfather than look like Michael Bloomberg and advocating for Israel.

So, it's not to say that, you can say that I want my kid to look and at the same time recognize that those who leave. If they stay connected, that's the best imaginable thing. What role do you think the orthodox community should play in today's fight against the explosion of anti Jewish bigotry that we're seeing around this country and around the world?

Because, you know, far from being more respected, the orthodoxes, our most visibly Jewish community, are the ones who are getting the tickets. Targeted by violence the most if you asked an orthodox person this he would say look i'm just afraid of god It's his business. Let him figure it out. Could we do some things?

Yes, we do. But ultimately god runs the world I [00:44:00] think there's real faith over there and maybe part of that real faith is is that the other five million jews in america who are Extraordinarily successful as a as a group they'll you know, put their shoulder to the to the wheel You Right? So, I think that the Jews are very comfortable with dialectics.

We're, we're very comfortable with two different voices at the same time. Right? And it's not a contradiction. You know the story, this couple comes to the rabbi and they say, um, we, we not getting along. We, we want to get divorced. We're fighting. So the rabbi says, okay, let me, tell me your argument. So the husband says, you know, she doesn't cook and he says, you know, you're right.

That's really, and he says, what do you, well, he does this and he does that. He says. And he looks at her and he says, you know, you're right. So you look at him and he says, and how could we both be right? And he says, you know, you're right. So we're [00:45:00] very comfortable with multiple voices, multiple messages. You know, it says when God gave the Torah on Sinai, everybody heard the voice.

But the Talmud says everybody heard the voice differently. Everybody heard the voice according to who they were, what their mission was, and what their story is. Everybody writes their own book. So, it's a contradiction, and that's not a contradiction. Mm hmm. How has life, if at all, changed for you since October 7th?

Well, I never imagined I would be pro Trump before. I know, you were a big Democratic donor. Yeah, a big Democratic donor, and you know, and I just say, you know, it's um, I raised money for Israel, right? Um, I just had dinner two nights ago with the, you know, the majority leader to discuss Israel. So advocacy, finance, um, prayer.

What about, um, you know, emotionally, psychologically, have, has there been a, [00:46:00] what's the, what's the feeling been for you over the past year? You know, people are talking about how there's, So much anti semitism. Mm hmm. Right? And I have a friend. He's president of a bank, Bank Ozk, and he said David This hasn't created any anti Semitism.

The anti Semites, right, who was never politically correct to come out, this has given them a voice. Right. So to me, there's a good part about it too. I mean, it's uncovered what's going on in the Ivy Leagues. Nobody had an idea. They were sending their kids there and the kids were coming back changed. I had kids.

I have three kids who went to Columbia. And you know, they come back and you don't know what it is. And then you find out what they're teaching. Yeah. And, and kids absorb this. So I think it's that, you know, knowing who your enemies are, and there's lots of them. You know, and when people say, like, how could you say that 43, 000, you know, Palestinians were killed.

And I said to one woman who in the West Side who was screaming, I said to her, you really love the Palestinians. Like you love the day that [00:47:00] you, did you protest when Assad killed 600, 000 of his own people? He gives them, which is 15 times the amount of 400. Did you protest when the Houthis killed 400, 000?

Did you kill when South Sudan and North Sudan killed 700, 000? Did you protest when the United States went into Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction, WMD, and they killed 300, 000 Iraqis? Like, were you protesting then? So, when 1 50th of this amount is getting killed, now you're in tears. Let's be honest, is it really the kids that are bothering you?

And the answer is, is that the Jews have accomplished great things. There's always been anti Semitism. In the United States, it's more than ever because of the success of the Jews. I mean, if you look at the Forbes 400, I think it's maybe 150 are Jews. Right, which is not such a good thing because most of our contribution historically has been intellectual contribution, but it creates Antisemitism and this allows them in a politically way [00:48:00] correct way the new york times in the washington post Just to rain hatred on jews from a politically correct Um balustrade.

Yeah, how has your relationship? If at all, uh changed with the greater american jewish community since october 7th I love the greater american jewish community I would give them my kidney. I mean, I would do anything. Uh, it doesn't matter whether you're religious or irreligious, you're a child in the eyes of God.

And you know, who knows? And I'll share with you a story. When I started in business, it was 1989, I bought a building in Newark and the city didn't pick up the garbage, and they picked it up to the right of me and to the left of me. And, um, I called them up. It was costing me 10 grand a month. It was, it was killing me long time ago.

10 grand is like 25 today. Yeah. And they said, look, this is our, in Newark, there's no rhyme or reason. It's been this way for 50 years. So I called my lawyer. He said, sue them. I said, how long will it take? He said, 10 years. I said, I'll be bankrupt by then. So guy said to me, you know, here's [00:49:00] something really weird.

The head of the sanitation department in Newark, his name is Mike Krieger and he's Jewish. So I made an appointment, I go there, there's not a single, you know, Jewish white person in the city. I go to him. There's an old Jewish guy there and we start talking and I say, Mike, what are you doing here? He says, I'll tell you.

I was studying for the bar, I had saved up, I was married, my wife was expecting our second kid and I read about how in Israel, um, Nasser says they're going to throw the Jews into the sea. This is in 48. I don't know who was it, but they're going to throw the Jews into the sea. And I had lost family in the Holocaust and I said, that's terrible.

They have no weapons. Their whole kibbutzim, they're armed with, with a knife. So me and a friend rented a truck. We started going to gun shows and we filled up an entire container of guns and we wrote on it furniture and we shipped it to Israel. And we did it four times. He says, I'm gra, I'm still studying for the bar.

It's two weeks before the bar. There's a knock on my door. My wife comes in. She's all [00:50:00] shaking and pale. There's two men here for you. Blue suit, blue face, blue nose, blue badge, FBI, gun running. That's So he says, they brought me in front of a judge and the judge says, Krieger, are you Jewish? He says, yeah. He says, the last thing we need is another Jewish lawyer.

He told me, word for word, if you agree never to sit for the bar, I'll write this down to a felony. I came home and my wife said, what are you going to do now? I didn't have money to go back to school for something else. I opened up the Newark Star Ledger and there was an article, an advertisement, Newark Sanitation Department looking for an assistant so and so and he says, David,

I've been here for 40 years. Huh. And I looked at him and I said, you know, this is one of the most religious people I ever met in my life So You really don't know who's religious So when you say how has it connected [00:51:00] me to the rest of our jewish brethren? Don't look at the cover These people many of them are doing the most remarkable things What's the emotion right now?

It's you're you're you're really connected to that story I think it's a very jewish story because it's a story about essence over ritual It's a story about commitment. It's a story about, um, a sacrifice. Right? That came from a place that was almost higher than ritual. It went to the source. That's very powerful.

What advice would you give to people who are interested in supporting Israel Financially and investing in their future right now When you know their economy is is in trouble Well, I would just start to say the israelis are going to figure this out. They have no choice. They're the smartest people Right.

Um, they're going to keep minting tech companies and they're you know What's going to the takeaway from this is the [00:52:00] world sees is that their weapon systems are the most advanced their radar systems I'm convinced, you know that the jews will figure this out. They always have We as a nation have always stuck together.

We've always been the dissenter. We've always had the courage to stand alone. I promise you, Israel will figure this out. Their companies will be healthy. You will make money. Stand up. Be a Jew. I think a lot of people lose sight of what you just sort of pointed to, that, that notion of our people standing together.

As dissenters, because in today's society can feel within the community so fragmented. But when you take a step back and look at it from that more macro historical view. Of course what you're saying is true and that's why we're still here today because time and again over and over and over We stand up connect and I think that's great.

Yeah. Okay, the the new year is [00:53:00] around the corner It's almost upon us What is one of your personal resolutions and what are your hopes for the jewish people in 2025? One I told you about I want to open my tiktok yeshiva, right? Right, and it's going to be a really hard job because I went through tiktok and I went through seven out of ten Eight out of 10 are pretty girls.

Right. I'm not a pretty girl. And my message is not about a pretty girl. Right. You know what I mean? So it's really trying to find, you know, market fit. Right. And it's not going to come easily. Right. But here's another Jewish thing, right? People, the Jews know that good things, the song of the Sabbath in Psalms is about the growth of the sequoia tree, the cedar tree.

The righteous man is like the Sequoia. And what does that mean? Have you ever seen the Sequoias? Oh yeah, they grow in California. Three, 400 feet tall. But here's what people don't know. They can grow a foot a year great things take a long time [00:54:00] We're comfortable taking long times. We are the original long term investors We are waiting for the day the end of time so the jews the sabbath says we are the longest term investors And with that attitude, I hope I can be successful.

I hope that as well. What about for the jewish people? I think that for the jewish people we have something that is so valuable That is so rare, that is so one of a kind, right? And we've sold it, right? We've given it up for Oprah, right? For YouTube, right? And I would hope that we can use this as a way, as a catalyst, to look inside ourselves and say, what does it mean to be Jewish?

Let me discover what it means to be Jewish. And lean back into yourself and say, Um, let me discover something about my past, a past that 20 some odd percent, 25 percent of Nobel Prize winners are [00:55:00] Jewish, right? So the, the religion that, uh, both Islam and Christianity evolved from, I mean, math, science, of every, what is it and what can I learn and how can I shake that really shallow patina that my life here in the U.

S. has put me into? And how do I self reflect? Okay, so to wrap things up, we're gonna do a little lightning round. I'm gonna throw a couple of just easy fastballs your way. What's your favorite holiday? Um, Yom Kippur. Why? If you want to speak to Trump, it's five million dollars for six minutes. It's like a going rate, right?

FaceTime is really valuable. There's one day a year we get to speak to God one on one. How valuable is that? You don't feel we get to speak to him whenever we want? It's much closer. I mean, this is, you know, sending a letter to the White House. Somebody will read it to the president here. It's, you have FaceTime.

[00:56:00] What's your favorite Shabbat pastime, game? My favorite part of Shabbat is sitting down with everybody by the table and throwing out an intellectual question and just, I think this, and I, you know what I mean? Yeah. It goes crazy, it goes sometimes for hours. It's like, the debate, the discussion, that to me is the most, uh, and it's, can only be accomplished With no phones, no social media.

Right. This is it. And I have people who've come to my house and they said, You know, I can't remember the last time I went for three hours without checking my phone. When you have challah, do you rip it or do you slice it? We slice it, and I'll tell you why. Yeah. There's a lot of people by the table. So I may enjoy ripping it, but I don't know if that other person there on the table is going to enjoy ripping it.

You know? So it's a conscientious move. It's a conscientious move, yes. Love that. Who's your favorite old rabbi I've never heard of? Rabbi Akiva Eger, he was one of the greatest scholars in Judaism in the last thousand years. What's your favorite Christmas Eve [00:57:00] meal? It's, to me, it's, I just, uh It's like any other day?

It's any other day. I wish them well, and, you know, it's any other way. You know why Christmas comes out when it does, right? Uh, I don't. It's eight days before New Year. Mm hmm. So his bris was on New Year. Ha! Interesting, right? Yeah. Uh, speaking of New Year, what's your favorite place to spend New Year's Eve or way to bring in a New Year?

To me, it's meaningless, honestly. Right? I'll tell you, you know, look at the Jewish New Year and look at the non Jewish New Year. So imagine two people running a race. One has a knapsack full of rocks and one is, has no knapsack. Who's going to win that race? Judaism is about the person living his best possible life.

The one time event who is you? Totally, for total fulfillment, using all your potential. And we want a new year, let go of the rocks. Because we're expecting great things from you, and you're not going to be able to accomplish them if you [00:58:00] weigh down with all that negativity. So our Rosh Hashanah in Yom Kippur is about El Chaytz.

Forgive me, forgiveness, people who've hurt you, people you've hurt, your relationship with God, so that you stand up after Yom Kippur and you say, It's a new year and I'm ready to run. So the new year in Times Square, it's a lot of fun, et cetera, to watch, but it's meaningless to me. Thank you so much. This has been a really meaningful conversation.

I know I've learned a lot. I'm sure my audience has learned a lot. So really appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much to my guest, David Lixenstein for sharing his knowledge and wisdom with us and the folks here at Hoff studios and Tribeca for being such awesome hosts.

There will be no new episode of Being Jewish next week. We're taking one off, just one, to ring in the new year. My amazing team deserves a break, and so do you. Go sit on a beach, be with your family, get drunk, whatever it is you like to do. And let us all head into the new year not praying for a better one, but committing, [00:59:00] each of us, to what we will do to ensure it's a better one.

I'll see y'all back here in 2025 for the next ass kickin episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt. Happy New Year! Love you guys. Thank you to everyone who makes Being Jewish with Jonah Platt possible. Executive Producer Matthew Jones, Story Producer Sean Levy Ishvili, and Editor Patrick Edwards of Rainbow Creative.

Consulting producers Bethany Mandel and Ariella Novek of Shield Communications, social media manager Yuval Yosha, graphic designer Noah Bell of Bellboy Creative, my incredible research assistant Samantha Greenwald, everyone at Aura House Studios, the whole team at Jewish Broadcasting Service, composer Gabe Mann, and of course you, dear listeners, who even stuck around to listen to all these credits.

Man, I love you guys.