Being Jewish with Jonah Platt

[00:00:00] Jonah Platt: A quick note before I dive in. In the context of Jewish identity, when we say conservative, we don't mean politically, like liberal versus conservative. We mean the conservative movement within modern Judaism, which is basically the middle lane between Orthodox and Reform Judaism. End of quick note.

[00:00:16] Jonah Platt: During last week's episode with Jackie Tone, as she spoke about her Jewish upbringing, I was struck with a sense of déjà vu. It reminded me a lot of my first episode with Skylar Astin, which, upon reflection, actually reminded me of several other conversations I've had with people throughout my life. Tell me if you've heard this one.

[00:00:33] Jonah Platt: Folks will say, I went to Jewish summer camp. I went to Hebrew school. I had a bat mitzvah. We celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Passover. I work with Holocaust survivors, etc, etc. But it's preceded by this odd disclaimer. Well, I'm Reform, but I'm Reform, but, or I'm culturally Jewish, but Like, there's a need to qualify one's Jewishness.

[00:00:58] Jonah Platt: Like, there's a sense of apology. [00:01:00] I know this is less than ideal, but And I thought to myself, where is that coming from? Why are people who have done many of the things that foster Jewish identity, things that clearly denote a Jewishly connected person who cherishes that connection, why do these people feel the need to downplay their own validity as Jews?

[00:01:20] Jonah Platt: I think it's because, whether subliminally or overtly, we are made to believe that our validity as Jews is based solely on our level of religious observance. That because someone may not be as literate in the vast canon of customs and traditions of our people, they are not as Jewish as someone who is.

[00:01:38] Jonah Platt: And I know these insinuations occur because I've seen it happen. Hell, I probably participated in it myself at some point or another. Orthodox to conservative, conservative to reform, on and on. I've certainly experienced it. I mean, I'm a conservative Jew who is a professional advocate for Jewish people, hosting a show called Being Jewish, and there are people who try to [00:02:00] tell me I'm not Jewish enough, because I eat pepperoni and have tattoos.

[00:02:05] Jonah Platt: What does this condescending, holier than thou approach accomplish? I mean, truly, what is the goal here? To make members of our own community feel less welcome? To convince Jews to become more observant by, what, shaming them? Has that ever worked for anyone, ever, in any context? I understand that behind this aloofness towards less observant Jews is fear.

[00:02:28] Jonah Platt: The fear that if enough Jews stop caring about being Jewish, our people will die out. And I get that, of course, and share that same concern. Well, let's think about it logically. Do we really think making fellow Jews feel less than or excluded is going to make them care more about being Jewish? Moreover, something diaspora Jews so often forget, the vast majority of Israeli Jews are secular.

[00:02:52] Jonah Platt: They're not spending Friday night at Yeshiva, they're at the bar. You're going to tell me a Jew living in the Jewish homeland is less of a Jew because [00:03:00] they eat shellfish and drive on Shabbat? If you've been listening to this series, you know I believe that words have great power, and that we must be intentional and deliberate in the things we say.

[00:03:11] Jonah Platt: To that end, it's time for us to retire the phrase, Bad Jew. To me, the only bad Jew is someone who lives antithetically to the values of Judaism. You want to cheat people in business? That's a bad Jew. You're a murderer? That's a bad Jew. You unwittingly support jihadist terrorist regimes at the expense of your own people?

[00:03:31] Jonah Platt: That's a conversation for another episode. But you don't know what Shavuot is? You're not a bad Jew. You might be a less knowledgeable or less observant Jew, but you're certainly not a bad one. You have as much a right to the wholeness of your Jewish identity as the most ultra Orthodox people on the planet, who, if we're being honest, have their own contradictions to grapple with as well.

[00:03:54] Jonah Platt: Jews are not just a religious group. We are a tribe, a people, a [00:04:00] family. For many of us, being a Jew is literally in our DNA. No level of observance, or lack thereof, can take that away from you. And you'll notice I refer to people's Jewishness rather than their Judaism. That's on purpose. Because while your commitment to Judaism, the theological religious system of belief, is malleable, your intrinsic Jewishness, your membership in the tribe, is not.

[00:04:24] Jonah Platt: What frustrates me the most about all this mishigas is the hypocrisy. We're supposed to be better than this. We're about righteousness, humility, thoughtfulness, healing the world, welcoming the stranger, seeing all people as being made in God's image. And we're gonna make members of our own community feel less welcome or of less value because they break their Yom Kippur fast at In N Out?

[00:04:47] Jonah Platt: I can't help but think of an image from the Passover story when we read about how God took the Jews out of Egypt with an outstretched arm. I urge you, dear audience, when you hear someone call themselves a [00:05:00] bad Jew or give the I'm reformed but disclaimer, offer them your outstretched arm. Pull them in.

[00:05:07] Jonah Platt: Don't push them out. Remember, nine times out of ten, this is a person who actually wants to be even more connected and just doesn't know how. When you see Jews breaking with tradition, try to understand the person and their commitment to their Jewish identity before you judge them for not living life exactly as you expect them to.

[00:05:25] Jonah Platt: Especially now, when so many are against us. Our priority needs to be solidarity and unification, not infighting or exclusion. We're already losing Jews to Hezbollah rockets and Hamas terrorists and propaganda on the far left and far right. We need to be stemming the tide, not aiding in its flow. If this show accomplishes anything, I hope it reinforces the notion that each of us, Jewish or not, has intrinsic value to whatever community with which we identify.

[00:05:55] Jonah Platt: What others think about you in that regard is truly irrelevant. You [00:06:00] are as Jewish as you feel. Don't ever let anyone take that away from you. This is the seventh episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.

[00:06:38] Jonah Platt: Today's guest is a first for this show as he is our inaugural non Jewish ally to appear, which has always been a critical foundational piece of what this podcast is about from the beginning. He is a trusted and beloved voice all over TV. an inspiring thinker and leader across many different communities and a staunch ally for the Jewish people in Israel.

[00:06:58] Jonah Platt: Since October 7th, he [00:07:00] has shown up for us in so many ways, calling out anti Jewish bigotry and highlighting our shared Black and Jewish history so as to build bridges and foster meaningful conversations. Also, the first time we met, he thought I was a rabbi. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the one and only Van Jones.

[00:07:17] Van Jones: Good to see you, brother.

[00:07:18] Jonah Platt: Great to see you. Thanks for being here. So the mentioning when you thought I was a rabbi, the first time we met was at this Freedom Seder thing that you put together, which we'll get into later. But then like, A day later, I see you at David Suiza's house for a Mamuna event, which I had only just heard of, and you were the last person I expected to see there, and then I see you at like an ADL event.

[00:07:41] Jonah Platt: I mean, there's not a Jewish room I'm in without Van Jones. It's amazing.

[00:07:45] Van Jones: I was gonna say the same thing about you.

[00:07:47] Jonah Platt: And, um, at that Mamoon event, you asked for my trainer's number. He's still waiting.

[00:07:51] Van Jones: That's good. Hey, listen, after this election, I'm calling. Okay, boom. You look fantastic.

[00:07:55] Jonah Platt: Oh, thank you, Van. Um, all right, so let's jump back to the very [00:08:00] beginning.

[00:08:00] Jonah Platt: You were born in Jackson, Tennessee, right? True. I'm guessing not a lot of Jews around you?

[00:08:05] Van Jones: No, but you know, when I think about it, I went to an honors camp, um, in between my 11th and 12th grade year. And there was a Jewish kid there and we got to be friends. And I got a chance to go and visit him in Memphis.

[00:08:17] Van Jones: I completely forgotten about this for 40 years. Um, and he had like, I remember he had like leather things around his arm that he was showing

[00:08:25] Jonah Platt: me. The tefillin? Yeah.

[00:08:27] Van Jones: Which I had never seen before. Sure, of course not. Black people just kind of pray with tambourines. We don't have a bunch of leather, leather straps.

[00:08:32] Jonah Platt: My wife, the first time, my wife converted. The first time she saw somebody with a tefillin on his head, she was like, why are you wearing a GoPro? Uh.

[00:08:39] Van Jones: She thought it was. Exactly.

[00:08:40] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:08:41] Van Jones: So, so I had a little bit of exposure. And then, um, since I got to law school, um, I met Dottie Zellner. who, um, became my godmother, but she was one of the, um, uh, kids who went south in 64.

[00:08:55] Van Jones: And people say, you know, white and black kids went south, you know, to organize Freedom Summer. [00:09:00] The vast majority of those kids were Jewish, including my, my godmother. And so when I got to law school, I'm kind of a fish out of water. I grew up in rural South. Suddenly I'm on the East Coast, Ivy League. And my first internship was in New York City.

[00:09:14] Van Jones: And, um, Daddy's only Daddy's owner took me under the wing and. She's been my godmother ever since.

[00:09:19] Jonah Platt: That's amazing. So

[00:09:20] Van Jones: those are, those are my, my two touch points, uh, before we got into this big mess after October 7th. Those are

[00:09:25] Jonah Platt: meaningful.

[00:09:26] Van Jones: Yep.

[00:09:26] Jonah Platt: Was your family religious growing up? What kind of religion?

[00:09:30] Van Jones: Christian Methodist

[00:09:30] Jonah Platt: Episcopal. And does, what role does that play in your life today? Is it the same? Has it changed?

[00:09:35] Van Jones: My, uh, grandfather was the president of the local black college.

[00:09:42] Jonah Platt: Oh, wow.

[00:09:42] Van Jones: My grandfather then became the, the bishop and then the senior bishop of our church. Wow. So when I was growing up, my grandfather was like, like the Pope of our little church.

[00:09:50] Van Jones: I am a person of real serious, uh, faith. Um, I don't take all of that stuff in the Bible literally. I think sometimes people are [00:10:00] trying to express something that's very hard to express. Um, so I think there's a lot of poetry, a lot of metaphor, um, but also a lot of wisdom, uh, in the Bible.

[00:10:10] Jonah Platt: So you mentioned your grandfather was an educator.

[00:10:12] Jonah Platt: Both your parents were educators. Yeah.

[00:10:14] Van Jones: Uh, well, you know, you know why that is is because, uh, in the South, the black middle class was only four professions, teachers, Preachers, beauticians and morticians. There was a stigma, uh, white people didn't want, um, black kids in school with their kids, right? So we had to teach our own kids.

[00:10:33] Van Jones: They didn't want us in their churches. So we had to do our own ceremonies. They didn't want to touch our hair and they didn't want to touch our dead bodies. And so, those, uh, left a little space for the birth and the growth of a black middle class.

[00:10:45] Jonah Platt: That's so interesting. I mean, it's like, I can't tell if it's good or bad.

[00:10:50] Jonah Platt: It's like a little of both.

[00:10:51] Van Jones: It's

[00:10:51] Jonah Platt: just

[00:10:51] Van Jones: how it is. It's just how it is. So you'll find, like, I was born in 68, so I'll be, I'll turn 56 this year. A lot of guys. Thank you, brother. A [00:11:00] lot of guys my age and women my age. That's, that's the background.

[00:11:03] Jonah Platt: Speaking of education, before we move on to another subject, I mean, this could be a whole nother episode, but how do you feel about where American education is today, both in general and maybe specifically in regards to how Jews are represented?

[00:11:17] Van Jones: I think that the virus of anti Semitism, anti Jewish bigotry has kind of evolved. Um, so that the. initial kind of Holocaust was bad, hating Jews is bad, which I got growing up. It's kind of like, it's kind of like worn off. It's like, there's this new, more virulent strain that just kind of blows right past that.

[00:11:41] Van Jones: And so I think we've got to update it and upgrade it. I don't think anybody was thinking about it, honestly. I mean, Jewish people obviously, you know, were maybe thinking about it, but I think regular people, you know, people are not Jewish everyday folks. He said, like, give me a list two years ago of the biggest problems in America.

[00:11:58] Van Jones: I think you'd have gotten into the [00:12:00] triple digits before you got to anti Semitism for everyday people. You might say, well, you know, there's some right wing crazy people, you know, doing some stuff. Um, you know, think about, you know, some of the, those horrible incidents. I don't think most people would have put it where, you know, I would put it now in like the top three or four.

[00:12:16] Jonah Platt: Right,

[00:12:16] Van Jones: right.

[00:12:17] Jonah Platt: I think that's accurate. I mean, I don't think it was, and as you said, it was, it certainly was on the Jewish community's mind. Because since, I don't remember what year they started tracking this, but like, let's say it's 2009. It's the hate crimes against Jews have been like doubling and doubling and doubling and getting bigger, bigger, bigger.

[00:12:31] Jonah Platt: So we were aware of it, but it wasn't in the, in the national, Right. For, uh, for as it is now,

[00:12:37] Van Jones: I think we have to upgrade it now because, um, America's geopolitical adversaries have taken advantage and have been online, you know, telling a very, very different story than the story that I, you know, I subscribed to.

[00:12:52] Van Jones: And it's just almost been like, we just gave Iran and all these other folks, you know, Russia, China, just an undefended [00:13:00] basket. So they're just like, scoring three pointers, three pointers, three pointers. So you look up and the score is like, 8, 000 gazillion to zero. Yeah. You know, against Israel and against the Jewish community.

[00:13:11] Van Jones: And, you know, it's like, it's, that's not a natural outcome. It's just, there's really been no real defense. I mean, in terms of using social media to go after a whole generation, the way that the anti Israel crowd has done for the past 15 years.

[00:13:23] Jonah Platt: They are very sophisticated and smart in how they've gone about it.

[00:13:27] Jonah Platt: That's for sure. Um, what, what did you see and experience in your formative years in Tennessee that inspired you to pursue becoming a lawyer?

[00:13:37] Van Jones: Racism. Yeah. Just straight up bigotry. Yeah. I, um, and the thing about growing up in a small town in the South, in the rural South, um, when I grew up. You actually didn't see a lot of straight up racism because your parents grew up in that same town.

[00:13:55] Van Jones: So they knew where to take you, where not to take you, and they knew how to move you around, so [00:14:00] you basically had a good experience. And then even when we integrated the schools, there was tension, but it was still civil because everybody would go back to their neighborhoods after. And so you just had to get along during the school year, um, the school day.

[00:14:15] Van Jones: What happened is, when I went to college, I got an internship at Shreveport, Louisiana, uh, Shreveport, Louisiana times working as a, as a young journalist, and I had nobody to tell me where to go and where not to go. And suddenly I'm going in the wrong neighborhood and I'm, you know, taking the left, not sure, taking the right, and I'm experiencing just pure, straight up, unadulterated, crazy levels of racism.

[00:14:43] Van Jones: And then in the newsroom where I was working. There was also just our newspaper was just a racist newspaper, like we, every story that we were, would run made the black community look terrible and you know, a lot of crime, you know, sort of, um, um, fear [00:15:00] mongering. Right. And now I being good Christian kid, I'm going volunteering in the.

[00:15:05] Van Jones: local churches and community centers. I'm seeing a totally different side of the black community, good people, hardworking people, maybe not a lot of money, but you know, really great culture, great food, great, none of that's being covered. I'm looking at this. And then, um, believe it or not, NWA, uh, the rap group came to Shreveport in summer of 1989.

[00:15:28] Van Jones: Now you think to yourself, who cares? I mean, the Superbowl, they just had, you know, Dr. Dre and those guys. But in 89, they were huge. They were huge and very controversial, right? So they brought out like maybe the National Guard. I mean they brought out like all kind of police helicopters Dogs assuming that just because concert was gonna happen.

[00:15:49] Van Jones: We were gonna be somehow violent, which was nuts, right? We weren't the next day. My newspaper has on the front page Rap Concert Peaceful, but [00:16:00] there's a picture of a police officer on top of a black kid with his gun out looking around like he's in Vietnam and they took a map of the city and they had explosions all over the city, but if you look at what the explosions were key to, it was just petty crime that happened every Saturday night in Shreveport.

[00:16:14] Van Jones: So no matter what, yeah. They were going to make us look bad. And I said, you know what, screw this. I'm going to go to law school. I don't want to be a part of a racist media industry. And luckily, uh, I had two conservative white male professors who said, that's what you want to do. We'll help you all the way.

[00:16:31] Van Jones: And when I'm going to Yale Law School from University of Tennessee at Martin.

[00:16:36] Jonah Platt: Amazing. Yep. As a young lawyer or law student, you'll tell me which, you worked on the Rodney King trial.

[00:16:41] Van Jones: I was a young law student, but I was in San Francisco Bay Area. I was not in Los Angeles. Okay. I was working for a civil rights organization.

[00:16:48] Van Jones: And the week after the initial explosion, which would have been April 29th, 1992, there were. ongoing protests around the country, [00:17:00] including in the Bay Area. And on May 8th, which was a full week later, I was asked to be a legal observer at one of the protests in San Francisco.

[00:17:09] Jonah Platt: Okay.

[00:17:10] Van Jones: And got arrested there, just as a legal observer, because I wasn't smart enough to run from the cops when they came walking over.

[00:17:16] Van Jones: And, um, and that put me on a completely different trajectory.

[00:17:19] Jonah Platt: What do you mean?

[00:17:20] Van Jones: I went to the left side of Pluto. Um, you know, I started off as like a good kind of, you know, my dad had been a cop in the military. Um, my grandfather was a bishop in the church. I'm going to law school because I want to be Thurgood Marshall.

[00:17:32] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:17:33] Van Jones: And when I came out, I was to the left of Malcolm X and Mao Tse Tung. I was like, this system is totally corrupt and terrible. You just saw a guy almost beat to death by these cops. They let the cops off and I wound up going to jail for the night. Like, this is totally nuts.

[00:17:47] Jonah Platt: How do you find your way back from that ledge?

[00:17:50] Van Jones: Not easily. I mean, you know, I was, you know, I was considered a left wing activist in the Bay Area. That's

[00:17:58] Jonah Platt: like ultra, ultra left, [00:18:00] okay.

[00:18:00] Van Jones: You gotta work hard.

[00:18:01] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:18:02] Van Jones: I was mad, and I saw a lot of stuff. You know, I was a very sensitive, you know, kid, you know, from when I was younger. I was into poetry and comic books and science fiction and all that kind of stuff.

[00:18:12] Van Jones: You know, stuff that gets you wedgies, you know, in high school. And, um, so then I moved to the Bay Area after I got out of law school, saw homelessness, you know, saw a lot of, you know, police stuff in Oakland and, and, you know, certain parts of San Francisco, my whole twenties into my thirties, I was pretty hardcore on the left.

[00:18:34] Van Jones: I just burned out, you know, at the end of the day.

[00:18:37] Jonah Platt: Um, On, on your efforts or on like, on the ideology or what, what do you mean? It's

[00:18:41] Van Jones: all of it. Like, you know, you go to a lot of funerals, um, you know, seeing young people in the caskets and, Um, old people in the pews, like that's not, that's not what you want.

[00:18:52] Van Jones: Backwards. Yeah. And, um, you know, if I start trying to take care of myself a little bit, I just have to back away. Like, you know, you [00:19:00] just, I burned out and I started getting healthier. I met other people. Um, uh, I was going to retreat centers, Zen, Buddhist stuff, and I'm meeting people who are not black. Um, yeah.

[00:19:14] Van Jones: Who are not left wingers, they're actually business people. They're focused on green business, they're focused on the solar industry, they're focused on vegan diets and all kinds of stuff. And they were cool. I'm like, hold on a second, my whole idea of like white capitalists is these people are the enemy.

[00:19:29] Van Jones: And here's a bunch of white capitalists that are actually cool and also making a pretty big impact. And also what they're saying makes sense to me. And so that started the whole process of me kind of coming back around to, um, well, what can I do that would be. not just being anti the system. What could I do that would be pro a solution?

[00:19:47] Van Jones: And that's when we started getting kids out of jail and into jobs in the solar industry. And that's when I, you know, that I became something that went from being a local activist to like a well known national person because [00:20:00] the whole green jobs movement, the idea that you could use You could take kids who needed jobs and give them jobs, putting up solar panels.

[00:20:08] Van Jones: Now you're fighting pollution and poverty at the same time. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. So Nancy Pelosi loved that idea. Took me to DC. We got George W. Bush to sign a bill called the Green Jobs Act in 2007. That bill spread my program across the country through the Department of Labor. Next year, 2008, I wrote a book about it, The Green Collar Economy.

[00:20:26] Van Jones: That book became a bestseller. A guy named Barack Obama read the book, he gets a promotion. I wound up working with him. That's all, like, my whole life, kind of. Like took off, but really for 15 years, um, you know, uh, I always tell these young people I was woke before y'all had alarm clocks.

[00:20:41] Jonah Platt: There you go.

[00:20:42] Van Jones: Yeah.

[00:20:42] Jonah Platt: I, I like, uh, Barack Obama got a promotion. Yeah. I like that. I like that phrasing. This is actually a good segue to my next question because you, you have been involved with so many different causes in your life, civil rights, black empowerment, jobs, the opioid crisis, um, and recently, you know, [00:21:00] building bridges between black Jewish, black Jewish communities.

[00:21:03] Jonah Platt: In my faith, we talk about something called tikkun olam, repairing the world. You're doing that work. Have you heard that before? Have people told you?

[00:21:11] Van Jones: Uh, I, I just know that there's, that's the cultural DNA of the Jewish community that has had the Jewish community be an ally to the black community when it wasn't easy, when it wasn't popular, when you couldn't like, you know, get likes on Facebook for posting a black square, when you get your, A home shot up when you might get, you know, your ass kicked when you might get put in prison or, or, or worse, um, for standing with black people, Jewish people were doing that, you know, 100 years ago.

[00:21:39] Van Jones: because of that cultural DNA of wanting to repair the world.

[00:21:42] Jonah Platt: Well, you are certainly the embodiment of Tikkun Olam. That's for sure. So another thing about Judaism, names have a lot of significance, and changing your name is a very powerful way to signify an evolution. You were born Anthony. You now go by Van.

[00:21:58] Jonah Platt: What went into that transformation? [00:22:00]

[00:22:00] Van Jones: Just not one to get made fun of in college, man. Like, for being what, Anthony? Nobody called me names when I was in high school because they basically just ignored me. My, I have a, a twin sister who was like a superstar in our high school. Everybody knew her. She was totally beloved.

[00:22:12] Van Jones: I was like a nobody nerd. And so, um, I'm like, Oh, I'm going to go to this campus, Anthony Jones. Not going to cut it. It's going to become Tony Jones, then it's going to be bony Tony. This is not going to work. So I had to think about, you know, and sitting in the car, everybody cool has a single syllable name, right?

[00:22:33] Van Jones: Prince, Prince, Sting, Cher. And so I was like, Jet Jones, but I can't run fast, it's not going to work. Rush Jones. And then eventually I got to like Van Jones. Something like that. That's kind of dope. Yeah, got a nice ring to it. So here's the problem. You walk in the door and tell everybody your name is Van Jones.

[00:22:52] Van Jones: Here's the problem. 10 minutes later somebody says, Hey Van, hey Van. You're not turning around because you're [00:23:00] not, like your brain is trained. If somebody says something remotely like your name at a thousand yards, you're going to hear it. But if you told me 20 minutes ago your name was Fred, and I said, Hey Fred, you're not going to react.

[00:23:10] Van Jones: Right. So it took me like a week to like kind of pull it off. But since then, you know, it works. I feel like a Van.

[00:23:17] Jonah Platt: Okay, so let's talk about news media. Where are we globally today on the journalism integrity scale?

[00:23:25] Van Jones: Look, I think that the mainstream media, the legacy media has a lot more integrity than we get credit for.

[00:23:32] Van Jones: Um, like we spent a lot of time on standards and all this stuff and me, a bunch of lawyers and ethicists. And I mean, it's not like we can just go in. Like, you know, generate quote unquote, fake news. You have some opinion hosts that are just going to say whatever, but those of us who are on the news side, I know work very hard to not get back checked, to not say things that are not true.

[00:23:56] Van Jones: Um, and, uh, but I don't think people will leave us. [00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Jonah Platt: Do you think there's any merit to the idea that, you know, there's a rampant bias one way or another throughout media?

[00:24:06] Van Jones: Well, yeah. Look, I mean, most of us lean to the left, um, in, in the industry, not the owners, not even necessarily the managers. This kind of business attracts people who are a little bit more liberal and literary and that kind of thing.

[00:24:21] Van Jones: So I think, I think, I think that's a fair criticism. And I think that the conservative media does a good job of creating some counterbalance, but you know, some of the stuff has gone way too far. And when the left wing media goes way too far, you know, you get maybe, you know, democracy now with Amy Goodman, right?

[00:24:41] Van Jones: Maybe it's a little bit too far to the left,

[00:24:42] Jonah Platt: right?

[00:24:43] Van Jones: But that's not a major force in American society. You know, truth social, Fox News, I mean, when they go too far to the right. major force in American society. So I worry about some of the silly stuff on the left, but, um, I, I [00:25:00] think it's. a little bit more contained, but I think the silly stuff on the right to me is more scary.

[00:25:05] Jonah Platt: Are you aware of some of the anti Israel bias in the, on the left liberal media?

[00:25:12] Van Jones: Anti Israel people think that the mainstream media is a thousand percent pro Israel. The anti Israel crowd, the so called pro Palestinian crowd, they just beat us up. And, you know, Jake Tapper on my, um, in my networks. And Dana Bash, they have like protestors outside their house.

[00:25:30] Van Jones: I know. That said, I have frustration with some of the mainstream media, especially frustrated with the New York Times. I just feel like

[00:25:39] Jonah Platt: You and a lot of other people.

[00:25:40] Van Jones: Yeah, I just feel like, I don't know who's working over there or what their problem is, but, um, uh, that one, it just seems like they just go out of their way.

[00:25:50] Van Jones: She slant everything in the most, in the worst possible way for, for, um, Israel and people look at the New York Times like, well, they're the pinnacle of the [00:26:00] pinnacle. Paper of record. Yeah, exactly. And so I think it makes the whole industry look, um, a particular way.

[00:26:04] Jonah Platt: Who are your, like, most trusted news sources outside of your own network, obviously, or do you just get so much straight from the source that you don't even need to rely on it as much?

[00:26:14] Van Jones: I work very hard to take in a lot of different sources. It's so easy just to get comfortable with the people I agree with. Right. I listen to a lot of conservative podcasts. Mm hmm. I make sure to listen to Dan Bongino, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, because I really want to know how they see it.

[00:26:32] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:26:32] Van Jones: And it helps me because I think I say less unlistenable to stuff, like for instance, progressives always say that Trump said there were good people on both sides.

[00:26:43] Jonah Platt: I knew this was going to be your example. Right. And

[00:26:45] Van Jones: it's like, and he didn't say that. Right. Um, but it's become like this liberal mythology that Donald Trump said that. Now,

[00:26:53] Jonah Platt: Yeah, I, I, I, after the debate, I posted something about that line and was, [00:27:00] immediately schooled by some conservative Jewish people on my social media being like, that was debunked, look at Snopes, it's completely false.

[00:27:08] Jonah Platt: So back in June, a mob of anti Israel agitators were harassing Jews outside a synagogue here in LA, and you went on CNN and said something to the effect of, If you show up in a Jewish neighborhood with a keffiyeh chanting from the river to the sea, it's like a white person showing up to Harlem with a confederate flag.

[00:27:27] Jonah Platt: You're not trying to have a conversation. You're trying to start a fight. What do we, what do we do

[00:27:32] Van Jones: here? You can't stop people from doing dumb, mean things, but you can denounce it. You can, you can make people pay a cost. People are so upset about what's happening in Gaza, which is very upsetting that they're erasing or moving lines about what's Fair to do about that.

[00:27:51] Van Jones: You can certainly protest, and listen, I'm all for peace and anti war and all sorts of things, you can protest all you want to, you can protest a [00:28:00] policy, but you can't protest a people. And that's the problem, is that if you run up in a mosque with an Israeli flag, there is zero justification, there is never a justification to run up in a holy site, a sacred site for a people.

[00:28:16] Van Jones: I don't care what's going on in the Jewish or Israeli world, I don't care what's going on in the Muslim or Arab world, I don't care what's going on in the Christian world. You can't run up in a house of worship and say, Oh, well, you know, the people were doing some stuff that we didn't like in there. Well, so I think people understand that with regard to the Muslim world because since 9 11 through Trump's Muslim ban, people have learned anti, uh, anti Muslim bigotry, Islamophobia is horrible.

[00:28:44] Van Jones: It's wrong. It's awful. It's horrible. And so there's a little bit of, um, kind of a built up muscle around respecting Muslim spaces. But even though, um, synagogues have been shot up and all kind of bad stuff has gone down [00:29:00] at synagogues, even though law enforcement has to protect synagogues, um, people still somehow think, oh, it's perfectly great.

[00:29:07] Van Jones: We're going to run up in here and make our little point. And look, I'm not putting up with that. Get your protest. Inbounds, it will never ever be okay. And by the way, don't run up in my church either.

[00:29:19] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:29:19] Van Jones: And my church is black, so you really don't want to run up in my church. We're not putting up with that at all.

[00:29:24] Jonah Platt: Why do you think that, you know, very clear distinction is, has been hard for other people to call out the way that you have?

[00:29:34] Van Jones: Look, people just don't want to get in trouble. And they would just rather ignore it. Did you get in trouble? Yeah, some people don't like it. I mean, like, I had, like, somebody who I really care about.

[00:29:42] Van Jones: A couple people I really care about were just, they were just furious. Because they said, well, you know, I likened it to a pogrom. Only because it was. Right. Like, I mean, I don't know what you want. Um, yeah, I likened it to a pogrom because, Um, and they were really, really angry with me and they said, well, you know, the [00:30:00] people were trying to prevent some real estate deal going down in Israel and said, we'll do it another way.

[00:30:05] Van Jones: That's not the way to do it. You don't run up in people's houses of worship. You just don't do it. So I've lost some friends. I'm not as welcome in some places as I would like to be, and I'm more welcome in other places.

[00:30:15] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:30:15] Van Jones: And so you have to decide. I think that one of the things the Jewish community may not understand though, is that the Jewish community does say stuff that pisses people off.

[00:30:25] Van Jones: For instance. Well, I was there for you for George Floyd. Why aren't you there for us now?

[00:30:29] Jonah Platt: Like

[00:30:31] Van Jones: I would encourage people to never say that because we have been getting 16 black men killed for 10 years. on national television before George Floyd. Yeah. George Floyd wasn't even the first black man who was choked to death on television.

[00:30:43] Van Jones: And there was no reaction of, you know, any type of scale. Just finally, it was like a straw that broke the camel's back that you finally got the reaction. But, listen, we've been putting up with police brutality, not only in 92 with Rodney King, Dr. King. In [00:31:00] 63, at the March on Washington, in the I Have a Dream speech says, How long, he says, when will the Negro be satisfied?

[00:31:09] Van Jones: The Negro can never be satisfied as long as he is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. In 63! So we've been getting, we've had this problem. So then, for like a month, people like, like, put up a sign. And, and then, and by the way, and there's, you pay no price. By the time you get to 2020 with George Floyd, you're not going to get any pushback from people saying, I don't think, I think that police brutality is a problem.

[00:31:40] Van Jones: In 2020, Donald Trump ran as a criminal justice reformer. So it was a kind of a free thing to do. Like don't act like you like, you know, you have to sacrifice yourself. Like it's a free thing. There was no social cost. There's no social cost. In 2020, to say that you were, you know, that you supported the Black community, [00:32:00] 0.

[00:32:00] Van Jones: 0 percent cost. Right. When it was harder, more costly, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, way fewer Jewish people stood with Black people. The vast majority of Jewish communities sat out the civil rights movement. Played no role at all because it was costly because you would go to jail. You might get killed. Very small number of Jews actually participated when the price was high.

[00:32:26] Van Jones: Also the vast majority of black people also sat out the civil rights movement. You know why it was costly. You might get killed. You might get lynched. So when the cost is high, fewer people do it. Right now the cost is high, to speak up for Jewish people, because we've been surrounded by snipers online that will take you to task.

[00:32:49] Van Jones: And most people are not used to weighing into some controversy and having a bunch of people call them genociders and colonial supporters and all kind of shit. And most people, they don't want the smoke. [00:33:00] And so it takes a little bit of, um, courage, and conviction, and knowledge. I've been in the Holy Land.

[00:33:09] Jonah Platt: How many times have you been?

[00:33:10] Van Jones: Three.

[00:33:10] Jonah Platt: Oh, cool.

[00:33:11] Van Jones: But yeah, it's like, you know, a lot of stuff people say is just stupid. Like, you can't tell, like, it's not a racial conflict over there. You can't tell who's Israeli or Arab based on looking at them. They're Israelis, blacker than me, much darker than me. They're Palestinians, got red hair and green eyes.

[00:33:27] Van Jones: What are you talking about? It's not a racial conflict. You got a bunch of indigenous people fighting and sometimes one group has the upper hand, sometimes the other group has the upper hand. It's been going on for thousands of years. That's a racial conflict. All Jews are white. All Palestinians are brown.

[00:33:40] Van Jones: Like, it's just complete bullshit, and I also think that the Palestinian cause has been hijacked by a bunch of Nazis. So, like, it's a complicated thing over there, and you gotta be able to talk about it with some intelligence, but what you can't do is fall for the oldest trick in the book, which is blame the Jews.

[00:33:58] Van Jones: It's not the oldest, [00:34:00] it's the oldest trick in the book, you know how old it is? It's so old, it's older than books. There you go. It's older than books, and you're falling for that? Like it's really, it's just, You can't, you have to, at some point, build an anti stupid coalition so that you don't just get tricked into, um, supporting the wrong people.

[00:34:20] Van Jones: Uh, the Palestinians deserve all the support in the world. Their cause is just. They want human rights, they want dignity, they want sovereignty. That's beautiful. And it's been hijacked by a Nazi organization called Hamas, who are terrible. They are not freedom fighters, they're freedom takers. They're, they're not interested in democracy, they're not interested in human rights, they're not interested in women's rights, they're not interested in gay rights, they're not interested in anything that we care about over here, they, and they are trying to destroy Israel way more than they're trying to help the Palestinians.

[00:34:47] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:34:47] Van Jones: As a, it's, it's a, a Nazi organization, and I don't care if you're a Muslim Nazi, a Christian Nazi, a Jewish Nazi, a Buddhist Nazi, if you're a Nazi, I'm against you first. And then we work out everything else. So when you have a good cause that's been hijacked [00:35:00] by bad people, that's tough. And so you gotta be able to, to talk about this stuff, honestly.

[00:35:06] Van Jones: Um, but yeah, like I've, I've, uh, you know, I've had people, you know, uh, uh, pull money out of things I'm a part of, like, you know, but who cares? It's, it's nothing, nothing compared, nothing compared to what those kids went through at the Nova Festival. Nothing compared to what the people went through at the kibbutz.

[00:35:23] Van Jones: You gotta remember, I'm a progressive.

[00:35:25] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:35:25] Van Jones: So Hamas attacked my people. Yeah. Those are my people. Exactly. On the kibbutz, those are liberals, those are my people. The

[00:35:31] Jonah Platt: most

[00:35:32] Van Jones: liberal in the country. Those are my people. I'm a progressive, so Hamas pushes through with bulldozers and butchers my people.

[00:35:40] Van Jones: Progressive, liberal, peace loving, you know, social justice people were murdered and butchered. And then you have these idiots over here talking about, Oh, these were Nazi, you know, Zionist colonizer, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, guys, you don't know anything about anything. You sound like idiots. And the [00:36:00] only reason that you can get away with it is because I'm There's just not that many Jewish people to fight back.

[00:36:04] Jonah Platt: That's exactly right. Um, something that you said that I thought was interesting was You know, in the civil rights era, what was that cost? You might get lynched, you might get arrested, you might get killed. The cost now seems so much lower. And then you were like, you know, you might, people don't want the smoke.

[00:36:20] Jonah Platt: I mean, it's people yelling at you on social media. Yeah. Are we just, you know, more scared now or softer? I mean, what is that?

[00:36:27] Van Jones: People really identify with their online personas. And when that starts getting attacked, I mean, people can, Man, you're being attacked on social media, you're being attacked. I'm like.

[00:36:38] Van Jones: No, people are saying some stuff like I don't even, if I don't look at my phone, I don't even know what's happening. Right. Attacked if somebody hits you in the face. Right, exactly. That's what I'm saying. But I think that for people, I think for regular civilians, everyday people, um, you know, for somebody to say mean stuff on their Facebook page or mean stuff, like it causes psychological stress.[00:37:00]

[00:37:00] Van Jones: It definitely did for me. Um, but I had to make a decision. Like I've stuck up for every group of people. that have been screwed over that I have ever seen. Muslims, transgender people, immigrants. I mean, I don't mean, like, just stood up, like, you know, posted something online.

[00:37:20] Jonah Platt: I mean, built

[00:37:21] Van Jones: organizations, been, went to jail, built campaigns, marched.

[00:37:25] Van Jones: And I mean, everybody. I mean, so, I don't run from fights. But this is the scariest fight I've ever been in because people are Tapping at you without knowing it three thousand four thousand year old Hatreds and assumptions and stereotypes And, uh, I remember I went to speak at the March for Israel. I've never been more scared in my life to do something in public.

[00:37:52] Jonah Platt: What were you scared of?

[00:37:53] Van Jones: Smoke. Here I am, I'm in Washington, D. C., I'm at this hotel, and [00:38:00] I wake up and my phone is just buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. Because half the people I know are like, What are you doing? Like it was put out, they had my name next to like all like the most controversial conservative Jewish people.

[00:38:16] Van Jones: So they were trying to make it like, not just I'm going, but I'm going to support the war and I'm going to like be with these right wing Jews, et cetera, et cetera. It was a deliberate campaign to whip up the left against me to try and discipline me. At that point, the hostages were, you know, just been taken.

[00:38:32] Van Jones: I mean, the Jewish community was still in shock and grief. And I want you to go and make sure that, you know, somebody from the black community came and spoke. Man, my mouth was dry. My armpits were itching. My underwear was wet. I mean, I've never had that level. I mean, I was like, should I say I have COVID, should I get out of this thing?

[00:38:54] Van Jones: I was really scared. My knees were shaking. I come around the corner [00:39:00] and I see 250, 000 Jewish people. Now you see Jewish people all the time. If you're not Jewish, if you see like 10 Jewish people, that's a lot of Jewish people. Not that many Jewish people. Yeah. Right. You'll see like a quarter million Jewish people, they're all waving their flags and they're singing these songs that I've never heard before and they're so beautiful and you could just see the pain but also the pride and like, you start realizing like, this is like really important moment in the life of a people that there's not that many left.

[00:39:38] Van Jones: Like you think about it, there's a billion Chinese people, God bless them, there's a billion Indians, God bless them. There's a billion Africans, God bless us. There's only 15 million Jews left in the whole world, half of them are in Israel, and half of them are people of color. And so you're like, hold on a second, like this is a very small [00:40:00] group, you know, a quarter million, it's like actually a percentage of all the Jews in the world probably, right?

[00:40:04] Van Jones: And here's this, these songs, maybe a thousand years old, I don't know. And this is a group that really needs love and, and, and help and protection. Um, and so I walk up to the thing and Hersh's mom, Rachel, comes over to

[00:40:22] Jonah Platt: me.

[00:40:22] Van Jones: That was it. I said, like, if the only thing I do is go out there and speak up for her and the fact that her kid is right now in captive, that's enough.

[00:40:30] Van Jones: And so it took me A while to adapt to the amount of counter fire that I was getting, I just, I'm not going to be bullied. And by the way, I'll put the, I'll say this too. If we are in a world where the pain of the Palestinian people was going up exponentially and nobody cared, I'd be marching with them.

[00:40:54] Van Jones: Right. I just, you know, people are like, whose side are you on? I'm on the side of people who are suffering. And right now [00:41:00] Israelis and Palestinians are suffering and I'm on the side of the facts. And right now the facts are not as simple as the anti Israel left wants everybody to believe. But I see a lot of support for the Palestinian cause, and I think that's a good thing.

[00:41:12] Van Jones: I think the Palestinian community deserves love and support and protection, but I've seen a lot of just stripping away of basic norms that with the Jewish community you can't cross the line calling it anti Zionism, but it's really just anti Jewish bigotry. And you can't use Zionism as a slur. Zionism is the, the, the just desire and quest for freedom and sovereignty and dignity for Jewish people.

[00:41:39] Van Jones: And so if you use Zionism as a slur, and then you say anti Zionism is an excuse for all kinds of, then hold on a second guys, I'm not going to be a part of a hate movement. You got to make sure your movement isn't hijacked by hate. The Zionist movement, the Palestinian movement, the civil rights movement, any movement can be hijacked by hate.

[00:41:56] Van Jones: And your first responsibility is to make sure that your movement [00:42:00] Doesn't have that in it. Here in the United States, the Jewish community is just trying to, kids are just trying to go to camp, go to class, go to, go to the Hillel or whatever they're doing, you know, go to synagogue and not be bothered.

[00:42:10] Jonah Platt: Yep.

[00:42:11] Van Jones: And, you know, if Jewish people were running up in mosque and, you know, causing a bunch of problems, that'd be something else. The Jewish community literally is just trying to grieve and mourn and support the people who they know back overseas. And they're getting picked on and I'm not gonna stand for it.

[00:42:24] Jonah Platt: Well, I'm sure you've heard it many times, but the community is so grateful for you sticking up for us in a big way. Recently, Ta Nehisi Coates, beloved black writer, released his book, The Message, that would be laughable in its over the top, blatant anti Jewish hatred if he weren't such an impactful figure.

[00:42:44] Jonah Platt: What is your relationship to him, either personally or as a black man who I'm assuming has read some of his work? You

[00:42:50] Van Jones: Don't know him. Don't think I've met him. This is very delicate, careful stuff to talk about. Look, I've been in the West bank. Uh, and the IDF was [00:43:00] rude to me and demeaning to a bunch of people.

[00:43:02] Van Jones: So, you know, you give a bunch of kids guns, which is what the IDF is. And, you know, that stuff is going to happen. So I, you know, I came back very disturbed by the things I'd seen in the West Bank. I also was in Gaza before Hamas took over. Conditions there are not good.

[00:43:20] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:43:20] Van Jones: Um, and so, um, I understand. But I also, when I was in the Holy Land, was also, I also went to Yad Vashem.

[00:43:30] Van Jones: I also went to Masada. I also was in Tel Aviv. And I saw in, on the Israeli side, memorial plaques to buses that had blown up with children in them. I'm seeing people going into, on the Israeli side, going into restaurants. It's like going into an airport. You got, you know, winded down and metal detectors and just the level of fear on, all sides, you [00:44:00] can't go over there and just come back and say, Oh, well, you know, the IDF is terrible.

[00:44:05] Van Jones: Um, there's a dynamic here. Once you've got tit for tat going back and forth, it's very hard to just say this side is right. And this side is wrong.

[00:44:15] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:44:16] Van Jones: You, you, if you want to get you a good answer, you're going to have to really take seriously the pain and concern of all sides. And so, you know, where I've always come down is, and this was before all this is I am, um, against anti Jewish bigotry and anti Muslim bigotry, period.

[00:44:37] Van Jones: I am for a secure homeland for both people. However, that gets worked out. That's a lot of geography and a lot of politics. I don't understand all that stuff, but fundamentally, both people need to feel safe and secure in someplace they can call home. And I am against targeting civilians, period. And I don't care, you know, if you're the, if you're IDF, you got to be very, very careful.

[00:44:58] Van Jones: They claim to be [00:45:00] careful. Some people say they're not as careful as they need to be. Um, and if you're an armed liberation group, A, your aims have to be liberation and not more oppression for your own people, and your tactics have to respect human rights.

[00:45:15] Jonah Platt: So let's talk a little bit about your Jewish journey, let's say.

[00:45:18] Jonah Platt: We all have one. When did you start to take up this mission that you've been on recently of bringing you. the communities, the Black and Jewish communities together. Is that just a post October 7th? Was it brewing before that?

[00:45:29] Van Jones: Well, look, you know, Robert Kraft's a friend of mine. He had mentioned a couple of years ago that he thought things were getting sideways.

[00:45:35] Van Jones: But, you know, Jewish people have always been, like, I've always been working with Jewish people. I mean, and frankly, every Black activist has been. Like, any Black activist that they've got any white friends, 80 percent of the time they're Jewish. If you've been involved in social justice, Your staff has got a bunch of Jewish people, your donors are a bunch of Jewish people, your board members are a bunch of Jewish people.

[00:45:58] Van Jones: And so, the problem [00:46:00] is the under 40s And especially the under 30s, they don't know their white friends are Jewish. They don't know. And they literally don't know that their people are Jewish? They don't know. Huh. They don't know. That's, that's the thing. All Jewish people know that their black friends are black.

[00:46:15] Van Jones: Almost no black people under the age of 35 know their Jewish friends are Jewish.

[00:46:20] Jonah Platt: Interesting.

[00:46:21] Van Jones: And so that's a big part of the problem, because people think Jewish, they think, oh, like, some abstract thing. It's like, no, it's like, literally, like, your public defender was Jewish. Like, the person, like, the reason you're fucking walking around here, it's like, like, like, oh, really?

[00:46:31] Van Jones: Mr. Gold is Jewish? Yes, motherfucker. Yes. So a lot of the kind of unrequited love. It's like, we're Jewish and we're helping you black people and we're like, Oh, we're just black people thinking there's a bunch of cool white people, right? And so that's, that's a thing.

[00:46:46] Jonah Platt: That's tricky.

[00:46:47] Van Jones: Yeah.

[00:46:47] Jonah Platt: Um, so as I mentioned earlier, we met at this freedom Seder thing.

[00:46:51] Jonah Platt: Can you, can you tell me a little bit about how that came to be? And, um, was that the first sort of major foray into this bridge building?

[00:46:59] Van Jones: [00:47:00] Yeah, I think it was. You know, Black people need more friends and fewer enemies. Jewish people need more friends and fewer enemies. We've been friends for a hundred years.

[00:47:08] Van Jones: Why would we start being enemies now when it benefits nobody but white nationalists, Islamic terrorists, and anarchists? Why, why would we do that? It's just stupid. And so, now that doesn't mean that we can't disagree about foreign policy, or we can't disagree about this or that, but the fundamental truth is that the Jewish community doesn't have a bunch of allies except for black people, and black people don't have a bunch of allies except for Jewish people.

[00:47:33] Van Jones: There's no black Japanese alliance. There's no black Inuit alliance. There's no black Italian alliance. There's only one group that's ever worked with us on anything, and it's Jewish people. It's not all Jewish people, because some Jewish people don't like, some Jewish people don't like black people, some black people don't like Jewish people.

[00:47:49] Van Jones: It's always been there. But the best people in both groups, the best Jews who really believe in repairing the world, always work with black people. And the black people who really [00:48:00] believe in justice for all, always work with Jewish people. That's been true for a hundred plus years. Jewish folks and black folks.

[00:48:06] Van Jones: These are two groups in America that have deepened and defended democracy the most. that at a moment when democracy is under threat here and around the world, surprise, surprise, we're going to split up. That's not natural. That's a part of a much bigger thing to drive a wedge. This one has been tricky because way that this, um, conflict is, gets presented, and frankly, just the level of pain and destruction and cry from the Palestinian people is so loud that the justice for all gene in black people has switched on, you know, now, Israel looks more like Goliath than David.

[00:48:44] Van Jones: And you have to know a lot to understand that that's, that's a more complicated, it might look that way for the past 15 seconds, but you know, 15 seconds from now and 15 seconds earlier, you know, this wheel, [00:49:00]

[00:49:01] Jonah Platt: Yeah, I, I often will like use the analogy that it's like people have walked into the middle of a Harry Potter film and they're seeing the one frame where like Harry's shooting the wand and they're like that evil wizard kid going after poor Voldemort.

[00:49:13] Van Jones: Exactly. But this, this is the type of stuff that it's hard to talk about in 15 seconds on commercial television.

[00:49:19] Jonah Platt: Yeah.

[00:49:20] Van Jones: But this is particularly personal to me because I know I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the Black Jewish Alliance. Exactly. Exactly. I wouldn't be sitting in this chair. We would still be living in a segregated America.

[00:49:32] Van Jones: Like it was black people and Jewish people. You look at the NAACP, all those lawyers, black and Jewish legal teams. If you look at, I mean, it's just consistent, consistent, consistent. So when you start going after this alliance, when you start trying to drive. Jewish people into more of an anti Black politics, which I'm seeing with all the anti woke and anti DEI.

[00:49:52] Van Jones: On our side, that sounds like anti Black shit. Like, hold on a second. These DEI programs are not the source [00:50:00] of a global upsurge in anti Jewish hatred. That's Iran. That's not our little shitty programs that barely get us any benefit, um, that barely give us any jobs that barely give us any scholarships that have these little crappy little workshops to drive everybody nuts.

[00:50:14] Van Jones: That's That's not what's driving this.

[00:50:18] Jonah Platt: It's interesting. We had, um, Rabbi David Wolpe on the show a couple episodes ago, and we were talking about DEI and you said, you know, what would replace it? And he suggested like a model that would be adversity based, which would You know, by nature benefit more people of color who are facing more adversity, but it would also, you know, whoever that might be, might be a white kid in Appalachia would also benefit from the same programs.

[00:50:42] Jonah Platt: What do you, what do you think something like that?

[00:50:44] Van Jones: The idea that you're just going to have a colorblind kind of anti poverty program that's going to help black people is ridiculous. This society is too deeply anti black in the way that it functions. If you think that [00:51:00] without effort, the folks in Appalachia will get a fair amount with the folks living in poor black communities, you don't know how America works.

[00:51:09] Van Jones: Mostly it's DEI programs, too many of them. Um, are just obnoxious. I mean, they're just obnoxious. You, it's, it's too polarizing, it's too binary, it's too simplistic.

[00:51:22] Jonah Platt: Yeah,

[00:51:23] Van Jones: um,

[00:51:23] Jonah Platt: that's where I think Jews get, you know, excluded because of that binary of oppressor and oppressed, or Jews are white, or whatever it is.

[00:51:31] Van Jones: So, I think you need programs that have more protection for Jewish people, but also more prosperity for Black people. Right now, the DEI programs don't give us much prosperity, don't give you much protection, and then we're supposed to fight about it. We should be at the table together figuring out a dignity for all approach that will get more protection for Jews, more prosperity for black people.

[00:51:50] Van Jones: That should be the goal. But if the Jewish community is talking about black people, not talking to black people, then they come up with this anti DEI, anti woke stuff, which is easily used by white nationalists. [00:52:00] to hurt us is you, you're the weapon. So then we're mad at you. And the only people benefiting are people who were anti black before October

[00:52:08] Jonah Platt: 7th.

[00:52:09] Van Jones: And so these are the type of tricks. Um, Iran wants to use us as a weapon against you. White nationals want to use you as a weapon against us, but Iran doesn't give a damn about black people and white nationals don't give a damn about Jewish people. And so this is the problem that we've got. We've got to be as sophisticated as a system that we're trying to change.

[00:52:30] Van Jones: And as, as the enemies that are trying to divide us. And, you know, so people keep giving me credit, like, thank you for sticking up for Jewish people. I'm not sticking up for Jewish people. I'm sticking up for a pathway where democracy, democracy can't survive, which it cannot survive without blacks and Jews together.

[00:52:50] Van Jones: If you pull blacks and Jews apart, trust me, you will, you will have the biggest defenders of American democracy fighting while the biggest enemies [00:53:00] of American democracy. Take advantage. Inside the country, white nationalists. Outside the country, um, these, um, Islamic terrorists.

[00:53:08] Jonah Platt: What do you think black people most misunderstand about Jews?

[00:53:12] Van Jones: First of all, that, like, half the Jews in Israel aren't white. Just that. It's shocking to people.

[00:53:18] Jonah Platt: Mm-Hmm. .

[00:53:19] Van Jones: I think people really do think that all Jews are rich.

[00:53:22] Jonah Platt: Yeah. They do.

[00:53:23] Van Jones: They really believe that. It's like, like all these Jewish, like school teachers and college professors and public defenders and just, and former Holocaust survivors.

[00:53:32] Van Jones: A lot of 'em

[00:53:32] Jonah Platt: living below the poverty line, but living

[00:53:33] Van Jones: below the poverty line. Like, like people can't believe that that's true. So I think there's just a lot of stereotypes about Jewish people, um, being rich and white. Mm-Hmm. . And, um, and then I think a lot of people, a lot people. They hear the negative stories about Jewish people when it comes to business dealings and stuff like that.

[00:53:52] Van Jones: They don't hear the positive stories about Jewish people when it comes to solidarity with black causes, supporting black colleges, like [00:54:00] all the people who have helped us have been disproportionately Jewish. People go, well, yeah, but Jewish people did bad stuff too. I said, you know why? You know why we sometimes have a bad relationship with Jewish people?

[00:54:09] Van Jones: Because we have a relationship with Jewish people. We don't have a bad relationship with, you know, Swiss people.

[00:54:15] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:54:16] Van Jones: Because they don't mess with black people at all. Jewish people actually deal with us. So sometimes we have good days and bad days. In other words, we have a relationship. There's good stuff in it.

[00:54:24] Van Jones: There's bad stuff in it. There's stuff to criticize them on and also stuff to criticize us about. You can't have a one sided relationship where it's all you help me. I never help you. That's not right. It should be partnership, not pity. So the Jewish people have stuff to learn. We got stuff to learn.

[00:54:42] Jonah Platt: What do the Jewish people need to learn about the black community?

[00:54:44] Van Jones: Well, first of all, quit talking about George Floyd because that shit is pissing everybody off. Like, like you guys were like, hey, helped us for two seconds on police brutality. And now what? Like, that's, please stop saying that. Also, I think the black community has a lot of problems. Like, we have problems with October [00:55:00] 7th.

[00:55:00] Van Jones: And the Jewish community got a 50 year holiday from history, where you got a chance to build a middle class here, and a state over there. And now history's back, and you need help. But every grown up black person never lived in a world where Jewish people needed help. So there's no committee to help you in the black community.

[00:55:20] Van Jones: You got communities to help us in your community. But we don't have any committees, so you've been fine. So it's like, wait, you need us to do that? We don't have that. We don't have that committee.

[00:55:30] Jonah Platt: Right.

[00:55:30] Van Jones: We don't have that training. We don't have that workshop. We don't have like the idea that black people supposed to help Jewish people is like shocking

[00:55:37] Jonah Platt: right.

[00:55:37] Van Jones: The black people.

[00:55:38] Jonah Platt: I get it.

[00:55:39] Van Jones: But we do because the Jewish community is now very vulnerable and it's getting worse, not better. And that readjustment where it's like, okay, you can stick up for Palestinians, but you can't stick up for Hamas. And just because you left Palestinians doesn't mean you can't also protect Jewish people.

[00:55:57] Van Jones: And that whole conversation, which is very sophisticated, [00:56:00] rolling that out and getting that strong, is a lot of work now on the Black side. In the meantime, look, I don't think the Jewish community can afford to be as one sidedly generous as it used to be. I think the Jewish community needs solidarity. Um, with its allies before you guys were in a decent position, so you could just do one sided charity.

[00:56:21] Van Jones: We'll help you, help you, help you on anything, help you, help you, help you don't need anything. Now you don't need to share. You can't afford to do that. You gotta have solidarity. Solidarity is an act of mutual aid between two forces pursuing the same objective. Solidarity is an act of mutual aid,

[00:56:39] Jonah Platt: right?

[00:56:39] Van Jones: What's the objective? Freedom for Jewish people, freedom for black people, freedom for Muslims, freedom for democracy, dignity for all, but it's mutual aid between two forces. Now we're fighting, we're on that exodus path now together. You know, the first social justice activist was Moses, right? He's the first activist.

[00:56:57] Van Jones: He's the first person that stood up to the system and said, Hey, [00:57:00] you know, let my people go. Right. And he set a path to freedom. So we got to get back on that Exodus path together. People keep thanking me. It ain't charity. You don't have to thank me. It's in our mutual interest to stay together. It's in our mutual interest to fight hatred in all of its forms.

[00:57:15] Van Jones: It's in our mutual interest to not let the brain rot of anti Jewish bigotry infect the Black community. If you saw, if my daughter, who's two and a half, picked up a bottle with poison on it, you see the skull and crossbones, she started to drink it. And you saw me slap it out of her, of her hand. Yeah. You wouldn't thank me.

[00:57:36] Van Jones: You said, you're protecting your daughter. Right. Now, that's called, in Crossbones, it says anti Jewish bigotry, and I slapped it out of her hand. You don't have to thank me. I'm protecting my community from hatred, protecting my, my people from stupidity, and protecting my people from being used by evil. So this is solidarity.

[00:57:55] Van Jones: It's not charity. Look, I appreciate all the kind words. But this is a survival [00:58:00] question for black and Jewish people and for democracy itself.

[00:58:02] Jonah Platt: Very pragmatic approach. Look, man. Um, so speaking of the path we're on, or the path we could be heading on, we have an election coming up very, very soon. Uh, you're heavily involved, obviously, in the Democratic Party.

[00:58:17] Jonah Platt: What excites you most about the idea of a Harris Waltz administration?

[00:58:21] Van Jones: It not being a Trump administration. That's a

[00:58:22] Jonah Platt: good answer. How do you reassure Jewish voters that a Harris presidency is going to protect them from the hate that's been exploding this past year?

[00:58:30] Van Jones: Because she, Kamala in particular, has stood up.

[00:58:33] Van Jones: I think, I think there's some kind of weird thing where they keep trying to put Kamala in with the squad when she's on the opposite side of the party from them. In 2019, 2020, 19, 2020, everybody got weird in Democratic Party and people started trying to go for like ideas that made no sense.

[00:58:52] Jonah Platt: Like, what?

[00:58:52] Jonah Platt: What do you mean?

[00:58:53] Van Jones: Defund the police and like all that stuff. But the party as a whole, not just Kamala, the party as a whole has kind of come back to its senses over the [00:59:00] past few years. Governing will do that to you. Like, you can't be anti fracking in the United States when we're in a fight with Putin.

[00:59:08] Van Jones: We've got to get natural gas to Europe because Putin is using gas as a weapon. So suddenly all the anti fracking rhetoric disappears from the left. Um, there's a lot of stuff people will, well, hold on a second, guys. You can't freeze us in time in 2019 and 2020 when people were trying out all these bizarre ideas.

[00:59:27] Van Jones: Look at where the party actually evolved to. Much more pragmatic on immigration, on energy policy. Um, and, and Kamala has stood up to the squad and stood up to, you know, anti Jewish bigots. So, for instance, big push going to, into the DNC to have Kamala say that she was going to condition AIDS. That if Israel didn't do this, this, and this, she was going to cut off weapons.

[00:59:51] Van Jones: She quite proudly went up on stage and said the opposite and said, I will always ensure that Israel has a right to defend itself [01:00:00] that was standing up to the squad. Meanwhile, Trump, who everybody assumes is like good for Israel. Number one, who did he pick for his VP? J. D. Vance was one of only 15 U. S.

[01:00:13] Van Jones: Senators dumb enough to oppose Trump. Um, in April, the aid to Israel, he's the only one and he let the back and two months later, Trump picks him to be his VP. There's nothing in the Republican program that mentions Hezbollah. There's nothing in the Republican protest, a program that mentions the hostages, like, so this idea that Trump is great for Israel, Trump is great for Trump.

[01:00:37] Jonah Platt: Right.

[01:00:38] Van Jones: Meanwhile, Kamala and Biden have given more aid, more support. Organize a coalition to defend Israel twice when Iran started firing.

[01:00:47] Jonah Platt: Yep.

[01:00:47] Van Jones: Like, I, you know Literally

[01:00:49] Jonah Platt: the most aid that's ever been sent in a single year to Israel.

[01:00:52] Van Jones: When people get scared, they want to turn to a strong man.

[01:00:54] Jonah Platt: Right.

[01:00:55] Van Jones: Donald Trump is not a strong man.

[01:00:56] Van Jones: He's a con man. And people need to remember that.

[01:00:59] Jonah Platt: I [01:01:00] like that line. I'm gonna, I'm gonna borrow that. Mm hmm. Of all the things you're involved with What do you hope your legacy is like? What do you wanna be remembered for?

[01:01:09] Van Jones: I'm not gonna be remembered and it's perfectly fine with me. Someone's gonna remember you then.

[01:01:12] Van Jones: Well, maybe my kids. But look, um, I think people worry about that too much. Nobody's remembered. And if you are, you get three words, right? Dr. King had a dream. That's it. That's it. Nobody,

[01:01:26] Jonah Platt: I don't know about that. He's got his own national holiday

[01:01:29] Van Jones: and ask anybody about me. He had a dream. It's all, uh, uh, Lincoln free the slaves.

[01:01:33] Van Jones: That's it. You know, Churchill beat Hitler. You only get two words. Like, I don't care who you are. You're not gonna be remembered. If you are, it's for a very, very little. And so I think the more important thing is to think about how many positive ripples can you create? What I'm most proud of about myself is that the way I honor my blackness, the way I honor the fact [01:02:00] that I'm the product of a struggle, a real struggle, a blood struggle, so I could sit in this chair and Is to pay it forward is to continue their somebody, I don't know who she was or who he was fought for there to be a minority scholarship to go to the University of Tennessee at Martin.

[01:02:17] Van Jones: I don't know that person was, but they fought for it. They had to win that vote. They had to win that that permission. I benefited from that. Somebody at Yale fought so that kids from shitty schools in the South could We get a shot, 10, 000 kids apply to Yale Law School, they let in 120 a year. Somebody fought and said, we need to have somebody who's not from all the Ivy League schools here.

[01:02:42] Van Jones: And so I was able to get one of those seats. I don't know who that was. I don't know who, I don't know who did that. I'll never be able to pay that person back. I'll never be able to thank them. The only way you pay them back and thank them is you do it for others.

[01:02:57] Jonah Platt: Beautiful. And I think something that's so [01:03:00] important that, you know, you can take away from everything you've just said is.

[01:03:04] Jonah Platt: It's about focusing on sort of what's in front of you and what you're passionate about. It's not like you set out to change the world. You see something that needs your help and you go and help it and whatever comes from that comes from that. Whether it's you or it's the person who created that scholarship, anybody can can make a change in the area where they are.

[01:03:26] Jonah Platt: I think that's important. All right, so now we're going to take a couple quick questions from our Instagram audience. From, uh, J. Middleman. Every time Van wears a yellow hostage ribbon pin and a blue pin against Jewish hatred on air, I want to send him a babka. Does he prefer chocolate or cinnamon?

[01:03:42] Jonah Platt: Chocolate always. Great, great call. How does Van feel about Shabbat? And also, I would like to know if Van has a favorite Yiddish word that has made its way into standard American vernacular, as a Jewish girl.

[01:03:54] Van Jones: I'm pretty comfortable, comfortable with my shtick on here.

[01:03:57] Jonah Platt: There you go. Nice. So,

[01:03:58] Van Jones: uh.

[01:03:59] Jonah Platt: And [01:04:00] how do you feel

[01:04:00] Van Jones: about Shabbat?

[01:04:01] Van Jones: It's great. Like, I didn't know anything about it until after October 7th. Um, but I've been to a bunch now, and I wish, I wish everybody had them, because it's really powerful. I mean. Getting a chance to just slow down. Yeah, and connect with people. It's amazing how little of that happens though.

[01:04:18] Jonah Platt: I know well I joke basically every episode people talk about Shabbat being awesome, and I somehow reference and shout out my wife So we checked both boxes Weekly shout out to Courtney Okay, uh, Talushi asks, As you have worked to continue building bridges among the Black and Jewish communities, who are some folks you admire or have been learning from in this work?

[01:04:42] Van Jones: The head of the United Negro College Fund has been an incredible mentor to me. Also, the head of the Urban League, Mark Morial, has been incredibly helpful. There are other African American men who value this relationship. Um, they're on TV, so when they're wearing the [01:05:00] pin, nobody sees it.

[01:05:00] Jonah Platt: Right.

[01:05:01] Van Jones: Um.

[01:05:01] Jonah Platt: Well, the people in their community do.

[01:05:03] Van Jones: Exactly. And I will say that, um, it's not just older people as well. Um, when I think about Amanda Berman

[01:05:11] Jonah Platt: from

[01:05:11] Van Jones: Zion S. Yeah. I mean, she's taught me so much. I mean, she just knows so much, and she's very good at talking to progressives. Cause INS was designed to fix the anti Jewish bigotry on the left, right?

[01:05:22] Van Jones: The only group that's really designed for that purpose. So she's really helped me understand Ellica Laban, um, is also, you know, the young Iranian human rights lawyer, um, has helped me a great deal. Um, you know, so I've benefited from, uh, the wisdom of others. Um, it was not, you know, it's not my area of expertise.

[01:05:44] Van Jones: My area of expertise is. just fighting like hell against injustice. But any particular group or cause I have to get a lot of mentorship and help and support. That's one reason why people think I've been vocal. I haven't been vocal yet. I've just been present, [01:06:00] trying to learn, trying to understand, trying to make sure that I have, you know, some orientation toward the way the Jewish community is experiencing this.

[01:06:11] Van Jones: I spent the past year learning. I'm going to be loud as hell next year.

[01:06:15] Jonah Platt: If this past year is you being not vocal, can't wait to see what you have in store for us.

[01:06:20] Van Jones: It's going to be

[01:06:21] Jonah Platt: loud. Van, thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you. This was very enlightening and I really appreciate all your insights.

[01:06:29] Jonah Platt: I hope you have me back.