Being Jewish with Jonah Platt

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the
first episode of our new summer

edition of Being Jewish, that
I'm calling 30 minute Mentions.

Same vibe.

Same tribe.

Shorter episodes because it's summer
and I wanna hang out with my kids.

But also because I want to use the
opportunity of this more concentrated

format to bring you some really unique
and diverse humans doing fascinating

and important work that you don't
always get to hear about this season.

We've got Jewish animators, energy
healers, rappers, black Jews, crypto

Jews, trans Jews, Orthodox Jews,
Lebanese Christians, Rwandans,

Israelis, and many, many more.

And to kick us off, I've got a real
heavyweight with me for today's premier.

Born in Jerusalem, raised in Canada.

She's currently serving as Israel's
special envoy for combating antisemitism,

fighting with bigots, and educating
useful idiots so we don't have to.

She is a former member of the
Knesset, a legal scholar and

our inaugural 30 minute men.

Please welcome to the
show, Mehal Koler Munch.

Thank you for having me.

You are the special envoy
for combating antisemitism.

How's that going?

Because things don't look
great from where I'm sitting,

so I'll tell you, don't I?

You know, I get that question a lot.

You can imagine.

Of course, I was appointed,
I was appointed three weeks

before October 7th, actually.

Lucky you,

you know, somebody wished me condolences
on my, uh, appointment to the role.

Um, and in fact, in many, many ways.

Um, the fact that this role needs to
exist not only in the state of Israel,

but in about 35 countries is devastating.

Uh, and it is going in a way that actually
for me is a call to action every single.

Day reminding me that, hmm, about
2,500 years ago or so, it was actually

Mortify who said to Esther that last
time that in ancient Persia there was an

attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.

Our people.

If you will be silent now, salvation
will come to our people and you and

your father's home may disappear,
and who knows if it's not for

this moment that you've arrived.

So that has been the
everyday call to action.

In fact, for the last 21 months,

we've talked about that on the show
that this is our Queen Esther moment.

It's clear you are stepping up into it.

I'm curious if you could take us
behind the scenes of this role.

Like what, what have you been
charged to do specifically and.

Are there deliverables?

Like do you have concrete
goals and, and metrics?

And, and if so, what's the
strategy that you're using to

try to achieve those goals?

Antisemitism is just the manifestation
of what is a raging eighth front

because we've been speaking, um,
certainly in Israel about seven fronts

of war that we're waged on the state
of Israel on, and since October 7th,

2023, the eighth front of war is the
unconventional war for public opinion.

As I call it, and I believe that
antisemitism is very much a manifestation

and a tool that eighth front.

So that would be my number one
mandate to be able to identify

and combat that, making sure that
we actually hone and harness the

International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance definition of antisemitism.

The second, no less important.

Sort of a part of this role is working
with my counterparts around the world,

but also with university presidents,
legislators, mayors, police chiefs,

communities around the world that
are absolutely committed to combating

all forms of hate, antisemitism
included, but don't necessarily

understand how it is that we identify.

This strain of antisemitism that is,
and that has proven to be anti-Zionism,

right?

And the third is actually, ironically,
or not making accessible this fight or

this front of war to Israelis because.

Maybe it might not make sense to all
of your listeners or viewers, but

Israelis actually, as we are embroiled
in the seven fronts of, I'll call it

conventional war that has been raging
for decades, are not as mindful of

this manifestation of this eighth front
of war, and it's no less important

to make accessible to Israelis as.

So I want to dig into to
a couple of those things.

So let's start with what you, you raised
this point too is working with all

these different leaders politically and
in law enforcement and universities,

how does that process unfold?

Are you reaching out to people?

Are people reaching out to the government?

Like what does that look like?

So my first emergency trip was actually.

You know, devastatingly in the middle
of our closest friend's sons, Shiva.

I left just about 10 days
after October the seventh.

Yeah.

And the first emergency trip to the
United States was actually to reach

out to the legislators, including the
second gentleman, including all of

those that were mandated with actually
the us um, uh, national strategy for

combating antisemitism and rolling that
out and implementing that both federally.

In the various states, and of course the
university presidents where it could have

and should have been anticipated that if
there was not an unequivocal condemnation

of the atrocities, the war crimes, the
crimes against humanity that we witnessed

in the October 7th attack of barbarism
on civilization, and it was clear.

Certainly to those of us that have
been at the front lines of tracking the

mutation of antisemitism and the hijacking
and weaponization of international law

and its institutions and human rights,
the secular religion of our times.

For the demonization Delegitimization
application of double standards

towards the state of Israel.

So what happened on university campuses
over the last few decades was clear

that if it was not addressed properly
immediately by university presidents

with an unequivocal condemnation of the
October 7th massacre, what we would see.

The tsunami of antisemitism,
then it has been very much of a

reactive role from my perspective.

When I entered the role three weeks before
October the seventh, the goal was to

create a national strategy for combating
antisemitism, which in Israel's case as

the nation state of the Jewish people,
a prototypical indigenous people that

returned to our ancestral homeland after
thousands of years of exon persecution.

Needs to have an
international component to it.

What you're alluding to is the fact that
Israelis don't live in a minority as Jews.

They live in a majority, so
they don't walk down the street

wondering what somebody's thinking
about them with their kippah on.

So if you could speak to, I guess, the
level of awareness and sort of what

you've been hearing and seeing from your
fellow countrymen as this has unfolded.

Why would Israelis ever experience what
it is like to be a minority Actually.

In the relationship between Israel
and global jury, that is a huge

component of what global jury is
able to teach Israelis, right?

The understanding that wherever we live in
the world, whether it's in Argentina, in

Canada, in the United States, or anywhere
else in the world, when we are a minority,

we understand things differently as a
people, and the importance of making that

access accessible to Israelis actually.

Began for me, um, as somebody who grew
up in Canada, you mentioned, began for me

as actually as a legislator, as a member
of Israel's Knesset, the understanding

that that is an important understanding
for Israelis when we make decisions.

For me, antisemitism, in the words
of the late Rabbi Sacks, is the most

reliable sign of a major threat.

To humanity, freedom and
the dignity of difference.

We can drill down on why that is so, but
for the state of Israel, more than any

other country, the rise or tsunami or what
I'll de describe as happening now, whether

at a music festival in England or on the
streets of New York City with a mayoral

candidate that differentiates between 97.

Zionism and antisemitism, the
understanding that it's the

normalization of antisemitism that
we need to be cognizant of as a major

threat or as a reliable sign of a
major threat to freedom and humanity

and the dignity of difference.

So you mentioned, you know, current
events kind of stuff like the,

the concert in Glassen Berry.

So take me through like in your
role something like that happens.

You've also said, you know, your role
has had to be somewhat reactionary.

What do you do when that happens?

Are you reaching out to people in the uk?

Are you trying, are you just
trying to get on the news?

Like what, what's the strategy?

The first order of business is that
the embassy on the ground will reach

out to me and, uh, sort of not only
be able to take the interviews that

are relevant with media that need to
be made aware of the, um, imperative

to not just call out what it is.

That was absolutely,
uh, death call, death.

Death to the IDF is essentially not
just the call for the death of all

Israelis because there's mandatory
service in the IDF, the Israel Defense

Forces, but of course mainstream's
antisemitism around the world.

And that is in fact what
has happened, um, since

Mical.

I wanna drill down on.

The death, death to the IDF thing,
because obviously there are some people

who know full well what they're doing.

But I think a lot of people, the problem
is that they think of the IDF essentially,

as you and I would think of Nazis, they've
been taught that this is a supremacist,

murderous, genocidal, you know, villain.

And so in, in their minds
they're chanting, you know,

death to the Nazis, which.

I can understand if
that's your understanding.

I also would say, you know, no
one ever has chanted death to

anybody at a music festival before.

So you've got the double standard
already is built in there.

That's, no one would ever do that to
anybody in any other circumstance ever.

But how, how do we sort of reconcile
that misunderstanding and instead of

making everybody there feel like we
think you're all anti-Semitic, hateful.

Villains that we're missing each other.

Like there's a missing piece of this
connection happening where if these

people understood the issue, they might
go, oh, I see why I shouldn't be chanting

that, or, I see what I'm not getting
here, or, or whatever the case may be.

So you're a hundred percent right.

Here's the devastating thing,
Johnna, if in fact, I'm.

That it's human rights, the secular
religion of our times that has

been hijacked and appropriated.

And you understand that antisemitism has
actually, um, mutated creating new viral

strains over the thousands of years of
its existence by latching onto the guiding

social construct of each time, right?

Religion.

Science and the secular religion of
our times, human rights, if I'm right,

that in fact it is human rights that
have been hijacked and appropriated

in the institutions of the UN and
its agencies and its principles

so that, I'll give an example.

After a series of conventional wars
from 1948, the moment of our return to

ancestral homeland, if you will, to 1973.

Series of conventional wars openly
declared with intent to annihilate

the state of Israel in 1975.

The UN itself, this, um, sort of
institution created to uphold,

promote, and protect an international
rules-based order post World War ii.

And you set a key word equally
and consistently to all because

double standards in the application
of every, any principle of any

rule, basically renders it.

Useless.

The paper that it's written on
is not worth anything, right?

The understanding that from
1975 on what we have seen is the

hijacking and weaponization of that
international rules based order of

its institutions of its principles.

So I begin with 1975,
the Zionism is racism.

UN resolution passed in the un.

Soviet propaganda was alive and well,
well before that passed in the un

Alive and well in the name of 2025.

Progress on every university campus
online on the streets absolutely

makes your understanding of what
it is that those people chanting.

Death.

Death to the IDF, assuming
that the state of Israel.

It's not only based on this, Zionism is
racism, but then in a post 2001 Durban

Conference against racism, Durban,
South Africa, this conference, UN

Conference against racism, that turns
into an anti-Semitic fest that then pos.

The state of Israel is an apartheid state,
and in the most Orwellian inversion of

fact and law and morality, the accusation
of the state of Israel of genocide.

In the aftermath of the October seven
massacre, you have to be very clear.

Genocide termed by Rafael Lemkin,
whose entire family was annihilated in

Auschwitz to describe the atrocities.

Of the Holocaust.

Too terrible to imagine, but not
too terrible to have happened.

Genocide alongside crimes Against
humanity coined and then becoming

the infrastructure for the
convention, for the prevention and

punishment of the crime of genocide.

Used to accuse the state of
Israel, ceding it on the dock of

the accused, if you will, in the
international court of justice.

Dreyfus seated on the dock of the
accused, accusing it of genocide, the

worst crime you could possibly commit.

Even as the state of Israel, the Jew
among nations intended to be an equal

member in the family of nations,
but barred from being precisely

that after decades of demonization,
delegitimization application of double

standards by those very institutions.

Then you can understand why the crowds
would not only listen to but echo

the chant of death, death to the IDF.

We have to be clear.

The Israel Defense Force, not the Israel
attack force, the Israel Defense Force,

that is actually necessary because
there we live in, if you just zoom out

for a moment, a geography of neighbors
that are intent to annihilate the state

of Israel, including the genocidal.

Criminal Islamic regime in Iran and
all of its terror proxies over the

last 21 months, as we have clearly
seen impoverishing, the people of Iran

for 46 years to build a nuclear and
ballistic capabilities that we have

just experienced in the last 12 days.

And of course since October 7th in its
ring of fire that it builds around Israel.

But what we have to make very
clear, and for me that's the most

important, is that this is not
just about the Jewish nation state.

If I am right that the International
Rules-Based Order and the human rights

infrastructure, including all of the
organization's, human rights, Watts

and Amnesty, and many others that were
mandated and entrusted to uphold, promote,

and protect that international rules-based
order equally and consistently.

If that infrastructure
collapses, it'll fail to protect

everybody.

What can realistically be
done when you've got these.

Trusted international pillars of
the, of the, you know, the, the

rule of order, uh, that have been,
you know, infected from within.

And we as Jews are this very small voice.

It sounds like we're going, Hey,
everybody's an antisemite, which is

very easy to be like, that's ridiculous.

Is the answer to try to heal the
virus is the answer to get new

institutions and, and abandon ship
on the, on the broken ones, what?

What do you think can actually be done?

I think that there's a combination
of efforts that need to be made,

and the first thing that I wanna say
to anybody who is watching us is.

You are all boots on the
ground of this eighth front.

What I have just described is an
eighth front of war in which every

single individual has a role to
play, whether it's at work, whether

it's at home, whether it's in
educational institutions, in academia,

in legislature, wherever it is.

The understanding that, and I have
to be very sort of open about this.

2025 is not 1945.

It's possibly the first time in
thousands of years of Jewish history

that we can actually make good on
Golden Mairs, understanding that the

world loves us when we're to be pitied.

The world hates a Jew who hits back.

The state of Israel is the Jew
that can hit back after thousands

of years of Jewish history.

But that means we have an additional role.

To play now that we can hit
back, and there's only about 16

million of us in the entire world.

It's not that many, but we have
friends and we have allies that

understand that this is not just
about us, have to be very clear as

all other forms of hatred and bigotry.

Antisemitism is not a problem of Jews.

It's a problem of antisemites and
of the places and spaces that allow

them to fester, to spread, to infect
with this lethal ever mutating hate.

And everywhere that I've been in these
21 months and I'm being around the

world, Joan, I have to tell you there is.

A moderate majority public out
there that understands that

something has gone very wrong.

If the Human Rights Council in
the UN is populated with the most

egregious violators of human rights.

By the way, the Islamic regime in Iran
included then that is not about us.

But what I often say is we are at this
moment of history where, you know, I

spoke about the three Ds demonization.

Delegitimization, the
application of double standards.

That is the mechanism that enables
the mutation of antisemitism.

That's a part of the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition.

But I often speak of the three Rs.

Because in 2025, that is not 1945.

I don't want hate defining me.

I don't want in the words of the, you
know, late rabbi Soic, only the destiny

of fate, defining who we are as a people.

It's the destiny.

It's the covenant of
destiny that can define us.

And for that, I speak about the
three Rs and they are to remember,

and to reclaim and to renew.

And that's not just about Jews.

To remember the Jewish story is a
critical piece that I think that

perhaps we have forgotten or we
took for granted that we remember.

Yeah.

Remembering the Jewish story is going to
be critical to the day after, if you will,

and how it is that we rise from what it
is that we've experienced in these 21.

And God willing with the return of the 50
human beings that continue to be held in

the terror tunnels and dungeons of Hamas.

But remembering the Jewish story
means that we say, we know that

antisemitism didn't begin in
1933 and didn't die in Auschwitz.

But neither does the Jewish story.

We remember the Jewish story.

We started our conversation with Esther.

That's about 2,500 years ago or so.

Yeah.

Remembering our story is something that
I think that we have an opportunity

to do and to retell our story once we
remember it, to reclaim what it is that's

been appropriated, not just from us.

I mentioned the word indigeneity.

I mentioned the word Zionist.

Look, I speak about this often.

You know, when I say anti-Zionism
is the new, modern, mainstream

strain of anti-Semitism.

Zionism didn't sort of, you
know, fall from the sky.

Zionism is anchored in thousands
of years of yearning and prayer

and longing to return to.

Zion, the majority of Jews around
the world, self-identifying Zionists

and many non-Jews around the world
who believe in Israel's right

to exist, self-identify Zionist.

That means that the ability to reclaim
what's being appropriated and also

what's being appropriated in terms of
that international rules based order

in Cuban rights, because genocide.

Has meaning.

I said that definition was appropriated,
including by Amnesty International.

Literally redefining it on, I
don't know, page 101, I believe,

of about a 300 page report.

Literally redefining and so does
racism, but Zionism is equated to

and so does apartheid, and Israel has
its problems, but I'm old enough to.

Precisely what apartheid was, and
Israel is not an apartheid state.

So Michel, what I wanna do now is I want
to, I want to leave our audience with some

takeaways that they can use and hold onto.

So I'm gonna give you a couple of
these sort of basic common things that

I hear and see and have you help me.

And help our audience know
how to respond to them.

The first one, and, and something
you said earlier made me think of it

is, is the notion that, of course,
antisemitism is rising right now.

It, the IDF is, is, you know, murdering
thousands of innocent people and once that

goes away, the antisemitism is gonna go
away, but it makes sense that it would

be happening because of what's going on.

How do you respond to that?

The IDF is defending the state of Israel.

What is murdering those
thousands of people?

If there are thousands of people
being murdered that are in fact

innocent, and we don't know that
because we have Hamas evidence.

That's the Gaza Health Ministry, that's
Hamas, that's akin to quoting Nazi

Germany and the statistics that they
may have published during World War ii.

But the understanding that the IDF.

Is actually doing everything that
it can to mitigate the damage

to innocent civilians as urban
war specialists will tell us.

And the only, um, entities that we
should be holding to account is actually

the genocidal to organization, Hamas
included, but also the Houthis, also the

Hezbollah, all proxies of the Islamic
regime in Iran that intentionally embedded

amongst civilians for whom human tragedy.

Is the strategy that built
hundreds of kilometers of terror,

tunnels and dungeons below.

Hospitals, schools, homes, mosques with
international humanitarian aid, knowing

precisely that they were identifying
where international laws of war would

actually leave the state of Israel that
respects the laws of war at a complete

loss with being able to defend its own
civilians as they perpetrated, not only

October the seventh, but the 21 months.

Of continued attacks, and very few people
speak about the thousands of rockets,

ballistic missiles, UAVs that have
intentionally targeted Israel's civilians.

Even though what you just said might,
uh, make sense to me, in my brain, in

my heart, I, I just can't ignore the
horrible images that I'm seeing, and

it seems like it's Israel's fault.

And so, of course.

I'm mad at Israel, so I, I can
be mad at Jews wherever I live.

That in and of itself is antisemitism.

Right?

The fact that there is a Jew living in, I
don't know, Massachusetts or Montreal or

Sydney, Australia, that is being targeted
for their identity because let's say that

Israel is doing what it is accused of
doing, what does that have anything to

do with that Jew living across the ocean?

Absolutely nothing.

That is something that we
have to be very clear on.

There is never.

Ever a justification that would be akin to
attacking somebody who moved to the United

States from France because of something
that France is doing that never happens.

And you said before that double
standard is something that we have

to be able to call out, meaning
including to university presidents?

That I would say, I don't know if
you remember, but that hearing in,

uh, Congress, of course, where it
depended on context, if, if calling

for the genocide of Jews violated,
uh, codes of conduct to university.

Would it depend on context if it was any
other minority group for whom we called

for the genocide of the answer is no.

Right?

So it is in this case now.

The tragedy, the human tragedy, that those
that genuinely care for Palestinians.

And by the way, I have to say that
the authenticity of the concern

seems to fade every time that
there is footage of hundreds and

thousands of hours of the same.

Hamas, a genocidal tear
organization again.

For whom human tragedy is the strategy
that use their own people as human

shields, as sacrifices, as trading cards.

The understanding that if you care
for human rights of Palestinians,

you would be protesting to free Gaza.

From Hamas, and if you care for the
people of Lebanon, you would be protesting

to free Lebanon from the Hezbollah.

And if you cared for the people of
Yemen, you would be protesting to

free Yemen from the Houthis and if
you cared for the people of Iran.

And on this, we have to be so
clear because the people of Iran

have risen up again and again with
unbelievable courage to the Islamic.

Regime in Iran that does the very
same things as we speak now, arresting

and executing the people of Iran.

Now, if we take this back just about
80 years, and we say surely there were

innocent Germans that were killed, but
did that mean that the allies could

let the Nazis appease the Nazis and
allow them to continue taking over

the world with a genocidal ideology?

If that is what we are
saying, then we are.

You know, to quote Churchill, we have
the choice between dishonor and war.

We may choose dishonor, but we
will have war because genocidal

terror can't be appeased.

And that is something that
we have to be very clear on,

including on mainstream media.

That then on, you know, the front page
of the New York Times publishes not

11 days after October the seventh.

What Hamas has actually given them as.

Data that the state of Israel
allegedly bombs a hospital.

Only two weeks later say, oops,
that was an errant rocket from

Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Yet another proxy of the
criminal Islamic regime in Iran.

We live in a social media era, the
way that we consume information.

Has to radically change because the way
that it comes to us has radically changed.

Meaning there are really negative
players that are utilizing social media

to do precisely what social media does.

We all understand the algorithm.

It's not a a boogie and it's a business
model, polarizing and fragment.

We know that Iran, we know that China,
we know that Russia, and we know that.

You know, the understanding of using that
algorithm to actually disseminate complete

disinformation and misinformation.

And by the time, if in the past
we used to say that a lie makes

its way around the world before
the truth straps its boots on.

That was well before social media,
digital spaces, and certainly ai.

We are reaching the end of our time
together, so I would love for you to

leave us with some silver lining, some,
some data or observation, something that

gives you hope in this never ending fight.

You know, I say very often hope is
what carried the Jewish people for

thousands of years of our existence.

Hope is our national anthem, Hatikva
and Hope is what carries us every

single day as we fight for our
existence here and around the world.

But you know, the late Rabbi Sacks
differentiated between hope and

optimism, and he said the following,
he said, optimism is the belief

that everything will be okay.

Hope is the belief that
together we can make it.

Okay.

So in that sense, optimism
is a very passive virtue and

hope is a very active one.

And it takes not very much courage
to be an optimist, but a great

deal of courage to have hope.

And I have met Jonah over the last
21 months and way before that.

Not only here in Israel, this
incredible generation of heroes

that are not only willing to take
action but are doing so with courage,

knowing that courage is contagious.

But I have met their counterparts
around the world and that gives me.

A great deal of hope, whether they are in
the trenches at the university campuses or

on the streets or online or right here in
Israel on the other seven fronts of war.

I have a great deal of hope
for our people, and I know that

we have survived precisely.

These kinds of challenges without what
we have today, which is sovereignty,

which is a state of Israel, which is an
IDF, in which 45% of us live and which

the rest of us live in the rest of the
world in relative safety and security.

With the ability to speak up and
to stand up and to fight back and

to hold our heads up high and know
that HAI, that we will prevail.

Michal, thank you so much for the
tireless work you do and for being here

with me today to kick off our series.

It's really, it's been a,
a privilege and a pleasure.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Alright.

She's a mensch.

It's been 30 minutes.

I'm Jonah Platt.

I'll see you Allall next time.