Bonus episode: Don't Feed the Lion - with Yonit Levi and Brianna Golodryga

Speaker 2 You are listening to an art media podcast.

Speaker 3 It's 6:15 p.m. on Saturday, November 15th here in New York City.
It is 1:15 a.m. on Sunday, November 16th, in Israel, where Israelis are beginning a new week.

Speaker 3 Thursday night, Hamas returned deceased hostage Meni Goddard to Israel.

Speaker 3 Goddard was a 73-year-old resident of Kibbutz Bere who was murdered by members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group on October 7th. There now remain three fallen hostages in Gaza.

Speaker 3 As the Gaza ceasefire holds, the UN Security Council is set to vote on a resolution that would endorse President Trump's Gaza peace plan on Monday.

Speaker 3 A number of states from the region, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, have joined the U.S. in calling on the United Nations to support the Trump plan.
U.S.

Speaker 3 Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz wrote in the Washington Post, quote, any refusal to back this resolution is a vote either for the continued reign of Hamas terrorists or for the return to war with Israel.

Speaker 3 This is in an op-ed in the Washington Post, which we'll link to in the show notes.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, according to Axios, Israel is seeking a 20-year security agreement with the U.S., which includes several quote-unquote America-first elements.

Speaker 3 This comes as the current 10-year memorandum of understanding, the third of its kind between Israel and the U.S., is set to expire in 2028.

Speaker 3 The newly proposed agreement is likely to face pushback from those who want Israel to wean off American aid for its own long-term interest,

Speaker 3 as well as the growing stream of former MAGA figures who are pushing for Trump to distance his administration from Israel, which is unlikely to happen.

Speaker 3 And of course, there will also be pressure from some on the left, including senior congressional Democrats, who will also, I expect, to oppose many aspects of this draft. Now, on to today's episode.

Speaker 3 Today I'm joined by Yonit Levy and Biana Goladriga. Yonit is the lead news anchor on Israel's Channel 12.

Speaker 3 And for Israelis that have been following daily news events, especially since October 7th, 2023, they will know that Yonit has been ubiquitous in covering this story in Israel, but also internationally, as she's the co-host of the indispensable podcast called Unholy.

Speaker 3 I am a subscriber and a regular listener. I encourage you to listen to it too.
I've been listening to it for a while. Going back to judicial reform days, we'll link to the podcast in our show notes.

Speaker 3 Biana is a news anchor at CNN.

Speaker 3 She's also a global affairs analyst at CNN, and she has a long career as well in journalism, having worked at CBS News, at ABC News, both networks she was an anchor, and other platforms.

Speaker 3 And Yonit and Biana have co-authored a novel called Don't Feed the Lion, which is geared towards teens and young adults, which just was published.

Speaker 3 It's a story about a group of Jewish teenagers facing a rising tide of anti-Semitism. Sound familiar?

Speaker 3 And having to find their own way to deal with it, from denial to humor, and then of course to fighting back.

Speaker 3 And despite my dark description of it, it's actually quite a wonderful and inspiring and sweet story full of love and resilience and self-discovery and some terrific characters.

Speaker 3 I highly recommend the book, which I hope you will understand why after listening to our conversation.

Speaker 4 And I'm pleased to welcome to the podcast for the first time, Yonit and Biana. I will say it shouldn't be first time, Yonit.
I've been on your podcast twice.

Speaker 2 I was on your podcast. Didn't we do like a swapping episode with Jonathan and me doing Unholy on your?

Speaker 4 So that doesn't count. That was me being on your podcast and we both released it.
You have not been, anyways, whatever. I'm not one to hold grudges.

Speaker 2 Well, you didn't invite me, Dan, but thank you for doing it now. That was a very Jewish thing to say.

Speaker 4 I actually sort of did. I sort of did.
I vaguely remember, I actually remember exactly where I was and I remember your explanation for why it didn't make sense. Whatever.
I don't hold grudges.

Speaker 4 I don't. I move on.

Speaker 2 I do. I do hold grudges, by the way.

Speaker 1 Can I just say this is the most Jewish introduction I've ever seen?

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 1 Like, it is such a Jewish introduction.

Speaker 2 Hello, friends.

Speaker 4 Right, because you just kick right off with guilt trips, right? It's like...

Speaker 2 That's what we do. I'm a Jewish mother.
It's what I know how to do best. I hope you ate your vegetables this morning, Dan.

Speaker 4 It's the old line about how a Jewish mother changes a light bulb. You know that one, right?

Speaker 2 Tell me.

Speaker 4 It's all right. I'll sit in the dark.

Speaker 2 How about this is really,

Speaker 2 I'm walking into dark territories. I hope my mother won't listen to this episode, but do you know the difference between a Rote Weiler and a Jewish mother?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 Why? What is it?

Speaker 2 The dog at some point gives up and lets go. Let go.

Speaker 4 Exactly. Okay, so first of all, in the introduction, I talked about this book that you guys have co-authored, but I didn't really get to the origin story.

Speaker 4 So before we get into the book, how did this partnership between you two begin?

Speaker 1 So Yonit and I have known each other for many years. We were actually looking back and trying to trace our early introduction, and that was in 2016.
Yonit was in the United States.

Speaker 1 I was working at Yahoo News at the time, and we were covering the presidential election. She interviewed me.
This was a few weeks before the election. We just stayed in touch.

Speaker 1 We really hit it off and we've been friends ever since.

Speaker 1 And then after October 7th, I just needed to speak to her and we were texting and messaging with each other, what's happening with each other for days after that.

Speaker 1 And Yonida actually went back and saw that it was October 20th that I said, we should write a book together.

Speaker 4 October 20th, 2023. So right at a couple of weeks after October 7th.

Speaker 1 Yes. Wow.
And this goes back to the concerns we sadly, you know, were having, and that is seeing a rise in anti-Semitism stemming from these attacks.

Speaker 1 And I was grappling with this issue even before October 7th with my son, who you've come to know over the last few months. But he was 10 at the time in 2022.
And we had seen a few incidents.

Speaker 1 Famous celebrities, whether it's rappers or basketball stars, post anti-Semitic remarks online. And my son is a huge sports fan.

Speaker 1 And we were on our way to a basketball game where this said star was playing. And my son turned to me and said, you know, can we...

Speaker 4 Brooklyn Netts. You're going to a Brooklyn Etsy.

Speaker 1 Brooklynette, yes. It was Kyrie Irving.

Speaker 1 And he asked me, I remember where we were over the Brooklyn Bridge, and he asked me, you know, should we be going? Does he even want me there? Why does he hate me? And it was a gut punch.

Speaker 1 I didn't know how to answer that question. And I thought, okay, well, I'm going to reach out to their school tomorrow, my kids' school tomorrow, and ask them what resources they have on anti-Semitism.

Speaker 1 Remember, this is after George Floyd's murder, and we'd seen a huge investment in this country and around the world on resources to combat racism, hate, other forms of social injustice.

Speaker 1 And so I assumed that the school would have something as far as anti-Semitism, you know, and resources they could provide for kids as well. And I was shocked to hear that they don't.

Speaker 1 And they said that, you know, well, at this age, we wait for kids to ask questions in class and maybe we'll address it then.

Speaker 1 And I'm just realistically thinking, what 10-year-old is going to raise their hand and ask about anti-Semitism? And so the seed was planted.

Speaker 1 And then after October 7th, I said to Yonit, I think we should write a book because we're going to see another huge spike I'm afraid.

Speaker 2 It was really born out of this distress.

Speaker 2 We talked every evening I think after October 7th you know we're both TV news anchors so it you have to have this composure and not you know lose it on air so to speak but then for each other I think we were kind of the shoulder to cry on and I remember writing to Bianna like we have to do something.

Speaker 2 My thinking was like we're on TV let's do a documentary let's go to campuses and it was actually Bianca who said no no let's write something for a younger age group that could still that we could still talk to that could reach out to.

Speaker 2 I mean, coincidentally, we have children that age. So that is how it started.

Speaker 4 And Yonit, you were in Israel. You were covering this story nonstop, meaning post-October 7th on the ground.
And there was this other story happening here.

Speaker 4 I remember Lior Roz was visiting New York a couple months after October 7th, raising money for Brothers in Arms. And I was with him and I said to him, How are you? Like, how are you doing?

Speaker 4 I'll never forget this exchange. And he said to me, How am I?

Speaker 4 He said, How are you?

Speaker 4 i said how am i he goes we're watching from israel what's going on over here it was almost unmooring for israelis to see because they just viewed the us as this like rock you know that it was this island of stability and otherwise crazy world that israel could rely on and then they were watching a lot of what bianna is describing and they'd never seen something like this because you were absorbed by your moment on the ground in israel obviously but were you dialed into this other story happening here?

Speaker 2 I feel like, and I felt at the time, that we were going through one heartbreak on October 7th and then another heartbreak on October 8th, which was the anti-Semitism.

Speaker 2 And we were woefully unprepared for both. And I remember Bianna in those very first days, she said to me, it's going to get worse.

Speaker 2 And she said, how is it going to get worse than this, than these like campus protests?

Speaker 2 And she was right. She was right about that.
And I think a lot of what, to me, what was shocking, and remember, we Israelis need to explain a lot to our children.

Speaker 2 And definitely in the last couple of years, it was very intense. And the one thing that kind of floored me was when my son asked me about anti-Semitism.

Speaker 2 He said, why do people who don't even know me hate me? And that was the one time where I was left speechless. I couldn't have that conversation.

Speaker 2 And we were talking with each other and kind of said, look, there's nothing out there. Like we need something.

Speaker 2 Even if it's just for us, for a while, we thought it would never come out and it would be just our kind of weekly therapy session.

Speaker 2 to just meet each other and talk this through and try to, you know, write this book.

Speaker 4 And Bianca, just for background, so you were born in the former Soviet Union, but you've lived most of your life in the U.S. But was this issue of anti-Semitism part of your life growing up?

Speaker 4 Was it something your parents talked about?

Speaker 1 Well, anti-Semitism, as you know, was institutionalized, you know, a form of hate in the Soviet Union.

Speaker 1 And so we came to the United States as political refugees in 1980 because we were Jewish, so we left stateless. And I had always heard stories about my parents and their experience with anti-Semitism.

Speaker 1 I mean, my birth certificate, the moment I was born, I was labeled as a Jew and that's what my parents were labeled as.

Speaker 1 I mean, from everything from a birth certificate to a driver's license, not many people in the Soviet Union had a car, but nonetheless, their driver's license identified them as Jewish.

Speaker 1 And there was a quota system to get into the top universities and schools. People couldn't get top jobs because they were Jewish.

Speaker 1 And so when we moved to the States, these were always stories about my heritage, my background. I am so fortunate.

Speaker 1 I've told you this many times, to be living as a Jew in the United States and to view myself and deem myself an American first. I'm an American Jew.

Speaker 1 But I have to say, growing up in Texas, I didn't experience anti-Semitism like this. Once in a while, someone would make a comment here or there.

Speaker 1 But looking back now, I don't recall a moment growing up where we would go to temple or services or any Jewish event at a Jewish institution where there weren't armed guards, where there wasn't an occasional bomb threat called in.

Speaker 1 And as we've come to discuss, anti-Semitism morphs. It's a form of hate that has been with us for millennia, and it's on the right, it's on the left, and we've seen it only exacerbated now.

Speaker 1 I think, you know, this is a two-year war. It was a very ugly, gruesome war that we covered, you know, extensively wall to wall around the world.

Speaker 1 And now, you know, you have social media and the internet that has only amplified this form of hate.

Speaker 4 I want to just set up the book here.

Speaker 4 So Theo is the main character in the book, and he learns, as you, it's sort of, I've listened to your Kyrie Irving story, he learns that his favorite soccer player has made some off-bike anti-semitic remarks and then there's this inciting incident and that's kind of the kickoff if you will of this story so you basically telling the kyrie irving story like i have two young boys i remember a lot of sports fans young jewish sports fans were talking about that and is that what you're trying to capture here yeah it was the inspiration and by no means am i trying to just single out kyrie irving but we remember where we were when that happened remember covering it in the media and what was so sensational about it and disturbing at the same time was it seemed like everyone was trying to apologize for him but him.

Speaker 1 And then this became sort of a noose around, you know, the Jewish community that was rightly bothered by this, right?

Speaker 1 So all of a sudden, you had other athletes and other celebrities and stars come to his defense. The owner of the Brooklyn Nets, I remember, publicly said, no, no, I have spoken to him.

Speaker 1 He's really sorry about this. This is not how he feels.
And yet that wasn't coming from Kyrie. And it just didn't feel sincere.
He ultimately was, I think, suspended for several games.

Speaker 1 But the takeaway is something that we've really noticed in the fact that these type of comments and anti-Semitism in general, the adults in this book and those that are in the kids' lives from their coaches to the principals, no one is condoning these actions.

Speaker 1 But the fact that they're not treated as urgently as other forms of hate have been, and I think this applies to real life examples, has allowed for society to somehow normalize this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's not okay, but let's get over it. And oh, now, look, we're going to ruin a season for a basketball team because of something somebody said that was a bit off color.

Speaker 1 But when moments like this aren't addressed head-on, the way other forms of hate are, they're allowed to metastasize and grow.

Speaker 4 So just picking up on that, the book starts with a seemingly mindless remark by a celebrity provocateur, the soccer player in the book, and then it quickly becomes a cultural meme.

Speaker 4 Is this how we experience the rise in Jew hate, like an old dam that broke all of a sudden? Like it was just this one quasi-innocent, quasi-harmless thing said, and then it's everywhere.

Speaker 2 Yes. I mean, obviously, it was a little bit here and there.
And I think it was easy for everyone, whether if they're Jews or non-Jews, particularly adults, to say, yo, you know, it's okay.

Speaker 2 Let's not make too much of a mess. Let's put our heads down.
You know, we have jobs that are important. We have other things.
And then suddenly October 7th happened.

Speaker 2 And what you had was this real tsunami.

Speaker 2 Now, we thought the book should happen in 2022 and sort of detach it because we didn't want that conversation to now veer into, you know, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, Israel.

Speaker 2 We just wanted to say this is, as Bianna says, it's an age-old hatred. It predates October 7th.
It definitely predates the state of Israel.

Speaker 2 And I think that what we all felt, that this sort of ground shaking beneath our feet, whether we were in Israel or in the diaspora, we all felt that kind of fear and apprehension that this is something that is much, much bigger than we we had ever imagined.

Speaker 4 Bianca, you talked about the school, you called the school, where are the resources?

Speaker 4 There's this sense that we have, maybe overconfidence that we have had going back 80 years in the U.S., that there are gatekeepers in America.

Speaker 4 There are these institutional gatekeepers, and they would just do their job to keep out. Jew hate from the non-Jewish institutions we're in.

Speaker 4 I remember this amazing story I heard from Joav Gallant, who when Blinken, Secretary Blinken, was visiting Israel at one point, and it was just when the campus craziness over here was kicking off, and Gallant is standing there with Blinken, and he's looking at the press.

Speaker 4 They're looking at the images coming out of the U.S. campuses.
And he says to Blinken,

Speaker 4 what is going on in your country? And Blinken's response was, you know, young people are angry. They're seeing these images from Gaza.

Speaker 4 It was like a soft rationalization.

Speaker 4 And Gallant's reaction is, you need to think about how you're raising your kids in your own country if you think this is a normal response to a horrible geopolitical development, you know, halfway around the world.

Speaker 4 My question to you, is that your core frustration? And is that what you're trying to get across in the book? Like, where are the gatekeepers? Where are the institutions?

Speaker 4 Who is responsible here for reining this stuff in?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think the problem is twofold.

Speaker 1 One is that for a number of reasons, for many years now, the teachers, the principals, the headmasters of school always thought this issue was too delicate and too controversial to touch.

Speaker 1 I think they always tried to relate things back to the Middle East and they didn't want to get involved. So that's one.

Speaker 1 And two, I think they also didn't think anti-Semitism rose to the level of urgency as other forms of hate did.

Speaker 1 And thus, when you have the combination of these two, it just festers and is ignored and is treated as a case-by-case issue. So, oh, you know, it's sort of a game of whack-a-mole.

Speaker 1 A swastika pops up here at a school.

Speaker 1 We'll just take it down, maybe have a group gathering in an assembly, have some, you know, Holocaust survivors come speak to the kids or other authorities from different synagogues in the neighborhood, and then this will all go away.

Speaker 1 And there are a number of instances in this book, some of them we almost quote word for word, that members of my own family have experienced at their schools going back a few years, even again, prior to October 7th, where this just hasn't been treated as aggressively as other forms of hate that we've experienced.

Speaker 1 Racism, sexism. And yet when it comes to anti-Semitism, it's just, you know, that wasn't good, or let's have

Speaker 1 an assembly meeting and discuss why swastikas are bad and some Jewish slurs shouldn't be repeated. But that's about it.

Speaker 2 Just the common sense and shame about anti-Semitism is completely thrown out the window. And you see it now, not only on the left, you see it on the right.

Speaker 2 And you see people completely unabashed about just saying things that five years ago would have thrown someone into the sort of margins of, you know, either far right or far left politics.

Speaker 2 People are much less ashamed today.

Speaker 4 Social media is a big part of that, and it plays a big part in the book. Some of the characters get pulled into the looking glass of online bullying and conspiracy theories and anonymous trolling.

Speaker 4 And obviously, that has ripple effects in the real world. So, how do you understand the relationship between the haze of social media and then real-life anti-Semitism?

Speaker 4 In other words, because I get this question a lot, is social media the catalyst or the rocket fuel for anti-Semitism or is social media a camera? Is it just capturing what's out there?

Speaker 4 And we didn't have social media before, so we weren't watching it, but it was there. Or is it the catalyst?

Speaker 2 It is a mirror, but it's also an accelerant to what we're seeing, because the more people who think this is legitimate and write it online, that creates this situation where it is, as you say, normalized, where it is legitimate.

Speaker 2 And we do have a character, and by the way, she's Theo's 11-year-old sister.

Speaker 2 She'd be pretty angry to hear you say that Theo is the protagonist in the main character of the book, because Annie, who's 11, would probably say she is the main character of the book.

Speaker 2 But yes, she's going down that kind of rabbit hole while breaking some of the school rules. We're not going to get into too many spoilers here, but we were thinking about that.

Speaker 2 What a kid who's 11, who has to deal with so many other things of just being the fact that they are 11 and they have all of that going on in their lives and having that kind of hate.

Speaker 2 falling in their lap. Look, we're adults, right? I mean, all three of us, sort of, right? Dan, I don't know know about you, but like Bianca and me, we're adults.

Speaker 2 And we know how to deal with social media. We know how to say, okay, I know who I am.
I know what I do. I'm not going to be rattled by every, you know, person who's writing something on social media.

Speaker 2 But when you're 11, that is a very, very difficult thing to do. And if you're Jewish and people speak the way they do, I mean, it is a really, really hard world to grow up in.

Speaker 4 Okay. The anti-Semitism in the book, I found was overt, easily recognizable.
Never trust a Jew becomes a local meme, just to give one example.

Speaker 4 But one of the problems we're facing these days is Jew hate masking as anti-Zionism.

Speaker 4 I don't have a problem with Jews. I have a problem with Jews who support Israel.
I don't have a problem with Jews. I have a problem with Jews in Israel.

Speaker 4 So would your cast of Jewish teenagers have responded differently if instead of finding a swastika graffiti on a locker they'd found from the river to the sea written across the school, to you, is it interchangeable?

Speaker 1 Well, it was interesting and notable how quickly this became a purity test, right? So you were sort of a good Jew if you could condemn the government, if you could speak out against the war.

Speaker 1 Again, we do none of that, and we were intentional not to even talk about October 7th or even the history of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Speaker 1 But it is stunning how there seems to be a double standard when it comes to Jews around the world.

Speaker 1 The majority of Jews to this day still believe and support the state of Israel being the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, and they support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

Speaker 1 I mean, you walk into any synagogue in this country and what do you see? No matter whether it's Reform, conservative, Orthodox, you see two flags.

Speaker 1 You see a United States flag and you see an Israeli flag. The two are inextricably linked.
There is a generational divide here on a number of American Jews.

Speaker 1 and Jews around the world and their support for Israel. You know, for my generation, Israel sort of always superseded politics.

Speaker 1 It didn't have anything to do with who was elected into government or not. Israel was the Jewish people's ancestral homeland, and thus that's how it was treated.

Speaker 1 So we didn't see the types of college campus protests that we were now seeing across the United States. We've been covering wars for many, many years.
And before Gaza actually was the war in Ukraine.

Speaker 1 And I have to say, we didn't see attacks against Russian students on college campuses. There wasn't such a purity test among Russians being asked, you you know, do you support the war or not?

Speaker 1 So there was a bit of a double standard. And for most Jews, Israel is a Jewish state.

Speaker 1 And now it has become somewhat fashionable to say, I'm not anti-Semitic, but, you know, Zionism is worth questioning as a movement. That's new.

Speaker 2 It's interesting because we're hearing more and more this sort of discussion that says, oh, no, no, you know, I'm not at all against Jews. I'm very much against Israel.

Speaker 2 And of course, as we know jews are bound up with israel whether they're diaspora jews two of them on this conversation or israeli jews obviously you can't do that kind of neat line and say oh it's two completely uh separate things like saying oh i i have nothing against the english i just have everything against the english who think england doesn't have a right to exist it's a very complicated issue and i think that it is

Speaker 2 a lot of people get it confused i'm not even talking about the people who just act like they're anti-Zionists when actually they're anti-Semites. I'm talking about people who actually get it confused.

Speaker 2 And I think it's important for them to remember these two things are very connected, the Jewish diaspora, the Jews in Israel, and the state of Israel.

Speaker 2 This is not to say that it's not okay to criticize the state of Israel. I'm an Israeli journalist, Dan.
I mean, we criticize the government. It's what we do.

Speaker 2 It's what every journalist should do in their own country. That is okay.

Speaker 2 But going beyond that and vilifying Israel, I think that is what we have been seeing. I think that is definitely not okay.

Speaker 1 Right. And look, Dan, I mean, mean, you have allies and adversaries, right, of the United States.

Speaker 1 And if you even look at our biggest adversaries, whether it's Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, you name it, no serious person is saying Russia doesn't have a right to exist as its own country.

Speaker 1 China doesn't have a right to exist. Iran doesn't have a right to exist.
And yet that is being asked of a U.S. ally.

Speaker 1 Again, separate criticism, which is completely legitimate of the government and its conduct in this war. But that is a big difference worth noting.

Speaker 2 I do think a lot about, you know, we're so in love with these characters. And when you write this kind of fiction book, you kind of live with them all the time.

Speaker 2 And I kept having these sort of flashes of thought, like they don't, the Kaplan family, they don't know what's coming.

Speaker 2 Like all of this, if they think it's difficult, they don't know what's right around the corner for them.

Speaker 4 Okay, the title of the book, which I think speaks to your ultimately hopeful message, is a call for resilience and for sticking with the better angels of our nature despite being goaded by our haters.

Speaker 4 Can you talk about that and talk about the title?

Speaker 2 Our biggest argument to date, Bianca. Really? What was the title?

Speaker 4 All right. Yes.
Let's get real. What was the runner-up?

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 The runner-up was I Think I Love You, Talia Kaplan.

Speaker 1 That was the original title of the book because we had envisioned the backstory of the amazing and lovable grandparents in this book, Ezra and Talia.

Speaker 1 And Ezra, his backstory is that he was an Israeli musician, sort of like a hippie-dippy guy, and started a band and became quasi-famous from this one song he wrote.

Speaker 1 I think I Love You, Talia Kaplan, is his love story and love song to his wife. So we were saying that could be a good title until we realized probably not for a 13-year-old boy.

Speaker 2 And that's when Bianna calls me up and says, I think we need to talk about the title. And if there's one thing I was attached to more than anything, apart from Ezra and Talia, was the title.

Speaker 2 But yes, we did change it. And that was Bianna's idea.
Don't feed the lion.

Speaker 4 It's a very intriguing title. I'm saying that.
I'm not picking sides here, but I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 I can see your brain working. Who am I going to say? Who I prefer? Which title do I prefer?

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 2 What am I going to do here? It's Biana or your needs. There is no wrong answer.
There is a wrong answer.

Speaker 4 No, I'm going to. I adore you both.
So I'm just going to say they were both great titles. You had good options.
Can you talk a little bit about your process of

Speaker 4 trying to get a book out there out into the ether about anti-Semitism in a world in which the whole topic of anti-Semitism has suddenly become very loaded.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, it's sort of the supply-demand model.

Speaker 1 There was clearly a demand, a need for this book from a number of family members that we've talked to and friends across the country as we were doing some research to find resources for kids this age group about anti-Semitism.

Speaker 1 We couldn't find something. So we said, let's write the book we couldn't find.

Speaker 1 And because we specifically said to avoid any areas that can be complicated or polarizing, so we had the plot, the story together, the first few chapters, presentable enough to pitch it to publishers by the end of 2023.

Speaker 1 We sent it out to publishers and we thought we would at least hear from one or two.

Speaker 1 And we either were told that this is a very difficult age group in genre to write for, which it is, and that's its own problem because, as you know, this is a very smart, curious, and impressionable age group.

Speaker 1 But then we would hear either nothing or six or seven months later, you know, maybe now's not the time to write about anti-Semitism. Give it a little bit, and you know, come back in a year or two.

Speaker 1 And we were thinking that this is exactly the time to be talking about it. And it's something that we were so committed to, we just decided, let's self-publish if we had to.

Speaker 1 And fortunately, we found a publisher last year or early this year, and it was published this week.

Speaker 4 We won't name the publication, Bianca, but the story you told me about one publication telling you when you said this is the book about anti-Semitism and Jewish life.

Speaker 4 And it would have been a perfectly appropriate publication to feature this book. And their response was that they were covered when it comes to covering Jewish issues.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 We were hoping to at least get a little bit of some press ahead of time and announcing that this book was coming. And we were told, you know, no, no, no, there's no need.

Speaker 1 And so we decided to go back and look to see, okay, well, what other publications or books or articles have they already covered on this as it relates to anti-Semitism?

Speaker 1 And come to find out what we found. I think it was only one or two that was mostly like about holiday envy, Christmas envy, and how to talk to your kids about Christmas.

Speaker 1 And it speaks to the, you know, what we noticed was that there were plenty of books for young readers about Jewish holidays and Hanukkah.

Speaker 1 And then as kids, you know, were in high school and older, there are books about the Holocaust and some of the difficult subject matters along those lines in Jewish history.

Speaker 1 But there's nothing in between on this very important issue that, as we know, keeps popping up. And you can cement it for a little bit, but inevitably it will always rear its ugly head.

Speaker 4 Yoni, let me wrap this up. with a more general question.

Speaker 4 We talk on our podcast a lot about Jewish peoplehood and the sense that I feel like Jews in the diaspora for the longest time have felt a sense of Jewish peoplehood, but Israelis haven't.

Speaker 4 I mean, it's just not something they're taught or historically have not. They're Israelis and like it's not a global peoplehood connection.

Speaker 4 Do you think that endures that sense from an Israeli perspective? The sense that, wow, we really are. part of something bigger and broader outside our borders.

Speaker 4 And thank God this diaspora exists because we really needed them these past two years.

Speaker 2 Well, I wouldn't want to argue with you on your podcast, Dan, but I will say that to me, I mean, the connection between Israel and diaspora, and I think to many others, was so important.

Speaker 2 And I think that Israelis cared more than perhaps diaspora Jews thought.

Speaker 2 And I think definitely now that bond between us, which could be a complicated one, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, we live in different places, we see things differently, but I think that bond is grown in a way that I don't think that we'll go back on that. I really don't.

Speaker 4 And just generally, do you feel, I mean, I don't think we've spoken since the end of the war.

Speaker 2 You never call, you never write, you never, you know, come for coffee.

Speaker 4 We start the podcast with a guild trip and then we end with the guild trip. I mean, come on.
Okay.

Speaker 4 Had I called or written, I would have asked you. Just the mood in Israel.

Speaker 4 Is there a general, like, I know it's very hard to do in two and a half minutes, but can you just generally describe just the general mood right now? Is it one of like, we can breathe again?

Speaker 4 Or is it we can breathe again, but?

Speaker 4 And the but being we actually need to be looking around corners because if October 7th taught us anything, it's just when you think you can breathe again, you know, you should be worrying about what's coming next.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think it's the latter.

Speaker 2 Look, we, I kind of feel like we have physically been running, although Bianca is the actual marathon runner, but we as a nation have been running a marathon for two years relentlessly.

Speaker 2 I mean, there was a week in which I remember I was sitting in the safe room with my kids because there were rockets from Hezbollah in the north, Hamas in the south, Yemen and Iran, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, just that was one week in this crazy and these really, really intense two years. And I think we've all been kind of running this marathon.
Now we stopped running.

Speaker 2 So you can breathe a little bit better, as you say, your heart rate is back, but your whole body still hurts. And we are a country.
deeply, deeply traumatized by what happened to us on October 7th.

Speaker 2 I don't think we're sadly anywhere near getting over that. And yes, we are continually looking over our shoulder.

Speaker 2 Of course, in all kinds of aspects, we are better off than we were on October 6th when you're looking at Iran, you look at Hezbollah, obviously, but I think something fundamentally changed in the Israeli psyche and things like we could always trust the IDF and suddenly the IDF didn't show up on October 7th.

Speaker 2 That whole idea of we're bringing everyone back took a very, very long time.

Speaker 2 So I think we're still figuring out, you know, where we're heading and who we are and that sort of social rift inside Israel, also an incredibly dramatic thing.

Speaker 2 So it isn't all, you know, resting on these laurels. We really are a much more, you know, I think a sadder nation and a more apprehensive one and also a more resilient one.

Speaker 2 It always goes, it's a mixed bag, as you Americans will say.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I mean, that's something I try to explain to international audiences is that just leave aside all the hostages and the families that were connected to the hostages.

Speaker 4 Leave aside all those that are massacred on October 7th.

Speaker 4 Just look at the number of Israelis that have served since October 7th, whether in the regular standing army or in Milawim, in reserves, something like 320,000, which is a higher percentage of Israel's population than the percentage of Americans that served during the entirety of World War II.

Speaker 4 It wasn't like this was pockets. of Israeli society.
What you just described, that's a sentiment I think you're describing, a sadness that you're describing, a shattering that touches everybody.

Speaker 4 So I appreciate you just spending a moment on that.

Speaker 2 Can I say something after loading you up with so much Jewish guilt? Just to say a very big thank you, Dan, because you were one of the first readers of our book and you've been very supportive.

Speaker 2 And the fact that you liked it meant a lot to us. So we just wanted to, you know, say thank you.
After all that guilt, I just wanted to say thank you.

Speaker 1 And you know, my son, my son is a huge Dan fan. You know this as well, Dan Senior.
So right up there with some others that we've talked about offline, you know, so thank you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, which we won't mention online.

Speaker 2 Thanks for making me look cool.

Speaker 4 You have To protect his credibility and mine.

Speaker 4 And I will say, not only was I a champion for the book, but

Speaker 4 I'm a purchaser of the book, as Bianna knows, because I was trying to purchase seven copies the other night and I was wondering why there may have been an issue with it.

Speaker 4 They're already out of stock and what was going on. So my message to listeners of this podcast is to not just enjoy this conversation, but buy the book.
It's actually a great book.

Speaker 4 Any young person in your life or in someone else's family that you have a connection to or whether or or not you think it can be a resource at a school that you're involved with.

Speaker 4 This book, I can't quite think of anything out there like it right now.

Speaker 4 It's targeted at these young people in these formative years, whether they're Jewish kids trying to understand what the hell is going on or non-Jewish kids who want to understand what we're so freaked out about.

Speaker 4 I couldn't recommend this book more highly. So we have a link to it in the show notes.
Yonit, Biana, thanks for doing this. I don't want to let end with more guilt, but don't be strangers.

Speaker 4 You know, come back on. You know, you dip your toe, the water's warm, you know?

Speaker 2 We can't read minds. You have to call us and ask us on.
We just can't imagine.

Speaker 4 We're past that.

Speaker 2 We're past that.

Speaker 1 I'll just book myself.

Speaker 4 Exactly. Exactly.
All right, guys. Thank you.
Thanks, Dan.

Speaker 2 Thanks so much, Dan.

Speaker 3 That's our show for today. If you value the Call Me Back podcast and you want to support our mission, please subscribe to our weekly members-only show, Inside Call Me Back.

Speaker 3 Inside Call Me Back is where Nadavayal, Amit Segel, and I respond to challenging questions from listeners and have the conversations that typically occur after the cameras stop rolling.

Speaker 3 To subscribe, please follow the link in the show notes or you can go to arcmedia.org. That's A-R-Kmedia.org.
Call Me Back is produced and edited by Elon Benatar.

Speaker 3 Arc Media's executive producer is Adam Adam James Levin Aretti. Sound and video editing by Martin Huergo and Marianne Khalis Burgos.
Our director of operations, Maya Rockoff.

Speaker 3 Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo.
Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.