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deduction for 2023. Get

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started at jcfny.org. This

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is UnOrthodox, the universe's

0:34

leading Jewish podcast. I'm

0:36

Joshua Molina and I'm all

0:39

alone. Can you believe they

0:41

let me have the keys to the place? I've

0:43

got the podcast all to myself, which means I

0:45

could say anything. But I'm

0:47

a principled man, so I won't. That's

0:49

what my Twitter account is for. Instead,

0:51

I'm here to tell you that we have quite

0:54

an episode for you this week. Now

0:56

that all the holidays have been celebrated and

0:58

it's almost the new year and you're probably

1:00

sipping hot chocolate and lounging away the final

1:03

days of 2023, we thought we'd give

1:06

you a few stories that are just a bit

1:08

more contemplative, a little more

1:10

thoughtful than usual. So,

1:13

we begin in the coziest of places,

1:15

the archive, our series highlighting

1:18

the collections of the National Library of

1:20

Israel. This time we're

1:22

telling the incredible story of how

1:24

Franz Kafka's Hebrew notebooks ended up

1:26

not only in Jerusalem, but also

1:28

in a, dare we

1:30

say, Kafka-esque battle of ownership.

1:33

Then, because the war still sadly rages

1:36

on in Israel, we have a brief

1:38

interview with Gadi Taub, one of the

1:40

hosts of an excellent new video podcast

1:43

called Israel Update, which

1:45

you can now find

1:47

on tablet at tabletmag.com/Israel

1:49

Update. If you're looking

1:51

for an unparalleled inside perspective into the

1:53

war and updates from the ground, Gadi

1:56

has you covered. And finally,

1:58

we're bringing you the latest installment. of

2:00

Across the USA, in which we travel

2:02

to the great white north to get

2:05

a new perspective on North American Jewish

2:07

life from the very fine people of

2:09

Montreal. It's a story of

2:11

Beigle, Yiddish, and of course, Leonard

2:14

Cohen. So sit back, relax,

2:16

and start your New Year's countdown with

2:18

us. You'll hear from the three of us again

2:20

in 2024, poo-poo. Shalom,

2:24

friends. Today,

2:29

we're bringing you another installment of

2:31

The Archive, our series exploring the

2:33

collection of the National Library of

2:35

Israel. This time around, we're learning

2:38

all about Franz Kafka, his feelings

2:40

on Zionism, his attempts to learn

2:42

Hebrew, and the labyrinthine story of

2:44

who owns his manuscripts and the

2:46

tangled web in which his manuscripts

2:48

were trapped. A

2:57

small, unassuming notebook. It's

3:00

clearly a notebook of

3:02

someone trying to learn

3:05

Hebrew. And here are some of

3:07

the words that we see. Hich

3:10

domem, he was perplexed.

3:13

We see, hich dete, he

3:15

acted foolishly. Khoshuch,

3:18

darkness. If you see macaque,

3:20

it's a cockroach, okay? Whose

3:26

notebook is this? That's one

3:29

of the seven remaining Hebrew notebooks

3:31

by Franz Kafka. I'm

3:41

Lea Lieboyz, and welcome back

3:43

to the final installment of

3:45

The Archive, an exploration of

3:47

the National Library of Israel. And

3:50

again, I'll be guiding you across

3:52

history and the globe through this

3:54

library's amazing collection. The

3:57

man you just heard is Dr. Stefan

3:59

Litt. He's the curator of

4:01

the Library's Humanities Collection, and he

4:03

was showing me the Library's Kafka

4:06

Collection, which is filled with notebooks

4:08

and manuscripts and even drawings that

4:10

belonged to the literary legend. Franz

4:13

Kafka, of course, is the 20th

4:16

century writer of surreal, dark, even

4:18

dreamlike fiction who is wildly famous

4:20

today but was never really known

4:22

in his time, because

4:24

he barely published what he wrote. His

4:27

extreme anxiety and debilitating self-doubt

4:30

led him to lock his

4:32

manuscripts away from sight or

4:34

worse, to burn them himself.

4:39

Now, the notebooks that Dr. Lit was

4:42

showing me were filled with Kafka's Hebrew

4:45

practice, which I want you

4:47

to keep in mind as this segment continues,

4:50

because unlike his anxiety and

4:52

self-doubt, his Hebrew studies leave

4:54

physical proof of his relationship

4:57

to his Jewish identity. And

5:00

years after his death, this identity

5:02

would confront and center in, unironically,

5:06

an international legal trial

5:08

centered around who Kafka's

5:10

Hebrew notebooks and other

5:12

possessions actually belong to. The

5:25

year Kafka began writing in these Hebrew

5:27

notebooks was 1917. At

5:30

that time, Kafka was in his

5:32

early 30s, living in his hometown

5:34

of Prague, having finished law school

5:36

and working as a lawyer in

5:38

a well-regarded insurance firm. Now,

5:42

this is all typical for precocious,

5:44

German-speaking Czech Jews like Kafka. But

5:47

after work, when others would go

5:49

out and prost beers with friends

5:51

and play cards and search for

5:53

the right fro, Kafka would stay up

5:55

late, without wife, without

5:57

kids, introverted, frail, and His

6:00

beady eyes riled with insomnia, writing

6:03

furiously through the night in the

6:05

privacy of his own home. Something

6:08

must have been working because by this point

6:11

he's already stored away the

6:13

most important masterpieces of his writing.

6:15

For instance, the novel America, the

6:17

famous novel The Trial, unfinished.

6:20

All the novels are unfinished.

6:22

But he was going on

6:24

producing, producing tiny pieces, short

6:26

stories, longer stories. And

6:28

he was also a prolific writer

6:31

of letters, including to his own

6:33

stereotypically Jewish family. Here's

6:36

Lit talking about one of

6:38

the library's prized Kafka artifacts.

6:40

A cute little letter that Kafka

6:43

wrote to his dad. We have

6:45

the famous letter to the father,

6:47

which is an important and heavy

6:50

piece of the son-father relationship. His

6:53

father was a shopkeeper, not a man

6:55

of literature, not showing interest in the

6:57

literature of his son. And

7:00

being a kind of family dictator

7:03

whose first interest was to keep

7:05

his shop a prosperous

7:07

company, guaranteeing the survival of

7:09

the family. And there was,

7:12

according to Kafka, what he described in

7:14

this letter, there was just

7:16

fulfilling commands and to do what needs

7:18

to be done and not

7:21

a single piece beyond that. Which sounds almost

7:23

like a theological argument, right? Is he also

7:25

in a way kicking up against

7:27

the sort of tradition of like, why are

7:29

we keeping any of this? Yes, exactly. And

7:31

he's blaming his father in this letter. You

7:33

definitely went to the synagogue. But

7:36

you were just there because you had to be

7:38

there. Otherwise, it wouldn't be

7:40

smart for your standing in the community, in the

7:42

city, with your business and so on. This is

7:46

it doesn't come from the heart. And you took me several

7:48

times to the synagogue and when I was

7:51

asking questions, you couldn't really answer me because

7:53

we were not there. And you have many,

7:55

many other accusations in this very, very long

7:58

letter. So

8:00

this letter was never received by his

8:02

father. I think this would have blown

8:04

up the family forever. Let's

8:07

not exaggerate. Reading this

8:09

long and kind of disturbing letter, you

8:11

get a sense of how sensitive Kafka

8:14

really was, of how much

8:16

he bottled up his emotions inside,

8:18

of how his father rang loud

8:21

in his psyche. Here, let

8:23

me read you what Kafka wrote to his

8:25

father in his own words. I

8:28

admit that we fight with each

8:30

other, but there are two kinds

8:32

of combat. The chivalrous combat in

8:34

which independent opponents pit their strengths

8:36

against each other. And there

8:38

is the combat of vermin, which not

8:41

only stings, but on top of it,

8:43

suck your blood in order to sustain

8:45

their own life. That's what

8:47

you are. You are unfit for

8:50

life. That's

8:52

light stuff. Still,

8:54

the letter to the father is

8:56

an important piece of the puzzle

8:58

of Kafka's Jewish identity. In

9:01

short, he was

9:03

conflicted. Sure, he was

9:05

born Jewish and lived amongst a

9:07

Jewish milieu, but he didn't

9:09

like going to shul just to go through the

9:12

motions. And around the same

9:14

time that Kafka wrote this letter, there

9:16

were also some rumblings.

9:22

Antisemitism was on the rise in Europe. There

9:24

was talk of this whole new

9:26

Zionism thing of becoming the new

9:29

Jew, strong, upright, different than a

9:31

wimpy lawyer slash writer who was

9:33

scared of his own shadow. Enter

9:36

Kafka's best friend from law school,

9:39

Max Brod. Brod

9:41

was a pillar in Kafka's life. He

9:43

was a well-known writer and one of

9:46

the only people Kafka shared his own

9:48

manuscripts with. Brod was

9:50

also Jewish, but confident, extroverted,

9:52

much more of a new

9:54

Jew than France, which

9:57

matched Brod's interest in, well,

9:59

of course. Zionism. So, we know

10:01

that Kafka was looking from a

10:04

side to the, in his eyes,

10:06

maybe weird activities of probably his

10:08

best friend, Max Bort, who

10:11

was an ardent Zionist. Max

10:13

Bort was convinced the future of Judaism is

10:16

in Zionism and one day we have to

10:18

live in the land of Israel and

10:21

for that purpose we have to be

10:23

prepared. But Kafka wasn't

10:25

convinced. Kafka is, until his

10:27

last days, he was not really a

10:29

big follower of the Zionist movement. I

10:32

mean, he, from time to time, visited

10:34

events. We know that he was attending

10:36

the Zionist World Congress in Vienna in

10:38

1913. He

10:40

was a bit disappointed. So he couldn't really

10:42

be as ardent as Max Bort was in

10:45

this regard. A

10:47

bit disappointed is putting it nicely.

10:50

In a private letter, Kafka wrote that, I

10:53

admire Zionism and am nauseated

10:55

by it. Now, to

10:57

be fair, he felt nauseated in his

10:59

own skin, not to mention within an

11:02

ideological crowd, but Kafka still pursued

11:04

the Zionist dream in at least one

11:06

way. So in contrary

11:08

to Max Bort, who maybe studied

11:11

very seriously Hebrew only when he

11:13

came here in 1939, Franz

11:15

Kafka started much earlier and was

11:18

not just fooling around with Hebrew.

11:20

He took it very seriously. I

11:22

mean, that's a statement. Studying

11:24

Hebrew in those days is not just something

11:26

that you would do like showing interest in

11:28

old Japanese graphic arts or so. I don't

11:30

know. Kafka actually was able

11:33

to reach an advanced level because

11:35

we have another notebook that we

11:37

found three years ago, which clearly

11:39

shows that he was able to

11:42

write small pieces about everyday

11:45

occurrences like a teacher strike in Jerusalem

11:47

and what the demands of the teachers

11:49

and why the government is unable to

11:51

give them more money and so on.

11:55

In Hebrew. Yes, absolutely. And

11:57

he even put a note at the end. A personal note.

12:00

note to his last private teacher, I

12:02

made so many mistakes by purpose in

12:04

order to keep you busy until our

12:06

next lesson. Don't be angry

12:08

with me, I'm angry enough for the both

12:10

of us. Signing

12:13

with the famous K letter, okay?

12:17

So like we saw at the top of

12:19

this episode, Kafka learned a lot

12:21

of Hebrew words that meant something to

12:23

him personally. Like makak,

12:26

kakaroch, and koshich, darkness.

12:30

And he also learned shahefet, which

12:32

in Hebrew means tuberculosis. Why

12:35

tuberculosis? Because in 1917,

12:37

when these Hebrew notebooks are dated,

12:40

Kafka was diagnosed with it. And

12:43

at that time, tuberculosis was one of the

12:45

leading causes of death in Europe. And

12:48

it also had no cure. Because

12:50

it's highly contagious, the insurance firm he

12:53

worked at didn't want him anywhere nearby.

12:56

So they released him on pension. This

12:58

meant that when he was feeling healthy

13:00

enough, Kafka had much more free time

13:02

to pursue his true passions. Apparently,

13:05

not just writing, but

13:07

language learning. Now

13:09

why exactly was Kafka studying Hebrew?

13:11

Because like Dr. Lit said, it

13:13

was a statement to do so.

13:16

Sure, it may have had something to

13:18

do with his complex relationship to Judaism.

13:21

Dr. Lit did show me biblical words

13:23

that Kafka had jotted down in order

13:25

of appearance in the Bible, meaning he

13:28

must have been reading along. But

13:31

Kafka was also studying Hebrew

13:33

because both tuberculosis and antisemitism

13:35

were spreading across his reality.

13:38

So despite his nausea about Zionism

13:40

itself, he actually fantasized about making

13:42

aliyah, about moving to Israel, getting

13:45

healthy and starting a new life

13:47

for himself. And we know that

13:49

in maybe it was 1922, he

13:53

was actively thinking about moving to

13:55

Palestine, giving up his old profession,

13:57

not being a lawyer anymore. He

13:59

wasn't. active anyway in that because he was

14:01

too sick already, also too sick in order to come

14:03

here. But he was dreaming

14:06

about opening a vegetarian restaurant with his

14:08

girlfriend and he would be the waiter

14:10

there. And I mean, is it

14:12

just a fantasy? Is it the... Tel

14:14

Aviv lost a great establishment. Yes,

14:16

exactly. Kafka's falafel. Kafka's

14:19

falafel and salad. While

14:22

it would have made for a

14:25

killer short story, Kafka's falafel and

14:27

salad never really came to be. Kafka

14:30

died from tuberculosis two years later in 1924 at the

14:32

young age of 40. But

14:38

Kafka's death, just like

14:41

in a good Kafka story, is

14:43

just the beginning. Because remember,

14:45

Kafka never published his great works.

14:48

So how the hell do we know about him today? On

14:53

his deathbed, Kafka bequeathed his estate

14:55

to his dear friend from law

14:57

school, the Zionist, Max Brod. But

14:59

he gave Brod very clear instructions. Burn

15:02

my papers. Will you have

15:04

there buddy? Now

15:06

listen, and prod wasn't a dummy.

15:09

He knew Kafka was a fricking once

15:11

in a lifetime literary genius. So

15:13

he simply refused Kafka's dying wish.

15:16

And after his best friend passed away, Brod

15:19

started editing and compiling and releasing

15:21

Kafka's works to the world. But

15:26

in 1939, 15

15:29

years after Kafka's death, the

15:31

Nazis took power in Prague. So Brod

15:33

gathered up all of Kafka's manuscripts as

15:35

well as his own and caught the

15:37

very last train out of there. And

15:40

he eventually settled in, you guessed

15:42

it, Israel. Until

15:45

his own death, Brod remained faithful

15:47

to his dear friend's literary archive.

15:50

He actually gave many manuscripts to

15:52

Kafka's niece in London who donated

15:54

them to Oxford's library. But

15:57

when Brod himself died, what remained of

15:59

Kafka's estate got trapped in a

16:01

surreal, shall we say Kafkaesque, litigious

16:03

labyrinth that even Kafka himself couldn't

16:06

have dreamt of. Max Bort kept

16:08

all these materials with him and

16:10

he passed away in Tel Aviv

16:12

in 1968. In

16:15

his last will from 1961, he appointed

16:17

his secretary, who was a close

16:19

friend of him, Ilsa Esther Hofer, to

16:22

be the executor of his will and

16:24

to make sure that the papers will

16:26

arrive to a public institution. And

16:29

then he's adding the last sentence in

16:31

this paragraph. Moreover

16:33

she's entitled to act freely

16:35

according to her understanding what's

16:38

best for the materials. And

16:41

that gave her a kind of a carte

16:43

blanche not to do at all anything with

16:45

all these materials. She kept them in bank

16:48

vaults in her private home and she even

16:50

sold some of the very precious Kafka items.

16:53

I think the most spectacular one was

16:55

the auction of the manuscript

16:57

of the trial, the famous

17:00

novel in 1988 in London. Okay,

17:06

that's a lot to chew on

17:08

so it's worth repeating. First

17:11

Max Bort brought Kafka's manuscripts to

17:13

Tel Aviv. Then when

17:15

he died he bequeathed his own

17:17

estate, which included the Kafka papers,

17:20

to his secretary slash friend and

17:22

also slash lover, Esther Hofer. He

17:25

wanted her to get his estate

17:27

to a public institution like the

17:29

National Library. But he

17:31

worded his will in such a

17:33

way that Esther Hofer could technically

17:35

hold on to Brod and thus

17:38

Kafka's manuscript herself. She

17:40

locked Kafka's papers away from sight,

17:42

started selling some off and even

17:44

believed she could bequeath them to

17:46

her two daughters, which she actually

17:49

did. After she

17:51

passed away in 2007 there was

17:53

a long legal battle between her

17:56

family, her heirs and the National

17:58

Library about the rightful ownership

18:00

of all these materials. All this is very

18:02

important to us because actually we are mentioned

18:04

in the will. It says clearly she has

18:06

to make sure that the materials come to

18:09

a public institution and the first place is

18:11

us. Our position was that

18:13

the task of a executor of a

18:15

will cannot be passed

18:17

from generation to generation. Of course

18:19

the family said of course we

18:21

can do that and most likely

18:23

they were keen to sell all

18:25

these materials to the German national

18:27

literature archive in Marbach which is

18:29

also a nice place and the

18:31

public institution but needless

18:33

to say that we wanted to have it. Like

18:38

in our last segment of the archive

18:40

about Napoleon and the Rosetta Stone the

18:42

question of who do these historical artifacts

18:45

really belong to rings along

18:47

because well did the Hoth

18:49

sisters actually deserve Kafka's manuscripts

18:51

because Max Broad had bequeathed

18:54

them to their mother or

18:57

did Israel really deserve them because

18:59

Broad had said they did. Now

19:02

Kafka never met any one of the

19:04

Hoths nor did he ever

19:07

set foot in Israel. He had

19:09

a tentative relationship with Zionism at

19:11

best and had asked Broad to

19:13

burn his works not to move

19:15

with them across the Mediterranean. And

19:18

what about the Czech Republic where Kafka

19:20

was actually from? Shouldn't

19:22

they be the true home for

19:24

his estate? Or what

19:27

about Germany the country whose language

19:29

he wrote in and whose national

19:31

library is best equipped to research

19:34

such manuscripts. The German

19:36

national literature archive already housed the

19:38

manuscript of the trial which a

19:40

private donor had paid millions for

19:43

and like Lit mentioned the Hoths

19:45

were aiming to sell the literature

19:47

archive even more documents. Now

19:50

in the eyes of many

19:52

some particular historical events excluded

19:55

these European nations from becoming

19:57

the rifle guardians on the

19:59

Hoth. of the Jew Franz

20:01

Kafka's works. As

20:03

thought Philip Roth, who in a letter to

20:05

the New York Times wrote that, if

20:08

he, meaning Kafka, had lived on,

20:10

he would have been murdered at

20:13

Auschwitz as a Jew. His three

20:15

sisters were incinerated there, and

20:17

there is little reason to think that

20:19

the author of the most important work

20:21

in 20th century German literature would have

20:23

been spared by the German nation. An

20:27

acquaintance of Brod's, Professor Otto Dov

20:29

Kolk of Hebrew University, put it

20:31

best, the Germans don't

20:34

have a very good history of

20:36

taking care of Kafka's things. They

20:39

didn't take good care of his

20:41

sisters. They're

20:45

not wrong, and the Supreme

20:47

Court of Israel agreed, because

20:50

in the end, where Kafka's estate

20:52

ended up was to a large

20:54

degree based on his Jewish identity.

20:58

And while he may have had a

21:00

turbulent relationship with that identity, don't

21:03

we all, his Hebrew notebooks and

21:05

dreams of moving to Israel helped

21:07

reinforce it in the eyes of

21:10

the Jewish state. And you

21:12

won that battle. We won that one, yes. So

21:16

today, more than 50 years after

21:18

Brod's death and nearly 100 years

21:21

after Kafka's, a good

21:23

portion of the Kafka archive is

21:25

housed at the National Library of

21:27

Israel. And that's certainly fine by

21:29

me. But what

21:31

does this whole legal fiasco actually

21:33

say about Kafka? Remember,

21:36

he was so self-conscious, so insecure

21:38

in his own skin, and in

21:40

the end, his legacy was decided

21:43

for him by

21:45

the state. Kafka

21:48

is prescient here. I

21:50

want to read you one last quote.

21:52

This one is from The Trial, where

21:54

a man wakes up one day to

21:56

be accused of crimes that he can't

21:58

quite understand. Let me

22:01

remind you, Kafka writes, of the

22:03

old legal maxim, a suspect is

22:05

better off moving than at rest,

22:07

for one at rest may be

22:10

on the scales without knowing it,

22:12

being weighed with all his sins.

22:17

So sure, the Supreme Court ruling

22:19

was basically a statement that, because

22:21

Kafka is a Jew, his work

22:23

should be housed in the Jewish

22:25

state. But one

22:27

more question remains open. Was

22:30

Kafka a Jewish

22:32

writer? That's maybe the big dispute

22:34

among scholars. If Kafka's writing is

22:36

indeed a Jewish writing or is

22:39

it not? If you look

22:41

really in detail on his writings, I think

22:43

you will hardly find the word Jew

22:45

or Jewish in all his texts. But

22:48

of course he had all these

22:50

massive spaces of Jewish culture with

22:52

him when he was writing. And

22:54

I think this is the main

22:56

argument of scholars who claim that

22:58

of course, Franz Kafka is a

23:00

Jewish author, because his way of

23:02

thinking and putting things together, sometimes

23:05

not in a very easy way, not

23:07

very understandable way, and this is exactly

23:10

what the Jewish said. Now,

23:14

if only there was a word

23:16

inspired by literature to describe long

23:19

protracted legal battles. Tran,

23:22

thank you so much. You're welcome. Amliya

23:29

Liboitz signing off from

23:32

a wonderful journey to the treasures

23:34

of the great National Library

23:36

of Israel. Thank

23:58

you. Gadi

24:12

Taub is an Israeli historian

24:14

and political commentator. His new

24:16

video podcast with the Hudson

24:18

Institute's Michael Duran is called

24:21

Israel Update, and you can

24:23

find it today on Tablet

24:25

Magazine at tabletmag.com/Israel Update. Gadi

24:28

joined us to talk about the critical

24:30

eye he and Michael bring to conversations

24:32

about the war, diplomacy, and life on

24:34

the ground, and to share a clip from

24:36

their most recent episode. Gadi

24:50

Taub, welcome to our Orthodox.

24:53

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, Leo. The

24:56

pleasure is all mine. Now we

24:58

are very excited to debut your

25:00

show, the show you co-hosted with

25:02

Michael Duran, Israel Update on

25:04

Tablet, on the Tablet Podcasting family here

25:06

on our Orthodox. But tell us, what's

25:08

the origin story here? How did the

25:10

show come about? Well, first I heard

25:12

Mike speak on some conference that we

25:15

can't disclose because it's a place where

25:17

Arabs and Israelis met, so

25:19

it was all secret. And at

25:21

that time I was still smoking. So

25:23

I had the hottest news because I was

25:25

the only Westerner still smoking. And

25:27

in the smoker's corner, you got all

25:29

the interesting information. But one of the

25:32

most interesting things, and this

25:34

is how I started writing in the aris,

25:36

by the way, Leo, because I came back

25:38

with a story from the smoker's corner in

25:40

that conference. So much of journalism would be

25:43

lost now that people quit smoking. No

25:45

one gets reporting done anymore. Yeah,

25:47

exactly. So I heard Mike speak

25:49

in that conference, and I was so impressed with

25:51

his talk that I approached him at the end,

25:54

and nothing came out of it. And then

25:56

he said to some friend, this Israeli guy

25:58

with earrings approached me. what does he want?" And

26:01

then I heard him again, and I

26:03

tried again, and then we started talking.

26:06

And we discovered that we feel

26:09

very much the same in our

26:11

separate countries. We felt this

26:13

illusion with the dominance

26:15

of progressive elites, and

26:18

yet we were not entirely comfortable

26:20

with everything that was going on

26:22

the right. And we

26:24

were uncomfortable with the same issues.

26:27

And then we discovered we liked each other's

26:29

sense of humor. So we started

26:31

speaking a lot, and then

26:33

very arrogantly and narcissistically we thought,

26:36

our conversations are really interesting. Maybe

26:38

other people would want to hear

26:40

them. And then came the war. And

26:43

as the war came, I was

26:45

talking to Dave Rubin, who

26:47

was here in Israel, and I hosted a gig

26:49

that he did. And we

26:51

discussed doing a show on Rumble. And so

26:54

it was an idea of floating in the

26:56

air. And who don't know about this, this

26:58

is the platform which is sort of the

27:00

alternative to YouTube. Yeah. Free

27:02

and unfettered exchange of ideas via video. And

27:05

so we talked about this at some

27:07

unspecified future, and then the war started.

27:09

And Dave called me

27:11

and said, look, you've got to start doing

27:13

this. And I called Mike and said, let's

27:15

do it together because I'm an

27:17

Israeli and I sometimes get carried away,

27:20

as you know very well about Israelis,

27:22

with all the details of what's going

27:24

on here. And Mike said, I'll be

27:26

the mediator because I can translate to

27:28

American audiences. I can reflect

27:30

to you what they would not understand.

27:33

And then, as you know, America is

27:35

involved in everything here. So Mike's

27:38

unparalleled knowledge of

27:41

the American perspective on the Middle East

27:43

gives our show, I think, this double

27:45

perspective that I think is fruitful and

27:48

is completely missing from the American media

27:50

because there's a food chain. It's

27:52

like in America, what goes on in New York

27:54

Times then dictates the agenda to CNN.

27:57

And so it's the same with news

27:59

about Israel only with Haaretz

28:01

playing the role of

28:03

the New York Times. I would say it

28:06

is a terrific show. I've been a

28:08

fan and a listener long before we

28:10

started this collaboration. It really does bring,

28:12

you know, unparalleled, insightful and kind of

28:14

insider-y perspective. But here's my question, you

28:16

know. Mike knows a

28:18

lot about the Middle East and about

28:20

Israel. He speaks good Hebrew. He understands

28:22

Israeli politics. You know a

28:24

lot about American politics. You study

28:27

this. In American universities, you really

28:29

have a very in-depth look at

28:31

our political system and

28:33

culture. But I assume that

28:35

there are moments in the show when you

28:37

are reminded of the fact that there are

28:39

really some nuances that only an American or

28:41

only an Israeli could get. Is that right?

28:44

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so

28:47

we correct each other. And I think

28:49

we keep learning from each other in

28:51

that respect. And since we

28:53

have similar sensibilities, we

28:56

are interested enough in what the other

28:58

party has to say. And so

29:00

we thought that the first and most important

29:02

thing that we can do is

29:04

we are entering a

29:07

conversation that's very monolithic

29:10

about Israel. And tablet is

29:12

one of the only places that breaks

29:15

out of this monolith, where

29:17

you only get either

29:19

conservative religious right-wing

29:23

extremism—I don't like the

29:25

word, but people bar

29:27

to our right—or you

29:30

get this progressive view

29:32

that has no standing in Israel

29:34

anymore. So what happened is the

29:36

way Israel is reported in the

29:39

press in America is just,

29:41

it's like a raft that's drifting

29:44

away from a continent and

29:46

shouting at the continent that it's drowning.

29:51

It's unbelievable. They don't have a

29:53

clue on what's going on. And

29:55

then American diplomats come up with

29:57

these complicated schemes.

30:00

Now Mike and I just discussed on our last

30:02

show the idea, Mike said, you know, the American

30:05

administration is, it doesn't think

30:07

it can implement the two-state

30:09

solution anytime soon, but

30:12

it does think that it could use

30:14

this like a bowling ball to separate

30:16

Bibi's coalition because then if they put

30:19

it on the table, Bibi says no,

30:21

then Bibi's opponents will say, look, Netanyahu

30:23

is endangering, this is Martin Indyk, right,

30:26

on Twitter. Netanyahu is

30:28

endangering Israel's interest because

30:30

he's leading to a rift with the

30:33

United States. And then

30:35

the plan goes, says Mike, that

30:37

someone like Gantz will pick this

30:39

up to overthrow Netanyahu, except

30:42

that it's too smart by half

30:44

because if you look at what's

30:46

going on in Israel on the ground, you know

30:48

that nobody can touch the two-state solution now. It's

30:51

completely toxic. So

30:54

the whole plan rests on some

30:56

conception that makes sense if you

30:58

read about Israel in Aritz, in

31:01

Aritz in English or in the New York

31:03

Times, but it doesn't make sense if you

31:06

listen to actual press conferences last

31:08

Thursday. So let us now

31:10

do the right thing and go to

31:12

a view of Israel and America and

31:15

Bibi and the war and

31:17

Gaza and everything else you

31:19

want to know here

31:21

is a taste of

31:23

Israel update. So

31:29

Gadi, the American

31:31

policy toward the

31:35

day after in Gaza, what the

31:37

Americans are dictating to the

31:39

Israelis is we have to

31:41

have a revitalized Palestinian

31:43

authority working together with the

31:46

Saudis and the Qataris and

31:48

the I don't know who

31:50

Emirati is to rule

31:53

over Palestinian society in the

31:55

Gaza Strip that will be

31:57

completely shorn of any

32:00

country. connection to Hamas is

32:02

a total fantasy.

32:04

This is not going to happen.

32:08

This cannot happen in

32:10

the way that the Americans are saying it,

32:12

because there's no revitalized Palestinian authority that's waiting

32:14

in the wings ready to take over it.

32:17

There's no Palestinian society that

32:19

isn't in Gaza

32:22

that isn't totally penetrated by Hamas

32:24

that's waiting to be taken over

32:26

by the Palestinian Authority and won't

32:28

work to subvert the Palestinian Authority.

32:33

The restrictions the Israelis, the Americans are

32:35

putting on the Israelis are going to

32:37

ensure that the Israelis themselves cannot be

32:39

the ones to separate the

32:41

Palestinian society from Hamas. So

32:45

it's all pie in the sky.

32:47

It's complete fantasy. Now, the

32:49

problem Israelis will typically hear this kind of

32:51

thing and they'll say, oh, these Americans are

32:54

very naive. But they're

32:56

not naive, Gadi. They're cynical. It's not

32:58

the same thing. They're using

33:00

this pie in the

33:03

sky moral language. But they know

33:05

we're we're going to build democracy

33:07

and in Gaza, just like

33:09

they built democracy in Afghanistan, democracy

33:11

in Iraq, the top old Hosni Mubarak

33:14

to build a greater democracy in Egypt.

33:16

How have those projects been going? Democracy

33:19

in Gaza, we when I was in

33:21

the White House, we we pushed we

33:24

pushed the elections in in the

33:26

Palestinian Authority that gave us Hamas

33:29

in God in Gaza. So the the

33:31

idea that we're going to get a

33:33

better result this time, it

33:35

seems to me to be a little bit silly. However,

33:39

this this pushing

33:41

of insisting that the Israelis

33:43

agreed to the Palestinian Authority

33:45

now, all of

33:47

this is designed to cause trouble for Netanyahu.

33:49

This is to trip him up. This

33:52

is indeed to split his

33:54

coalition to cause problems for him to

33:56

topple him. He's now polling

33:58

the Lykutas. pulling at what in the

34:01

polls Gantz's party is pulling around 50%

34:03

or it's in the high 40s isn't it? No,

34:05

no, no, it can't be. High 30s, high 30s,

34:07

sorry. Yeah,

34:11

there's a difference between Gantz himself and the

34:13

party and a different... Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's

34:15

why I got confused in my head. I

34:17

was like, yeah, yeah, forget it. Yeah,

34:20

but he's leading. Yeah, but the Gantz's

34:22

party is pulling at 30 some odd seats,

34:24

36 seats, something like that. And

34:27

Netanyahu's party, Likud, is pulling at

34:30

like 17 seats. But

34:32

yes, who should be Prime Minister? Gantz is

34:34

pulling at around 51% or something, I think

34:37

in the last poll I saw. I should

34:39

never talk about numbers because I always forget

34:41

them. But anyway, the Americans are looking at

34:43

that and they're thinking, let's move Netanyahu out,

34:46

let's move Gantz in.

34:48

That's what this is all about. And

34:52

about this, they're also being naive, Mike, not

34:54

just cynical. And I'll tell you why. Can

34:57

I add one more angle to this?

35:00

Sure. Sorry. And that's the Saudi angle,

35:02

because one of the things they're doing is they're dangling

35:04

out and in that interview with Yoni Levy, it

35:06

wasn't in the clip that you just played, but

35:09

they're saying, you know, you need, you

35:12

have to have international financing

35:14

and support from the Arab

35:17

world for this revitalized, revamped

35:19

Palestinian authority. So this is this

35:21

is it. This is this is so

35:23

that Nahum Barnea and other people in

35:26

the Israeli press can say, we

35:28

could have normalization with Saudi Arabia

35:30

and the embrace of the entire

35:33

Gulf world of us if it

35:35

wasn't for Smootrić and Ben Gevir,

35:37

that is the the

35:39

right wing elements in Netanyahu's coalition.

35:43

Also not true. It's not like the Saudis are

35:45

just dying to come hug you and kiss you.

35:47

This is not. Oh,

35:49

I'm going to cut this and post this

35:51

and translate it into Hebrew, Mike, because this

35:53

is what you just said, because this

35:56

is so what's going on in the Israeli press. And

35:58

it's so silly. But what I was going to

36:00

mention is, look at what

36:02

is happening to Gantz and Lapid,

36:05

the opposition. Gantz is now in

36:07

the coalition, but he's the contender.

36:09

So they, the Americans, are trying to

36:12

construct this arc

36:16

in which there would be demonstrations in

36:18

the street against Netanyahu, split

36:20

in the coalition around the

36:23

issue of the future or

36:25

the post-war arrangements.

36:29

And then they will split Gantz from

36:31

Netanyahu, and then there would be some

36:33

members of Likud willing to desert, because

36:35

the Knesset is still the same, and

36:38

we have no election, willing to desert

36:40

to the Gantz camp. But

36:42

the problem with this is there was a

36:44

press conference, and the Channel 14

36:47

very sharp political

36:49

correspondent asked Gantz, do you

36:52

support a Palestinian state? And

36:56

he wouldn't answer. He just wouldn't

36:59

answer. It was incredibly embarrassing, and

37:02

you understand completely why. In

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the time you're given with the Jewish

37:16

communal fund, the nation's largest Jewish donor-advised

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maximum charitable deduction for 2023. Get started at jcsny.org. All

37:43

year we've been traveling across the USA

37:45

with support from the Jewish Federations of

37:47

North America to find stories of unique

37:50

Jewish communities. This month we wanted to

37:52

try and see things a little differently,

37:54

so we headed up north to Montreal,

37:56

not just to eat Montreal bagels, but

37:58

also to get an... perspective

38:00

on life in the USA. Lael,

38:03

Stephanie and producer Robert Scaramucci

38:06

polished their French and visited one

38:08

of the oldest Jewish communities in

38:10

Canada. Don't

38:35

touch that dial. There

38:37

is nothing wrong with your radio. But

38:40

you are no longer in the Jew SA.

38:43

This month we decided to travel

38:46

to a place. A

38:48

place beyond space and time.

38:50

A place we call Montreal.

39:05

Have you ever had a Montreal bagel? Is

39:07

that just a bagel in Montreal? Oh Robert,

39:09

this is gonna be so fun. People feel

39:11

really strongly about this Robert. We put the

39:14

famous Montreal bagel to a live test. Why

39:17

are we here visiting our neighbors up

39:19

north? Well, because the

39:22

story of Canadian Jews and Jews

39:24

in Montreal in particular is a

39:26

very different story from the one

39:28

we American Jews tell ourselves about

39:30

our own community. In

39:32

America the plot lines are simple and

39:34

well known. The Jews arrive

39:37

from all over. They strive

39:39

to assimilate. They become

39:41

Americans and they give

39:43

their new homeland this and

39:45

this. And

40:01

even this. People snap

40:03

out of that Christmas spirit like it was

40:06

a drunken scooper. They just wake up one

40:08

morning and go, oh my God, there's a

40:10

tree inside that. In

40:13

Montreal, however, it was a

40:15

very different story. And it

40:17

begins with the very Catholic colony

40:19

of New France. If

40:23

Quebec is literally a Catholic colony and

40:25

its purpose is to convert people to

40:27

Catholicism, its relationship with Jews

40:29

is going to be ambivalent at best.

40:32

This is Zeb Moses, the founder

40:35

and executive director of the Museum

40:37

of Jewish Montreal. Or because this

40:39

is a bilingual city, more on

40:41

that in a bit, the Musée

40:43

de Montréal-Jouif. It's a

40:45

stunning building in the Platon Montroyale,

40:47

which today is a hipster haven.

40:50

If you're jonesing for a $150 pair

40:53

of Lululemon yoga pants, you won't have to

40:55

go far to find them. But long

40:57

ago, this was the heart of Jewish

41:00

Montreal, which is why we asked

41:02

Zeb to give us a walking tour of

41:04

the neighborhood. But before there

41:06

could even be a Jewish Montreal, there

41:09

were wars to be fought and

41:11

won, literally. Jews

41:13

are not allowed in what was then

41:15

New France because it

41:18

was a Catholic colony, essentially. So

41:20

the first Jews come when the British win

41:23

the Seven Years' War in 1760, and

41:25

they're connected to the Sephardic community. They start

41:28

the first synagogue in Montreal, the Spanish and

41:30

Portuguese synagogue. According to Zeb,

41:32

Canada, as we know it today, started

41:34

out as a deal between the

41:36

original French Catholic colonists and the English

41:39

Protestants who took over after the Seven

41:41

Years' War. That

41:43

deal essentially amounted to, if you

41:45

don't bother us, we won't

41:47

bother you, with the French and

41:49

the English teaching their children their

41:52

language and their religion. Jews

41:54

are the first group to arrive

41:56

that, like, messes up that paradigm.

42:01

The initial Sephardic population was small enough

42:03

to skate by in this system,

42:05

but in the early 20th century,

42:07

just like in the U.S., Ashkenazi

42:10

Jews started arriving in

42:13

Canada in droves. In

42:16

Montreal, in particular, first decade of the

42:18

20th century, tens of thousands started arriving

42:21

in significant numbers. And

42:23

we have to understand, Quebec and Montreal

42:25

didn't have a public

42:27

school system, didn't have a public

42:29

hospital system or anything. Everything was

42:31

run by churches. So if

42:34

you went to school here, if you were English, you went

42:36

to the Protestant schools, and if you were French, you went

42:38

to the Catholic schools. And what

42:40

happens when Jews arrive? No one knows where to put

42:42

them. After a little bit of a back

42:44

and forth, Jews end up in the Protestant school system.

42:46

So all these Yiddish-speaking Jews end

42:49

up speaking English because they

42:51

go to these English Protestant schools. So

42:54

just like in the U.S., these

42:56

first and second generation Ashkenazi immigrants

42:59

try to adopt English as their

43:01

first or second language. They

43:03

set up a shmata industry in and

43:05

around Saint Laurent Boulevard, literally driving a

43:08

wedge between the French and the English

43:10

sections of town. They try

43:12

to become Canadians. The

43:14

one problem is that no one actually

43:16

knows what a Canadian is. Actually,

43:19

in the early 20th century, being Canadian

43:21

didn't really exist. You could be French-Canadian,

43:23

or you could be kind of British-Canadian,

43:26

but the identity was tied to your

43:28

ethnicity to some degree, your religion.

43:31

So Jews didn't have the

43:33

same entry points that French-Canadians

43:36

or British-English-Canadians had. So they really

43:38

had to think about them soon.

43:47

Montreal's Jews had no melting pot

43:49

to just fall into. The

43:51

divide between Anglophones and Francophones in

43:54

Canada was so great that the

43:56

novelist Hugh MacLennan eventually gave it

43:58

a name. the two solitudes.

44:02

Sandwiched right in the middle,

44:04

the city's Jews built up

44:07

a third solitude, a self-sustaining

44:09

Yiddish community with its own

44:11

poets and its own schools

44:13

and its own newspapers. Yiddish

44:16

is the third most spoken language in

44:18

the city after French and English and

44:20

remains so well into the 1950s. Yiddish

44:22

is able to thrive here. There's

44:25

a local literary Yiddish scene

44:27

in the city that starts attracting

44:29

people like Yod Yod Segal, Melch

44:31

Ravitch, Ida Mazza, Rachal

44:33

Korn, in later years

44:36

Chava Rosenfarb as well. And

44:38

that scene eventually as new generations

44:41

learn English in schools, they're grabbing that

44:43

knowledge and the energy from the Yiddish-speaking

44:45

community and bringing it into an English-speaking

44:48

Jewish literary scene as well. We can

44:50

bring that to A.M. Klein. Irving

44:52

Layton is another person in that kind of

44:54

generation, the kind of bridge generation towards Leonard

44:56

Cohen and other writers, Mordecai Richler as well.

44:59

Yiddish is still very present in Montreal.

45:02

Not so much as a spoken

45:04

language outside of the city's considerable

45:06

Orthodox community and the amazing Yiddish

45:08

web series, Yid Life Crisis, I

45:10

doubt that many speak it today.

45:13

But it's literally omnipresent, etched on the

45:15

sides of buildings. Here, take a look.

45:17

Okay, we're in front of the Yiddish

45:20

folkshula, which was the Jewish people's school.

45:22

You can kind of see up at

45:24

the top above the lintel, kind of

45:26

this word school and a couple magenda

45:29

vids up there. Another school is taking

45:31

over and they keep painting over the

45:33

Yiddish letters and then the Yiddish letters

45:35

keep coming out from under the white

45:37

paint and I love it. Faced

45:43

with a country and a city that

45:45

didn't know what to do with them,

45:47

Montreal's Jews did their own thing. They

45:50

couldn't be whitewashed Canadians and they couldn't

45:52

go back to the old country, so

45:54

they established their own identity, which kept

45:56

them kind of separate from their neighbors

45:58

and along the way, the

46:00

community helped define what it meant

46:03

to be Canadian, gifting Canada some

46:05

of its greatest musicians, poets, and

46:07

writers, including, as Zev mentioned a

46:10

moment ago, Leonard Cohen, whose ancestors

46:12

helped build congregation Sharah Shammaiim, where

46:14

Cohen himself grew up going to

46:17

Shul. Equally important

46:19

for us Southerners, Montreal's Jews also helped

46:21

define North American Jewry more generally. We're

46:23

going to go around the corner into

46:26

this little alleyway. We're

46:28

in front of the B'nai Jacob. I

46:30

actually have a recording of the chazan

46:33

from this synagogue, which was considered like

46:35

the Carnegie Hall of Chazanout in Montreal.

46:42

A chazan is a

46:44

cantor who leads the songs of

46:46

the prayer service. There's

46:48

very few recordings from the 1950s

46:51

from Shul's as an Orthodox Shul. So

46:54

here's Chazan Yoshua Rosenzweig.

46:57

Born near Krakow, moved to

47:00

pre-Israel in the late 1930s, lived in

47:02

Tel Aviv in Haifa, was a chazan

47:04

there for a few years, then moved

47:06

here in 1947 and became a chazan

47:09

at B'nai Jacob, one of the largest

47:11

synagogues in the city at the time. One

47:23

more piece of this 20th century

47:25

identity came in the 1940s, during

47:27

and after the Holocaust. It's

47:30

so interesting. If we think the

47:32

United States closed up its

47:34

borders in advance of World War II

47:37

and the Holocaust, Canada was even worse.

47:40

The famous book that's written about is called None is

47:42

Too Many, and that's a quote from an official. When

47:46

Jewish refugees finally start coming here after

47:48

the Holocaust, Canada actually becomes one

47:51

of the largest settling spots for

47:53

Holocaust survivors. I believe after Israel

47:56

and New York, Montreal has the highest

47:58

concentration of survivors. That

48:00

really impacts the identity of this

48:02

community and how it sees the

48:04

world to some degree. What

48:15

you have by this point is a

48:17

community that knows the value of sticking

48:19

together and knows just

48:21

how tenuous those ties to a

48:23

suspicious outside world could be. And

48:27

then, groovy man,

48:30

the sixties happened. Is

48:33

there an opportunity in the

49:00

independence from Canada and from the British crown? It

49:03

was a secular movement, not a

49:05

specifically Catholic one, but that doesn't

49:08

mean these descendants of New France

49:10

were particularly amenable to Montreal's Jews

49:13

and their English education. The

49:15

rise of kind of secular

49:18

French-Canadian nationalism, the movement of

49:20

the Andes-Pendantes, that would

49:22

be a little bit frightening for any Jewish

49:24

community, but I think it was truly scary

49:26

for a lot of Jews here to see

49:28

that, and this is just as Jews had

49:30

made it to the middle class or above,

49:33

finally made it economically. Jews

49:35

are finally really accepted socially too.

49:38

It feels like the rug is being pulled out from under a

49:40

lot of the now English-speaking Jews

49:42

that live here. Even

49:44

when seen in the best

49:46

of lights, these huge nationalist

49:49

rallies calling for a resurgence

49:51

of patriotic Quebecois culture had

49:53

particular undertones for many Canadian

49:56

Jews, especially the most recent

49:58

arrivals. anti-Semitic?

50:01

It's not. Some people

50:04

might say it is. There was traces

50:06

for sure. Because Jews spoke English up

50:08

to that time, we were

50:10

really off the map for French Canadians

50:12

and they were for us as well.

50:15

Now, does that mean there was no

50:17

anti-Semitism? Absolutely not. Of course

50:19

there's anti-Semitism as there was everywhere and

50:21

because Jews and French Canadians didn't really

50:23

connect with each other, plenty

50:26

of stereotypes existed about Jews. That

50:28

said, the separatist movement has never

50:30

gonna go away but it has died

50:33

down since the late 90s. It's no

50:35

longer the primary form necessarily of nationalism

50:37

in Quebec. Language is still

50:39

the big thing though. That is a

50:42

major cleavage in

50:44

society here. Canada often

50:46

calls itself a mosaic instead of a

50:48

melting pot. A bunch of

50:50

solid cultural pieces sitting together which

50:52

can have its benefits. Sure, just

50:54

look at all the art created

50:57

by the Canadian Jews of the

50:59

Third Solitude. The fact that

51:01

you could be a Montreal Jew, not

51:03

just a Jew from Montreal, is thanks

51:06

to just how solid this community has

51:08

been. People move away from Montreal

51:10

and they have, it's a double

51:12

diaspora. We're both in the diaspora from

51:14

Israel but also in the diaspora from

51:17

from Montreal. Part

51:19

of being here as a Jew is

51:21

like connecting to history. Being Jewish doesn't

51:23

mean just looking elsewhere. There's like, there's

51:25

an identity that's tied to this city

51:27

that's just really cool. You can find

51:29

yourself in the city itself. But

51:31

there may be such a thing as too

51:34

much separation. There are limits

51:36

to thinking that everyone could just get

51:38

along in their own little bubble, especially

51:40

in a place like Canada which has

51:42

only gotten more diverse over the decades.

51:45

Translation of all kinds might

51:47

be a necessary thing, which

51:50

involves literal language translation, of course. But

51:52

just because you could say hello to

51:54

your neighbor in their own language doesn't

51:56

mean you won't want to kick them

51:58

out if time does. get tough.

52:01

There are deeper kinds of translation,

52:03

deeper kinds of communication that go

52:05

beyond language that really show someone

52:08

else where you're coming from and

52:10

who you are. And I'm speaking

52:12

of course about the most fundamental

52:14

of all forms of human communication,

52:17

the things that we eat. Now

52:26

look, I'm a New Yorker and

52:29

down home we don't take kindly

52:31

to that thing that folks over

52:33

yonder in Montreal call a bagel.

52:36

But when in Montreal you can't not

52:38

go to Fairmount Bagels. I

52:41

mean, Zev insisted. I

52:43

mean, this store, how many square feet is

52:45

here? Like maybe a hundred or something? We're

52:47

in line sitting next to all the refrigerators

52:49

and at the back of the store there's

52:51

two long ovens that have

52:53

been here since the 1940s. It's

52:56

a tiny place and unlike New York

52:58

where you could walk into any bagel

53:01

shop and order lox and cream cheese

53:03

on a bagel with capers, tomatoes, onions

53:05

and lettuce, here you walk up, grab

53:08

a bagel, pay and leave. No

53:11

sandwiches, no trouble, no fuss.

53:14

I'm eating just a classic hot

53:16

fresh out of the oven sesame bagel and the

53:19

best part of it when it's at this moment is

53:21

like you take a bite and the sesame seeds just

53:23

kind of spray everywhere. But

53:27

not all Montreal food is smoked

53:29

meat and bagels because

53:31

in the 1960s a lot of

53:33

Moroccan juice arrived in town. So

53:37

when we were in Montreal we

53:39

just had to meet with Kat

53:41

Romano, Jewish food historian and the

53:44

force behind the wandering Choo which

53:46

preserves and revitalizes Jewish food traditions

53:48

through immersive culinary experiences. And

53:51

the Moroccans who came to Montreal, Kat told

53:53

us, changed the city's

53:55

food scene in fascinating ways

53:58

like throwing parties for the mimou. the

54:00

post Passover celebration that Moroccan

54:03

Jews observed. As

54:05

Passover ends, people will open up their

54:07

homes to each other and at the

54:09

center of this celebration is the Mimuna

54:11

table where they start to

54:14

eat chametz again. So one of

54:16

the iconic dishes of Mimuna is

54:18

mufleta, which is a yeasted,

54:20

thin crepe pancake that's smeared with butter

54:22

and honey and you roll it up

54:25

and eat it and that's some people's

54:27

first chametz. So people spend the

54:29

evening going from home to home, eating,

54:32

celebrating the end of Passover and the

54:34

beginning of spring. Normally,

54:41

we would end our visit on that

54:44

very feel-good note. I

54:46

mean, what more do we need? We came,

54:48

we learned the history, we listened to

54:50

the music, we ate some delicious treats

54:53

prepared by a diverse, gorgeous mosaic of

54:55

Jews from all over the world. But

54:58

there's just one more thing we

55:00

had to do in Montreal. We

55:03

briefly mentioned the city's greatest

55:05

musical export, Leonard Cohen,

55:08

who was born here in Montreal and he's buried

55:10

here. I wrote a

55:12

book about him not long ago and had the privilege

55:14

of a lifetime to get to know him a little

55:16

bit and call him not

55:19

just my Rebbe but also my friend. And

55:21

now I needed to pay one

55:25

final visit. Where

55:27

are we right now, Leo? It's

55:30

a Jewish cemetery here in Utramont

55:33

in Montreal. And

55:35

I'm here to visit my Rebbe, Eliezer,

55:39

better known as Leonard Cohen. I

55:42

have not been up here since

55:44

he passed seven

55:46

years ago. I could not

55:48

bring myself to do this and here

55:50

I am. I'd

55:52

like to go say goodbye now. So,

56:09

I just said hi to

56:12

my friend Eliezer, who

56:14

I was truly privileged

56:16

to know, not just admire as an

56:18

artist, as so many of us did

56:20

and do, but

56:23

really get to know as an incredible,

56:28

radiant generous,

56:31

inspiring human being. And

56:35

in the seven years since he left us, I think a

56:37

lot about

56:39

him and about what he

56:42

would say about our world

56:44

today, about American Jews today,

56:46

about rising anti-Semitism, about our

56:49

politics being so messed up. And

56:51

it might be a bit of a

56:53

cliché, but there's

56:56

this one line that I keep coming back and back

56:58

and back to, which I really think is the

57:02

anthem to

57:05

our time and maybe to every

57:08

time, to every Jewish story

57:10

that ever was. And it's from a

57:12

song appropriately called Anson. And

57:15

it goes, ring

57:17

the bells that still could ring. Forget

57:21

your perfect offering. There's

57:23

a crack, a crack

57:25

in everything. That's

57:28

how the light gets in. Amen

57:31

to that. Our

57:58

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58:01

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58:03

and mailbox themes are by Steve Barton.

58:06

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58:08

Send us emails at unorthodox at

58:10

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58:12

message on our listener line. That's 914-570-4869. And

58:18

until next week, Shalom friends.

59:00

you