Oh, You? - Episode 5: Ari Ziegler

hello everyone and welcome to the oh you podcast hello everyone and welcome to the O you podcast today very lucky privileged to have with us Ari zegler who's the registration manager for our own Birthright Israel free spirit program which you're going to tell us a little bit about what that means I get those questions all the time you are you guys are Birthright what does it mean and all that stuff we're going to get into that but first we' like to begin with our hardest question tell us a little bit about yourself a little bit about myself um my name is AR eagler as you said uh I grew up in Brooklyn New York I'm a father a husband a son a brother I'm the oldest of six um I have three wonderful children uh five three in one so when I'm not working at the OU I'm working at home grew up in Brooklyn All My Life very much in the bubble not in Brooklyn now not in Brooklyn now now I'm in Great Neck I'm married into the Persian community so uh when you have Persian in-laws you know there's a rule about how many mile radius you can leave you can go too far so uh you know within two miles and uh we actually found something according to my step counters about 250 steps away from my inlaw so they're very happy um so now I'm great night how's that it's good it's good I've had I've had to learn a little bit of farsy that's that's that's a fun one all the idioms all the idioms I okay I've got but we want to take you back to Brooklyn because you know just knowing you getting to work with you the last couple years I was surprised when I learned where you went to school elementary school high school growing up tell us yeah so I I grew up I went to uh kind of more black hat yeshivas uh Yeshiva tarus commence YK that's uh yeah I was there till fifth grade it was in bar Park which was actually a couple blocks from where my father's dental office was um and then it moved to Avenue enes 19th in Flatbush which was also right near where we lived so it worked out really nice um after that my parents had me apply to about nine different high schools just because I was the first and they were like we don't know anything so we're going to have them uh have them apply to all them and uh I got into all about one which was nice one of the schools asked me a question um and they cited this as the reason that they decided to pass and they said you keep in touch with two of your friends from eighth grade there are two friends one you keep in touch with through high school college into life whatever uh the other one you don't 20 years from now they run into each other in an airport and the one you didn't keep in touch with says to the one you do keep in touch with whatever happened that that guy arika um and I thought for a little bit this is eighth grade me thought for a little bit I said you should say he won the lottery that was the that was the complete that was the whole answer they were waiting for more but I ended he said say he won the lottery my father after like he should have said and he donated so much to my Al Mo and his uh he's my morning K so you could have had that that was all I said and they said we never heard that answer to that question but um that's a great question should asked that one here in the it's a good one it's a good one um but you ended up at yfr yfr yeah Shiva farak that's true that's true and all all my I'm the there are four brothers and then two sisters at the end and my other three brothers appli to one I school and they all followed me uh through sh so Shak was good to you and your family very much so you graduate yfr and you go straight to straight to Brooklyn College um my parents kind of sat me down they said listen what what you want to do we'll we'll do and wherever I was at at that time in life I was like you know what let's get like life started I want to get get out there like I said Brooklyn bubble going to yiva is my whole life and in high school itself you know coming from Brooklyn to farraway I didn't dorm there there were some kids who did dorm there um and so you were on the van 7:00 in the morning you got on the van and 9th and 10th grade maybe you got back at 8:00 p.m. um again the van 45 minutes to an hour ride back um in 11th and 12th grade it was already like leaving 7 in the morning getting back you stay from mishar you getting back 11 it was like living there and I said I want to go out I want to you know experience something different um and so we went to Brooklyn College it was it was something that I wanted to do at the time and I really if you think about it I wouldn't have been eligible to go on Birthright if I had chosen to do a gap year or go to Israel for any so a lot of your a lot of your they ended up going to to Israel toel for the i' say I'd say about about half of the class went to gapers in Israel different yeshivas um another third of the class stayed inhak they have a really good uh bit madra program um and then the remaining one six or whatever it is um spread out all different programs so you're in BC yeah you're studying so originally I wanted to be pre- Dental my dad as I said as a dentist and I was like oh I'll have my foot in the door um but uh like all of us we were Premed for a year yeah so I was predent I was actually predent till after two years so I finished the second semester of organic chemistry the first semester didn't tell me it wasn't it wasn't good for me the second semester after that I just decided it wasn't something that I wanted to do you know people can't really talk back when you have your hands in your mouth and like to have that conversation um and so I switched to psychology and also creative writing um which I've always been into like creative Fields writing Visual Arts things like that so I said I'm going to choose creative writing as well and it was that during that time that you met some very interesting employees of the Orthodox Union that's true it was actually more it was closer to my Graduate Studies when I when I started really getting involved in jlic in a real substantial way um toward the end of my undergraduate studies started dabbling going to that hillo building for the most part I tried to keep my head down um going to college it's Brooklyn College isn't the kind of school where you know it's like there's a lot of Campus Life quotequote there is but if you wanted to you could treat it like your commute and then you come back um I also worked with my grandfather as a locksmith uh in college as well um so that took up a lot of my time when I wasn't in school um but yeah also creative writing you get to meet a lot of interesting people in creative writing classes not a lot of Jews in creative writing classes no but a lot of interesting people um some of whom I still talk to today even but yeah uh and you meet the Bosch next I meet the BOS next and uh sure and I start to just start going to more events uh Shir if you've ever met Shira and uh Ruben bosnak I know that uh Shir is still involved with JC in alumni capacity right um but they're very personal people they're very easy to talk to um I had all kinds of conversations with her bosnak when it came to Judaism when it came to faith when it came to uh especially to Fila which I'd always had uh challenges with um and they really they really helped sort of maintain that that connection um especially in graduate school um I had a professor who once said you know as a as a graduate student as a researcher I was doing experimental psychology um you leave your faith at the door at the of the lab and you pick it up on your way out like you have to that's that's how you live um and I had already been sort of leaving my faith at the door of the school not even at the door of the lab um and so the bosnik really did reconnect me a lot with uh with my Judaism really Express uh really helped me feel um the importance of it um and why I wanted it back my life and things like that so and they suggested you go on a Birthright trip or you found that on so they they actually the first time I applied for Birthright um was actually before I was really in touch with the bosnak and probably my answers about my Jewish identity also about the lottery no no but weren't weren't probably the knowing it from the back end now um probably um set off some red flags in terms of uh acceptance to the program and actually the first time I did I was weightless the first time I applied for Birthright before I had gotten involved with jail I see just as you know someone came to me on campus said Do It um and then after that um when once I had started learning with the BOS knacks going to programming with J um I applied for birth R again and uh it was with uh a a trip that sheer actually was Staffing um and I traveled with them and that was in uh December of 2012 it was over December 2012 to January 2013 was that was that trip and with that Israel free spirit also that was Israel free spirit it was a partnership between Israel free spirit and JCC on BR college and then when you came back to campus there was an event that was scheduled that you decided to go with a couple of friends yeah so I was confronted with that right away that was February 7th 2013 I almost didn't go but my brother had called me and said hey we're going why you to come with me I went with um this was an event organized by students for justice of Palestine one of the reasons that I had signed up was that the president of the college at the time Karen G um was facing pressure to disinvite him there were a lot of Jews who were protesting Jewish students on the campus who were saying you know a lot of what Omar roodi says is hate speech we don't want that and um what ended up happening is she said if you disagree come and ask the tough questions we went to this event and we had question sheets with the questions that we wanted to ask uh Omar bargi questions that of course he's heard these questions before but questions that would make it clear to those few people in the audience who hadn't yet made up their mind that he was skirting the answer he wasn't exactly giving us an answer and to make them sort of think and that's how we sort of designed these questions and uh do you remember any of the questions one of the questions was and we knew Omar barudi as the founder of BDS and as he's not a proponent of the two-state solution he's not he doesn't believe in that um and uh we asked him you know President Obama and the US government believe that the best best path forward is a two-state solution um what is the solution according to BDS when does BDS have to stop is it when there's a two-state is a when there's a one state like what's your view and his answer would put him at odds with prevailing wisdom in the us at the time or at least the official line uh from the white house but he didn't like your line of questioning so we didn't even get to ask the questions we had the we had the papers in our in our lats um and a member of the student Justin Palestine who had organized the event game th said hey you can't have these papers here and they had known Melanie as the president of the Israel Club the undergraduate so they knew and me and my brother were the only two with kot in the room um and so they came over and they said where you can't have these papers and we said no Everybody's Got Papers there's Journal student journalists are here they got papers you know and they said well if you don't give us the papers we're going to have you removed so they had K security come in and you know Lift us up under the arm remove us they actually removed the fourth student who just happen sit in the wrong seat next to us um and she actually was more upset than we were and she started yelling out this a violation of My First Amendment rights I came here to speak I came here to hear this um and we were removed and on the way out Melanie had asked milga Morales who was the vice president of Brook college at the time why are we being removed and she said it's their event they call the shots and we were escorted down six flights upstairs in the student center Melanie had the presence in mind she was working interning at a PR firm at the time and she said let's do a press release there's press here waiting for maroodi to come down we went to the hill building J IC was in the hill building then uh we went there and we quickly wrote up our account of what happened bought it back to the Press gave it to the people waiting to interview aror buy and so the headlines the next day instead of being BDS event held at Brooklyn College were four Jewish students expelled from BDS event at Brooklyn College and so there were a lot of things that happened after the lot sort of snowballed um from that the college was obviously being asked for answers we were writing op-eds I wrote it's my first published uh New York Post uh op if you if you Google it um about about the event and uh yeah it ended up it ended up leading to let's just call it a little bit of tension between us as students in the college that we attended um they at first denied that it was unjust they said they were being vocally disruptive from the beginning of the first Speaker it wasn't until a leak recording that was taken two rows in front of us a friend of mine who had removed his Kupa to be in the room he said I'm taking it off you know I'm I know the these guys he had recorded on his iPhone the voice voice memo recording tool and he was two rows in front of us and the first time you hear a peep outside of the speaker is when you hear this fourth student who unfortunately got roped in started screaming all of a sudden broken College had the open investigation that's uh and so that evening that experience helped to shift your career till where you are now and where you've been for 10 years it's true Birthright Israel free spirit at the OU what does it mean that Birthright and Israel free spirit and the OU that that we're all working together tell us what so how are we connected it's it's complicated a lot of times when we would go to like ice we're you uncomplicated yes I will uncomplicate it it will not be complicated when I'm done with this this bit but when whenever we're asked at like an event an icebreak or oh what do you do we' always be like oh well we help organize Birthright trips with his or free spirit which is partnership between the OU and birth right we'd start like that um but Birthright Israel is an umbrella organization they do a lot of the fundraising they set educational standards that have to be met and they accredit trip organizers or other organizations to actually run or do the Hands-On work of the birthright trips and one of those organizations that they accredit is theou is R free spirit our department with theou um there are currently eight organizations that are accredited when I started there were like 12 um and uh is our free spirit want and Israel free spirit you're the uh registration manager but you also do recruitment you also lead trips yeah so over over the 10 years I mean I've I've touched basically every part of the American side and even part of the Israeli side of Israel free Spirits operations I've recruited on campus um I've helped lead trips as you said I've how many participants does uh Israel free spirit bring to Israel every year preo we were sending about 60 buses of 40 people a piece so something like 2,400 um uh participants a year uh maybe a little bit more pre-co obviously covid everything stopped for about a year um we were the first uh organizer to have a trip after covid um once we got the green light we were all ready and we we got a trip going in two weeks which was uh uh definitely an accomplishment that we were we were happy about um but currently I mean we had before obviously the events of October 7th we had 400 spots for for this winter all full ready to go um our trip we are having a trip that leaves on January 7th we have another one on January 8th we have an additional two trips this winter after that um I'll be leading the January 7th one so I'll be traveling and being the group leader for that one great um it'll be my 11th Birthright trip wow Al together you've taken how many people to Israel for their first time so for for the participants I'd say about 500 participants total for me personally in terms of the trips that I've helped organized in the logistical side of things um thousands upon thousands it's great how do you like being at the OU I mean if I say no then you'd be like what are you doing here 10 years right I mean I've been here 10 years so that should be the answer I think it's a big privilege to be a part of I think well first of all Birthright itself the fact that the OU has a Birthright is huge um Birthright I'd say is one of the largest communal Jewish projects since since the state of Israel maybe I don't know it's it's affected so so many young Jews over the past 20 years um and I think it's really important that the U has a seat at that table and though you can say that they they've had a hand in that a lot of the Jewish world in America especially a lot of American jewy outside of Orthodoxy a lot of them are like I Wass they were treating their Jewish identity like a book that they reference from time to time something on their shelf that they keep and not something here not something here I think the future Generations will ask what were you doing and the fact that I can say I was a part of an organization that was helping to strengthen Jewish identity to enable Jewish life um in the way that it does I mean that's that's one of the best answers I could get you hold a lot here and here as your reference Torah imuna your family right both uh the family in Great Neck and the family from Brooklyn and probably Beyond at this point um your work you also referenced just a couple minutes ago you have some fascinating Hobbies as well yeah well I mean I I majored in creative writing in addition to psychology I always saw them as two sides of the same coin um psychology is you know studies how people behave human nature from the side of science you know statistics experiments and uh creative writing and and sort of Storytelling uh explores that from the side of art from the side of of anecdotal evidence if you want to put it that way and you do that in a couple of different forms yeah yeah I mean I I focus mostly on long form I try to write long stories novels novel length pieces um I participated in this thing called nanoro which is National novel writing month every November thousands of writers across the world try to write 50,000 words in the month of November um so you have to write basically 1600 words a day 1667 something like that a day um for it to be 50,000 words by the end of November um and I finished that a number of times over the past uh 11 12 years that I've been participating it um since I've had kids I've finished that only once so that's once in five years but uh this year was able to add 15,000 words to a project that uh that I'm middle of um so that was that was a pretty successful one but you also write sonnets a thous true that's true you've written a thousand Sons I haven't yet written a thousand but the goal is to write a thousand you're an artist on top of that right you you draw if you ask uh my reame is far they'd say that I have at least four years experience during that time of our practice in class so I would do that and and actually during during Co we were uh preparing trips as if they were going to go two weeks to flatten the curb right and so we found ourselves kind of organizing trips and then sitting with our fingers on the trigger um and I had also gained a commute back I had gained two hours a day because we weren't going in um and I had always told my wife I always said this if I ever end up in prison I'm gonna come out I'm G be jacked I'm going to be I'm going to come out I'm going to have the time I'm going to work out I'm going to come out there um and uh and I also always said when I retire like I'll be an artist I'll paint I'll do all these things and uh all of a sudden I find myself with a little bit of extra time you know that that that little commute that two hours three so you got jacked and so yeah clearly clearly clearly that part uh is not the truth the painting I I did I was able to throw myself into it and uh work on a lot of larger projects than I thought I might be able to um and now it's now it's a pretty consistent side Hustle at this point um well I'm looking forward to my uh my zagler going up in my office Char to the you I don't know if you afford me okay we'll see somebody buy me a gift maybe this is a next segment this segment we call Rapid Fire questions okay you ready all right how long are the answers allowed to be because as You' seen I've been uh these are quick all right like under 10 seconds okay ready how many people were inducted into the U Society at the U kanuka lunch this this year um I'm going to say five I didn't even give have a chance to give you the options but yes you nailed it ding ding ding that's correct okay I'm going to give you different options for this unless you want to try how much can the Eiffel Tower grow in the summer do you want me to give you options of the options 6 in 8 in 10 in a foot I'm going to say a foot thanks for playing what was six inches six inches yeah shame what was the original name of Bank of America Bank of Spain Bank of France Bank of Italy Bank of Canada I'm GNA say Bank of Canada no sorry I know I I sort of I sort of you know it's actually was the bank of Italy the bank of Italy and here's one stick to its roots what percent of their DNA do humans share with bananas oh it's a it's a high perent give me the options 10 33% 50% 75% I say 33% it's actually 50% 50% I'm half banana well all right or bananas are half me you know what we not making any comments lest HR come down on us you have any questions for me turn the table would you rather oh boy have fingers the lengths of your legs or legs the lengths of your fingers now since is that the strangest one that someone's asked on the podcast has there been a better one did you make no nothing Stranger Than That did you make up this would you rather or have you SE someone had asked me of me a while ago and every now and then it resurfaces in my mind you know it's like the the tail of a whale it breaches every now and then got it that's how it goes so and now you're privy to it so so I got I I'll be honest since I I love running I'm not sure that legs the length of my fingers would would be you know unless they were really like stubby legs I'm not sure that I'd be able to run well would be you'd have fingers lengths of your legs you be dragging them that might difficult yeah but maybe i' go faster because I'd you know be able to have all these EXs exactly so I think I'd have to go with that one nice is that uh sure is that fair yeah what do you think since the destruction of the second temple what do you think are the top three most pivotal moments in terms of the Jewish story I wish I had studied for this exam I'm not sure top three pivotal moments um I would say one of them would have to be the establishment of the state of Israel that was the Gimme That was the Gimme yeah um another one I would think would be you said after the destruction of the after the destruction of the sen medical basically since the start of what it might be the establishment of the Yeshiva and yava which totally pivoted how Judaism could survive over Millennia of not being in its own land so those would be my bookends I got one right at the beginning and one closer to to present time uh and possibly in the middle uh it may have been rashi rashi writing the interpretation on and on uh talud maybe the rambam codifying H maybe the Aral um and you know the reification of the Zohar it's hard for me to choose amongst those uh amongst those three whether we're looking at a sort of T Hala cabala I I I don't I don't know it'd be hard for me to choose one of those three things nice but I'm going to turn it back to you what do you think of the three so I've been asking a lot of people this question um mostly because one of the novels I'm working on is called The Immortal Jew and it's uh follows uh the main character is a tour guide working in Israel right now in modern times so something that I have a lot of familiarity with a lot of people I work with um he actually has a business card that says a on it which is a really nice I I met a tour guy who had that he's great um and the reason I asked is I've been asking a lot of people this is because what we learn about this tour guide is that he was actually born right before the Bara revolt and after the Bara Revolt he his family is is killed his father was a follower of Bara the rising star right all these things and uh his family is killed and he's s Exile and on the way out he lays down on the floor has a dream whatever you want to call it little yako kind of thing and uh he has an argument with Hashem and he said I believe this uh this these promises this Destiny whatever is and you'll see you'll see and he realizes wait a second he's living through all this stuff gets injured he's healed and he's made Immortal and he serves as an analog for the Jewish people that's what I'm that's what I'm hoping for who we've survived all these things and so this character is going to survive through Jewish history that's the that's the idea wow and it's Faith sort of es and flows um and this is the one that I've added to this this November so it's uh it's getting somewhere slowly slowly um and I'm trying to make sure he hits on some important important eras um did I get any of them so I mean I've you you overlapped with a lot um I one interesting one I thought was the printing press which was for across across the that could not just for Jewish life but for just life in general um I could have encompassed all three of my middle ones yeah yeah there's there's that there um I have uh someone you know the there's someone tied the establishment state of Israel with the Shah as a pivotal moment in the Jewish story The codifying of of the tomet is a big one I think like the compiling of the tomet um is a big one I think the printing press making all that the distribution of knowledge possible is a big one um obviously the establishment in the state of Israel is a big one um and I think even today I think we're living through a really important period sure history I think that you know there's no there's no more important period than today because today we we can we can act we can do and that's why we need you out there recruiting and registering and getting more people to go and support and visit and learn about Israel modern day historical yeah so we appreciate you weaving everything back together from your uh early days jlic into uh advocacy I guess into Birthright and all the different from pieces in between uh we appreciate everything in your journey at uh through the OU and if if I asked you what braa would you give the OU right now what would be uh what would be the blessing you would give us all here the biggest BR that I can guess I can give is that the you should never stop growing in its Mission and that it should achieve mission after mission sooner rather than later and do what you can to sort of optimize that journey and really have the biggest impact that you can we think thank you thank you for that amain and thank you for sharing your fascinating story and stories and uh for everything you do for us here at the OU for Birthright hopefully 10 more years maybe I'll be in the society we we'll look forward to that and now when people pass you by in the hallways or wherever you are around the world they'll say oh you thank you that was a good good I like that all my pieces explore Jewish themes it's Jewish art um you know I explore uh and it's a very sort of modern style that I didn't see a lot of Jewish other Jewish artists uh creating art in and I said you know be the change you want to see in the world if you want to see this kind of art and you want to see it explore Jewish themes then do it so I got to uh start doing that [Music] amazing [Music]