David Greenfield Highlight

thank you madam public advocate you know i i i've waited my turn here i followed protocol on the new york city council and haven't spoken out because i respect this chamber i have to tell you you know i'm still shaken to my core i'm upset i'm angry but i'll tell you honestly i'm actually somewhat pleased to what we saw here today if you're wondering why i'm saying that is because for the last few weeks we've heard from people who said oh we don't we don't dislike jews we only dislike the state of israel we have no problem with you we simply don't want you to go to israel but we know that's not really at the core of what they were saying and today they proved it while we were discussing a resolution regarding the murder of 1.1 million human beings i will point out that 90 of whom were jewish but the other 10 were political dissidents they were jehovah's witnesses they were gays those were the people who were being killed together in auschwitz birkenau while we were discussing that they had the nerve the chutzpah the temerity to unfurl a palestinian flag and to yell at us while we were discussing that and so the reason i'm pleased is because we can stop pretending that this is about israel when the reality is that every middle eastern country that is in existence today is not democratic and persecutes people of other faiths and persecutes gays and persecutes people who disagree with them and persecutes people on twitter and persecutes women who drive except for one country which is the state of israel and so what you saw here today was naked blind anti-semitism that's what you saw and that's what you watched and that's what you witnessed people who are upset for one reason do you want to know why they're angry do you want to know why they're unfurling that flag today because hitler did not finish the job he only wiped out half of my family and only by the grace of god is the other half me the grandchild still alive today that's why those people are upset shame on them shame on them for hating jews shame on them for hating people shame on them for disrespecting the most diverse democratically elected body in the united states of america and that's why we go to israel we go to israel to make a message that is clear that we will not be cowered by this fear and by this hatred that we have where these are people who would celebrate the death of jews rather than mourn the death of innocents i am embarrassed at what happened here today but i am pleased that we finally see what this is all about good old-fashioned anti-semitism thank you so i want to invite uh david to the show david greenfield is the chief executive officer and executive director of med council he's an accomplished legislator a popular law professor and a noted media personality with broad experience in government and not-for-profit organizations as ceo and executive director david has expanded med council's mission and services to help over 225 000 new yorkers through a multitude of direct services and policy advocacy in his eight years in the city council david authored nearly 30 pieces of legislation that were signed into law by mayors michael bloomberg and bill de blasio david passed historic legislation mandating affordable housing reforming the landmarks preservation process and providing free security guards for over a hundred thousand private school children it's an honor to introduce mr david greenfield thank you for joining us on the show today thank you it's really a thrill to be here a big fan of the show big fan of project inspire and of course a big fan of charlie hirari so thanks for having me it's great to have you on and i gotta tell you we played that video this is our second time is the first time in project inspire show history that we had a video twice and we're getting reactions like wait a second because we've got the best fans in the world and we were so moved the first time that we had to play it again and in fact we built the whole show in many ways based on what we felt was important from your video can you give us a little bit more about what was going on around you and inside you and this was happening when you gave your your impassioned remarks so you know it's very interesting first of all uh as a public speaker which obviously you're by far the best public speaker that we have today in the jewish community and i'm sure you know that you work hard when you want to prepare for a speech and it's always fascinating when the one speech that people remember the most is the one that you didn't do any preparation for right it was impromptu speech and it it's uh it's really fascinating in that in that respect but a few things were happening just to put this in context what happened was this is a time when you began to saw really see for the first time in new york city which we now see very present but back then it was the first time a few years ago we had these very public anti-israel activists who would then protest elected officials who were supporting israel including they would protest elected officials who were planning on going to israel so we were planning a trip to israel and they had come and it happened to be and i did not believe this to be a coincidence till this day on that day was the day that we were commemorating the liberation of auschwitz and they waited two hours until we started that commemoration to unfurl a palestinian flag and to start yelling and screaming anti-israel anti-semitic slogans at us and i had waited because i i'm a very big believer in protocol and decorum and that's why you heard at the beginning i waited my turn i waited a few minutes because there's a protocol and everything had to get settled and i wanted to make sure we did that and that's when i responded in that very public and impromptu way and really i was just i was frustrated so what do you do when you're frustrated and you're a public speaker you jot down some quick notes and you say okay let me not say anything that that i'm going to regret saying later quite frankly because your emotions get the best of you and that was really it i just jotted down some notes and then i spoke from the heart and i think it was well received because it really did come from the heart people understood that it was my true genuine feelings as the grandchild of holocaust survivors who had grown up hearing about the loss that we had all faced throughout our communities it was just really impactful and meaningful to me and i will tell you that even the elected officials who are originally sympathetic to their position came to me afterwards until this day we have some very high profile supporters of israel many of whom came to me for example congress member richie torres was my colleague in the city council at that time and he today is a very proud progressive democratic pro-israel member of congress and so it had a lasting impact on a lot of people so when you're speaking i'm having this thought that is counter-intuitive as a jew right my grandparents are also holocaust survivors what alan dershowitz opened up with is very much how i got what i got from them i got the undertone of stay quiet this isn't your just keep your mouth closed and don't make a scene right like you got a yacht if you walk around the yarmouk you almost are trained when you're young that it's basically a target and i think what was so inspiring about what you did was not only your words but it was the fact that when you were up against anti-semites and anti-semitism there is a side that would say this is it this is how it is and our job is to stay quiet and to and to really get out of the way and what i'm hearing you you saying is not only was your pushback and your ability stand up for yourself and for your people your way of getting back it actually gained the respect of other people that were watching have you found that to be the case in which when we are up against things that are hurting us and we take the position of it's not our this or it's not about that or no one's going to listen in fact it's really counter it's counterintuitive to how it should be when we should be showing a lot more courage on the streets yeah i think so but i think it also needs to be measured remember right we live based on a philosophy that's thousands of years old which is literally written in the pirkei of us which is the ethics of our fathers which is essentially a compilation of the greatest jewish rabbis in the history of the world and what they tell us is javi zaheer and bereshus be very careful of government so charlie it's not you and it's not alan dershowitz it's two thousand years of history where generally government has not been friendly towards the jews and literally the smartest rabbis are telling community leaders be very careful when you interact with government right and i do think just one point i will make which is i absolutely agree with everything you're saying and i think you need to be pushed definitely need to push back has to be appropriate but has to be done in a professional way right which is that you know if you're not feeling well and you had stomach pain you would not go to your local pizza shop and say hey can you give me a can of coca-cola and make everything better right you'd either go to a pharmacist or a doctor and i think that there does require a certain level of professionalism in this kind of work and i think that everybody kind of thinks like oh i can do that and the answer is no not really like you know people say i've heard people say oh charlie hirari i could give a speech i'm like you give a speech but not like charlie harari right i mean so there is a skill set to actually interacting with government knowing what to push i'll tell you a fascinating story when i was first deciding whether i should run for office or not because i'd always been a political operative and even in my current role as ceo of met council with the largest jewish charity in new york we are tremendous advocates on behalf of the poor community but especially the poor jewish community and we really work very hard on that i'll tell you what's interesting is that when when i first decided to run i met at the time with the leading torah sage and his name was arya leib steinmen and benay brock and i had a conversation with him and we were going back and forth on whether i should run and at the end of the conversation he said you should run he said but i want you to remember something very important we were talking in hebrew back then he said a lot of people think that the job of an elected official is to make akira's hashem to sanctify his god name he said that's not true said the job of an elected official first is don't make do not embarrass the jewish community and it always stuck with me and it's very very poignant words because i think a lot of people just say oh i'm going to become an activist you know it's a professional work just like anything else and i think people need to be very careful before they step into the arena you should step into the arena but you should do it with safel as we say brains and strategy and experience and wisdom so what would you tell somebody now looking at the world today and seeing what's going on um lay people you know someone like myself i'm not a professional in any way in this arena and there are others that are watching and saying you know there are things that are beyond what i can touch and beyond my expertise and there are areas that i care very much about what kind of guidance would you give somebody in terms of what their responsibilities are today in the current political world so as a lay person what i really suggest to people is first let's start with the basics are you registered to vote and is everyone in your family registered to vote a lot of people are like i want to change the world do you even vote i don't have time for voting well buddy if you're not if you're not voting right it's like somebody's saying you know i want to keep kosher but i really enjoy those cheeseburgers well that's not really gonna work right so you gotta decide okay first you need to register your family needs to register your friends need to register then moving up from there i would say get involved in the campaign of somebody running for office that you feel passionately about and that's actually a tremendous way that you can have an impact you don't have to run yourself right you can help someone you can volunteer you can raise money you can show up and collect signatures when you build relationships with like-minded elected officials that empowers you and really it's interesting because i was thinking uh about something that alan dershowitz said and obviously everyone reversed alan dershowitz he's one of the great lawyers in the history of our community and what's really interesting and something that i still think of till this day is the jewish community does not have power we now have influence and there's a very big difference between the two right and the goal should not necessarily be to attain power it should be to attain influence and to use the influence strategically and one of the ways you can do that is by building relationships with people who are running for office that's when they need the most help and those are the friends that they remember forever interesting interesting well david thank you so much for joining us on the show today thanks for what you do and may god continue to give you the blessing of a not making hashem and b making a big kid of hashem and shining your light on the world thank you so much amen thanks charlie thanks for having me thanks so much for watching for more content like and subscribe and be sure to tune in live every thursday at 8pm eastern at the shabbato.com or right here on [Music] youtube