The Shabbat Show - Media Bias & The Middle East Conflict

[Music] do [Music] so do [Music] hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the shibacho it's great to be back with you again it is so great to be able to spend shabbats with you really or pre shabbats with you uh week after week as the weeks turn into months to turn into seasons there's a special weekend especially for those that are in the united states of america this is the beginning of summer even though i think it's like officially in june those who worked in corporate america you know that really memorial day is the beginning of summer so happy summer to everybody and it's a special weekend first and foremost the special weekend because memorial day is a day that we we need to take very seriously we live thank god in a in a relatively safe country we live thank god in a country where we don't feel the threat of war like other countries do and we live in a country where people sacrifice for that regardless if you see if you live in a town where you see people that are coming in and out of of the army um because the country's so large you may not live in an environment where you see soldiers enough but they're there and they sacrifice themselves for the country that me and you live in and enjoy the benefits from and we're honored um that they're there and we we honor them and thank them for their service and so on behalf of all those that fell and all of those that are celebrating memorial day in a much more somber way families of those that have sacrificed their lives so that we can enjoy the liberty that we do we we honor you and we respect and we thank you on memorial day the show is a as a once again being sponsored as a program of the carl enoch goldman center for jewish values dedicated by jay goldman we appreciate you jay and thank you so much for your constant support of the show uh it's also a beneficiary of dailygiving.org i encourage everybody to go to dailygiving.org and become a daily giver by one dollar a day just with your one dollar a day you can give up to 40 charities simultaneously it's incredible go to dailygiving.org dailygiving.org and there's something else that's going on right now that we'd like to talk about on the show as you know we have thank god i've been able to have shows that were more lightheaded and shows that more serious and this is going to be a more serious one so uh let me just tell you in advance we're gonna be showing some material that requires age-appropriateness there's some there's some intense things coming your way this week this this show so just keep that in mind depending on who you're watching it with and the show couldn't come at a better time because of what we're going through as an american jewish community and if you're watching this from all over the world maybe it's going on in your countries as well and maybe you're watching it and it's been going on in your country but in the diaspora community at large over the past few weeks we have seen anti-semitism rear its ugly head again in ways that will shock even those who are holocaust survivors what we have experienced just on the coasts if you will last week in the west coast in los angeles people came to a jewish restaurant and searching for jews to beat up times square new york city jews sitting at restaurants getting beaten up chance that hide themselves under the israel-palestinian conflict but we know what it is it's anti-semitism rearing its head we've been here before and the last thing we need to do is look the other way we've been looking the other way way too long it's uncomfortable to stare at the country that you know your whole life and realize that there are stuff that's going on under our eyes and under our nose we don't want to look this way we don't want to look this way we want to laugh we want to be entertained we want to watch the games we want to make money we want to enjoy our religious freedoms we want to focus only our attention on those people that are good we don't want to see the ugly unfortunately the ugly came to show itself to us this week and if you've been watching what's been going on at least in broad daylight now it's presenting itself and we have to understand what it is here is the bad news it's been here for a long time a lot of it has been tucked away in universities that me and you don't frequent maybe our kids do maybe our nephews and nieces do but we don't on these campuses first seen as some fanatics but now becoming something that we can't ignore this has been going on for a long time hate anti-semitism under the under the the trojan horse of anti-zionism in tonight's show we're going to be talking about it so if it gets a little uncomfortable that's okay we're juice we're built to handle the uncomfortable we're going to be talking about a subject that we need to watch tonight when i was taping the show it dawned on me that if there was ever a show that i had no choice but to sit through it's this one tonight we're going to be speaking to an incredible individual his name is raphael shore he's a filmmaker he's a visionary he's an entrepreneur and because of the incredible importance we have one guest and we're gonna be going through some of his films to see what's right beneath our nose to see what's going on in the world that we don't want to see so that we're more informed that we're more educated because knowledge is power and as jews we never run from truth we are the people that fight for truth we don't run from truth even if the truth makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable i'm excited for tonight's show and i hope you will be as well there's a lot we're going to discuss that's one of those [ __ ] one of these shows where when we're done with it we're gonna have some homework but better we know because when we're together we're stronger you take our people you give it truth you bind us together and we are unstoppable once we know what we're fighting against so stick with us we've got an incredible show coming up for you and we really appreciate you being here so let's begin right away uh our next guest our only guest is uh the founder of this organization called the clarion project check out this quick highlight reel of just a little bit of what he's doing check this out the group called the clarion project dedicated to exposing the dangers of extremists clarion project is meeting with lawmakers on capitol hill this week to explain how young people are targeted for radicalization obsession it gives a scary look inside the extremist world this is something every american should know [Music] the movie left many of us speechless we appreciate uh what you've done the new film iridium the honor diaries the third jihad it's powerful stuff covert cash what american universities don't want you to know about their foreign funding that is pretty amazing when this amount of money is coming in from a foreign government my first question is why [Music] i was raising children to be assassins and killers and weapons of war as a neo-nazi who do i hate everyone the irony is neo-nazis and antifa share quite a bit in common even white people that don't believe what we believe i hate i hated anybody who didn't look like me i was hyper violent when i was 16 years old [Music] one former skinhead trying to leave hate behind it was hard when black people were very kind to me when i was trying to hate them i'm rahil raza from the clarion project she is a muslim activist please welcome raheel raza [Applause] i'm a human rights activist and a practicing muslim for the past 20 years i've dedicated my life to speaking out against the rising threat of radical islam i'm here in washington to speak about preventing violent extremism clarion project developed preventing violent extremism or pve we go in and we teach communities how to spot times radicalization they are sharing their insights with congress the state department and homeland security the visit comes ahead of the release of the clarion projects documentary called kids chasing paradise because what is happening to these young children is child abuse thank you for being so brave for speaking out [Music] ryan morrow is a national security analyst for the clarion project what has your investigation revealed it's amazing you dug it up the clarion project who i work for we broke this story this is the video that's that's the video of islam this is in new york state ryan morrow has been helping investigators in this case we've accumulated thousands and thousands of documents to help law enforcement with us the country owes the clarion project a real expression of thanks we appreciate it's truly an honor to have the founder of the clarion project on his name is robert falls shore he's a rabbi an educator and an award-winning film producer the clarion project of which he is the founder produces groundbreaking documentary films including the critically acclaimed obsession radical islam's war against the west which was seen by 30 million americans and won best feature film in 2005 liberty film festival cnn the new york times and other leader leading media organizations have interviewed him extensively over his work he's also he also founded and is the executive chairman of open door media producing their 2009 documentary crossing the line the intifada comes to campus which explores the proliferation of anti-israel and anti-semitic sentiments on north american college campuses false films at both organizations drive impact to a broad audience via broadcast streaming and film festivals it is incredible what he has been producing what his organizations produce it's an honor to introduce rabbi or fall short join us in the show sir fall thank you so much for being here and joining us on the show thank you very much for having me charlie great to see you it's an honor to have you on tell us a little about this clarion project i see this everywhere but you know you're the man behind it so give us a little bit more about what it is sure yeah it's the clarion project you can find out all about it on the website clarionproject.org but it really began around 14 15 years ago um i'm in jerusalem the reality of the conflict that we have in the middle east is very palpable although it came a little bit closer to home for you americans this this week oh yeah but but it's been real here for quite a long time and um i felt that you know we got to deal with this we have to the the radical islamists who did 9 11 on america they're the same enemy of the jewish people the same enemy the jewish people israel and america the same enemy and this enemy is very large and very not understood very understood right and so i felt that i had an obligation since for some reason i i had a clarity i felt i had an obligation to try to enlighten most of the western world if possible if there's any way possible it's the nature of this threat what is the ideology behind radicalism how serious are they how much of a threat are they to americans and to jews and so i started it 14 15 years ago with the idea of making films and sharing those films with americans and with jews to try to help educate so where did this come from i mean your people have passions for a lot of things and you know you end up in a bunch of different ways of helping the world right this is quite unique for our people there aren't a lot of people doing this so where does this passion come from to reveal this so that people see what's going on in radical islam that's a great question um when i was 20 years old i started to become jose bechuva i didn't grow up religious from canada and typical non-religious background and i had a twin brother who became religious at asia torah and i started to explore it then i went back to university and there was something about anti-semitism that drew me and i wanted to understand what's the nature why do they hate us so much what was going on with adolf hitler yamashima and the holocaust what is it that's that's driving them and i saw this weird mirrored reality that that on some level the anti-semites appreciated how great we are and because they understood our greatness and they were evil they wanted to wipe us out and i got a tremendous clarity on that for some reason that drove me to understand it and then to explain it to others that was part one part two was that i became a student of rabbi noah weinberg saul and rabbi weinberg at asia torah he taught us always to take responsibility for the jewish people and although asia torah was primarily a cure organization and we dealt with a spiritual threat facing jewish people and assimilation jewish identity but no less important to him was the physical survival of the jewish people and when jews were under threat it didn't matter spiritual physical we had to take responsibility that was part of the ethos of asia torah and so when i saw the threat and when i saw like the 1982 lebanon war and then the intifada and the media bias against us i felt oh my gosh we've got to do something and it's not someone else's responsibility it's my responsibility and so i felt okay i got to act that's a great concept it's just a great lesson in life to take responsibility for things um because they're the right things it takes responsibility for right just for me to note this what you didn't say was well my father's a filmmaker and my grandfather's filmmaker and my great-grandfather's filmmaker and i have a a a degree in in in you know middle eastern religions right which would have been a more you know sort of incremental approach to how i ended up here what you said was i don't know i'm a regular dude but there's a problem so let me step up and god's like you're kidding me oh let me give you some let me give you some more information let me give you some more energy which is really how the jewish people deal with problems right they they're never ready until they get into it and then once they get into it they get i believe and i'm sure you believe as well divine assistance to become yes because you really thank god are the world's expert i mean i don't i'm sure you know i don't know if top of my head but it's many millions of dvds and downloads of each and every one of your films that and some of these stats i was looking up was is unbelievable how some of your films actually are helping law enforcement catch bad guys which is just that's unbelievable thank god thank god our our films have been seen by over 130 million people probably about 40 million dvds were sold in the heyday of dvds and they were they still are being used by law enforcement and to to train police and national security to educate them and uh no i thank god you know i i look at it like you said i think it's a very important point that um i did study film at university so i had an inner passion for that creativity i didn't know what i was going to do with it but um it's like patalo you know and and the michigan you know hashem picks up bitsawell and points them out and and and says you build the mishkan and like what they were trained they were trained while they were slaves and me trying to right right do all that handiwork no but if you take responsibility for someone hashem and thank god i have had siata desmaya to be able to figure out how to become a filmmaker and how to distribute because i felt it was absolutely necessary right and i think maybe it'd be good you know i think the main thing that's driving me is that most people do not understand how serious this threat is again last few weeks americans have gotten american jews have gotten a better taste but there's you know over a billion muslims even if a small number are radical that's a huge number and now with intersectionality you know a lot of people are joining forces together and so we made a film recently it's probably good to we can share a slip from that film from uh re this is a recent one called kids chasing paradise and it shows how throughout the muslim world there's an indoctrination going on to hate is hate jews hate israelis hate america but not just hate like we as jews we're rahmani rahmani we don't understand what it means to be ruthless and want to wipe out an enemy we just don't get it it's not in our genetics but there's literally tens of millions of children being indoctrinated today into this and we made a film about it and you know let's watch a clip so we're driving over to the place where the attack occurred i haven't actually been there before i was kind of a little freaked out by going there but i think it's about time too [Music] after the attack all i could think about was what brings two 20 year olds to go out and do something so brutal to to shoot a retired old man in the head what what brings somebody to that horrific psychological state and i was thinking about those questions a lot and they were really bothering me and then suddenly there was this reenactment video that appeared on the internet [Music] the hamas student union in gaza put together a reenactment video showing the attack on my father and on the bus they had students dressed up as passengers on the bus they had students dressed up as the terrorists and they carried out the attack in the way that they envisioned that it must have happened i was shocked i hadn't until that point i hadn't really been familiar with the the incitement that exists uh on social media i hadn't followed these videos i hadn't filed these posts i started uh looking for more information about the attack on the internet there were numerous posts glorifying the terrorists there were videos produced supporting the attack [Music] when i saw that i began to understand the problem and i began looking for other types of [Music] incitement [Music] is going on all around the world [Music] we are your followers and it's definitely all over social media so i got to tell you i i'm i'm totally as as expected blown away by what i just saw here's what my brain is telling me it's just a few people it's not so much it can't be like there's no way how do you process this yeah it's um it is probably what you're touching upon is without a doubt the greatest challenge that we have as filmmakers covering this topic cognitive dissonance because people just can't believe it they just can't believe it and and this is the the core problem of westerners of americans to think that everyone's like them in the world and sadly it is so much not like that if it were we were living in a wonderful world but it's not like that and and as much as we painted we pull back we pull back we show the this material but we deliberately pull back and make it not as bad as it really is because we know we people can't handle it it's worse wait it's worse it yes it's worse it's worse it's worse it gets that that was the that was the clear studio that was the pg version of it are you kidding me i'm telling you it's worse and they're getting it they're getting it from the time this kind of radicalization and incitement is happening from the time their young children they're getting it from the streets the posters that they watch they're getting from their politicians they're getting it from their teachers they're getting it from the media it is it's in a complete and full indoctrination and you know you've got a choice for the palestinians between the the the pa palestinian authority which you know holocaust denial and anti-semitism is rife versus hamas you know so you've got you know pa is the is the mild version so we're showing you the pg you know pa version let's say but that you know it it that and it makes it a great challenge as filmmakers because people have a really hard time believing but this is the reality and then when you get a conflict like we just saw like what is it that drives people to shoot missiles it's at civilians and then and then have hundreds of thousands of people cheering and and getting on the streets and you know the reason the elections were called off in israel in the last few weeks which which was one of the causes or excuses for the latest conflict was because hamas was going to be elected hamas who's whose platform is genocide to wipe out jewish people in israel to murder every one of us they're going to get elected democratically and so they canceled the elections because because the pa didn't want to lose to hamas and nobody else wants hamas to win either but that shows you what's going on when you have a generation of indoctrination then they all and they all elect genocide genocidal organizations so it that's the proof that it's as bad as you as i'm showing you here wow you know what's amazing here um and i'd love to see the next one that you have for us [Music] it's it's what's so fascinating is how many kids on liberal college campuses who are fighting for people's rights and are standing up in solidarity with hamas i don't know if they would necessarily be excited about seeing some of these things uh it's just an amazing thing that yeah and i'm sure you have had plenty of uh of feedback i hope from kids that are like sort of not knowing what to do and sort of joining a rally because someone told them that like you know israel is out there killing babies and they have no idea what's really going on in the middle east yeah it's no idea this is this is the issue of what we referred to earlier as intersectionality that in the last few years there's been a um intersection out intersectionalization a common denominator created between all liberal causes all oppressed peoples are are the same and must join forces the definition of an approach oppressed people is that they're weaker so by definition israel is stronger palestinians are weaker therefore anybody who's concerned for any good liberal cause has to fight for the palestinians if you're concerned about abortion or women's rights or if you're concerned about black rights and civil rights and then you're also fighting for the the palestinians because they're also the weaker in the in in this model and it's creating a horrible situation for young jews on campus and it would i do want to talk about it uh a little bit more to to show you what's happening and we we made that in fact maybe we'll do it now that you know we made a film about what's going on campus it's actually called crossing the line too let's watch that reason it's called crossing the line two relates to our previous question because i made crossing the line the intifada comes to campus to show how bad anti-israel the movement is on campus and how it's crossing the line to anti-semitism i made it about 10 years ago nobody wanted to believe it cognitive dissonance five years later people started to realize that we had to make another film crossing the line too so let's let's share that clip with the audience let's go see that wow that line i couldn't catch who that speaker was but the line of that i've never heard ever articulated like this that the way that you manifest anti-semitism in this generation is towards the jewish state meaning i think most american jews would say that anti-semitism and anti-israel are distinct and although i would i almost speak about me personally although i personally see them as one the people that are not outside that are not in my world right the typical american we'll see them as two and and you'll have a lot of examples of that right you'll have a lot of people that will say i love jews they supported my campaign i just think israel is in apartheid state right we have people members of congress that say that right that say no no i love jews you know especially when they're fundraising from us but israel's a different story and you'll see people nodding and going yeah and what i think you're getting out here which is a very uncomfortable point but this is an uncomfortable show so it's okay which is that's not really true the yeah the the modern day anti-semitism is rearing its head through the state of the jewish state yes very much so which is not to say that you can't be critical of israel everybody can be critical as jews are critical of israel even who love who live here as we know so not everybody was critical of israel is an anti-semite but very often anti-israel is the manifestation of anti-semitism in this generation anti-semitism morphs every generation it morphs it's not cool you can't be a nazi in this generation you can't be a racist so how did so so anti-semitism needs to take a new form it needs to metamorphosize and so this generation is the state of israel that's the easy place to do it and the film actually defines it the theme the film actually sets out criteria and demonstrates it based on actually an idea that nathan sharansky gives and this film by the way anyone can watch it it's up on youtube they just google crossing the line on youtube crossing the line too it's a half an hour film that's available for free for people to watch but i think that it demonstrates very strongly that fine line between anti-zionism and anti-semitism which was fine until a month ago but now when you have people walking through times square and through rest kosher restaurants in los angeles saying where is the jew zionist where's the jew the night where is the jew and beating him up because of what's going on in israel nobody can say that's not anti-semitism and so and so the the line that was a little bit blurry is has become quite clear i think yeah of many many people i can tell you yeah i i couldn't agree more meaning there's no reason why you should a person should be beating up in a restaurant in america if it's about israel right there's no if they got unless the guy had a israeli flag wrapped around them right it's one thing which they didn't but which they didn't right if you if you happen to be an identifiable jew if it was separate it would be separate here's where it gets to be a little more uncomfortable i have colleagues that are taking the stance of trying to suppress any um any support for the state of israel in hopes that they are going to dodge uh any negativity coming their way in other words these are jewish colleagues yeah jewish colleagues that are just saying hey listen just we can't talk about islam if i could just leave israel off the map then i'll be safer not realizing that um just like i would i don't wanna i don't wanna create parallels here but you know i think just if we speak historically jews are constantly trying to figure out how to get people to hate them less as opposed to sort of embracing the fact that they just hate you yes and i think this is this this touches on the most core issue actually of what motivates me as well because what you're seeing there with your colleague is the direct result of this anti-semitism in the world is assimilation and what happens if you're a student on campus and you're saying even colleagues in the professional world and you're feeling this pressure you're feeling it even if you might not be even experiencing it you're feeling you know if i stand up for israel if i stand up for the jewish people i'm gonna get a lot of flack and and today i'm gonna get slaughtered on social media that's what happened in the last few weeks any young jew stood up a little bit for israel got slammed on social media flipped out freaked out anti-semitism everything the result of that is i'm going to learn my lesson i'm stepping back yep and and it's it's just a a more visible manifestation of what's been going on for for 20 years because bottom line is we are we are guests in in in america we're guests in the exile wherever we are and and and this anti-israel feeling this anti-semitism has been bubbling and if you're not comfortable as a jew if you're not really clear on the issues then you get confused and it leads to assimilation excellent excellent point i i want to double click on that for a second and i want to work in this film that's an excellent point which is the ability the response at least what i'm hearing from you is before you think that what it means to be pro-israel whatever now is go on facebook and start fighting at least be educated at least take responsibility for yourself and your family to see these things to deal with the discomfort of watching films like to to understand israel better to be educated about it because you're gonna want to just disengage completely and turn around to see like whether or not aaron rodgers signs with packers and and go back to your life when yeah did he by the way did he as far as i know i don't think he did that but i think which is an issue to itself [Laughter] but i think that um the issue is that when there's so much negativity or anti-semitism or anti-israel feeling a young jew has to conclude one of two ways either they are correct and i as a jew or the jewish state has a problem and is in the wrong or the world and all of this negativity that's coming at me is wrong yeah no it's very difficult it's very difficult for a young jew to conclude that united nations and the european union and much of the democratic party especially the progressivists and black lives matter are all wrong and have a jewish problem yep i know what i'm talking about that level of clarity is very difficult oh yeah and requires an education that's going to result in a moral back and a moral backbone that's good that's right that's right very few very few young jews are given enough information to have that moral backbone exactly and that we can that good that's a good lead-in to the to the next film clip which is that i have another organization called open door media um and we're just doing the pro-israel stuff i separate it the clarion project does work about national security threats radical islam anti-semitism fighting evil suame lava assato but i wanted us to if i want to conspire i want to inspire young jews and so we have an entire organization which is actually quite large and we're pumping out a lot of incredible educational material about israel about judaism about the jewish people and whether it's like a 55 part series on youtube of 10-minute videos in the history of israel or a 30-part series on the history of the jewish people is all available on unpacked it's our youtube channel unpacked but we try to find great jewish stories and this film clip which we'll show you just gives you a taste of some of our feature films that we've made some of them were on netflix in fact and comcast and pbs this one is called mcconan the the journey of an african jew and uh there's an ethiopian jew who made aliyah and served in the army and we follow his story and then we follow him back to as he returns to ethiopian it's a beautiful story and it's inspiring and it's the kind of stories that we need to teach our in our generation amazing let's check it out [Music] foreign b foreign [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] that's awesome i i when when is it when is this film out when does it come out is it available it's out it's out yeah it's out this one's been out for a while this one we did hundreds of uh events on college campuses three years ago we actually brought an ethiopian hip hop band um to to american campuses for their first tour if you open the trailer that's great um and uh i i have to check where it's up but several of our films are up on itunes and amazon prime amazing amazing what was it like filming that what was it like filming that and seeing the story of this individual who i mean what what an arc of story from where he came from to where he ended up what was the moment maybe you can share with us sort of behind the scenes yeah so first of all we we had made a film before this is this is the poster for that film called beneath the helmet that i know for sure yeah from high school to the home front and we followed five israelis as they went through paratrooper training in the israeli army and it was to show the human face of israeli soldiers like these kids would love to to to go to college and party and be irresponsible like americans are and but instead they got to go and defend their state what's that like let's get to know these people let's just see what their challenges are what drives them and you'll see that you know we had the woman officer the ashkenaz this the the safari the swiss ole hadas and and then we had mcconan here and he ended up being one of our guys and he had such an amazing story that we did the follow-up film with him and um one good story was the film team uh had just arrived my wife was actually the director of this film so the film team yeah and um the film team just arrived into ethiopia um actually it was at in tubby you know where there's a famous story they had arrived in the libya and they're taking the bus from the airport and the film team is there and our cameraman's a big russian jewish guy and he's got his titsies hanging out and and and busload full of ethiopian black ethiopians and one of them just says out loud what are those strings hanging down from your shirt and he started to explain well the titsies and this is the reason for it and he said she says are you jewish and he says he says yeah says you killed jesus christ and then they're like oh [Laughter] [Music] speak what happened with his that's an old one so so it ended up she was just it was just a curiosity oh you're the people that killed jesus christ but you know they weren't like out to attack them so they were able to breathe easy but oh my gosh that was that was a moment that was a moment that's scary that's great though and these are these are these films that um these films i'm sure touched so many lives tom so many lives are moved by seeing the stories of others yeah yeah and so we are always looking to to find great stories this is another film that we that we made here sustainable nation uh this one came out recently get the poster here sustainable nation i see that there yeah and we tell the story of these three israelis who are coming up with incredible technology for saving the planet with regards to water and energy usage wow this woman for example stevonn she's drilling wells throughout africa to bring water and energy to these villages that are completely backwards and uh completely messed up and um and it's it's just incredibly inspiring so we tell that story of how israel's kind of figured out the water and they have gone from a desert to a place of of someone abundance of waters now sharing that technology with the world so again it's an amazing inspiring stories and that's what we're always looking for wow share the information and and that's that's what we do it at open door media um we're actually on that film crossing the line by the way just to share with your audience we've just decided to make an another upgrade another version crossing the line three because it's five years old and it's just gotten worse and what's happening now is it actually has now bumped from the campus to all of america as you saw in the recent conflict so we're going to make a new film and if any of the viewers out there are interested in supporting us and helping us do that yeah contact charlie and charlie can forward you the information yeah you go to projectinspire.com and and we'll get you the information that you need especially getting the information to watch all these films um and we'll put them on our site so send links that wherever you are uh but let's go to your give me your websites as well so they can go directly where where websites can people visit if they're interested yeah so so clarionproject.org and then on on youtube do a search for unpack the unpacked channel we also have opendoormedia.org that's where all of the pro-israel materials and you can get a huge education and a lot of inspiration through coming to these uh these channels amazing well rabbi thank you so much for being with us today and and uh and all that you do it's this incredible amount of work and effort that goes into every frame and every moment on these films and i i can only imagine the hours that no one will ever see to make it just right so that people can be moved to seeing truth really it's what you're trying to do you're not doing this so that you can win emmy awards which i hope you do win but you're doing them because you're trying to share truth which is really of the noblest things that you can do so we thank you for who you are and for shining your light on this thank you very much it's a pleasure to be on the show and uh i'm glad to be working together with you thank you rabbi and we thank rabbi rafal shore for his really really incredible presentation the tour of all the different types of films that he's taking us through and the shocking nature of it that someone needs to reveal the question we get a lot is what can we do about it we'll check out this quick video that gives us a little bit of a perspective israel and the palestinians have been back in the news cycle and with everyone from pundits to celebrities to your cousin wengen it's hard to tell who to trust and let's be honest no one is above their own biases including us at unpacked our bias if you want to call it that is that zionism is a good thing and the jewish people's right to self-determination ought to be a given so first we wanted to ask three questions about how to be a conscious consumer of content and then suggest our five most important videos that address the very complicated history in israel number one is it oversimplified boiling the conflict down to short slogans and simple cartoons is irresponsible at best ignorant and at worst manipulative if a cartoon or meme piques your interest always make sure to dig deeper and question the motives of the creator singing jalebi baby and inserting poop emojis on tiktok is for sure entertaining but when it comes to addressing what many view as the most intractable conflict of the day let's try to elevate the conversation number two is the source giving the perspective of multiple sides it's easy to dehumanize the other by ignoring multiple perspectives but that won't really solve anything understanding of the other is the path to peace and as much as we want that for the middle east let's model it in our own discourse number three is it giving enough historical context it's not enough to say i'm not going to try and recap the history here too much conflict has started with setting fire to history books in order to understand the present we must learn about what brought us here the story of the jewish connection to the land matters and of course the history of the palestinian connection to the land matters as well with those in mind here are five of our most important videos that go through some of the accusations against israel and some broader historical questions to be aware of i'll link to in the description below number one does israel practice apartheid this is a question we've seen all over tik tok and instagram number two is zionism colonialism this is another idea many people have been throwing out there number three is israel an occupying power wow the word occupation is loaded what do people mean when they use this term different people seem to be using this term differently number four what is the history of the israeli-palestinian conflict and number five who is hamas and what are they all about if we're going to opine on the israeli-palestinian conflict it's important to know who the key players are it's become more than just a little cliche to say the israeli-palestinian conflict is complicated but the truth is that it is in a world where social media makes information more accessible than ever before let's utilize social media for good ensure we take the time to learn more complete stories shun misinformation and disinformation and as a result this will hopefully lead to more constructive conversations it's a hard thing it's a hard thing to engage in information that makes us uncomfortable it's a hard thing to think that there are people that hate us for no reason that don't know us but don't really know the story how in the world can you grapple with the fact that little kids are being taught to kill for they don't even know us look at those stories it's unbelievable reenactments where murder and destruction is the most valued thing for many of us we've never even seen such things and it's uncomfortable and i'd rather be entertained but this is reality and this is real this is life this is what it means to be a jew people hate us for no reason and as a referral shows it doesn't mean that israel's perfect but there's there's criticism of government and then there is destruction of jewry and they're very different what do we take from a show like this well what do we take from shabbat shabbat is the day in which we think but it's more than that you see when god shuts down the weak what he does is he enables us to breathe in and to tap in to a deeper source of our power the whole aspect of shabbat is to deepen ourselves to think about our weak to think about our future to find strength where we didn't know existed in the runnings arounds of the week shabbat is designed to remind ourselves that we're here for a purpose remind ourselves that the partner in creation is god remind ourselves that there's some big work ahead of us and there's some big work ahead of us no matter where you live and we've got a lot of power we've got a lot of strength whatever god puts in front of us he gives us the ability to grapple with and to overcome but we have to be willing to at least engage in it we have to be willing at least to educate ourselves at least to educate our loved ones at least to be aware of it to know that in maybe many of the schools that we're supporting or that we're allowing to be in our in our towns or communities this is what's going on so that many of our children and relatives and friends are on the front lines every day of their academic career to know that we have a responsibility to at least know but also to stand up and stand together and to be strong because remember shabbat also reminds us of a holiday we just observed the holiday of shavuot mount sinai there's one thing we learned at mount sinai that when the jewish nation is unified in search for truth anything is possible and so this shouldn't scare us it should embolden us this shouldn't make us fearful it should make us proud it should make us united we can do anything with the jewish people we've got god on our back we have god in our front and that's what shabbat stands for and so on behalf of me and mine too yours i wish you [Music] shabbat of strength of power of resilience of knowledge i hope to see you next week in jerusalem but if not we'll see right back here and together we're stronger may we see a day where there is no more hate and may we shine our light on the world in strength and in peace so good weekend happy memorial day good shabbos and shabbat shalom [Music] oh [Music] what i [Music] together [Music]