Rejuvenation: Direct from Warsaw

[Music] hi everybody eve herrera rejuvenation on the land of digital network it is august 31st 2021 the 23rd i think the 23rd day of a little 57-81 um just got off a plane back to israel a few hours ago so i'm sipping on what's going to be many cups of coffee today but didn't want to disappoint of course all my listeners and so we are putting out a podcast today of course with thanks as always to ben and to tabitha had a really interesting trip to the states we'll talk about it another time i though i know those of you who heard last week's podcast heard the presentation that i gave in aspen colorado which was very interesting in a lot of ways but today we are doing a very different segue um i have with me and for those of you who want to watch this this is also going to be this video because being videoed and an audio podcast i have with me uh someone i've interviewed before someone i work with closely with one israel fund mark provisor on a completely different topic than we usually do which is of course israel and security and you david shamron he uh had definitely a more interesting couple of weeks than i did um in poland no less so i asked him and got in the middle of somewhat of a controversy controversy just seems to follow certain people but anyway um i asked him to share with us some of his experiences there and uh and so he is so mark provisor thanks for joining us today with the hat on of not security with a hat on of artists and i would even say at this point internationally known artist so um what have you been up to oh yeah uh i was actually in the states at first and then i flew to poland i was uh invited to be part of a major exhibition in the uzdovsky museum of contemporary art it's a major uh museum in poland and the topic of the show it was called political art even though the works of mine i don't think they were political but it had to do with uh you know in in today's world what we hear of what they call cancer culture what's politically correct woke and all these other things so there's a major problem going in going on especially in the arts world that if if you don't line up with these people's train of thought if what i think is already becoming mainstream then you're really not necessarily accepted meaning that if you have if your own opinions uh differ from others then you're bad you're saying the art world is no different than the regular world where oh absolutely absolutely so so this show was also based on a freedom of expression uh i'm part of also a group called passion for freedom was freedom in the arts to express things whatever that some do deem controversial today because if it doesn't again work with the cancer culture if it doesn't go with antifa uh with a lot of these things then you're you can actually be blacklisted and there's a number of paintings that i make based on my experience with terrorism that i really never tried to show but it uh the museum director got in touch with me he had heard about uh heard about me and they asked that i put my works in the show which is first of all very exciting for me it was my first uh exhibition in a museum and it's running for months it's not just a pop-up show and it may tour the world the controversy all started because and i think this was i think the museum in a sense made a mistake two of the artists that also came in uh one is a definite anti-semite and uh questions as questions the holocaust and the other one is i think just a uh whatever i i don't think he has a not not a big fan of the jews either but it the whole thing was very interesting a lot it was 27 artists from around the world there were uh there were muslims there were christians there were buddhists uh a couple of jews but the lands that they came from yemen iran denmark sweden uh england poland obviously uh a couple of other places and they were basically a lot of their their it was being political because they were talking against uh bad things that happened to them the muslim women involved were talking about how what goes on mining the forced marriages the the mutilation the you know the way sharia law affects women like we are classic what's going on in afghanistan now uh some of the other european artists were going against various regimes that were considered fascist and what's going on uh i mean it was an incredible incredible show let me ask you they weren't afraid look remember we're speaking to a mainly western audience now people who well could it give it something someone may not like it but they don't have to be afraid i hope not when they go first of all okay so first of all a number of the artists have had death threats there were a couple artists that actually had bodyguards there and so on because um well i'll get into that in a second because remember a lot of these topics aren't aren't really addressed in in in the world especially in the the beautiful art world right uh i mean if if someone comes out against sharia treatment of women then oh you're an islamophobe if someone comes out against uh god knows what if so if someone does not fall in line with uh with the the woke and stuff today then you're anti so individual thought is no longer is no longer important it it and and not only that but again if you don't fall in line then you're that's it you're subversive you're bad you know god forbid you say something uh against what's going on in states whether it be the blm movement not that you disagree but if you have if you if you're not following the herd then you're bad uh and a lot of these artists because they don't follow the hurts not that they have they're not have anti statements but but because they're not 100 there that's what happens now there were some of the artists there that definitely were coming out against stuff and i didn't think you know in a right way i mean all right like well first of all first of all there uh a few of the european artists were this was a really educational trip for me um i have to say first of all first of all the first time i was in poland in warsaw which was which was very emotional for me because i have family that was also lost there and i'd never in the holocaust in the holocaust yeah they were actually from what i understand from other family members they were in the resistance also and um i didn't want to go i honestly didn't want to go uh but you know sometimes uh you have to when i decided all right it is time to see and so first of all it was a real education for me besides being emotional going there as as a country as if i have family who fought against jew hatred uh back then and then to make this roundabout trip you know i've been fighting against our enemies for so long uh and then to show up there i felt you know what i have to do it i don't know how to say tikkun in english but it was uh it was that's what in a sense what it was for me uh well somewhat some kind of closure maybe closure not necessarily closure but repair of something so you know the jews of then and now here comes another jew who has been continues to fight against this so the minute that the controversy came out um which was a little late we saw a couple of one of the articles real i i know i'm not supposed to speak bad language here but i mean you imagine i mean you know the way i speak this guy was just nasty i mean he this is dan park i read about yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so i i basically i really wanted to confront them and i said you know what we like the artist received a lot of letters from antifa from the anti-fascist movement and other things so that we should pool our works because of one they're saying that this shows that the rest of you shouldn't shouldn't exhibit your workload right one more on so and rather than focus first of all on all these incredibly important issues these people decide let's focus on this one idiot oh this one shouldn't be now again i i not that he had his his images i i really didn't like and when i saw his past and what he's done this guy's despicable and and i really wanted to confront him there and he was avoiding me like the plague i mean i went up you know this even extended my hand but like walk away um but again but the point that i'm making is that rather than focus on all this uh abuse of of women's rights of human rights of all these other things the press and everyone oh racism whatever this kind of folks you know rather than the other 26 artists who had good points now again there was some controversy with also the others it was really politically charged but that sounds like it was the whole point so it's a [Music] that are difficult for them that's right that's right but also but these issues are not difficult for them when you talk about women's rights and human rights this shouldn't be a difficult topic to discuss but then rather these these beautiful liberties evolved humans rather than speak about these issues that are so important no they chose to look and say oh anti-semitism and whatever no i'm against anti-semitism in a big way okay i mean i i'll put my life on the line without thinking twice going against it but these people simply wouldn't they would not address all these other atrocities being against humans no let's let's pick a little jewish thing and even the jewish communities of poland they wrote a thing and it pissed me off what did they write wait what did they do they were so offended by this guy being in the show and i understand that and i agree with that but don't write a letter come back confront him what is this stuff standing in the back oh you did a bad thing go and meet this head-on now i posted about stuff like this on facebook and what was very interesting very positive uh reactions like yes though i because i wrote back to the antifa i said i'm not pulling out of this show and you've given me motivation yet to stay in it and given me strength that i am going to stand up to any haters and hatred and i had expected the jewish community to phone also to do the thing don't just write a show come on out discuss it but who am i to i'm not judging them but it as maybe it's a difference between living in israel and living in the diaspora and especially in poland yes now wait now let me say something a lot of the images that i found there this was major for me uh educational also because i did not understand the way the europeans reacted um to nazism and germany and the hatred that still exists there so even towards nazism towards jews towards whom towards towards germany towards germany and things i mean there were images put on like one image that really bothered me was uh i mean there were a few but one it had like the uh the entrance gate of valshvits and it said reparations and i was like you know whoa what's going on here how could you put something up like that and then i started discussing this and there were it's like there are a lot of people in europe that don't get reparations and they're upset at this like why are other people getting reparations and we're not you know and it's not that i am justifying what went on between europeans and and and jews in in during world war ii i mean anti-semitism is rife in europe and it is rife in in i hope i'm using the right word you're supposed to correct me but uh in in poland it's it's there okay anyone who says oh no it's not it's there and it's not just coming from the polls by the way it also comes from a lot of the the from the islamic countries who have like you know descended on europe and so on so oh i'm looking at these images and i and i i went up right up to the artist there was another artist who put up another thing and i said he put up a picture that i really did not like it was a famous picture from the warsaw ghetto of the child holding up and with the face of uh uh of elvis instead and i said what what the hell is this what was it well he says well elvis's song in the ghetto now i know this guy doesn't necessarily is not a big fan of jews and so on and i but we had we had it out in a sense real discussion and to the point that one of his posts that he made which wasn't most jew friendly if you will he took it down he took it down and he said to me i did not understand this other side so the whole thing is dialogue brings things together and writing simply a letter of saying oh this is bad that doesn't it's the dialogue and the confrontation this is what can bring about solutions and peaceful solutions and a lot of people you know i guess they may not realize it from because of my security background i do security because i want peace i want quiet you know and this is why i've been fighting terror for my good part of my life not because necessarily an agenda though obviously i'm as zionist as they come i like to think but because i don't want people to die so the whole thing was really interesting and it was educational for me regarding uh poland one it's not that again i'm not i haven't become a big fan and there's a lot of contention right now in poland between poland and israel regarding the restitution and so on but it was something and it was offensive to me that to see people rather than look at a bigger picture right in their face about human rights about all these things about about women's rights about freedom of speech they decide to pick on something which is actually minuscule and an idiot i don't care that they picked on him but the subject and ignore everything else and we see this all across the western world you know people are talking about this even though they're saying uh you know where in america you know drive when i was driving through some of the i'll call them ghettos oh defund the police defunders well they're not they're talking about one thing where they're not talking about fixing another that would cause all these good chain reactions and this is mainstream today and unfortunately it has penetrated the art world and it it's there are certain taboos that you cannot paint now my paintings were about my reaction to terror and my and it wasn't against palestinians it was against terror and and it showed actually you know how both of us are in the conflict and and whatever uh and those who understood it saw that there was no agenda it wasn't coming out against anyone but it upset me this mainstream people who like to consider themselves progressive and evolved my god they're as bad as anyone else if not worse well they're worse no well i think it's it's pretty clear that people who label themselves progressive these days are not open-minded at all and will only allow anyone to speak who agrees with them but in a place in an artist's exhibit like that especially in warsaw i mean i don't think we can divorce ourselves from the fact that this happened in a country where and this is part i think of the resentment that the polls have from what i understand because there is um a priest that i am in contact with who is in and out of poland and has explained some of the nuances to me that the germans most of the camps were in poland they weren't in germany so when people go on these trips to visit the concentration camps they're actually going to poland and the polls are resentful for that because they feel that it looks like it was poland that did the holocaust and that germany has to some degree gotten off the hook and there's also other resentments the fact that germany made its way back economically after the war while other countries are still suffering there's a lot of layers here so i i addressed some of these things because i wanted to know and again you know for going to poland it was rough for me there's a thing i'd like to check i don't know how much it is i have to just find with people who really understand the holocaust far better than i do so a lot of the guards they were saying i said you know what about your guards in the camps and they said they said find polish guards you'll see that the ukrainian and and and you know for first of all i was discussing this issue with the museum director because i told him i have a problem with these things and i said my family also pursed in the camps and he looks at me and he says so do i and i went what he said yeah so do i no i'm not forgiving yeah he was jewish or not no no no no no he was not jewish so he was a poll right he's a poll so it's not that i'm forgiving any country whatever for the the way they acted or the way they continue to act or whatever but there were realities that um i wasn't aware of and it was uh i'd like to say enlightening but it was educating and it it allows me now to view things in a very different way that being said also with the jewish presence in europe okay which you know i was walking uh the other day i mean i also just got back i guess two days ago and i'm walking the old city of warsaw which was recreated which was flattened during world war ii and recreated based on paintings and drawings and i'm looking at all these this the pole the polish society you know just nice people walking down and i kept the thing i said all of a sudden the the word a stranger in a strange land came up just popped in my head and i was saying like what the hell are are these people in a sense doing here it's like all of a sudden i said you know visiting everything and i said why aren't people in israel now mind you we have plenty of issues here i'm not blaming anyone for not living here but it was just very interesting it it's um there's a lot more studying that i have to do there's a lot more reading that i have to do and i i plan i would like to go back to warsaw and speak with these jewish leaders and so on i want to understand a little bit more from their side obviously i want to hear about i want to know why they did not address this issue um which issue the one of the why did it first of all why didn't they come to the exhibit and address those net those bad images well maybe they will the exhibit's going on for months for months well hopefully they will i want i i think people should like i said if something bothers you go out to confront it do not write a little letter and stand behind oh i sent an email and all this don't just go outside they weren't mind you there were some people some jews that did come to demonstrate against it part of the antifa and they surrounded this guy which i thought was fine i wish i would have known because i would have loved to surround him um but what about all these other things don't simply just focus on yourself on this just one issue i mean here's a museum that put on a show that really showing some bad things in the world and this is what they focused on and mind you though part of the controversy in poland is because they're undergoing uh some you know what i i've just i learned that the word nationalism is a four-letter word uh and and god forbid you you start getting nationalistic you know whoa now i'm a hippie i guess inside the the song imagined by john lennon is like something i love but really people say yeah no i i i mean the words at least you know no i i believe i really want people to live together in peace and and have all that but what people don't understand is you know you always have a neighbor who doesn't want that and then what do you do it's like especially in israel we want peace more than anything more than anything and this is why we really go to serve and why we defend our country because we want peace but we have neighbors and people inside who don't agree with that and so you have to then meet that line between that one core of peaceful beautiful idea we all live together shangri-la and then the nasty people on the other side well there's a border between that and that's where the peop that's where a stand simply has to be made if if you know we look what's going on with afghanistan and it's so timely you know the people who want to live in peace and have their own free society well guess what the taliban and others over there don't want that and so when you don't stand up to them you lose and a lot of people don't get that it look i i you know you like i served in in the idf i fought in lebanon i fought during the father you know people don't realize in war you really either win or lose that's the way it is it's very black and white and lives are lost um so whatever it was very um an incredible trip and there was something remember that i told you about the the righteous uh what are they called the righteous gentiles righteous gentiles in well so okay in yad vashem here in israel so israel has made tremendous efforts over the years to find the people who are not jewish at the risk of their own lives and sometimes at the cost of their lives hid jews during the war it's an entire spectrum of people some people who really did like a magnificent job it's nuns in certain places and priests who hid children um some people did it and were benefited from it um in in certain ways um but there really are a lot of people obviously the most famous would be oscar schindler the whole film was made about him but it's controversial to some degree because for example he had workers in his factory that were jews so people say well he didn't really do to save the jews he did it to get workers you know we can also do what's called in hebrew dominican we can try and give credit where credit is due and assume that the person did it for the right reasons that israel has made tremendous efforts and there are many many lists again hashem at the major holocaust museum of these people and their fam when they were alive in the earlier years they were brought to israel and they were honored now if we find a name we bring in their children or sometimes their grandchildren and honor them because it's not something that should be taken for granted and i think all of us should take a minute and think about that for ourselves if we were in a situation where we could perhaps survive in a really bad situation or risk our lives to help somebody else uh would we do that all right and it's really not easy but from what you were telling me is that there are polls in poland who um have not been recognized as righteous gentiles would it be by the government who who would who would recognize them so um again this is another topic that was i mean i always knew the topic of righteous gentiles i didn't know how far it goes i have a friend who's spent his time between poland and israel johnny daniels who's been working with uh restoring various uh whether it be the cemeteries and working with the righteous gentiles just really helping out um and we met right before i left and there are a number of these polls who are living in complete poverty who have either yet to be uh recognized and the numbers are dwindling and these are people in their 80s and 90s at this point say 50 100 some less all different walks of life and it upset me because also you know in the military here we are raised and taught you don't leave anybody behind and it's just it's just the way we work you don't leave anybody behind and it was upsetting to me to see pictures of these people the squalor that they're living in and so on and saying wait a second i took it a little personal maybe maybe i take things a lot of things too personal but um i said that that really can't be and i like i didn't know what i could do to help them i mean i have an idea i i told i said i want to get together with a few of my other artist friends if we can make small little portraits of them maybe and maybe give them to them at least something that we can do to that's beautiful recognize to recognize them i mean like i just got back i'm gonna see if i can figure it out i mean he's been uh organizing uh these are older people like getting them free transportation and doing covet that like you know devastated everything so he's been helping them out with various things and and food and everything uh then that was beautiful it was it was really beautiful again it was just like this was just another one of the topics that came out that i did not know about um so this is a very interesting stuff that i can uh not necessarily have to focus on because obviously i'm still involved in the security world and still want to prevent terror because i guess it's in my dna but this is something maybe uh you know maybe i can make some of these people smile which would uh be a nice thing personally for me to do sounds like you have a lot to process about this trip yeah yeah yeah i have blank canvases already being set up i'm going to be uh i never really wanted to paint political art uh but i guess some of these things are happening and because i've also again like i mentioned this whole progressive world um yeah i guess controversy follows some people all the time how would how did they react to you i mean were there some people who said that you were a terrorist or no here you are a jew from the shomron hold on right next to me is an exhibition of palestinian artists right next to me and how they've been living under their you know their resistance through existence and stuff and first of all when i read to think this was actually put in this is a thing in the works for a few years where various artists had residencies here in well like to say the west bank and and whatever and i'm watching their films and so this is right next to me so the controversy the conflict is right there of course what i didn't bring up there though i plan on it is like they're saying oh the palestinians have been occupied for seven more over 70 years wait a second over 70 years so we're not talking about judea and samaria we're talking about israel so this whole show in a sense what they probably don't realize because a lot of europeans don't realize really what's going on here right and so this misinformation that's right that's what the palestinians view that israel that the jews are occupying all of israel that they're not even looking at our rights over here in something and i i plan to bring that up i you know i was sitting there and i'm sitting with with the these muslims involved in the show that i was in we're watching the films and they're saying what kind of is that the muslims really but you and then we're not there because they know what's going on because they're middle eastern absolutely but these are other people saying you know we're so sick and tired of of the way they're they're acting and now of course for them to come out and say that is you know that's taboo also but they're sitting there listening and they're listening to the arabic and and you know there was a perfect example of something that i really liked there there's a an old town of lifta which is as you come into jerusalem right on the left beautiful yeah you know beautiful beautiful area and lately there's been efforts by the uh i don't like using the word palestinians because i don't think it's accurate so i'm going to say palestinian arabs saying oh we want to go back in we were thrown out of there and during the war of 48. the one thing they forget to mention is that there are jews living there also it was a jewish arab town right it was a town that ben gorgan said please don't fight with us and then we'll integrate you into israel and they chose to fight the jews and try and prevent the establishment state of israel and they paid the price for that hold on hold on but it wasn't just them paying the price for it it was the jews also living there paying the price for it now people don't know that's what happens in war right people say oh everybody crime or this but it was like this and so war guess what people don't realize war is bad real bad and there's a lot of stuff that happens around it that is really bad and there's no justification for humans to kill each other in a sense in my mind i say that as someone who has fought in war okay but again we see this what's going on this manipulation is this i don't want to keep on saying but you can bleep it out whatever but sounds like this i think my audience can handle it at this point this is this malarkey well you know the way i really speak so i'm being nice exactly this this misinformation going on and they're showing towns of this well guess what you know it's like they're they it the way this whole thing is being presented and also being presented to europe is wrong and this is part of the the problem but you can't present the truth you can't present the other side if my paintings are showing terror and i have a few really disturbing paintings in a sense where uh two figures holding each other stabbing each other in the back one holding one one knife an israeli flag the other a palestinian flag because we are hurting each other you know and i'm just looking at it from an objective view that the various it's i did a thing on the red signs which no one really knows about you know i call them the apartheid signs but people say yes there's apartheid there you're talking about the red signs at the beginnings of arab villages that israelis not to go into these villages because they might be killed hold it it says warn israelis let's really let's call let's call it what it is jews don't come because israeli arabs can go in yes right well they really can't by law but jews can't right and and and and whatever so i put up these signs because i don't like it there's separation i'm one of these people against the wall okay because i don't believe in first of all it's cutting land in half which i'm talking about the the wall that separates part of judea and samaria is a bunch of huey if you will because if people really understood the security situation they would really be freaking out you know but these are things that are behind the scenes that i don't that i won't discuss necessarily on zoom but uh you know in private conversations i i will talk about it but they're being shown and our government here has never shown our pr is the worst and these other evolved progressive individuals out there fighting for human rights ignoring really a lot of the things on the ground ignoring the oppression and repression that the palestinian leadership is doing against their own people needless to say hamas really up there against their corruption and so on against their violation of human rights and so on no but that we don't let's look at the jewish thing always where they were saying oh he's an anti-semite or he's this this and this rather than addressing a a much bigger picture or and being able to take care of that and and this show has just given me uh i you know i i guess i'm going to maybe use my paint brush in in sometimes in a bit of a different way at this point because it it really upset me and i'm watching this i'm so upset at our government god i am so upset at them at the first because years because years they have just been not addressing this issue and that you know it's very funny i was told that uh an interesting story you know uh uh like a like a muscle i don't know how you say that uh an anecdote okay yeah well maybe it's not an animal okay not an anecdote but so you have you have let's say two cans for for charity right two pushkas whatever charity boxes one you fill up to the top the other you throw it you you put there's a few coins in now shake both of these charity boxes which makes them more noise the one that's half empty exactly exactly and this is what people are hearing and our government has been and it has nothing to do with with bibi bennett any one of them they all have have never addressed this situation the situation of of public relations of the the malarkey being spread by by palestinian leadership and so on uh and whatever all this bds that you know they oh no they don't take it seriously well you know what you better take it seriously and when you're being attacked you go out and you get you get them and that's why you have all these supposed i don't know you like using the word left wing or right wing because it it it's you know a person has his rights to his individual thoughts but all of a sudden you're like lies and everything now israel's not the most just nation around i freely say that there's a lot of problems that we could have been better we're not perfect but we're better than everybody else and i will continue to say that okay well i would well the bar isn't high but oh we're definitely high oh yeah but it and i'm just saying i understand where they're coming from i understand their narratives but when we don't address the lies in a proper way then then other people this misinformation grows and we've created such an ignorance allowed such an ignorance to to grow to fester that something has to be done about it and and shows like this it's like if i'm presenting terrorism if if you know we you can't barely even get shown like that in israel and i'm pretend and i'm coming out against terrorism so that's taboo but if someone if you can say make paintings on art or deal with things that go against israel that's okay right i can do things against white supremists that's okay but can i do something against the the the attacks of of of uh muslims against the jews no no no no that's islamophobia right if i ca can i say something about women who are being abused or whoa careful define who's doing it could i go against all these these sexual things going on in on the catholic church or or whatever no you know that oh i'm sorry that it depends sometimes you can do that so there are a lot of these lines that artists are trying to express and get shut down and this show was simply about that and even if there were some the things that i found disturbing yeah i know you know freedom of expression i i don't know whether it's a philosophical discussion on its own whether how much freedom someone should have um and i don't think that's that's a big question it is a very big question if freedom of expression starts rolling into provocation or giving somebody exactly a team to want to do something so i'm against it provoking something provoking against a specific people or religion i'm really against that i i don't believe it i don't think it leads to anywhere good but talking about various issues like that you know that's what this show was about and it's it's just funny like i said all our progressives they're not talking about it and i see it i saw it a lot in america i saw the distance between you know people hating each other because either one chose to the vote democrat one chose to vote the republican yeah it's like i'm gonna agree with you i'm not just coming down people don't realize that you know just like in the states where you have these these immigration issues going on uh on the southern border and the northern border in canada border and the europeans are dealing with a mass wave of refugees also coming from muslim countries right so so let's talk about it you know let's talk about the good side and the bad side but that that's you know not allowed to talk about the bad side and it's you know the artist artistic community creative community whatever is being shut down from having that dialogue also because it's only through dialogue do we come to good solutions you know and to feel shut up like that is a is a problem i mean it bothers me um i'm sorry i got emotional and we know emotion for me is also a four-letter word so uh no it's just it's look it's obvious that you uh stepped into like a cauldron here of a lot of different things both on a personal level going to poland as a jew i was in poland it's not an easy experience it's fascinating it's a fascinating experience it's a tremendous learning experience look the the cemetery the jewish cemetery in warsaw i don't know if you had a chance to get there has 250 000 graves so that's before the holocaust there there was a teeming life for a thousand years in poland before the holocaust the jews called it polanya here lies god i mean they were sure that they had found the promised land and warsaw if i'm not mistaken on the eve of world war ii was 30 jewish i mean it was really a great place to live and literally overnight uh the demons come out and life disappears and the entire way of life the shettle way of life yiddish theater all of it disappears and never comes back and it never comes back yeah like again i didn't know how my reaction would be but when i went to the ghetto and i went to the museum there and there was a brilliant statue which was just the image was just i walked around like a king like a king you know is that because all these people these people they fought they suffered and everything but i'm from israel um a jew who has defended his people who has fought for his people i guess i continue to do i'm surrounded by people who do i'm not one of these people it's like what was done to them was horrible we survived and that what i do my peers do what my country does makes sure that anywhere in the world this is never ever going to happen because you put us in a corner and any country in the world if this stuff starts getting bad like that we got a stinger in us that will reach anywhere and will hurt and more than hurt and i felt like a king because i knew that i'm where i'm in this land where my people were decimated and erased that i'm here today to say that i come with my open hand and in peace and to move forward but my existence today means that that's never going to happen anywhere anywhere anywhere in the world won't happen and that's why i can walk around in a place that was the seat of of our of our like i said of our people being destroyed and that's right you look at me walking tall because i got our we got our peoples back and i felt strong and even though people think oh pull out and all this controversy no i don't back down i don't back down my people don't back down and i don't care who you throw against me but you're going to see not what you do with history of people going through programming and everything you're going to see someone else and it just it empowered me to be there and i did not expect it i expected anger to take over i felt totally different and it's funny i was invited to to go to berlin now by even the german and i said i said well we'll see slowly slowly i mean but but it it was just something it was an empowering trip and it's a shame that the world media and those progressive evolved individuals the people who claim to fight fascism that they can't really do what they claim they are and the hypocrisy that they show so it's a new dawn well that's exactly you know you mentioned before about how nationalism is a bad thing right we're all supposed to be the same and i'm sorry i bet i don't agree with you about john lennon song i think that there is certain identity and that everybody should wear proudly respect other people's identity but also have their own i have absolutely no problem having my identity and being very fine with other people having it but israel is a problem because we are nationalistic because you have an eu that feels that nationalism brought upon it to wars and therefore nationalism is bad and you should just have one currency and open borders and it turns out that it's not working because people inherently do feel tribal or feel somehow distinct hold on hold on so israel's a problem for them hold on but why are they feeling that which is interesting and i started discussing this and i understand and again i understand the the controversy over nationalism and so on they started feeling that when they started feeling being taken advantage by this and so on and what you have going on in europe and in most western cultures and societies even america is that other people coming in uh do not necessarily assimilate into that society they don't know no and and we as jewish people also when we after the diaspora and it's itself uh preservation form you know whatever form the our own communities and so on and this creates this separation created so it it i understand it it's not that again that i'm for it and yes i said like that hippie side of me you know everyone should love each other and whatever i do understand that nationalism and we do have identities we learned to look in migdal in the tower of babel whatever tower of babel oh yes you know humanity is split into identities via language and so on and we see this and yes people do have identities and but this is again what the progressive concept and i hate calling using the word progressive because they're so really progressive they're really regressive yes and and that's bad if you people feel attached to others now if a person wants to be a globalist and everyone in humanity that's great i i really do think that but if a person wants to have an identity also and wants to feel connected you know what that's great too and that's it's the mutual respect that will bring about something quiet we are here we've been forced by the world to continue our nationalism we were spread out we went up we were not accepted and when you're not going to be accepted that's what's going to happen you know and other people they're they're feeling that they feel a little bit different in europe and and so on but that has to be it has to be respected too there's nothing wrong with the person having his identity can it lead to conflict and lead to clashes absolutely but anti-semitism is another genre altogether yeah and you were at the heart of where it went it wasn't just that somebody didn't like jews which is legitimate but it went into genocide and that's right exactly exactly it started let's let's you know where where oh first of all anti-semitism it didn't start in germany you know it's it's it's it's been here a long well let's say anti-judaism or anti-jew let's let's start calling it the it's anti-jew okay anti-jew that started a long time way much longer ago the culmination of this this thing that was ground zero was in a sense in poland it if we're talking about just in the modern history yes that that little uh house painter and his screwed up ideas you know he brought it about you know mine comes minecon is still one of the best-selling books in europe where in many languages and that's the danger and that's the thing by the way so someone i was having this discussion yesterday and i said he said well the translations make hitler out to be some type of intellectual he said it whereas if you read it in the original german it shows him to be the madman that he that he was which is interesting so anti-semitism is is here it's going to continue that's the way it's going to be and here i'll just throw in a nice little interesting thing that i was having a discussion with with a palestinian arab who does not live that far from me and of course you know everyone comes down on israel and all this stuff and it was a discussion about anti-semitism and this guy had the guts to say and he's right he said palestinians should be leading the fight against anti-semitism so this miles went ah what's going on he said absolutely he said here we're complaining that the jews took our land he said and he's pro-palestinian he's not you know he's not sympathetic to us at all he said because of the anti-semitism felt around the world jews felt they had no place to go but to return to their historical homeland he said we're guilty we're guilty and if we allow anti-semitism to continue like this more jews are going to come back here and we're gonna we're gonna lose more and more very interesting conflict wow interesting concept he's wrong of course historically there were plenty of jews who were trying to get back the land of israel way before the holocaust but um but it's it's interesting to see how he's framing it interesting well looking strike this dreyfuss saw the jew hatred and said we're going to need our land thank god it wasn't uganda right but that sparked a lot of things like we have to go back to our land he at least had the guts to say yeah where are you going to send them they're not wanted in europe they're not wanted here they're not wanted anywhere where do they have to go except back back to their land back to their history it's interesting i mean i respected that he at least stood up and said that he's probably i haven't heard from him so i wonder if they killed him already but you know no but that's actually not funny that you're saying that because you can go to a controversial exhibit like this you can have people be upset with you because you didn't have pull out you can have people be upset with you for a whole lot of reasons but you're living in a free country a free society where you can come back and you can be on this podcast because i'm also free to say what i want to say and that is a very big deal and some of the people that you met with there do not have that luxury some of the women and what you mentioned before their lives are threatened they have bodyguards that i understand and that's what i'm saying and what you were saying about the hypocrisy is tremendously true nobody i mean really most of the world does not care about muslims most of the world is going to give lip service now to the afghani women who are going to be sold to sex slaves to the taliban they really don't care the only time they care is when it happens with israel and when what happens with the jews there's an obsession with the jews that is unhealthy is inexplicable many books have been written about it and you saw it in the you saw the focus on there in the exhibit that you're out that you're on but i think the the important point here what the advantage that you have is you walked around warsaw as a jew with the country behind him all right with a strong country as a brave jew who could confront people because you're not trying to lay low and be weak which unfortunately many jews in the diaspora just want to lay low and hope that nobody notices them don't attack them and you and israelis and my children and your children are cut from a different cloth and um that's and that if there's ever a reason why we're not going back to the days of world war ii it's going to be that and that's a very very difficult concept for the world to accept and for many jews to accept jews with power jews who can control their own destiny is a fairly new idea and that's very hard for a lot of people to accept israelis included because we always feel bad and if we have power you have responsibility and you can't do this and you can't do that and um so you you kind of like there's you brought up a lot of issues today um way beyond you know what one podcast can do i've evolved i've evolved i'm no longer the counter terror guy you know no i well that's a very important thing too because most people are not just one title and you you bridge a two very different and interesting worlds and um and i think you know with it this exhibit that you're in i wonder if it could be put on somewhere else i wonder how many places in the world would be able to put on an exhibit like this like i wonder if you could even have it in new york so they're actually going to look for it i think they will make adjustments i think i think there was a mistake within taking these two idiots i mean i'm all for freedom of accession but because of the provocation i i hope that they're they're pulled from the show and not everyone else i think you play devil's advocate somebody could say that about you how could you have a settler who you know somebody could say that hold it i i don't know it out there i don't care who they are if he's an anti-semite i don't have a problem with him being an anti-semite i had a problem with with some with some of the the images were i think too provocative could inspire people to violence maybe because that's the problem so so the image get people to think is one thing to get people to act in a horrible way is something else so so i mean that's what really has to be discussed uh that that is that was the philosophical question involved in this exhibition right uh again if but again because this guy one of these guys that danny whether he's a holocaust denier i think he is it's not necessarily he doesn't deny it he cut his his way that he presents it though i understand it now um i mean some really bad stuff and there's it's well he has a bad background i mean he's been arrested for the act it's not just what he puts [Music] though i think i should be the judge of that and i mean one of the judges at least and i did and that's why i wouldn't include him in the show this show can be very important worldwide but it does have to there are some things that you simply and some people you simply don't put in and because the issues that were discussed regarding human rights and those things these this has to be shown they got shunted my eyes well they got thrown to the side i addressed terror there were north koreans a north korean there was a chinese artist there's a guy who fought against tyranny in in belarus he's sitting in jail now amazing these are the things that were discussed but the pick on these two little idiots they're they that were the controversy and one of them like i said i spoke to him maybe i changed his mind at least he did change about certain things okay all right so so for assuming that most of my listeners are not going to make its warsaw in the next couple of months is there any way to view this exhibit online is there any other information that people get that's up to the museum i mean they can see some of the works that i put out so what is the what would people look like so i'll put it in the text of this podcast as well they could go to i mean well my website is markproart.com m-a-r-c-p-r-o-a-r-t dot com uh facebook i can found be fine found on my artistic stuff i put it on uh it's you can see it under my last name in a sense but when i spell with the v the w is for the the other side of the polish side yes um i mean you could if there was one reporter and she really upset me you know i thought her brain was beyond uh and and she was for ap and so that her article went all over the place she writes for ap and you you you were giving her some credit for honest reporting right i didn't i i'm not i didn't think you were that naive okay her her reporting was honest but again it just focused just on that you want to hear something funny a neo-nazi website went on and quoted me now of course they were blaming the jews oh i don't know i'm not necessarily proud that they quoted me but i am proud how they quoted me because they were saying meddlesome jews are going against like it's the jewish it again the simple fact that that it was not the jewish demonstration which was focusing on it was the antifa all the the progressive and regressive and whatever that were but they said oh it's the jews doing it right but then they saw where i said i said come out and do something and confront and everything and they said well this is a this is a good jewish attitude maybe if more jews had his attitude there'd be less jew hatred in the world which was interesting very very interesting so i mean i'm not allowed to say what i think should be the treatment of these people of this paper uh i don't know whether i'm allowed to say it i don't wish them good health um but it was again that was interesting to see and and i think that is an important lesson though that when jews feel confronted go out think be a picture but go out it's not a facebook post if your town is being plagued by people demonstrating against israel and coming out and walking through your town to terrorize you and to provoke you don't write a letter to the new york times oh those bad people they came in here it's so bad and they're go out i'm not saying violence but go out and confront make a dialogue maybe you can make a change because change doesn't come from sitting in your chair and writing and posting something it comes from from uh no unfortunately a lot of the atmospheres in different places are very intimidating and in areas let's say college campuses where jewish kids do want to come out and have the dialogue they are simply physically afraid to do so and that i think is a very sad statement on our society where you can't even feel free to have that dialogue and i think perhaps that is the most frightening thing of all that we're going into right now look anti-semitism is usually the the window into a whole lot of other hatred and it's not when it's not stopped because most people aren't jewish then they find themselves dealing with a lot of other hatreds that are out of control i think we're ready at that point in this world and i would hope that we have some leadership try and stop it the point you just said about college campuses if they come out and face the protesters even though they're coming against israel and if they even bring up the issue college campuses right always been a den of whatever supposedly progressive thought and so on yet on these campuses you know demonstrating against israel and having that's fine i don't see any demonstrations going against the taliban right against the variations of sharia war against women i don't see that going on yeah it's this should be an eye-opener but no one's talking about it because in this mainstream and even though like they consider themselves the underdog but this whole woke yes progressive cancel culture and everything this look the western the western world doesn't want to face the fact that to some degree there's a totalitarian element that's running the dialogue and that um that is very frightening and something that i hope doesn't reach israel where we can still have these conversations and uh and it's so important to be able to do so did you freeze um looks like looks like we're frozen here okay so we have no i'm still moving but we have um covered a lot of topics here uh a lot of food for thought and um really you know spoken to mark provisor who was right in the thick of it um not uh not uh because of his security issues but because actually of his artistic abilities that threw him into a different kind of an arena and so uh i want to thank him for joining us and uh for raising some of these issues from a completely different perspective really a lot of different topics here um just you know going to to poland at all is a uh is a difficult experience and going to poland and then to warsaw and then really being hit by so much of these other issues at the same time sounds like as i said before is going to take a while to process so um we are done for today uh thank you for listening rejuvenation this is eve harrow on the land of israel network and i will to the best of my abilities keep doing saying whatever i can and bringing guests on who are forcing us uh to think about things that many of us don't want to think about uh again where do we stand when it comes to certain issues where do we stand on calling out things and places and newspapers and whoever in the world who are um we're not telling the truth or who are focusing only on one side of the story and as you all know i'm crazy when it comes to context and that is so often what we don't have so thank you everyone so much for joining us today and thank you for mark provisor for giving us really a glimpse into a world that most of us would never have access to um the world of the artists who are still trying to keep that dialogue going and uh even though it most certainly isn't easy um for any of them okay are you there mark i just want to say goodbye but your your your audio's off can't hear you okay okay okay oh there you go apparently apparently what happened is my data package happened to end okay i carried it all right thank you so much for joining us today really and uh i know you're gonna you're gonna be unpacking this for a long time and uh oh yeah yeah yeah i see that and uh and if anybody wants to be in touch with you um they can be in touch with me and i'll give them your email address if they have any thoughts about this okay and they should where they should check out my website check out my art i mean you know uh there will be i will be going back and forth from the states coveted permitting now and then um there are some people that are actually want to also hear about some of these experiences especially and perhaps exhibit some of your work yeah wherever they are yeah yeah and that could be faster because it's also about art and terror and things but definitely it's uh it is another side is not just the security side of me and uh i would be grateful if they would look okay having a painting from an israeli artist from judea and samaria on your wall that itself makes quite a statement okay absolutely take care all right my pleasure uh take care everyone hope wherever you are you are well i already got my kova test back from the airport yesterday that says that i don't have it so managed to spend two weeks in the states and thankfully thanks to the israeli government for providing the third shot because really it's because that third booster that i think i was able to be healthy and that's no small thing so wherever you are hope that you're protected and that we can get back to whatever normal was not clever what normal is anymore uh and um and that your summer was wonderful moving into september and moving into school years and uh and i will still be here so uh eve harrow thanks to ben again and tabitha rejuvenation on the land of visual network take care everybody goodbye [Music] you