The man that brings the Rebbe to the World - 3 Tamuz special

Welcome back to another episode of the Clappy and Frank Show. Today we are having a very special edition of the show, a Gimmel Thomas edition. Tonight is the Labava Cherba's 32nd yard site, which is shocking. It feels like it was just yesterday. Um, I was telling my co-host Mosa the last few weeks, we have to get a very, very serious guest that could represent the Reb and Labavich on the show. And I still have self-doubt, something I suffer from. And I did not have the guts to callin the executive director of Jewish educational media, commonly known as GEM. But my good friend Yasi Chaio, who is a guest on the show, who is the owner of Bellisimo Hatters and Kapatas, said, "I think I could call him and I can make it happen." And I'm like, "Okay." I was a little bit reserved. And he called up and he was able to make it happen. So a very big thank you to Yasi Chayo Bellisimo Hatters. GEM is an organization that has a very very special meaning to me because the last 32 years I personally >> they pay they pay you. You're an actor. >> We'll get to that in a moment. The last uh last 16 17 years since I founded my schul every single might say Shabas I'm the one I do not give it to somebody else. I'm the one that takes out there used to be DVDs. They stop making DVDs but you connect the mirror the phone to this to that to the projector and we play the living terror video. One of the projects of Gemma's the living terror video where every single week, never ever ever miss a week, they put out a 15 to 23 minute video of the Labava. How 32 years later, they're able to still find new content every single week. Now, the Labavichba published thousands of hours of Tyra. They could only use stuff that were filmed. >> What's the total hours of 30,000 >> on video? About 5,000 hours. Audio about 5,000 hours. But as you said, Shabas and Yamv off camera and off mic, there's a lot more. >> So 10,000 only only have only able to work with 10 thou,000 hours of content. >> It's less than 10,000 because there's a lot of overlap between the audio and the video. >> Gotcha. So would you say >> about 5,000? >> How many SKs? I mean, how many? >> Probably. Okay. 6 to 7,000 >> total. >> I'm doing this off the top of my head. No, higher. Probably probably more like eight because the overlap is is not as not all. So every might shabas Saturday night we play the living terraor video that they publish for that week. Now over the last 17 years there were times where it's like in my encounter they show something interesting that happened with the rebba then they show like a sika and then they end off with like a personal story that somebody had with the rebba but then there was a while for about a year and a half I think it went to like 78 or 80 episodes where they picked topics that the labavatba spoke about let's say muza a letter in the safety soldiers putting on fillin there were many many many such topics and they put it out and then they have to find stories and video clips of the labavba Now, the daunting task the daunting task of Friday and showers are not real working days and Sunday I don't know what a working day is. You got about four days a week to put out a video that's going to be watched in Jewish centers and homes around the entire world. Hundreds of thousands of millions weekly viewers estimate living Torah. >> We have almost a thousand public viewings. Those it's hard to count how many are at [clears throat] them all the all different sizes. Um, and there's a good few thousand, many, many thousand, you know, that watch on gem.tv, but we know that it goes a lot further than that. >> So, some shows are 10 people coming out, some are three, 400. >> There are huge audiences that we know of every week and it's being shared, you know, a lot wider than the people who, you know, are getting it directly from us. >> It's I just realized because of smartphone [clears throat] era, it's probably the most group viewed Jewish content in the world. >> Not even a question. [laughter] I don't even have to use obvious. >> Listen, I have to step in. You didn't ask me any question yet, but because you brought this up, I just have to say something. There's a team of people at GEM >> who exactly as you said, every single week without fail, they put out a really high quality, highlevel film of the Reba that is layered that they're researching a cont a topic in depth. They're putting it together into a really interesting, engaging film. They're putting he, you know, serious material of the Reba in there. It's being translated and subtitled in multiple languages every single week. This team of people led by Rabbi, there's a whole group that works on it. >> Um, I think they're incredibly talented and, you know, they're almost they're not household names. Many people don't even know who they are, but this is one group within GEM that, like you just put your you just nailed it. >> It's incredible how they're able to do this and they should be celebrated and, you know, I think carried carried on our shoulders. I've personally been into Rabbi Sap's office multiple times and in the conference room. >> You know, he's the artist. Also, >> I'm telling you right now, if he worked for Google or AI companies, he would be on a three to4 million dollar salary. [laughter] He's giving his life. >> I I really needed that. >> He's he's giving his life to the when he sits by a computer and he has these massive screens. Within a billionth of a second, he pulls up an archive. He pulls up a screen. He interlaces it. He cuts it. He pastes it. He shows me on AI how he's doing it. >> And by the way, he's the leader of a team. There's a team of talented guys. >> How long before is it ready? Usually >> I'd rather not say, but it's usually there's something about the film industry, videos, whatever. It seems it's just there's something there no matter how Thursday. You know why? Because the more time you have, it just gets you make it better and better and better and you're never really there. Also, you >> often it's it's quite last minute. >> Oh, so but that means you could also relate topics that are related to that week. >> Yeah. They could pivot if they planned one topic and something's going on that week and they decide that that's something, you know, they can re respond or react to news, then they'll >> What's amazing what's amazing about GEM is how they were able to work with technology because it used to be they had to have everything done like six, seven weeks in advance because I used to get for many years like in the 2010 sega of my life, we used to get the DVD to my house and then I used to bring it to Shaw, put it under the DVD player and it was a week or two in advance for the next four weeks. Today sometimes something happens in the world where like a war breaks out in Israel or something major happens in healthcare or something major happens and Jem because now it's only the app it's only digital they don't do the DVDs anymore and you told me you said I am never doing the I called you up can I still get the DVD I'm bad with technology the Wi-Fi is shaky you said we don't do the DVD anymore for the living terror so you're able to on Friday you could have the guys work till the second alarm here and they're able That might say Shabas that might say Shabas you could already have and here's my other question. Sometimes you have like a segment that you were going to do and then something in worldly current events happens. I have a feeling you shelf it and then you quickly change to >> 100%. >> So the pressure that you're working with >> what's the first video of the Reb that exists? >> The first video of the Reb as in a produced video post Gimmel Thomas. >> No produc no ever like when was the first time the Reba was recorded on film? The first time Reb was recorded on film was all the way back in the 50s. The fact that the Rebba embraced technology as a principle led to the fact that the Rebba is the most recorded Jewish leader, I would say, religious leader period in the history of the world. Not that the Reb told them to record him, but the Reb told and taught that technology should be harnessed to serve Hashem, to teach Tyra. really going against the tide in the entire Orthodox certainly ultraorththodox Jewish world. Um and because of that when sees an opportunity to use film record uh audio recording eventually video you know move forward to the internet and all these different technologies the first thing that they think about is often okay how can I help get the rebba's teachings and the rebba's words uh further out which goes directly to the story of the founding of Jem. You want to talk about that? You >> I I want to talk about before we get to the founding of I want to talk about the miracle of people pushing so much the deat we pushing for film and audio. People tell me that in the early years the Reb was not so excited about people photographing him and there were very few photographs being taken. My father says that when he got married there were like two popular pictures of the Reb. Today you you could go on Gem and you could find thousands of pictures that you could buy off Gem and they could have it enlarged etc etc. Do you know what the history is when the rebab eased or got more relaxed with people being people photographing him? Because I see in the later years, you see people from the New York Times standing in his face for hours shooting millions of photos like my father's cousins Mark. I mean, this guy was shooting and shooting and shooting for the New York Times. It doesn't look like the Reba was bothered by the story. As I understand it, first of all, the Reb was aware of and was just fine with the fact that there were pictures of him and recordings of him, etc. The rabbi did not want there to be a situation where things are out of control. Like photographers, I can tell you of many photographers who I spoke to about their collections at different times or whatever just were in touch with many of many of the people who did the recordings out those who are outside of Jem. Um and they said they needed to get permission from Rebecca said to JJ after uh the immal Benji stock told me this. I I verified it with him, you know, like a year ago just to get the story as clear and as as clean as possible that what that trimal after the parade that's 1984 parade the Reb came inside and Rabbi would go in to talk to the Reb about the parade or how it went or whatever and the Reba said to him there were so many photographers there like who's who's in control of this who's who's who's in charge who runs the paparazzi >> these aren't the exact words I don't remember the exact words but this was the theme and Benji told me because he was involved in the parade that Rabbi told it to him immediately after he came out of the Reb's room. There were a few things, you know, that were kind of more relevant. I think the Reba spoke about the fact that there were non-cooser animals on some of the floats and that was before the Reb had really spoken about it publicly and the Reba said or maybe it was the fact that there were women in the marching band um like the mentioned it to him and uh and the Reba mentioned this. By the way, that little those few sentences alone, there's so much you could go into. You know, you could look at the video and say, "Look, there's women in the marching band. the Reb is standing there and waving and many people could look at that if you don't know how to parse and process information or how the Reba handled things. You could look at that and say, "What are you talking about? It's just fine to have, you know, women with marching men." And I don't know the exact situation, whether it was how they were dressed or if there's a problem in general. I don't know. But the point being in private the Rebbit turned to somebody in who was in charge of the parade or had a role in running the parade and said, you know, this this is a problem. The Rebbit was being filmed on TV for many years. The Fabians were literally on TV. >> I remember I remember as a child we went to on a Kaneka vacation. We went, you know, Yened Yened. We stayed in motel six of Holidays, you know, simple in our broken down station wagon. He went to Baltimore for two days and I remember watching Khanak life on the TV um in the motel or hotel or whatever and watching it and even then as a six-year-old, 5-year-old, six-year-old child, I was like, "Oh my god, the labrebba is on TV." It was so like I don't know if there was another in the world like another sadic or Reba that would agree to be on TV. The Reb also spoke about when um when they made the radio when Yasawa Weinberg made the radio thing. There was like a famous thing where the Reb spoke about that there was a K a significant time that Msiah was supposed to come and they printed the terra people asked like oh my gosh what happened they said what do you mean there was a Msiah K like something messianical happened that they printed and the Reb said this in the where the Reb was talking about that they're starting a Tanya Shir on the radio. So, not only was the Reban not against being on the radio or on TV, it seems like that's like a very, very spiritual thing that we're using technology for godliness. And that's something that you do all day, every day, your entire life is you're bringing technology and you're using it to publish the Reb's works. Talking about the Labavba and talking about uh kapatas, the Labavichba started wearing a kapata every single day after he became the Reb. So we have Bellisimo Hatters who's a corporate sponsor of today's episode. Bellisimo Hatters not only publishes not only not only manufactures the most beautiful stunning hats in the entire world in all colors, shapes and variations. Bellisimo Hatters also has the most beautiful stunning kapatas right down the block from 770. The most stunning kapatas. Lightweight Italian marino wool. >> Next door to the future gem museum. >> Yeah, we're going to get to that. Beautiful wool Italian marino wool kapatas and silk lightweight kapatas offtheshelf gorgeous gorgeous kapatas. If you can find the perfect perfect fit for only a couple of dollars more, they will make you a custom kapata and have it ready on the hanger a couple of weeks later. Please mention the Clappy and Frank show to my dear friends Seth and Yasi at the Bellisimo hat store. Thank you so much. >> If I may chime in to your promo here, I'm a very happy customer, Belucimo. I know Yasi Chaio personally. He's a straight shooter and a great guy and uh the material that he's what he's selling is great. The hats, the kapatas, all these things. >> Still one of our most talked about podcast. >> There you go. For good reason. >> The most random people. I thought it would be like a crownits only guy smear guys in my saying, "Oh, the hat guy really loved that show." Like what? >> Yes. He's not a random guy. >> No, I'm saying I didn't think if a non Strimal hat guy talking about his hat would interest guys in Muny and Williamsburg. It's more of like aet center. You come into the store, you have gorgeous leather couches with a big fridge full of freezing ice cold seltzer and water >> and just a big >> seltzer pelro. [laughter] >> The most expensive. >> How was he able to give the most expensive seltzer and charge the least amount of money for his product? >> Rabbi Schmatkin, you would have could have you are a reb's works to the entire world. You could have been a anywhere in the world and had the most successful kabad house in the traditional sense of doing. How did you choose this as your I'm just curious about how it all happened. That was in fact the plan for the first 20 years of my life uh in 1994 at Gimmel Thomas. I was 20 years old and I knew about this collection of videos that was in the basement of David Krinsky, the founders's home, the founder of GEM in 1980. I hope we can get back to that. Um, and I knew that there were treasures in there. I was very interested in it and it was I I knew that there was something very special there and that people were thirsty to be able to continue hearing from the Reba. Some people knew it, some people didn't. In other words, I can't say people were running around the streets saying we need videos of the Reba, but you have to remember we're two years after the last time that the Reba spoke at that point. There were two years where the Reba was was not well physically and was not able to speak. Um, and I knew that there's a huge source of inspiration here. And if we can get it out and get it get these materials in front of people, there will be a tremendous there's that really there's a tremendous pent-up thirst for it. And that the Reb could continue to speak and communicate and people could continue to connect with the Rebba and uh um the Reb could reach continue to reach people directly. Of course the Reb is reaching people through and through his teachings but through the videos people could be learning directly from the Reb continued to do that. Um so I was kind of I was very into that. They were kind enough David and sorry you know kind enough to let me have access to the materials. I was watching, I was looking and then at one point it was Yudvat I believe Tshin Nun V I think two years after Gimlamos a couple months before I went and I uh I said okay let's try and make a video for the Schlim to be able to show at their events. Everybody makes events for yhat. I went and I studied through all the febangans that were on video. Like I learned them in thearim. I wanted to see what themes does the rabbis speak about on yvat like what are the themes that that that kind of rise to the top that speaks about again and again. Took highlights small highlights of each of those febangs. Wrote a narration to go in between and created a 25 minute or so video to be shown at public at public events for yat. Quick story as as I was kind of thinking of doing this I went to Rabbi Krinsky from you know and I asked Rabbi Krinsky senior Huda Krinsky and I asked him if he would like I was working in a different or I was working in the Schlim office running the speakers bureau at that time I said so there's no gem organization active and running I said I think it was going to cost us I made a a calculation somewhere 17 18 grand would he pay for this video to be made and he said yes and he gave the money and used we used that money to produce the video, shlept the boxes of videos to Manhattan at night because it's a better rate and also I had a day job in those days a video editing stu studio took up you know the size of this room plus machines and professional editor and tapes and you know um and then did the translation the whole the whole nine yards made a nice cover um after the video came out it sold well and the money came back in so I went back to Rabbi Krinsky and I gave him back the money so that was the last time I'll make a mistake like >> [laughter] >> I wasn't running an organization at the time. There was no, you know, it was like >> never give back money, [laughter] >> especially he didn't ask for it. Um, but it was like, okay, I raised some money to do a project. The project covered itself. Thank God. I went and gave it back to them and that was the end of that, you know. Um, but then of course people wanted more and I saw that there could be more and more and we continued to grow from there. Made our first hire, Yankee Title Bomb. >> First hire ever. >> Wow. >> My god. time video editor Yankee Azure. >> Yeah, I mean we put out some unedited fabang is also in that format working kind of in Manhattan that whole kind of thing but it used to be much more cumbersome to to create uh productions like the ones we're doing to um built up uh got Yankee involved and then from there >> it was it was a VHS. >> Yeah, it was put it was put on VHS. >> It was like 25 bucks or something >> something like that. Soim I mean there was nothing giml two years later you put out a beautiful expensive then $20,000 like 50 grand whatever you put out you put it out and now around the world to get this beautiful professional edited video and what was I mean there was no WhatsApp groups but what was the feedback people like oh my god how do we get more of this got all the money people were people were asking for more we're hearing a lot of feedback you know I remember one interesting piece of feedback I got the same feedback back within the first couple years from both Rabbi Zmaavik and from Rabbi Yaskapin. Um he told me they both told me something similar that one of the people in their community was watching through one of the and they said you know the Reb is saying this and that and the other and the at first thought like it's not what the Reb is saying they totally misunderstood and then they thought about it again they said the Reb absolutely is saying that on another level the person's 100% right but I'm seeing it on a certain level and like the Reba connects with people when you give the Reb the opportunity to be seen directly by the by people connect with the rebba on on so many different ways in a real way. I'm not saying that they make up fantasies of what the Arab is saying. They truly do understand the Arab on multiple level on different levels. >> As hold on has just from a business thing, has AI able allowed GEM to fire any people or get work done quicker just from a AI production perspective. I'm just curious not related to >> we have to get back to the end of the story of my >> Yeah. I'm just want to introduce we we we do a lot of business content. Um, AI is slop if it's run by lowquality people. From what I've seen, AI just adds work and adds endless rounds of nothing if it's not run by talented highquality people. If you if you have highquality people, AI can make their jobs far far more efficient. We have a couple really big projects that we're thinking of that we're we're in the process of planning them not ready to announce them today that are only possible because AI can really >> because AI >> no one's been fired yet over AI >> okay good then I'm sorry back >> talking about you mentioned >> but we are using AI more and more the real place to be using AI at least today like I'm saying the real place where it could be helping us is as kind of on the back end on the research side on the processing side and those those types of things where you could just do a far better job >> like image search. Don't you have like imagery? You could find yourself by >> face. You did face recognition. >> We do have a few AI powered things. This face recognition thing that you mentioned you could take a picture of yourself or anybody put it in and it'll find people going by their we thought it was a thing for labavatures who are looking for their pictures that call us from time to time. We thought it was a fun little project. I mean it wasn't so so little and it ended up costing quite a bit to do. The point is we thought that it was limited to like you know some of the ambitures. It turns out that the the reach is incredible. We hear I orders come through every day and we hear stories of people who didn't even know that their parents were by the Reba talking to to the Reb about these things etc. Um and you know it's available now right on you can go on gem.tv and you could just pop in a picture. You don't need a membership or anything. You could find your pictures with Reba. It's just one one of many AI powered applications. >> I I had a life shattering moment in my life and not one but multiple times. The first thing is is that for many years >> for many years in my life we did not have a picture of me going by the Reb. I think people just I it was so normal. It was so regular that the Reb gives dollars every week in Kosha after all that parents went by and it was like before there were smartphones and selfies or anything and you figure that somebody took a picture somewhere. I never had it. And I remember always thinking like if only I could find a picture of me going by the Reb it would be it would change my life. And we knew certain dates that we probably went by because my birthday is so much if it would make sense at least tish my father would bring bring me by the Reb. But I remember like when I was like 20 or 21 like we f somebody finally found the picture before you had the phrase recognition. Somebody was going through hours and hours and hours and he sent it to me and it was like so much emotions. It was just so incredible. But it was a it was a video of me going by Kasha and I was like leaning like I'm backwards with my long hair and the Reb is facing me but you don't see like eye to eye and I always had this dream and this vision that if only I could find a picture of me going by dollars when you could see me clearly face to face with the Reb. And a couple of years ago, somebody said that they found the video of the day afterm said everybody under Baron Bas Mitzvah um could come by and a guy in my class put on a class group a picture of one of us going by and he said that we're probably all in that video. I called I was at work. I dropped the call. I put the customer on hold. He's probably still on hold when I worked at 9 to5. I called up Jim and this guy Rabbi Franuk. He said that it's about a 2-hour video and the camera's in a weird facing angle, but if you come and you find it, then we'll sell you the video, whatever. So, I waited my day off. That was Tuesday. I woke up early in the morning. It was like the happiest day of my life. And he gave me a chair in the hallway. There's like a video machine. I sat there, not on extra fast, on like slow motion. I'm not leaving until I find it. I watched like 44, 45, 46, 47, like an hour and 15 minutes. And all of a sudden, it's I I literally I get goosebumps. All of a sudden, you see [laughter] I turned five like a few days later. I So I'm four years old and pre-winter. You see this massive red briefcase with like polka dot yarmaka and you see me walk right by the reb. And the reb gives me a dollar. I bought the video on the spot. I'm like full price, donation, a gem, whatever it cost, whatever. And I literally I like I it was like a life-changing moment. So people that are able to find pictures of their family members or their grandparents or themselves going by the reb it's not like you run an organization and it's a a service. We went with technology and time. Each person that has this experience, you change their entire life. You change their entire family life. My sister Kani, who was only five years old, Gimmel Thomas, she was even younger and she probably wasn't as like whatever. She's busy raising a family. I reached out to Jem last summer and I told her and I said, "How do we find pictures of her?" She didn't have any pictures going by the Reb. And I told them and they said, "Listen, we found recently your brother going like a month before his bar mitzvah because the summer was starting." Oh, the Reb used to have for groups that were having bar mitzvah or weddings. They said that there's a good chance that your mother in the women's section probably would have been having your sister. So they asked me the date of the and Tom was and he was dish raid this summer because El gets put the whole story. Anyways, the guy sent me a bunch of pictures and videos of my baby sister going by the Reb and not only that she's she's um I think one or two years old and my mother's holding her and she's grabbing the dollar with the wrong hand and the Reb said but she grabs a dollar again with her left the gave like $3. It's like a puppet show playing out. She's grabbing dollars of my growner screaming. It was it was a massive show. The point is is that and we put it I bought it and I posted it on the family group and there was like thousands of comments. Everybody was discussing every movement of the reba every detail of how it happened. So you're literally changing lives to the next level. >> You you opened a couple of doors there. I just want to you mentioned about the help finding the the video for you for your sister. Last year in 2025 we assisted 2434 outside requests. They range from individuals looking for their videos to a journalist who needs help with something to a filmmaker to a scholar to a writer. My nephew uh Ley Schmatkin who wrote that great book about emotional wellness has you know m material for authors that we help them with to the kinosim you know where we're um that we have three people working only full-time on helping outside requests. You mentioned you use the word bought that you bought the the material that that column in our in our budget is minus $100,000. We we I think cost us $350,000 or so give or take something last year just to fulfill outside requests. I think it it brought in kind of from what you're able to charge $250 or something like that. People would see this as an important part of our mission. In other words, we know we're aware that we're not going to reach everybody directly. There are other projects, there are other films, there other events. How many events were you at this year that showed a video of their many so some are just going and and using something that's there but many many were assisting them either in guiding them to the right clip or even editing it special or translating special for them etc. So we look at this as a very important part of what we're doing. Um, and you know, this is, thank God we have we have uh very generous sponsors, but just kind of to give you perspective, the sales that we do, um, our budget is give or take whatever I'm going to give you round numbers. $5 million last year. 1 million comes in through sales. $4 million is donated by people who care and believe deeply in what we do. I mean leading the pack are George [clears throat] and Pamela Auror um who really have been our our key sponsors from the beginning and on an ongoing basis. We have the Kenos from Toronto. Then it's through many hundreds of Schlim who give us on a regular basis. >> Who verbitzky? Who's verbsky? >> Michael Verbitzky is a sponsor. >> Every week the first thing that pops up Verbitzky I feel like I know the guy. >> He sponsors a number of key things. If you see the feed at the oil this year he's sponsoring it. That that's curated special. So many people have their stories of getting from the rabbi to oil. That's another you know. >> Yeah. >> Igor versus seeing a video at the rabbi. Do we have a political take on that or no? >> We have a political take. Each of [laughter] us do our own thing. >> I use igress a lot. I open up look at the m find something on the topic. But you know many people >> cuz you mentioned stories from the video. When somebody comes [laughter] when >> gem video is the right destination for answers versus I'm just >> when somebody comes to us and says I had a question about whether you know to be giving gem for this project or that project. I got I got a letter in Igris that I'm supposed to do it like who am I to disagree? [laughter] >> Who's the guy from university? Hershel. Who's the guy? Hershel Shakar. >> Hersel Shakar. >> He he said in a in a YU video that the >> guy from university he's the Russ. Yes. >> You said I said the the rasha. >> Yeah. my my neighbor in Tannersville. >> He he he he said that the Labavashers a lot of times if they have a question they write it into to the Labavash's letters to find an answer. So he said he goes to Tannersville and somebody couldn't find the negative should they have to make a quick decision if they should put their child in a summer camp or keep them at home another year in Tannersville and she [laughter] story is so crazy. She opened up a cookbook. >> You're going to have to tell it. >> She opened up a cookbook. She opened up a cookbook cuz she didn't have a letter for >> trying to get the ratings high for you. So just open up a cookbook. >> And she didn't have an English car. She opened up a cookbook and it was blueberry pies and she said she got an answer because she only makes blueberry pie when she's in Tannerville >> but just like she kept her kid home >> talking about Michael Verbiscar the feed at the oil. Rabbi Refson tells me and and I we heard it ourselves. Do you know how many people get their answers through the videos? I mean I'm not we can't take credit for that. The Reba obviously had a plan going back to the dollars by the way because it's Arab. So let's just think focus on this for a minute. The Reb said about several of the contraim that he gave out. This is in order to be a mascaras, an everlasting remembrance of this meeting that we've had. The fact that the Rebba allowed thousands and thousands and thousands, there's hundreds of thousands of photos of him one-on-one with people. I, like you, did not have pictures of myself with the Reba. Um, it didn't, for some reason, believe it or not, I wasn't so interested in it kind of. I had my relationship with the Reba. That's it. said, "I'm not so into I'm into pictures of the Reba, but not pictures of myself with the Reba really." But I saw what it does for my children. That connection that there's a picture of Tati as a child with the Rebba, right? And there are hundreds of thousands of people like this. I think to me it seems that the rabbi was part of the Reb's is the fact that you know during this time these points of connection the dollars the contraim the photos of so many people with the rebba would be able to continue to be a personal connection a tangible physical connection that we could have today >> for all the rebels or different >> WLCC great friend and uh so he took the videos and the photos there were times that other photographers also joined if frayen and Livia Sfraden was in town and he joined. There are pictures from Yasi Malam. You know, there are different photographers who came and went, but the steady kind of house photographer for the Sunday dollars and >> and lots of other things in 770 kind of was >> and they would sell it at the time. What was the what was the program? The dollar's videos were private. Always were kind of you could only get your own >> and the pictures. >> Same thing with >> M2 photo. I'm trying to during dollar times you just buy it from >> during dollar times the next day in WLC there were hundreds of albums and it was $5 a picture. >> You could buy your own photos. You know a certain point Rabbi Alvasham together with Rabbi Eber his partner came to us. That was right when we saw a couple years after we began to see that all the materials uh you know degrading and it needs a huge investment and it's never going to cover itself. There's no way to monetize this. It's just something that needs to be done and we started our restoration project. They came to us and certain and basically said take it you know you can I mean we we we paid for it but it wasn't huge money and we acquired it. We had to invest in it and restore it and preserve it. Connor, as a non forprofit and as a spiritual organization, how do you interact or deal with people, let's say, who steal quote unquote content from your organization? Do you say, "Oh, it's amazing that they're spreading the message or there's certain you guys invest real capital into restoring and creating and what's that relationship like?" >> Uh, if I may, no problem. On an emotional level, we say yes, that's amazing that that they're doing that they're public >> because we go through the same thing. We scream in yell. Until I was a content creator, I was not able to identify with you in your position. But now when people steal our videos, me and the clappet was like, are we happy they took it? >> They not only steal they not only steal our they not [laughter] they not only steal our videos, they don't give us credit. So we don't give credit. And number two, we don't >> you can speak to like the big singers, the entertainers, this and that. They'll they'll give you this, you know, how they feel about these things, etc. We're not bitter about it. >> How do you jle? So, it's a very good question. You know, we're involved. We're here to publish the Reba, to put the material out, to to Accessibility is our really big thing. We want people to be able to access the material. However, you can't have the ownership without exercising some level of responsibility. Never mind. Let's Okay, let's take it on a few levels. You you mentioned money. We've invested $60 million into the content over the last 30 years. >> 60 million >> depending [clears throat] on how you count. Yeah. >> Wow. I believe you're saying 510 million a year. It's whoa. >> Um the restoration, the acquisition, restoration, preservation, and then the development of the content. Okay. Now, all the materials available from us for free. So there's no reason anyone else has to kind of uh republish the materials. Everything is a all the raw materials are available for us for free besides for the private parts like the dollars that you mentioned that which are private conversations with the um but I I'll just tell you an instance literally from the last few weeks in Israel there were two different things that we we spun up legal proceedings just in the last couple weeks. One is a film that you know a trailer went up on on channel 8 that there's going to be a film about the we happened to know the individuals. they had been speaking to us when they started uh uh working on this film and we essentially sent them and we also knew what the content was going to be. We got enough regards from around and we said, "Listen, we own the material legally, you know, we've done everything the way the Rebi used to tell Kahas. We filed copyright registrations. We if we're not going to exercise our ownership here, then we may as well turn, you know, roll over and and go to bed. You have to if you're if you own something together with the comes of responsibility or you're going to say it's all heer forever." We had another one. There's an anti-abad organization in Israel just a couple weeks ago. They put out a thing using a photo that's owned by Gem where they, you know, they manipulate the way their looks, tried to make it look very ominous, and I'm not going to go into it. We sent them a letter. This, you know, you can't use this photo. We own it by copyright. Um, so actually going forward, we're going to have to exercise. There's two things. First thing is maybe issuing guidelines or suggestions and helping, let's talk about well-meaning labavators understand what the lines should be. There are things that maybe people don't think of. Just now Gimmel Tamos, I'm sure they were me well-meaning, but a number of Schlimim were using AI generated images of the Reb. Um, you know, something a little bit further out. Okay, this is a great way of illustrating what I want to say. There was a u somebody on Instagram put out a clip of a story of the Reba with a with the Knicks with basketball. And he had a photo AI generated photo of the Reb with a Knicks baseball cap. >> And and so there's two ways. The first thing is you could just pull the legal, you know, thing and say we own that photo that you made it from. It's illegal. Take it down. >> But the first way to do it is, you know, you write him a nice a nice uh message and desist. No, nicely, but it's not respectful kind of. And we suggest we'll be happy to supply you with a photo of the rabbit, but we suggest that this is not, you know, he said a few people had contact him, but kind of we as the owners, we could say it with a little bit more authority that we're guiding. He said, okay, I didn't realize he was, he was sure and he promised and he swear this is super respectful. I don't understand what you're saying. I mean, if you'd see the photo, anybody with any sense any sensibility, I would think, would say that, but that's that's one of the points of of of getting back to to your to your question. Different people have different sensibilities. If I would say a picture of the rabbit printed on the hood of someone's shining new car, printed on the hood, is that okay or not? So, >> not okay at all. >> Okay. But the labavaturer in Israel who did that, he thought that that's very respectful. It's my beautiful shining spanking new car. Do you know what model it is? Do you know it's so respectful for the rabbit to be, you know, to be on there? Or if there's a booth in front of 770 that below the window where you stick your head out, you know, there's a picture of the rabbit down by the floor under. So there's a a person in there. I guess it's an information booth and there's picture. I'm sure the people who did it were doing it to be respectful or you know, we can keep going a little further, but you shouldn't need guidance from the Reb on this frankly. just you wouldn't do this I think to any human being if you just think of the rebba as a person who's deserving of respect probably many of these things wouldn't happen in the first place but they're happening and so the first thing we're we need to do is is just become a little get a little bit more vocal and out there nobody wants to be to get out there feeling oh you know I'm telling people how you know what they should do or I'm in control but we we definitely see that we have to guide people as to how to photos, videos in appropriate ways, etc. And we're necessary. We're we are going to have to exercise, you know, some of this some the ownership in a legal way so people take us seriously. And you have to realize we are the only people who can do it. So if you go back to that story of JJ that we just that we mentioned earlier, right? Like if anybody's going to do it, we're the ones who can do it. We obviously don't like doing it all day. We want to be focused on putting things out but it's also our responsibility. >> Are you still buying content now? If like some photographers [clears throat] or people come up with >> if people come up and come to us or if we learn of something we'll >> you bought many collections or you own many collections. You own one of the most famous collections that you own is Yasi Muhammad >> and Fraden Wavy Fraden. Wy Franen used to photograph and video the Reb probably and there was film those days probably tens of thousands of rolls of film. He was just my father said he would just shoot the entire tish year after year after year. I don't even know who gave him the budget but Rabbi Frighen Wy Frighten was a was a very the one time offered him a ride to come in his car and the Reb said they'll turn over the entire 770 if they find out right back there's a filming there was offering him yeah >> so you know they'll turn over 770 if they find out but the reb had a very close the really loved my father said that one year by a cuff my father saw it one year by a cuffus the reb was looking around and making cute gestures with people that he was close with and the looked at right in and he picked up like he's holding those like body cameras, those big cameras and the winding the camera and the picture mode and it never went like that and it never says nope you can't get photos of this like it's such a shame it's a um so you own the entire freightening collection he was like a pioneer a visionary my I mean my father this is known he used to go back to RO and but I don't know any type of editing or what he did but he used to go around and go to kibbutim and moshim and advertise nights with the rebba you know like an evening with the rebba like today we have living terra evening went to and he would make events where he would show the video. They would chart off the room in the auditorium or the gym and then they would show like videos >> charge entrance fee and that's how they pay for >> how much of of that collection you own the collections you we h what did I'm just curious behind the scenes how big is that collection >> that collection so he started in 1975 so it's tam all the way through nunb with the exception of a couple years remember it's film not video so it's not like it's five 10 hours per per >> it's a few minutes >> it gets longer through the years but I'm like you film a couple minutes of each scene. Film is expensive and you don't do it like video where it's where it's, you know, very cheap to just go for hours. Um and then he has so he has from all those years from uh starting in in 75 through through 92 and then um photos if I recall correctly the number is about 160,000 if I'm not mistaken. I might be confusing with the >> 160,000 photos. I might be. >> Are you on the LL tablet or not yet? >> Not yet. >> Do they? >> We want to get on the races against >> I don't know. We want to get on the table. >> Get on it. Jim, at least >> I have to tell you. It's very important. You should be on it before me. Sure. I just want to >> I have to tell you it's very very important. How do I know? Because through the years there have been so many conversations that started directly with LL and we're here and we're accommodating. >> Oh, you are in contact. Well, they contacted us through different people or whatever. And like the last time was right before it's actually during the it was after October 7th when LL is now, you know, much more privately owned. It's a different type of company than it was. They came to us. They were interested. We were speaking and then there was like some type of attack and everything got thrown off and whatever. And they they never resumed. You know, we're here. We're very eager to to make this work. >> Nobody asked me to say this. I'm a frequent flyer with LOL. I'm less than two weeks ago. I got back from LOL. Listen very closely. Listen very closely. I sit through your flights for 12 hours each way with all the ding a cup and all the landing gear until you land until you take off. Your tablet on the plane has so much content. So much content you could delete 90% of it. Nobody wants it. [laughter] You know, nobody watches it. We want gem videos on the content of the labav. >> Wait, I don't want on the on the on the tablet. The reb belongs on the seatback screen. >> That's what I'm talking about. I thought the screen no no no no maybe first class I would know never knows about such a thing the back [laughter] of the screen they had hundreds this year we want gem only gem get rid of everything else >> we selected material for them because you know there's probably some material that's more suitable for for this for this audience and last >> they did a survey 100% of the people flying l they all want gem >> can we talk about that museum or we don't want to talk about that I see the lender and how much does it cost >> I want to go back to if if I may cuz you opened up >> museum I was thinking about did the little future museum. I'm waiting. >> We'll get there in a sec. You were asking about how I got involved. So, as I was doing this for a couple of years, right? I was 20 years. >> You were working in the speakers bureau for Kabad 1996. You published a video for Yuchv. Huge huge success. >> Shortly after that, I got involved with gem full-time by the time I was, you know, dating to to get married. >> Oh, you were single when you did the video. >> Yeah. >> Young visionary. did it for I was a bucker for a good few years till I um >> How old you got married? >> Gosh, don't put me on the spot. Uh my wife is I think 20 26. >> You wanted to be the same age today, but then we got married at 26. >> I think I got engaged at 25 and married at 26. Mimos not mistaken. Um >> I got married at 28. My wife was 32. So >> or maybe I was dating at 25 and engaged and married at 26. Um, >> yeah. >> So, it became clear to me at that point like I could leave and I wanted to leave. I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We have grass. And >> your father's a legendary Schmatkin, right? The >> I certainly think so. >> The hedgeh of of Mo of Wisconsin. >> Yes. Um, >> so he probably saved a good spot for you. [laughter] >> Wherever it would have been. Um, the point is I planned to go on. My wife had planned to go on but at the at the but at the time that I was you know making that decision it was already clear to me like I can run and you have to understand it wasn't gem wasn't what it is today and crown heights wasn't what it is it was it was a lot less comfortable and friendly maybe than than you might imagine and for for some people it would have been a hard decision it was kind of hard but it was clear to me like if I leave now that's that's just crazy I'm abandoning something that I've seen how important it is how I see the potential the you know the potential is still far greater than where we are today. Um and like to leave would make no sense. So that's how I got involved. The reason I want to say this whole thing is because our biggest challenge, you didn't ask yet what our biggest challenge is. I'm sure it's on your list. So, but our biggest challenge is attracting and retaining really highlevel long-term talent. You know, as we have great people in GEM, thank God, really great people. Yankee Title Bum was our was our first great hire for Hashem. Um but like people who you know one person got involved and I could have just left. I'm I'm just I'm not trying to promote myself here but it's just the way of looking at it. I could have left and said I always plan on going and wants me to go on and really again looking back maybe it's easy to say that was an easy decision but at the time I was just getting my hands but no I had to do this. Um there are people who we speak to or even some who we've hired in gem who highquality people want to go out on specifically and they don't necessarily understand this is a challenge for us and we're trying to to bridge that gap. >> Remote doesn't work. >> First of all remote might work but I'm talking about even remote doesn't work as well as like if you're talking about somebody really owns and leads an area of gem a project to the extent we have good people we do amazing things. you know connection point that you mentioned before was launched because there was a great person who took it and launched it. He actually moved on but there are other people running it now but the different areas of gem if not for yeets and team there would be no living tyra. So if we have a vision of getting the reba to all of humanity and we do but we need great people to be involved there. So one way a person could look at it if you're a younger man a talented qual quality person you could say okay whatever I'll go to in some in some little city and I'll make a difference. I'll be my own boss anyway whatever I'll come in and those guys they'll figure it out. They have 50 people in gem anyway. [laughter] It doesn't work that way. To the extent we have good people, great things happen. To the extent we don't, um, you know, they don't happen. If you look back, I mean, this is not rocket science. >> Your full-time is 50 people right now. >> Somewhere around there, a little bit more, I think. But like when the Reba before Gimmel Thomas, when the Reb was in the New York Times or when the Reba was able to write letters or so many of these, the Rebikas were published, >> he needed good people doing that. Of course, you could say there's some spiritual arc. Okay, the rabbis are going to be published no matter what. But Rabiel Khan was there. He came toughen and he was a part of the story of how the Reb's tyra is published or you know Raqqinsky was hired to do PR. So many of the stories in the New York Times came through relationships that he had. So obviously it's the Reb is the leader of Kalestrol and there's there's a plan that God has but it happens through human beings. We need great human beings to decide that they want to >> talent recruiting and retaining is is the hard is the biggest challenge >> is a very big challenge that we're facing. I'm I want to say again we have great people. >> If you had more money you would probably to retain more talent, right? >> I don't know that that it's a money problem. You're a fundraiser. Listen, money a lot of problems are not money but money [laughter] can solve them. So yeah, if we had offer a ton of money, would great people who otherwise would want to go on come running maybe. >> Because we also consider ourselves a business show and our demographics show it. We have very wealthy people that watch between the ages of 20 and 60 predominantly male which we're trying to turn around. >> Are we that's our focus? We have to turn around anything. >> This topic of working remotely versus working in office. A lot of companies during COVID had all their workers working remotely for two two and a half years and the companies did quite well financially. >> That's what we met, >> right? And now they want all the workers coming back no matter what. You get a few days sick days or a few days you could work remotely, but most companies now or a lot of companies I know about, they want all the workers back. You said it's very hard to retain workers, good workers. And he said, "What about if they go on and still work remotely?" And you said, "How do you in general, you're a big employer, over 50 employees, that's a very big employer. Um, you find that workers work better when they're more commodity when they're all in the East New York headquarters or you like when they're >> if about twothirds of our team is remote >> two or half. >> So you do you do let people work remotely. >> We don't necessarily have a choice. In other words, there there are many of our key people at this point who if we told them or we believe, you know, I don't want to try it, but like you have to move back. First of all, the cost of living skyrockets to to bring up to support a family on a decent salary in Kron Heights and you're paying everything properly and you're doing all the regulations etc. bring up a family tuition and everything else that comes with the family costs hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you're attracting a talented qual high quality person, you have to be able to compensate them uh for that. But it's not like we're sending people away. I I really believe that if everybody were in the office, the efficiency, the communication, everything would would would be far far higher and and we'd be able to get more done, you know, in less time. Um, but it is what it is. >> The Reb speaks a lot about Hashem. This is the community that Hashem bestowed his blessings upon it. I mean, Hashem gives his blessings to the whole world, but the Reb mentioned this topic many, many times. >> I believe you even did a segment on Hashem. Sound sounds familiar. Um the chose from anywhere in the world the could have chose he chose America and there's this bottom hemisphere and the reba chose New York and the deb has a whole why he chose New York and the and he ties it into the United Nations being here in New York and then the says and in New York he chose Brooklyn's county and he chose Crown Heights and the built up the community about getting housing and affordable housing and all these things that are popular topics the deb was speaking about it 50 years ago affordable housing and people shouldn't be paying by paying such high prices for homes and rent says rent. And I saw it clearly clap in the community. Big donor by Fisher was very >> Yeah. very big into Yeah. He's also one of the proud sponsors. I see his name every time >> communities. Yes. >> The only person in the past gazillion years that actually helped people sponsor the segment on >> I believe by Fisher made two weddings in the last two weeks. So a huge mazle to the Fischer family and the extended families and all the Mutanim and Shragi Maza is making a wedding in the next few weeks. Mazagi and and um Rahuli and >> okay I guess there >> the kids are the kids are [laughter] now there's a lot of beautiful beautiful communities and because you have all the and all the archives you're very probably very well versed in this topic there's beautiful abavature communities popping up all over the world New Haven Connecticut has a large growing community Pennsylvania now Baltimore affordable housing do you think a young labia couple that are not moving out you know, the guy sells insurance, the wife's a graphic designer or whatever, any random job. Do you think they grew, they grew up, they were raised in Crown Heights, and now a house is 3 million or 2 million. Is it the proper thing if they would ask that should we pick up and go to should we pick up and move to Baltimore or Pomona or New Haven? What do you think the approach is today? Or a case by case or >> So, I got this very often in many areas. What would the Reb say? I can't tell you what the Reb would say. I tell you what the Reb did say. In this particular case, I can't even tell you what the rabbi did say because the cost of living the the cost of housing was far far lower then. But if people just on a on a very practical level, if people can't afford to buy a house, what do you expect them to do? Like would they have to force them to go buy a house that they like way over their their abilities? You know, I I doubt it, but I can't. >> But I hear the argument all the time that people tell me they leave New York to Florida or whatever cheaper places and they find out it's not cheaper. or you need to have two cars. You have to go to the right places. I could tell you some places >> I could tell you some places that really have really cheaper really cheaper. Also, there's a number of states today where the the tuition is subsidized. That is an absolute game changer. >> Ohio, >> um Ohio, Phil, Pittsburgh, I know Pennsylvania, I don't know if it's the whole state of Pennsylvania or whatever, Wisconsin. um certain >> vouchers >> vouchers or different ways that that is my friends in Florida and the cost of living I could tell you let's say Milwaukee but I've heard this about I mean I know a lot of people are moving to Cleveland the the real estate is incredibly cheap >> but there's no job so you could you can have three of people or half of people are working remotely today >> in other listen I'm not here promoting moving out of kronites I live in Kronites like you said it's but >> all my friends afford to live in >> all my friends in Florida say they get six 7 $8,000 in vouchers. Maybe in certain grades or ages, you know, preK maybe 10. They said no matter what the voucher gives, their tuition never goes down a dollar. The says it cost 22,000, we're getting seven. Give us 14. Shro. Also, another thing about living watching Jam every week and watching the the living terror and watching the shitta. It seems to me that whenever rich people went by the rabbi and spoke about projects, the deba is always pushing that money should always be allocated to Jewish education. >> 100%. >> Tell me about some of your encounters of the Debb's um videos and sikas about the whole focus on Jewish education, yes, and maybe should there be a bigger stress amongst the world than Jewish philanthropy that they have to stop donating money to museums and just focus on Jewish education. >> He wants to build a museum. We're going to do [laughter] >> it's okay. A museum is education. A museum. First of all, we don't use the word museum about the just some some people it it evokes, you know, images of mummies or whatever the presidential library. >> Yeah. In one second. I just want to tell you about unfortunately unfortunately I can't tell you all of the content off the top of my head. I should be like a machine that knows all but you could go to gem.tv and search it. Um, but actually right now we're printing just 200 copies because it's a pre-run of a book of 480 pages, I think, just indexes of all of the things discussed in the videos >> in print. >> In print, it's also available on gem.tv. I mean, this is just the front cover, but it's a little bit of a tease because it's not going to be available right away, but like you have here, uh, oh, just just as So, education is in there, I'm sure. uh army, arrogance, art, arthritis, assimilation, atonement, author, you know, just autism, automobile, paluva, baby carriage, baby naming, you know, etc. Banker uh and then you could see what the content is in the other part of the book or just go straight on gem.tv to to find it. You know, one of the one of the uh things about the video is a very intangible format, right? Like where is the product of what we do? Literally a week ago, somebody on the GEM team made a quick uh calculation of how many how many subtitles were generated uh through the years on all of our different productions and calculated over if that were published in book form. We would have um three 100 volumes of at 300 pages each just of the subtitles on the GEM videos. You know, the the amount of work that goes and the subtitles, the translation, most people don't even think about it's an afterthought. Never mind. It's uniquely challenging because you have to keep the sentence structure the same unlike a regular translation where you adapt right the is speaking and you're subtitling. So you're trying to adapt enough to help a person understand but you have to keep the sentence structure and the timing and the space is very limited etc. You probably just >> you have nunicks complaining how you translate it. I'm sure >> sure just the English subtitles would fill up 100 300page volumes. Never mind translate it to French, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Russian all the languages that were doing it. But that's all just kind of the top layer of all the work that happens under the research, the all this material. So this index is just one tangible way. It has 15,000 entries of different topics, the different lines of kind of what the Reb is talking about. It's just one way that you can just begin to see the wealth, the tremendous amount of material that's there. So in answer to your question, yes, the Reba always pushed Jewish education and spoke about how federations have seized full of money and they what are they saving for? There's a fire burning. Spend it on Jewish education. Even if you have to borrow money, there said it should be done for Jewish education. But for more, go to gem.tv, search education. >> Connor, how do you handle controversial topics? >> Controversial. We never handle controversial like what? >> Some people uh complain that gem is too polished. They don't want to cover the hot topics >> like >> I don't know just >> talk to me let's see if we can cover it. >> But lately I saw you you tackled Schlamazar's head on you were not like >> I know is not a comfortable topic for many and the PR I mean especially today but I saw lately you went head on you were not afraid. >> So >> and how do you handle and people say oh why are you filtering this not this how do you handle those conversations? I don't we don't filter all the materials available all the raw materials available that's number one >> um what we focus on we have to choose >> in the beginning right after Gimmel Thomas this the whole gem the whole enterprise was very much about look the rebba had been speaking until two years before let's keep material of theba coming out so people could keep watching and then shabas living all these types of segments and that as the years passed we began to see that our job is shifting our job is the same but what we need to do is shifting People need context, relevance, understanding. You think of the format of living terra today. You're bringing together the rebba's words together with the story behind them or the human side of the topic and that enables people to watch finding aids the ability to find the reb on different topics. >> I just saying as a add guy myself your new format >> you you have me hook line and sinker. >> Okay. The problem is I don't watch the second part. I apolog there a more unedited video afterwards but the point is this is what people need today or what we're doing on social media we have I think 5 million unique uh views viewers last year alone right the social media is grow but we're taking and curating and doing things that we probably would not have done right after Gimmel Thomas but as people's as the needs of the audience change we have to be bringing the rabbit to people you know in today's genre and the way that people speak and are able to connect today going back to so going to Schlarz meaning the Israel's security and the reb's approach to it that was kind of a gorilla project that we did which actually threw off the presidential library which I was about to get into I'm saying right when October 7th happened we knew that the rebba speaks very passionately about Israel's security and he has a very specific approach that despite the fact that most labavatur know that the screams that we have to be strong and and how much it pained him and how he tried to get the message through the nuances of how that works. Let's say what's going on today, how Israel should handle the US administration. There's concrete guidance from the Reb. It's very hard reactively to say it in in a in a nutshell, but I would tell you that it's not the Reb's approach is not, oh, ignore America. Do whatever you need to do. The Reb gives really clear guidance on how to handle the US administration. And it's not to me, this was not a surprise. the fact that uh President Trump turned. I was telling people it's going to I mean you don't have to be a a prophet. You have to just read history and read what the Reb says and listen um how to handle this should have been handled before if you knew that it was coming. You don't put all your stake in President Trump and you're able to understand what a real danger is. you know, after after October 7th, there's a very uh well-known quote now from BB where he said, "If we have to fight with our fingernails, that's what we'll do." Right? when the Biden administration was not ready to provide arms. If Israel understands and recognizes some of the other threats that are around it and communicates it well, which is the job of the prime minister of Israel and and all of Israel as a whole, the entire society from top to communicate that this is not an ac it's it's unacceptable and you don't budge from it for a minute and you're firm about it. The Reb says, "America will come around when you waffle or and it's not so easy because there are other parts of Israeli society that are always kind of trying to undermine, but when you're clear about it and you're consistent with it and you understand that it's the truth, the American administration will come around and that has happened consistently. There are examples that the Reb points to in real time as they're happening that when Israel is firm, it could be, you know, you'll have some they will withhold arms for a while or things like that. You know, people don't know this, but basically everything that's happening now happened numerous times before. The Reagan administration turned on Israel in the middle of the Lebanon war and they withheld bomb bombs. Same idea as what as what happened a couple times over the last couple years. Um, so, >> so if we could summary AI summary, what's a rebashita on Israel and security of Israel? Give us 30. You >> can't do an AI. >> First of all, you put out a video. We have a series of three videos. >> You're saying it's the peace upon the land came out 20 years ago. >> We were into some clips. Yes, we were into Israel security for a long time. We had a whole bunch of videos. I've always had a strong interest in this topic because I saw how passionate the Reb was and how much of it was. >> Give us a 30 second V clip. >> I mean the 30 second is you need to be a proud Jew. You need to have your your priorities dictated by Tyra, not by the media and not by what's going on on social media. And you need to have clarity on what Israel needs to do and not to receive that clarity from from Israel president United States or anywhere else. >> Israel give away land. >> Land is vital for security. It's the number one security tool. You cannot sacrifice lives for land. How do you know that? Go to military experts. True military experts, not ones that are already tainted by politics. And the explains that whole uh that whole approach. >> There are three there are three videos. There are three videos um in a series, three pillars of Israel security called the Reb's Road Map to Peace on a channel called Enduring Peace. I'm saying so you could people could see it. But with America, we didn't produce yet. >> Reban had a deal with America. >> 30 seconds. >> Once you understand the thing of Jewish pride and understand that certain moves that you're going to make are absolutely suicidal, then you realize you don't commit suicide to impress your friend, even your best friend. America is Israel's friend. So there are certain lines that you cannot cross >> like >> you cannot pull back or stop uh bombing or an invasion or something that was planned that you need to go to the end because the president of the United States called and in the end this is the interesting thing in the end by acting this way you're not sacrificing your relationship with the United States you're actually going to be strengthening it America needs a strong ally in Israel not a compliant one not one that's a good boy that always follows it America needs Israel needs to do from time to time the wild thing the thing that that America doesn't like and that actually strengthens America's position too because then the other countries need to turn to America and say could you restrain these people um and the explains all of this by the way some of it publicly some of it in private audiences >> nob would disagree [clears throat] with a single word that you just said I just want to say something because this is probably going to get a be very heavily viewed um um interview everybody knew And everybody knows that a guy like President Trump at a certain point is not going to be Israel's best friend like he's been until now. We knew we knew that that day is going to happen because it happened with every single American president for the last 80 years. I just also want to mention that there has to be a tremendous amount of Hakkar sativ to our dear President Trump. He made the Abraham Accords. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem. He's given Israel every single weapon under the entire sun since October 7th. Unlike the Biden administration, he's been sending plane roads sharing vital intelligence. He now went to the G7. He wants to impress some of our Arab Arab brothers and sisters. He's saying, "Oh, Israel should be more careful." All of a sudden, yesterday, every platform in social media, HE'S SWITCHING ON US. HE'S A BACKSTABBER. Everybody take a back seat. >> What can I say? I have to tell you, >> calm down. I think Trump is an amazing guy and he'll be there for Israel. Like, everybody should take a deep breath. He's 100% he's owed a huge thank you and it was almost biblical the amount the cooperation if you rewind back you know a month ago two months ago or however many months ago when Israel was fighting with America how much they helped if you know the the approach well and I don't think it gave it justice just now if you know well this this was not expected it was not unexpected it was just a question of when it was going to happen and as long as you're not hanging and making yourself dependent that this is our whole approach Thank god we have a good president and it has to do with it's the president of the United States is kind of giving us our inspiration to do this and if not obviously there's the practical side you can only do cooperate with the United States as much as they're ready to cooperate but if you have your principles clear of what needs to happen and you're able to articulate it consistently then it wouldn't be such a big absolute existential crisis like what's happening now >> the PR when he helped and it was amazing sometimes you're going to have a good administration sometimes a administration. This administration probably the best in history until a couple days ago. They turned and who knows everything is live, you know, in Hashem's hand, but you know, use it while you're take it to your advantage while you can. And as long as you you have your own uh well you're well grounded and you're anchored in Toyra's approach, you're going to be okay and you're not going to just kind of lose your head when something like this happens. And >> what's the biggest complaints against? [clears throat] You have to tell me. [laughter] >> And how do you deal with that? That was my follow-up. >> Um, the biggest complaints against Jim. I'm like ready to take on I'm not afraid of the question. I'm just trying to think what complaints. I mean, you didn't help me with my request fast enough. Um, I gave you an idea for a video for Living Tighter. Why didn't you guys make it yet? Um, you know, I told you that my bubby has memories and you haven't interviewed her. Like, you know, those kinds of things here and there. But honestly, I think people are pretty happy with Jim and people support Jim morally, emotionally, uh uh >> monetarily as well. Um you know, we always we always want to do more. We we we're we're the toughest on ourselves. We actually have a lot more that we we feel like we're just getting started. And that's why it comes back to this matter of good people. Like there's so much more that we >> is your [clears throat] like board or consultant an editorial content like who decides what what or you're >> when we have when we have specific questions we'll usually go to somebody who we feel is the right or several people right person to be asking consulting in that area. Is this okay? Is it not okay? My my father-in-law was once in the uh and he wor he was a bak and he worked on um >> talking about talking about your family we skipped we skipped a lot of things. Your father, he's a military. His father, >> your father-in-law was a Mosha Zakovski. >> Yes. >> Who was a legend on his own, right? >> I think so. >> I hear so much about the things he's accomplished in Detroit and the things that he did in education. Do you want to talk a little bit about your father-in-law? >> My father-in-law was involved in publishing. He lived in Detroit until he moved to New York about 15 years ago >> uh or so. Passed away a couple years ago. Um he was involved in publishing and he was very very he was he was very gifted in that area. as a baker he was working on safe which is an encyclopedia ofidic uh thought oridic ideas and it was something that the was pushing very very strongly the whole idea of encyclopedias and indexes was something that was a something pushed really really hard >> is that why you're publishing >> actually believe it or not the introductory pages of this the first three pages are quotes from the rabbi about the value and importance of index and the actually praising those who have a who have a talent for making indexes because it's unique talent the himself made indexes as a younger The Reb was the first one to make indexes uh you know when he was in Paris he was writing indexes um that's so um my father-in-law the Reb was pushing my father-in-law something to to make progress with Safer Ekim was Rabiel Khan's project but he was obviously working under him and he said I'm a baker like I feel like I can make a mistake and I don't know well enough and the Reb said to him the merit of the fact that you're working on behalf of the community assists that you won't make mistakes etc. So I always ask for the Reb and I I know many on our team do that we do the right thing that we you know throw fast balls down the middle and not let our opinions mix you know to go with an open mind to any topic you're approaching with of the rebba to really learn and understand what he's saying and just render it for people without putting your own opinions in and that everything we do be successful. So, we've made some mistakes here and there. Who doesn't? But relatively speaking, the amount of material, thank God, may it continue forward uh with Hashem's help, you know, it's we've we've done pretty well. So, I don't know. I don't know. Uh but you could tell me complaints. I'm happy to try and respond to them. >> Oh, I know that my father's >> Mishi Frank, you have no complaints. >> I've complained that my father watched a gem video one week about moment of silence and became his obsession for the past 20 years. >> So, that's my complaint. It should be fine. That that's the kind of complaints we love. Your father basically the Rebi used to speak about moment of silence in public school especially on the broadcast Jeem Feben and uh your father saw a video from us on it and then he became a moment of silence spokesman. >> He became obsessed with >> you. You had you had many many segments of the >> sponsor. >> Yeah. You had many segments of the Reb about moment of silence about bringing to millions and millions of children's minds that there's a omnipresent that there's a god in the world even though if you're not allowed to mention God but there's a way to do a moment of silence and states have passed different moment of silent silent laws that you have to mention a moment of silence you have to bring it up in class there was a I know we're going to do some other shout there's a that spoke in my show many times litin what's his first name what's his name from Kentucky Rabbi Litin from Kentucky and he said that in his state with legislation they pass not only they pass moment of silence but it's implemented because a lot of states they passed it and they're not being implemented like schools decide our district we don't do it we don't pro promote it we don't tell teachers to actually enforce the law he said that in Kentucky if they don't implement it schools could lose funding >> so it's a tremendous success >> you take a moment of silence and talk about some of the frontiers of where we're going the rebba for non-Jews the rebba spoke to non-Jews Jews, especially on the televised Feben, moment of silence, church and state, the place of America leading the world. Uh, all of these themes clearly for a non-Jewish audience, they haven't yet reached a really, really wide audience. There's no doubt to me that the Rebu was putting it out there for us to take it further. And I can't tell you how many I've heard from that they have non-Jewish uh people who they know, not crazy, you know, whatever type like normal levelheaded non-Jews who are looking for the Reb's guidance for how to bring up their kids for what to do to, you know, America. Everything is so confusing. The world today, society is going crazy. And the Reb gives answers to them. However, like in all the other areas we're talking about, we need to learn the skill of how to curate the materials and to bring it to a non-Jewish audience. It's not just the same as, okay, take a fab and subtitle it, take a chevitz, put it out there. You have to be very cognizant of the audience and you have to be seeing and testing and figuring out how to get the material out. But there's no doubt that uh there's a huge world out there, a moment of silence and a and a whole bunch of other related topics that the Reb speaks to that the world's waiting to discover >> the billions of people like promoting the unpromotable. So that's probably why I'm speaking about promotions. [laughter] Talking about promotions, we have wonderful wonderful corporate sponsors that keep the show up and running. I want to give a special shout out to my dear friends from pure company. The most delicious healthy drink in the world. Pure aloe comes in eight flavors. >> Available at Klein. >> Available at Klein's in Crown Heights, but available where all fine kosher products. >> If it's not available, please ask for >> Yeah, ask them. I had a store in Crown Heights. I called up the owner and I asked her if she has pure aloe and she said, "What is it?" And I showed her a picture and she said, "Is it taste good?" So, I'm saying this on the record that every flavor of pure aloe is delicious, refreshing, comes in the 16.9 ounce travel size, and it comes in the 50 oz bottle for your Shabas tables. It's a product I enjoy immensely. It's healthy. It has every nutritional and quenching benefit you could have. >> The owners of us owners when you support him, you support all the [laughter] Shabas guests. We'd also like to welcome a amazing amazing company. We're personally friends with the owner of Bakan Guara. It's a type of sugar cane alcohol which is gishmak. It's delicious. It's refreshing. It tastes good. Great for fabangans. Great for shadoshim. >> Oh, you >> Oh, you great hasher. Incredible. Incredible product. Also, when you go to somebody's home in the summer, you want to bring a nice gift box. It's a great quality product. >> Show the bottle. This is a gift box. >> Gift box with two different flavors. >> Bakan Guardian. It's sort of like Iraq. Have you had it yet? >> Yeah, we had it at the uh at the show we were at last week where we met them. It's delicious. Delicious. It smells good. It tastes good. It's pleasant. >> Beautiful packaging. >> Distributed by Royal. >> Royal wine. >> Royal. It doesn't get better than that. >> Welcome to the uh show the Bakan and we have CH Butcher and the CH restaurant on Troy Avenue. So, they have their incredible, gorgeous, scrumptious restaurant in Brooklyn on Troy Avenue. You do not have to go to the city. Lots of parking on Troy Avenue. The most elegant cuisine. And then they have their butcher shop on Albany Avenue with the freshest American Angus beef. Checked locally by Yam and Schlamim and Batkim in Pennsylvania. American Angus beef, not the Argentinian stuff. The American top top stuff. They also have a frozen section stuff. Wonderful. Samabuska beef proies. And they also have all types of cigars and other amazing quality products in your frozen section of your uh store. 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Rabbi Schmatkin, we spoke so much about all the video. You're salvaging millions of photos, literally millions of photos. You're archiving them. You're preserving them. You're making face recognition technology that people could find them and change their lives when they find their moments with the tens of thousands of hours of video production. You took thousands of hours of the video. You make it tangible that millions of people could watch weekly videos of the I'm also noticing that you have a nice collection of books. So you spend so much money on a book called The Early Years. Classical book, fine book. Anybody that appreciates fine journalism and research, this is a book that >> you let him talk about. >> Had to talk about Deb's early years. Tell me why you decided to also go into publishing besides just video. >> That is a good question. In other words, our lane generally is audio, video, photos. There are when we do go into the book area, it's with a lot of thought and a lot of discussion. We don't shle heavy boxes of books. He felt guilty [laughter] that his friends and other publishing content, you know, they're shleing heavy stuff. He just sends emails of content that's flying. >> I have to tell you, and that's one thing I miss. I don't miss about being in the drink business heavy drinks. I'll kind of >> We wouldn't feel so bad if we had boxes of books to Schlepp because since you brought it up, books are something physical that you can sell both on the sponsorship side. People like a dedication in the back of a physical book and on the sales side in video because it's so much less tangible even though the layers of difficulty and expense are, if I may say, I'm saying we've published some books so we know far far far more complex and expensive. it's harder for people to see. We're just we're physical people, right? So, it's harder for people to see the product. So, both on the dedication side and on the uh sales side, it's a you know, people need you need to do more work to explain to people what the product is that they're buying and why it costs so much. So, we'd be very happy to have, you know, skids full of books that that are that are moving, etc. And we do these the books, the few books that we publish. >> How many skies you have? Uh, we I'm going to say, oh gosh, my kids will jump, but I was going to say I'll just say seven >> because you guys are a you're basically a content machine, right? >> You're organization that creates content in whatever format, you In general, we don't see our primary format as books. When it came to the interview area where we saw that there was an opportunity and how how we could extend the whole my encounter project which you know was an area that came from us realizing as we're as we're just a quick moment on on how we got there. We were doing the preservation of the videos after the video audio photos huge project multi-year to restore create uh a system um and provide access to all the video audio photos and then we as we're doing this we say okay there's a group of people publishing is there's a group of people publishing the letters the Hebrew and Yiddish letters actually I believe that the English letters are about to start coming out tomorrow today or tomorrow over I think the number somewhere about 15,000 English letters of the Reba are going to start now 32 years after Galamos uh being published. something I'm very much looking forward to seeing physical physical books from >> in print in English I believe a collaboration if I understand correctly um which you know just think about that for a minute let's open this up for a minute wrote I'm going to just say 40 to 60 Hebrew and Yiddish letters per week that are published or maybe 30 to 60 u in addition to all the bar mitzvah and and weddings and this and that of which there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds a month if not thousands. In later years, the Reb saw 50 to 80 or 90 or 100 people on an average night of and he would see people three nights a week. Later years, I think two year two nights if I'm not mistaken, the Reb would fang on average, let's say once or twice a week. So he both prepared the FBangan and he delivered the FBangan. the Reb was available and answering questions from his organizations around the world and sending um where did he find the time for this? And now we learn that there's I mean we always knew that there were many English letters but the exact quantity and the scope of it um that there in addition he wrote I don't know I'm going to say an average of 20 to 30 or maybe somewhere around 30 I think English letters per week as well. The amount of material Rebel left us lifetimes of work just to unpack it all and to get it all published let alone to curate it and share it in ways that are meaningful you know both on the print side and in the video side etc. It's mindboggling saying if you just stop for a minute and think of the Reb's the Reb's and the Reb's how much he devoted himself to the to all these people the people he's he's writing letters to the people he's seeing in how did he manage it it's it's an it's a superhuman level of effort um so you know think about the Reb's uh um devotion uh to Israel and to every single yid because most of that time was helping individuals with their with their issues anyway Anyway, so the the audio video photos we were doing, there are other groups of people doing the publishing. Um, but the so much of how the Reba impacted the world was in people's hearts and minds and they were taking it with them, right? There was no recording of that. uh Russian jewelry, the Reb's impact on Israel, uh in all these different areas, the Reb's responses to people's questions in a very theb did so much of this in one-on-one conversations. And we be we realized that this is going away. This is in people's hearts and minds. They're taking it with them. So, we started a whole project to just to capture these testimonies. We did not even realize at the time the real value of stories and how people connect to them and how in a way they're they're more impactful than the original recordings of the Reb in certain ways, right? And we just said we have to save these and make sure they're on the record. That's how the mind counter with the project started. Today we have I don't remember the exact number but somewhere around 2,000 interviews ranging between on average 2 to 7 hours uh over 25,000 pages of transcripts. um in all these different languages and so much of what we know about the Reba's life and that are known is known on the street even like that any child knows comes from the my encounter with project which is now going for about 20 years. Um anyway so we realized that that this needs to be extended into print as well. We actually approached Kahas in the beginning and you know with our first book that we wanted to do they said that you know they thought we should do it and then from then the encounter projects the my encounter books we do the early years which you mentioned I felt strongly that it kind of based on how the reb is set up the way the publishing should be and I'm a you know I I study this and I I'm into it um I felt that it should be a kahass book so we approached kahass to publish it and the reason was there was There was a lot of beautiful material that we accumulated for the My Encounter video series, the earlier video series, and we saw that this needs to be extended into print as well. You can't go to that level of detail in in a film and we had accumulated so many documents and together with Rabbi Barberlander, my co-author, wrote a book, the early years. Really, there needs to be another three or four volumes till the Rabbi and the Rabbitson get to the United States. It starts in 1902 with the Reb's birth. goes to 1928 after the Rabban Rabbitson's wedding. We have, you know, lots more uh uh research done. I'm not sure it's coming out so soon though because our primary is video and there's a lot a lot a lot that we want to do. >> The earlier years of that video, was that one of your first projects as a kid? >> That was the first my encounter with the Reba release. In other words, we said okay we can go interview people but when we I'm not sure uh but when we interview with a purpose of releasing something of producing something it's a whole different energy and it's and you you end up finding more names. So we say you know let's go to the earliest period in the Rabbitson's life. Let's catch those people you know while we can so to speak and we thought it would be one video but it ended up being a series of five just from birth until coming to the United States. Do you have any team or people focus on relevance? One of Clappy's biggest hotas today, he goes viral. We go viral all the time because we respond to what's trending today, this second. Is there anyone in GEM that says, "Okay, right now Israel Iran is a hot topic. Okay, let's put out a clip that potentially it's super relevant to this second. You're doing a lot of historical stuff and whatever stuff that are timeless that are not really you could publish living terror generally any week. it wouldn't make a difference. Do you have anyone or team or people focused on that social media quote unquote virality relevance every day? >> We have a group of people focused on social media. Um they do do things that are relevant. Something like a major topic like Israel is something that requires a lot of time and work and energy and we're not always able to pivot on a dime. But one of the big projects that we're planning on doing, God willing, will, like I'm saying, a major investment into the content will hopefully enable us to do all of our content to respond more quickly and to be able to quickly put out very high quality material. Um, you know, as things come up. So, it's definitely something. So, the answer is yes, we do put out a lot of relevant material. Not every single thing do we have material developed already to be able to respond to it quickly. If you have 2500 uh personal my encounters that you interviewed people between two and seven hours >> and you release let's say only like 16 17 or 20 minutes in the living terror every week what happens with all that like it's available it's not available >> did you read here is my story in sh >> I read this every single week I read >> I just noticed last week was week number 700 so 700 stories came out >> that's a double-sided piece of paper of of of a 5-hour interview >> yeah so first of all you could imagine not every interview is 5 But not everything is publishable. People make mistakes. People say a story two, three times. People's memories are are are, you know, not are fallible. It's a human. All of us if you're trying to retell something that happened 30 years ago. I can't tell you how often people, you know, conflate different conversations they had with their mix up and put them together because we have the the dollars, videos, etc. So, we have to we do our best to make sure to vet the material, make sure what's going out is absolutely correct. Um but yeah there is a lot more material and one of our one of our upcoming projects actually the my encounter team Rabbi Khil Kagan the director of my encounter project together with Rabbi uh Mendel Slim are working on a project that will also have wider like publishing to it in others we're going to take certain events God willing um they're starting this right now and focus on the events and go back to some of the people we might have interviewed but with a specific and say we're going to publish right when we you know get the material longer pieces but in general we believe that exactly as you said that we should be also be pushing some bigger raw clips. You know, we're trying to we're trying to hit a lot of everybody has their relationship with Reban the way that they need the material and we're trying to, you know, hit as many of the audience as much as possible. >> Talking about complaints and I'm reluctant to say it, but maybe I don't know. We just it's it's an interview. Nothing was planned. I once heard a guy say that Jem is publishing a little bit too slow because they don't think Mashiah is coming anytime soon. So, they're publishing very slow. >> I want to tell you something. As somebody who's been doing this for 30 years straight, almost 30. Yeah. 30 years together with a team of 50 people, we could pick up the pace by 10 times and there are still lifetimes of work ahead of us. The Reb left that much to unpack. I just told you about entire new audiences that we deeply believe we need to reach. We need to reach all of Kla Israel. We need to reach humanity as a whole. We deeply believe and we know that when we do things well the material does reach much further. We have to develop those skills and uh and bring the rabbit to much much wider audiences in many many different types of ways. So don't we're not publishing. So I mean listen just look at what we're putting out every single day. The amount of different materials on different platforms every single day and every single week. I don't know how anybody who knows anything, even if you don't know that much about publishing, would say that it's slow. Just the living title alone, I mean, it's something that in the regular world, this would take a huge team of people to put together that kind of high-quality uh thing. Every single day we every single week, we have social media material that's being curated and edited and pushed out every single day. For Gimmel Tamos now, we made a for [clears throat] Gimmel Thomas. We we made a special selection of material for Schlimim for them to put out on their social media. It's been a huge success in the first two days small videos, photos, captions, texts about the Reb to allow Schlim to, you know, nice material for them to put. Somebody went and selected that and subtitled it and created it. And the same thing is going on in area after area. Good night, my child. Um, so I don't know if you're familiar with it, but uh, every single night from 5:00 p.m. to 10 o'clock p.m. on the front page of gem.tv, TV there's a clip for young children here too we saw that there's a huge opportunity that kids don't necessarily connect directly with even a nicely edited video of the reba there's a moa that comes on screen and just gives a little bit of you know what's going on and narrates beneath and it's become a cult hit with little kids you click it every night to say that you that you watched it after 10 nights you know it says congratulations you get the confetti and uh then kids are then you could be featured saying good night to all the other kids. Um, and it's like a cult, absolute cult, you know, huge. It's just one of the project. See, you guys don't even know about it. There, thank God there are thousands of people watching. This is what my kids should be watching. >> Actually, you mentioned Yasi Cha before. He he told me that, you know, him and many many of his friends are showing it to their children. Thank God. Um and uh that you know so that's the same idea of what we've seen with the evolution that I told you before that we're looking at audiences and seeing that just putting out the material is great but that we need to help them we need to curate the material and bring it to the audience in a way that they kind of feel connected to it. This is going on you know multiple additional audiences that that this is happening with. I'm am I imagining that in the past like 5 years Jem has been for more focused on kids and community than ever before or just my imagination >> to elaborate on his on his question I got a phone call exactly a year ago from my good friends uh Swanim was it Mendel Swanim >> and my friend Zakovski is it your men >> Zakovski your nephew and they asked me if I want to be an actor for Je was like what >> was Is that the way they posed the question? >> Basically, I was like, "What?" And they're like, "We put out videos five times a year called Connection Point, which I vaguely heard of it. It wasn't around when I was a kid. I don't know. I'm about 40 years old." Um, and they told me that you guys publish you guys produce real videos to get people to get children involved with the Reba and Judaism and everything called Connection Point. And I had the opportunity to be I think you released four so far, but I'm the actor on five of those videos. And like my co-host said that you are you guys are a gem is putting a big focus on the children which put all the focus on the children. The rallies it's all about the children about Jewish education. But his question what made you guys have such a pivoting decision and >> so the films that you were in were probably numbers 21 through 26. This year we're five videos of the foundation series. But let me tell you the story behind it. Early on when we started [clears throat] early on when we started um we felt I felt strongly our schlick is to just get the material out in a man way and we're not going to bring it to every last end user. We're going to put out material. We don't we're not going to march into every Israeli general's office to show them the video that we made peace upon the land. And in the schools in particular, we say, you know what, it's for every principal and every teacher, no doubt, it's for them to bring to their to their students. As the years were passing, I couldn't help but notice that Labavature kids were not able to watch videos of the Reba anymore. I'm I'm generalizing, but I'm saying like in elementary school, I would speak to people in Mifas and they would confirm. They said the Baham are coming in the last few years. They can't watch a Fabang, they don't have the skills, they don't know how, etc. And for I that began for me a pivot in this area. I said I remember I I would interview teachers. I would say I heard you show videos of the Reb and the kids are focusing. What are the methods you're using? Are you ask them questions? How do you get them to focus? There was nothing that was really sticking. And I was disappoint you know I was talking to principles and teachers like you have to show them videos if they're not focusing in like your teacher. It's like that's what you have to do. You have to figure out how to wasn't going. And I began to say, listen, if we I saw it and I heard the heard what I saw what was going on. I heard from the yeshivists and the girls schools as well that like this was a problem. In other words, they were coming in without the skills. It was like, okay, if we don't handle this problem, nobody else is going to. And we said, I was saying for a while, we're going to need to start something not. So, the first thing you think of, okay, you have to teach the kids Yiddish. How are they going to appreciate videos of the Reb? Because the idea isn't just you want them to get a message from the Reb that you don't need videos for. The idea is the k is that you're learning and listening directly from the rebba. And that has that is something that's very powerful. We're going to have to figure something out that the kids could learn from the rebba. You know, we're going to have to crack this nut. And it was for a couple years. I was just for a while talking, listening, asking. I think it was a I bought I bumped into Rabbi Ley Platkin and he had been a head counselor I think in Ganisaw, New York the year before. And I heard about this program that he had done that was that was uh the kids were like really focused in and zoned in. They were able to listen. And the program was that they would show a video of the Reb, they would have like numbers and they would have questions and you answer the Reb is basically answering the question as uh as the the videos playing. So a two comes up in the corner. You have a question. What's the connection from from Matisio to a Jewish child today? And because you have that question, it enables the kids to just focus in and get their answer and write it down. That's what his program was. I think it was the only person I I offered him a job on the spot [laughter] because usually, you know, you want to vet a person. You want to see, okay, it's a great idea. So like, okay, if he really shows up Monday morning, we're we're going to we're going to make this work. Turns out he he came back and he started connection point. We did it as a partnership with Hashem in the beginning, but essentially the work of choosing the rallies. We would use rallies and we put up these questions. It turned into a whole major thing. I think 50 Labavature schools, boys and girls schools, elementary schools. Um, and the the basic program >> five years ago. Yeah. >> Oh, so I was right. >> Wait, no. So, we didn't go right to that program just yet. But so we started that's the basic program for uh uh so kids watch the rallies and they answer the questions. We would tra we train the teachers. We train the educators on how to do it. So it's not just oh another video the in the classroom. You go to a special room. You don't tell them the point before but you you kind of lead up to it. You make like there's a whole program around it. So it's not just okay every teacher just turning on a video of the rabbit that the we wanted the kids to really respect. It turned into a massive massive it led to a sea change in how the kids connect there and we specifically called the connection point. It's not only the kids learning from the rabbi, but it's them feeling like I I can hear directly from the rabbi a video of the rabbi in the corner when I go by it's not just for those big men with kapatas and gartles like I can understand the rabbi directly. It's to build their confidence and their connection with them. Fast forward, we also started this other program called the foundations track in it where it's really high quality films with a story line with videos of >> famous actors was in [laughter] this year's series which by the way I just got to see the last one >> 770 uncovered. >> Unbelievable. Like the script writing shout out to to Mrs. Slunnim uh who writes the scripts the act it's like and there's pieces of the rabbit built in. So, it's bringing out themes to the Reb of the Reb to the children in a very healthy natural way. We also have a curriculum about emotional wellness from the Reb that's being used in in I think almost all of the 50 schools this year. Uh we have 5,000 children who are who are learning from this and utilizing it. And the good news is I went back to the mass and I went back to the girls schools and they are telling me in particular I asked my brother each of whom lead a massifa they've told me that the children are the bakim now are coming with the skills and able and interested to watch and learn directly from the rabbi >> I observed in kabad I think we were very very obsessed just with the outside the kabad the makurim in the past I would say 5 to 10 years I see a lot of the misuses turn inward in service and take care of the community let's say hashem big focus kon became popular I guess in the past 101 15 years um gem is I a lot of it was focused like you said in the kabad the first content I'm assuming was very the past 10 years one day when I heard my kid said oh I'm here doing some gem thing like well gem deals with you know Karen Hash they're dealing now with the wedding halls I'm seeing a huge trend ch a lot of moist I would say overall was very led by did his big fancy event with the speakers and the music I'm observing a trend the past five 10 years a lot of are I guess more paying more attention to the an of crown heights and I see a lot of a lot of new >> well not only crown heights an communities around the whole world a lot used to be only kabad houses and people had rules. You can't come to Kabados unless you're fry. And you know, Litvox love saying if you go to Kabados and you look for them, they don't want to talk to you. I I would say they they treat people the same way. Litakom, don't worry, we get treated the same way. If we don't have a beard, we don't look Jewish. They like us. But it seems that in a lot of became now an communities in Florida, and I don't know, >> California, a lot of these it seems like a trend like maybe we also have to take care of ourselves. Is that some is that am I observing correctly or am I totally off? >> So I I was telling you the gem experience. I'm sure each mice has their own path. Each organization has their own path to how they get there. Our experience was that we said specifically remember us saying like we're not we don't have to develop the materials to get it that last mile to the kids. There are organizations that do curriculums. There are schools or this. But after a while seeing the problem we said we need to close that last mile. And frankly it's not only for lab schools. in every area that I was just mentioning to you. We realized that just publishing the material and putting it out there is not enough. Ourus has moved a little bit more not or more than a little bit to the relevancy curating bringing things to audiences in ways that they can appreciate. Uh putting the material together, presenting it in ways that different audiences can can appreciate it. And obviously children is a very very important audience first of all because they're the and even if you just look at it from a like a cold you know like kind of if a person is calculating you say okay who's going to bring the rebba out to the world you have to first have your closest people theim anash their children to be able to appreciate it themselves and then their inspiration and their excitement and interest they can project outwards >> as a content and machine. How many times you think like if I was only around the 1950s, 1960s, I would tell the guy the camera guy this I would [laughter] more footage all like how much you like like I wish >> even the gem videos that are very high quality because they were television broadcasts. If only they isolated the camera that was onba and you're not stuck with the cutaways, you know, seeing the audience. Oh, look, this is such an important line but the reb is off camera. Oh, we say it all the time. all the time, the recordings, the audio, but but really you have to be honestly we have to be so thankful to the individuals who stood there through thick and thin uh recording. I'm talking about obviously David Krinsky who who recorded the Fabangas which I you know based on what I've heard from him it was just an afterthought that he popped in a tape and hit record. They were thinking about the live broadcast and uh Rabbi Krinsky senior who recorded Ferangas and the llamas and Khalber who ran WLCC and Shan Goldstein all the you know Yasul Goldstein I'm going to miss out names all the photographers these people I don't think any of them were thinking or I'm quite sure from my conversations with each of them that they were not thinking about this time but the amount that there is and the quality that there is and the scope and breadth of what there is we should be thankful you Clearly, it's part of Hashem's plan. Um, so while we can cvetchet over what's not on tape, and believe me, I do it, let's think about how much is, and there's still so much that can be unpacked and utilized and brought, you know, to ourselves and to to greater, you know, further audiences. >> Can we talk about the museum project? >> Yes. >> I live around the corner of this empty land. So, >> I I think about you every day kind of thinking, can I park there? Can I not park there? So about [laughter] I remember about 10 years ago >> then I see the guy bought houses next door. I was getting nervous already when you didn't buy that last house. I was like oh no. >> Yeah. Listen, it wasn't a fair price and it wasn't and there's and there's limitations. >> I I felt there's a there's a momentum we have to [laughter] >> Okay. So >> tell us about the vision. It sounds crazy to have a museum right across from seven. It's like wow. >> Yeah. I'm eager to speak about what we're doing now and that what people could sponsor and fund now, but I'm also excited to speak about a big picture vision. This is not by way at present. It's not planned for >> I tell my all the time and it's not because I read about it in the New York Post. In the next couple of months and years, there's going to be thousands of people that are be going to become multi-millionaires for the first time ever. There's never been such an amount of Sheffa coming to Claudius role because with SpaceX and many many many many other companies now in the hundreds of billions and even in the trillions, a word that we weren't familiar with. And I'm imagining and I'm assuming that a lot of Jewish people are going to be part of this new mega wealth that's coming and a lot of labav. So I want to say that everything in my life that I ever wanted to do just by believing in it or having people that believed in it, it could all happen. They say dream for the moon because at least you'll land in the stars. I think that with the new wealth coming and we want to preserve DEVA's legacy and live with DEVA, you should announce everything and all we need is one guy that made $35 million in SpaceX to call you up and say across the street from 770, you want to build it ever's presidential library. It's $10 million. Where do I wire the money? Like think huge. [laughter] >> You throw I just one thing before that $10 million ain't going to cut it. >> I want to say something else upset at me. They said that three times in the last few weeks. I mentioned things that they spoke to me about or dinners that they invited me to and I stopped short of mentioning their name. So I want to say Alra saw a huge piece of land on Bedford and Eastern Parkway. We looked at that letter that otherwise they told me we looked at that. They told me I'll tell you exactly 55,000 55 or 60 Yeshua was like 55 or 60,000 legal square feet that they could build. Now >> they bought the land for close to $20 million. They're going to have probably have to put another 10 $20 million and they're thinking huge. You think huge. You said you spent over $60 million already today. You said your budget's over $5 million a year. If people want to sponsor money to something that's going to build it up as co build >> you let him say. No, he said he wants to talk about things that are for now. >> We could speak about you need 100 million talk 100 million piece of land. what they're going to do. I want >> many times and >> no no I want announce all the projects you ever dreamt of and we'll find the money [laughter] >> working on this for at about the 20 year mark or so began to see that we are accumulating an intellectual presidential library. The interviews, the documents, the videos, all the material and the subjects that we're processing through, it's a nucleus of material that's just mind-blowing. There are 15,000 uh uh source uh uh topic connections uh just to the to our videos that are online. How much time and effort has been put into kind of processing the story of the life and the rabbis's teachings and messages. But it became clear to me that a physical space a space we're in a physical world people honor and respect and something that's physical. La Havdul the presidents each have a presidential library and some of them are just stunning and mind-blowing and you're enveloped in this person's life the rebba has so much more material than the presidents which makes the job so much more challenging right because there's so much material to bring out but I said okay we need to have a physical space where people could come and we're thinking for a while where to do it to buy the oil Manhattan a lot people were saying to me it's like the first one belongs in Crown Heights There's so many people coming through at this point anyway and it'll be a magnet for more people to come >> talking about magnets [laughter] >> magnet in a good that's what it's called when you have like a big project that people come to um and then eventually you could do you could make other ones you can make on every continent and every country and every state eventually the hard part is developing the material the the the the real estate side of it is relatively the easy part it's it's like developing the intellectual the the the exhibits the experience anyway so >> thank god So he said, "Okay, uh the place that we want to do it is right across the street from 770 on that block um Kingston between Eastern Parkway and Lincoln Place." And we uh persuaded a few donors who got into it and we ended up purchasing three buildings on that block. The goal being to buy the whole block. Um was a little reckless, but it was like, "Okay, we're going to buy them because they're available and hopefully we'll be able to convince the others to sell." You know, Kahus has the frontage on Eastern Parkway. Who says they're going to want to move? But we it um the balabatim and we decided it was a good enough you know chance to go do it. As it turns out half of the block is so so we own three properties. Two of them are now we had to tear them down because when we bought them they were in bad shape and they became dangerous and the city instructed us to take them down just just fine because nothing was happening with them. And then the corner is a school building. It's being rented at present by Yel Valda. Through the course of this of of owning the the properties in the last few years, it [clears throat] became clear that the part that is landmarked from the middle of the block in the direction away from Eastern Parkway, that whole area going down blocks and blocks is landmarked which means you can't like it's a really really big deal to do anything with those buildings and you know I know that we have there are different people who have connections with city hall we have connections now we have open >> but landmarks is an island of impossible, really difficult people and we had to have some interactions when we tore down that building and I said two things. First of all, it turns out that not everybody is so eager to sell. >> What does landmarks mean that you can't do anything? You can't >> can't do anything to the outside of the building and even to the inside or or the back or whatever you need. >> See, it's empty land now. So, how you build those landmarks? >> So, those two properties, one is landmark. The line is drawn right between those two properties that are adjacent to one. One is landmark, one isn't. So on one property, you could do whatever you want as long as it's within the, you know, the envelope of what's allowed. The landmark one has to be put back exactly the way it was with the facade exactly the way it was. Can't go higher, can't go, you know, the facade needs to look the same. And they're very difficult. So although in general, like if you had a bunch of properties that are touching one another, you know, uh, adjacent, you could build a nice big project. >> Could you delmark something? >> You could do anything, I guess, but it but it's it's it's really really difficult. So, but I just want to say so we said okay that's not the only place we can go somewhere else not the end of the world um this was right before October 7th that we looked at that building on some it became it was a very big decision but I said we need to be publishing this is the time that the world is ready to listen to what Reb has to say about Israel's security and its life and death it's not just they're ready to listen it's really going to make a difference and frankly I just want to say it has made a huge difference you can sit on a day like today and say, "Oh, such a failure." We know of many pivotal decisions that were made based on the videos that we published. Anyway, but we basically said, "We're putting this on a shelf, this project. We're putting on pause and we're going to focus on this." Recently, we had we decided we have to step away from the from the enduring peace projects at least for a while because it was it is kind of just putting a major weight on all of GEM. It requires very tremendous high level resources that we can't be working on other things at the same time. Um, but we basically put this whole presidential library business on pause. We're doing some other things probably for the next couple of years. But yeah, it could be such a project requires a lot of fundraising, a lot of time, a lot of strategy. Allette, thank God you mentioned they have a group of people, a team of people, a board. By the way, I should say my my boy I have boys in Olletra. Olletra at this point is a really strong solid institution with great people, but I've one part to me that's clear when I look over at them and and I'm friendly with many people on the board and their supporters. the the board of directors. The fact that you have people running the school and then you have a different people who's a board of directors who deal with major personnel issues, who deal with strategy, who deal with properties, who deal with managing the finances and all these types of things allows the people in the mid to to strive for excellence and to achieve excellence and to and because they're focusing inward. So anyway, we don't yet have an involved board from the outside. So obviously, yeah, if somebody writes out a huge check, we'll go and we'll write out a check and and uh and uh purchase a property. It's not just a property though. Property there's like I said, there's all the work that's behind it. As I see it, when you open such a building, I think that the project would cost $50 million to start. >> Yeah, we have already like I just so you know, I have drawings like for the to show how we would fill up that whole block across from from 770 just as a as an example. >> So you're up for a land swap those two properties and the corner for we need to buy much more. But then just to get the right out there, people should know just to understand I think that you can't open such a building without a $50 million endowment as well. The minute you open the doors on a project, it's a lot less exciting to you cover the the the insurance and the utilities and the salaries and this and that. before you start is when people are excited and interested and I do not want to open something uh which has the you know which is about the rebba and then not be able to maintain it at the highest level and keep going. So the way that we would do it because Reb's life is is so big is basically >> so how many square feet you need to build >> division 150,000 we're thinking >> 15,000 square feet >> floors of changing exhibits in others every 18 months each exhibit changes and you shuffle them by six months okay and then those exhibits can go to you know can go elsewhere can be translated whatever because there's no there's based on my experience there's no way you can make a permanent exhibit on the reb you could take topics You could do a topic, a topic, a topic >> and you have the content machine anyway in house. So >> no, you need to Yes. And we would be able to build a lot. We couldn't do this 20 years ago before we've developed so much content, but still you need real serious expertise in the building. >> You still plan on doing Crown Heights. >> That's [clears throat] the plan today. Like I said, it's been a little pause. >> You looked at the Bedford in East Park. >> We looked at that building. If I recall correctly, it was right before October 7th for, you know, um, and then I I'm not saying we we had the money together to do it, but we're looking. The real estate people know that we're we're interested and we're looking around. >> You could have well, you could have sold those on that block and know. >> Yeah, but you you can't do such things in your sleep. You need to it takes time and energy. I thought, >> but also that that wouldn't cover that. And also, you buy a building, you have to you have to build on it. You have to I'm saying it's it's a >> you want to do ground up. You're not rehabbing some place. >> Okay. Even if you rehab it, you you need to be able to and the building is the smallest part of it in a way. It's not small. You need a location, but the the exhibits, the content, you need to build a content machine that's going to I remember when the Jewish Children's Museum was spinning up, how long and how much energy and time and money they spent on the content. This, I think, would be many times more than that. You're trying to reach wide audiences and interest them on different topics throughout his life and then keep doing it. I think it's going to be amazing. I'm serious. I think it'll be fascinating. A person will walk in there whether you're hearing about the rabbi for the first time or you're aid who's been, you know, learning the rabbis every single day in your life. You'll come in there, you'll be learning something new on a whole bunch of fascinating topics and experiencing it in so many different ways. I mean, there's like a even just the the initial ideas we have for exhibits would really be really be beautiful stuff. >> 50 million to build it and you need $50 million in endowment because if not after a while you won't be able to afford to keep it up. >> I can point you to some organizations who I'm unfortunately watching and seeing that they have that problem. >> Like >> I said I could point you to them. I don't want No, I'm saying listen, support all good Jewish organizations that that are trying to, you know, make ends meet on a regular basis. How does someone get the Reb's real life opinion today postgal time versus Arabic times? How do you suggest people approach life? >> Um, depends what what type of person you are. In other words, if you could read a in Hebrew or in Yiddish, you could do that and you should do that. If you could read the Reb's letters, I still think that the Reb's letters are an unmin treasure. I'm talking in Hebrew and Yiddish and and English as well. They have a response to so many things so directly. It's fascinating. It's brilliant. Everybody should be reading them. Um that's another way. And of course, you have a huge huge uh collection of videos that have been produced. That said, depending on the situation, you should also ask somebody who knows because sometimes you need to be able to synthesize this or to understand in what context the Reb is speaking. If it's a life challenge, if it's a health issue, if it's in a, you know, a parenting issue, you should also probably be asking by somebody who's who has a lot of experience. >> I want to weigh in on this. People think that post Gimmel Thomas, you ask a question from the Reb like, "How do you get an answer? Before Gimmel Thomas, there was thousands of people that wrote into the Reb, and not always did the Reb answer right away." And sometimes the Reb didn't respond and sometimes the Reb would tell you in this a year or two later regarding that question. Now, I want to give you an answer. When my mother got her nurse practitioner license, she got offered a job because then she was focusing on family health. She got offered a good job in a school-based clinic in a non-Jewish public school and she was tormented because she was always involved in and now her first good paying job is going to be in a non-Jewish public school. So they decided they're going to go to the my father and mother went to the and they come outside into the house by the aisle. Now there's like 500 tents, whatever the whole block talking about big projects. The aisle keeps expanding and getting greater and greater. They do an amazing job. And they come out into the house where the gem video plays. And my father and mother start watching the video. This is like 30 years ago. And they're both look, not 30, but like 25 years ago. And they're both looking at each other and like they couldn't believe it. The talking about how much you could accomplish with and being a kid in the work environment when you work with not Jewish people. [laughter] It was like there's thousands of such stories. But I believe that when put somebody puts the effort to going to the ayo and speaking to the rebba and asking for a question and then watching a video from jam or opening up a a from theb I think the rebba always answers 100%. Let me tell you a story from the earlier project um uh's father um Rabbi his his first name is eluding me now but is tells told the story's father. Yes. >> Okay. >> Um um so he told us the story of his father and the Rabbitson were his in in Paris when the war broke out and basically there was no communication between Paris and the freed was stuck in Poland and later he got and he came to the Reba and he asked the Reba what should I do? Should I leave? Like he still had the ability to get he was a man of means and like should I leave? Should I stay? And the Reba said to him, "Write a telegram to the Reb," meaning to the Freedb, the Reb's father-in-law, the Reb at the time. He said like, "Come on, you know, there's no there's no way it's going to get through." Reb said, "You need to do what you need to do." He went to the telegram office the next day. He sent it. They told him, "You're crazy." He said, "Just send the telegram." what's you know what is the value sent the telegram says the next morning he woke up with an absolute conviction and with clarity of what he needs to do I believe it was to leave I'm not I think that at that it was to leave I'm not positive you could check it on on gem.tv TV. Um, and basically the Reba said to him, "Your job is to write." The Reb will find a way to respond. Many people get their answers through or their clarity or their advice or their guidance from the videos. Many get it from sikas, from the Reb's letters. You still should ask, you know, your mashia or your or whatever if there's a complex question that you don't that you feel, you know, you need to talk through with somebody. Um, but the Reb finds a way to answer. And what's so fascinating is the audience, the the group of people who is turning to the Reb for answers, who is turning to the Reb for guidance is growing and growing and growing. You mentioned about the the space by the oil. I'm just saying because there you could see it in a very physical go there. Go to the oil on a Sunday. Go to the oil on any week night. M Shabas, crazy amounts of people. I mean, okay, relative to the population of the world, it's not crazy amounts yet. There's We're going to get there. Um, but there's huge amounts of people who if you rewind 30 years ago, you would say, you know, there's no way that these that that there would be so many people from such a wide gamut of Israel or interested in the [clears throat] Reb watching the videos, learning the uh looking for the Reb's guidance, whether it's on Israel or a thousand other things. It's a huge huge audience. They're somehow finding their answers. Um, and the Reb gave us the materials. Clearly, clearly Hashem had a had a plan for this period between Gimlas and Mashia coming. And if you just look with very basic, simple eyes, you could see that all these ways and tools have been left for us to be able to to get our answers. >> You see, today, every single morning, I go to Dav and there's not a day that goes by where they don't stop me and say, "I'm moving out on. I'm moving to today. Guy said Mexico City." Yesterday a guy said he's going near where his father is in Kukakanda California was a har every single day they're going to France they're going to Italy they're going on now Gimmel Thomas I was almost 8 years old so you could say I still remember vaguely seeing the you know a little bit of a little bit of a memories from dollars I was telling you about the guys moving out to foreign countries for the rest of their life you know they say when a lavish young couple comes to a community they could buy plots in the because they're there's no retirement age >> life sentence >> you know life beautiful life sentence and they're going on and they were born not right after Gimmel Tamos ready now it's 32 years ago 25 years you know something about these guys many of them to to generalize a little bit I think the people who were born after Gimlamos and many of their teachers were already either born after giml or never saw the rebba when they go out onus again I'm generalizing they're often far more comfortable and it's just kind of their basic DNA to speak about the Rebba to share videos of the Rebba to you know the being a focal point not that god forbid the earlier generation not but there a certain kind of experiences that people had they they lived through Gimmelamos and they had a certain you know the rebba was maybe for a more exclusive uh part of their audience that's all changing and it's opening up much more and people are realizing how fascinated the world is with the rebba and the reba is the greatest greatest asset that you have to you know share the rebba himself with people and you know, connect. But I see especially with these with young people going out now, it's kind of it's not a it's not something that they need to invent. They grew up that way. They grew up with this material and hearing about and learning about the in a certain way and they share it with others in a very kind of genuine comfortable way. >> What I really want to lead up to is the compliment thatever that they're experiencing from when they were born is all video and audio that Jen published. So I think you kind of could take some of the credits. No. Um, listen, God had a plan. All all I can say is we take the responsibility very, very seriously. We think a lot about everything we do. Um, because of what you're saying and our goal is just not to get in the way to let the Reb communicate, amplify the Reb's voice. >> I'm just like, I'm just petrified. I'm just petrified. In 1996, if one day after you published that Yvad video, you decide, you know what? I think I'm moving to Milwaukee. I'll be a Keith Gimmel Rebby, which is an amazing thing. I'm just scared what what would have happened. >> First of all, I could I'm going to give you two answers. One is someone else would have picked it up. >> Yeah. >> Although at the time there was I'm telling you nobody interested in it. But whatever somebody else because God has a Hashem has a plan. >> But if I say that then it goes against what I was saying that we need to attract good talent. If you do something, it's going to happen. If we build a presidential library, it's going to be there. If we don't, it won't. So maybe it'll take that much longer, God forbid, for Mashiach to come or whatever. So what I'm saying is I could say someone else would have done it and that's honest I believe that to a degree but at the other hand yeah people have to step up and people can make a difference. You understand what I'm saying? The connection >> because because again we're a business show but this is a special Gimmel Thomas event where we have to commemorate Gimmel Thomas properly in a buffetical way and I'm still so proud and honored that you're here. We are a little bit of a business show and I was trained by Mishi to ask certain questions. You have over 50 staff. You have a million projects. You have future projects that are in the $und00 million range. You have a budget that you have to cover. How do you I mean, your beard is turning a little white. How do you how do you decompartmentalize all the daily tasks and grinds and stresses and how do you survive and how do you like what's your calendar like? I mean I'm we didn't know we're doing this interview until a few days ago. You you it's a few hours now. Like how are you going to catch up on the work? Like what what happens to your organizer now? First of all, um we have thank God a growing staff in particular Rabbi Stro Slanim who joined us as an integrator otherwise known as a COO who's taking on more and more of the responsibility of running the organization but I won't lie it's very very difficult the balance and we have great people doing a lot of a lot of great things um and we're trying that's why we have to think strategically what I was saying about let's say stopping enduring peace at least for now it was a very for me personally extremely hard decision. I can't tell you how many people called me in the last three days. It's going to be you know what's the Reb's approach is out like nothing could have prepared for this right and like I'm what are you talking about the Reb is exactly what situ but like to put that on pause and say we have to build this whole enterprise and then we're going to be able to do enduring peace even better like there you have to be able to say no and you have to be able to pause things or to say prioritize and be strategic about okay now we're going to do this big project that will enable 16 other projects so it's hard >> so what does a day what does a day look what does a day in the life of Kanesh can look like 5 in the morning, 6, 7, 4 in the afternoon. Like >> every day is is different, but um get up in the morning. What do you mean >> your trending habits of how you manage your your enterprise? I'm saying >> by the way, how many hours? >> This is one of the chapters in in my book, one of the many books that are composed like they're are being written in my head, the Reb as CEO, how the Reb managed his time. I've done actually a number of interviews specific on this, but we'll get there. So, um, nothing nothing to write on. Like, you want to see my calendar? >> Oh, a guy two weeks ago, he said he has two cups of coffee at 5 in the morning. Then he sends all his emails that are going to strategize his day. Tries to go to New Jersey one day a week because that's where all the money is. I'm saying >> Okay. So if you're asking it in that in that way, I would say to the extent that a person is disciplined, they're able to achieve an incredible amount, respond to an incredible amount of people, give guidance to team members and staff and content people, you know, strategize, fund raise, do all that kind of thing. And to [clears throat] the extent that you, you know, a person is whatever, I'll just see or I'm overwhelmed or whatever, then >> what percent you don't achieve? >> What percentage of your time is fundraising? >> Very, very small. Tiny >> really 10% >> less >> less than 10%. >> Last last couple months for sure. Yeah. >> And and your budget's eight million a year. >> Five million. >> Rabbi Kagan raises a nice chunk of the money. But really it's it's people thank God people care and people really believe deeply in what we're doing. it. I mean, the amount that I fundraised just illustrates that if we manage to fund raise that amount of money in that little time, it tells you that if we have some exciting projects and if we set Gemma up properly, the sky is the limit. There's people love their EBA, people love what we're doing. Um, and when you get in front of people, they give. So going back to kind of saying no, you know, strategy or whatever, if God willing, we're going to set ourselves up in a way where we can then uh where we can grow everything, scale it. >> Do you recommend >> a thousand times? >> Speaking of fundraising, do you recommend dinners for charities or no? >> Every dinner is unique. You know, a schlak who's doing a dinner for people who walk their hand walk their children into their preschool every morning is one type of thing. uh you know central organization like GEM uh if you call it central I'm saying has a unique relationship with our donors that not I mean we've done a few dinners and they've been very successful thank god but I would say a conventional dinner is not necessarily the same decision maybe we should be doing a different type of event that features video where we're giving them something really special an experience or showing them some of these upcoming projects that we're talking about or giving reports so every organization is is unique um you know in New York city for an organization to do a dinner you have to have very very close personal relationships and maybe people who are honores who would bring their people so each organization is different if you're a sh with a really close-knit group of people you know maybe for your sh it's going to work like >> crowd what about crowdfunding uh fundraising do you believe in that what's your opinion >> um my exper so we did the first million dollar crowdfunding campaign lab like the next closest one when we did it was I think $200 or $300,000 we did a huge charity campaign like right when this whole thing was spinning up and barashm one day we got it done the next one was a little more difficult I began to see what I think is a trend and I'm just telling you what I am observing I think same idea for a schlak who has personal relationships with people if it's going to work go for it I began to see that kind of just a big gem a million dollars not necessarily I think what we need to be doing is specific campaign aigns for a specific project. Let's say Good Night My Child has a cult following. Do instead of a at this point it would have to be $2 million or whatever for GEM, do $200,000 for Good Night My Child or for Connection Point or for you know the things that are closer to the people, but just to I might be wrong and there are people like within the organization that are telling me we have to do crowdfunding campaigns. I think I've seen some of this some comparable organizations and every organization is different but some comparable organizations um struggle with I mean it's okay to struggle that's the whole point of these things they push you past your comfort you know out of your comfort zone but I don't know that it's going to work just the crowdfunding uh with a stretch target for every so >> right now such as ours >> you just do targeted high net worth people >> no there are people doing sponsorships on you know you'll weekly sponsors on Living Tyra. [clears throat] My child has featuring children's birthdays. Living you have to call people to sponsor or they just call you. >> That's still pretty one-on-one. Um it's called it's email. Mostly it's people who have been doing in the past. >> So it's mostly inbound because we we sell ads. So we always wonder how many people get inbound versus outbound. >> It's usually you know you sponsored last week, you have yard last year. You have yard site. >> Oh you have to do outbound call. >> We do but it's usually >> it's rekindling the relationship. You sponsored your father's birthday last year. Do you want to sponsor it again? >> At one point someone did outbound or was always inbound. >> Oh, there is still some outbound. You're going to have a gap here or there. You know, not necessarily am I doing it. Rabbi Kagan does it. Sometimes I'll do it if I know that person. >> And once someone wants to sponsor Living Tower a week, what's a ballpark number? >> $3,600. Two sponsorships. >> Two sponsors available every week on Living Terror. >> Yeah. >> And it gets approximately 10,000 views. >> No, much more than that. multiple way each location, >> you know, it comes out in English, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Russian. >> You give approximate. >> Sure. Um, our numbers are somewhere between 150 and 200 average week. Yeah. >> 100,000. >> Yeah. >> Across the world. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> We have to build that. >> Um, talk about we I I'm a living example of it. We have more people watching it. I think families have to subscribe to GEM. Uh, it's a few dollars a month. I think the cheapest subscription is $5 a month. >> Yeah. For that week's living title. >> You can watch the living ter. There's a few other videos available for $5 a week. And the most important thing is is to watch it with your entire family. I'm kind of I know some people on my show they leave. I would rather them stay. But if you're going to leave Schul right after Abdullah before Abdullah whatever after my because you're going to watch it on a large screen on a large deba machine. I wouldn't I mean the screen you're going to watch it with your entire family when you but I always tell people I'm not coming home from show right away because it changes your entire week. >> Your family doesn't see it. I >> I'm saying I have to I have to play it in show. I I have to play it in show. >> Okay. But what about your family? >> I'm going to I'm talking to myself when people speak if I bring it they're talking about themselves. This is one of my I mean it's beautiful that it turned into this thing around the world that it's watched in Schulz but I was really we when we launched it we were really hoping that families were like what's with the women and the children let's talk about that right now and by the way just kind of because you were asking about support the business side of that is had we known you know there was something we should have done right at the beginning I'm just like kind of a missed opportunity and we still we're still going to have to come back to it probably if you think about it we really should be getting much much more support from the viewings in the world, a public viewing charges three, four, five, depending on the size of the audience, many times more. If you if you hundreds of times PBS video for a library or for an institution, it's $150. The same thing was 25 bucks on So, we were thinking of it as things for families. It turned into something for Scholes, but we never had kind of a different tier for that. Anyway, it's something we have to get back to. >> You know what the problem is, >> but because we we trained people in a certain way. [laughter] Let me finish the point. They got home, they have their smartphone. >> So you don't have competition right after there's no >> but come on. [laughter] The families have to no competition. >> It's a family moment. Let your children know that you if it's m Shabas or some other time Shabas is usually a really good time. But >> no, my personal thing 17 years of starting my week. 17 years of starting my week that the second it's officially you could now do now you could whatever you could use a microwave and a toaster but you start the week with 15 to 25 minutes of the and it's usually a topic that's going to blow your mind and fascinate you and there's going to be stories and interactions. Whoever is not watching the living Torah every week until now you're doing an injustice to yourself to your spouse to your children to your grandchildren. I'll tell you a crazy story. The one Chabas in my life I spent in in Mountain Lodge and my sister once rented a home mountain lodge and after um Chabas there was like a hundred kids with raffle tickets from Perky or Davening whatever and they wanted a whole table full of prizes evergreen inner circle. They all have the prizes with tables and whatever. The kids all come running from Perky. 2-year-olds to 15y old what everybody's there whatever. And this curtain is already down the the the daylight the screen and the projector set up and the kids ARE ALL SCREAMING RAFFLES RAFFLES RAFFLES. AND THEN A FEW GUYS ARE LIKE VIDEO WHATEVER. And I'm I'm watch I'm like 27 years old. It was a while ago and I'm watching whatever and Goldstein he's married to a Dman. What's his name? He used to have involved in house. What's his name? Is he? Yeah. Whatever. >> He screams. He says, "He fought tooth and nail. The kids have to all stay for the video and then they'll make the raffle." >> So, I have to say something. Firstly, 100% right. You're depriving your children if you don't do it. But don't think two things. First of all, my suggestion is do it immediately after Abdullah because each child, you know, you start warming up the Malav Mala to feed the kids and go to bed and whatever. Like make it a thing to be immediately after. And second of all, don't expect that the kids will automatically be fascinated by you're going to have to give them some context. You're going to have to build their gishmach for it. A good night my child, I think, is right out of the box. That nightly video, it's cute. It's speaks right to kids. But I'm just saying if you're considering, and you should for Gimmel Thomas, it's a great thing to start doing. expect that the kids are not going to immediately be riveted by it. I mean, some videos are, it depends on the week. Some are more interesting for children, some less. Give them some context, explain it to them, uh, and they'll develop a gishmach for it. It's not going to be on on on day one or don't expect it to be on day one. >> Same thing, by the way, with communities. >> What percent of viewers chabas? >> What? >> What percent of people watch it mis? >> Uh, you know, you have the data. >> It's true. A very high percent. I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to say probably 70 >> 70. No, >> a lot of would do lunches or Sunday morning breakfast or a Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday night thing around it or women's group at you know some evening. >> What's your shitta? Um paid content versus free to free content and do people say if you do everything for free you always got covered because people appreciate so much. >> 90% it's a good question. My shittita is my my approach is free everything free. That's my shittita. The reality of paying the bills is that some of the material uh is is is for pay. But I just want to say 90% of the material that we publish is free. Everything that's going out on social media, Good Night My Child, all the free material, everything that we're featuring in all these different places with links, etc. is all free. Living Tyra and you know some of the other produced videos, most the other produced videos are for pay. There's an argument. I I have a dream to, you know, to eventually be able to to get rid of the pay wall. >> The problem I think if it's free, they don't people don't appreciate it. >> Yeah. But listen, people want to be able to share. If you find something, if you're a P, you know, somebody you want to send it cost if someone wants to sponsor >> at the very So, at the very least, >> you know, there's a mile in Crown Heights allegedly. I don't know that that he got sponsored free bristom medical school. Now, Einstein free medical school. Someone saw it and doubt it. What would it cost today if someone want to make gem free? I got a a WhatsApp yesterday from Mrs. Morazz of of um Brifka Seminary and she wrote about they they did a whole unit on family planning and we opened up for free and I think it's on mikvah.org We have our whole video that we curated on Reba on family planning and she wrote to me about how the girls watch it and so many come back to her on this specific topic and say are so thankful for you know the whole unit that they did and of course for the fact that there's videos of the Reba addressing it directly. So what do we do there or what could we do in similar instances? We get a sponsor and open it up for free. Um eventually you know God willing hopefully we can get there. So what would it cost to make uh what would >> it cost to make everything free for >> Yeah. What would it cost? >> I would say >> because you said you do a million in sales a year, right? So >> No, but that's not living. That's pictures and stuff. >> No, it's mostly mostly the membership. It's the memberships bring. >> So someone today wanted a sponsor cost. >> If somebody wanted to write out a check to do it, we'd probably say off. By the way, you're really putting me on the spot and I might but I would say let's say four years. >> We don't ask easy. >> Four years of a million and a half a year. >> Say again. >> That's what I would say. four year minimum for a million and a half years $6 million >> and eventually by then you know hopefully our anim people who enjoy it will you know up their support by that amount and know yeah because you're walking away from predictable income you have payroll to make I'm telling you there are weeks that we borrow for payroll right so to walk away from a million dollars is a challenge if you know if you have if you're back stopped on it then you give yourself a couple >> $6 million you can make the entire gem M archive freedom. >> That's off the top of my head. >> Around >> over four years. >> A fouryear commitment. A million and a half a year. >> A million and a half a year. >> Yes. That's six million bucks. By the way, probably some of the people in gem are absolutely going to kill me. Look at like I'm sitting here and throwing some say what did you do? We're trying to you know part of our job is to sell memberships or to bring in some money for you know toward toward the operation. So I might be back here you know without a job. >> [laughter] >> A friend of mine told me, >> "Yeah, >> Moshi, good causes always get funded. Soup soup kitchens never close down." What do you think about that? What do you think of that? >> First of all, we do get funded. Thank God to a large degree. We do get funded. I mean, there was never an expectation uh in English, all these people who do all this phenomenal work. Nobody expects them to hand away their books for free. >> We would like to do it, but we're just not there yet. In other words, they many of them, I don't know their numbers exactly, but many of them 50 60 70% of their budget is covered by sales. Vadak again, I don't know the exact numbers, but they're selling product. By us, it's 20%. And you know, listen, we hope we hope to be able to do it, but I'm just saying the fact that we bring in a million dollars a year in sales. Um, and you know, we'd love to drop it so that everything is available, but I don't know that that should be the base expectation until we have that replaced. >> So, you're in the content game, right? >> Mhm. >> When someone opens up their smartphone, if they have a smartphone, they don't have a filter. >> Your smartphone, >> you're competing with, >> by the way, we're on all the social media platforms like in a big way. Huge amount of views going on. >> Religious content. It's not you're in a no one's saying I need to go now watch right >> unfortunately >> that's part of our challenge we >> people rather watch Clapping and Frank than a lot of spiritual content I would hope not >> I'm just saying >> please never watch my show then on top they have a pay wall you're you're up you're up against literally a wall no pun intended >> it's [laughter] not that you don't have to be a a rocket scientist to see this obviously it would be great if everything will be free. And it's actually, you heard it here first, an aspiration of mine for a long time, and I think it can happen sooner or later. Somebody mentioned to me uh a couple weeks ago, he said, "How do I get my kids, you know, the to want to watch videos of the Reba instead of uh, you know, Tovito or whatever?" I said, first of all, it's not a question only for kids. It's a question for adults, too. You know, the the video of the Reb competing with whatever it is, fill in the blank. Um, you know, it's you shouldn't necessarily expect that your child will want to do that on their own. That's something you have to build. Just like we have to build our own connections with the Reba and to psych ourselves up or to recognize how special and unique it is that we can hear directly from the Reba and kind of make that space, we have to teach our children to do the same. I'm just I'm mentioning this on the You're talking about the competing content that said about the free versus paid. Yeah, 100%. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't need to charge for it? >> No. Look, you're selling something very difficult and you have a pay wall versus free content >> arguably according to the data is a lot more interesting than you. >> Let's talk to the audience [laughter] if >