Gangsters & Gedolim

Hello everyone and welcome to the Oh, you podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to the Ou podcast. Today we have with us very special guest Joe Wilson who is with JLIC and is I think they've nominated you to be mayor of Tel Aviv something like that [laughter] at least of the 126 in Ben Yehuda. Um and he's going to tell us a little bit about uh what he does. But first we ask the hardest question. Who are you? [snorts] >> Who am I? [laughter] Where does uh where does one start? Um I'm Joe. I'm married to Karine. I am father of Mika Tal and Barak from the UK originally London. Did my degrees in the UK my studying init primarily at Gush. >> You had some interesting degrees. I you're jumping through here but you had some interesting degrees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Uh degrees. um undergraduate was the degree was called social and political sciences. This was at Cambridge at Trinity Hall. Sociology, politics, psychology, anthropology. Um primarily political philosophy. [snorts] Um but three wonderful years. Um three very very special years. Very very formative in terms of future direction. Um Cambridge was not like NYU, which I guess we'll get to NYU. Um and um JIC started 10 years ago now not in Tel Aiv our JIC journey. Um in uh New York um we were happily in Kle in uh in Alonut in Harion >> been there. >> Yeah. So so you know nice can be happy there. >> And uh thinking about next steps and it was between being chief rabbi of Basil Switzerland. I didn't put that in the notes. No, you did not. That's >> might be a story. >> Gander Rabina um or uh or the Bronman Center at NYU and uh two paths diverged in the woods >> and uh we chose one. >> If I go if I can take you further back. >> Do do it. Yes. >> Back to your London days. Single child, >> single mother. >> Tell us a little bit about that. >> Take you back uh further than that. Um my great-grandfather who I never met was the chief rabbi of Dildorf. >> Wow. >> Um in Germany. Um his father his father before him. >> What was his name? >> Rabbi Max Echelbaka. Um his father was Rabbi Solomon Echelbaka who was a major rabbi in Berlin. Um and yeah German jewelry. Um >> you have maintained yakishim. [laughter] No. Um have very little of it. Um we have uh kdish cups from 1910, 1920. Uh >> wedding anniversaries. Um >> births. Uh my grandmother would tell me what it was like growing up as the the daughter of the the chief rabbi of the city. Mhub position. Maids in the house. nothing civic that would take place without her father there. Uh he had a PhD in in law. Cristall um home was destroyed. Um they escaped England uh just uh minute before the war. Um he is interned on um on a small island called the aisle of man where they put a lot of German Jewish refugees who even though they were Jewish, they were still enemy aliens. So you had all of these German Jews sort of just the men for like six months giving each other lectures and uh time of their lives. Um >> has that been written about? >> I I think so. I mean it's it's Yadua. It's [snorts] it's a it's a it's a it's a story. Um but I tell it partly because um you know if [snorts] you ask the question of who are you the question is always you know where does the story where do you start right? How how how far back do you do it? What's the what's the frame of of reference? Um, my grandmother was the only one of her siblings to come to England. The others were spread through the world. Sorry, pardon me. She and her brother came to England and others to North America and South America. Um, she never saw her brother who went to Argentina again, which gives you a sense of the world then. But, um, the lesson of that generation was being Jewish gets you killed. And so, you know, with gratitude to king and country and Churchill, the the thing you do is to [sighs] try and be as British as possible. And uh Judaism to the extent it still is a part is is of the is of the home. and and and I don't I don't judge at all that that generation, but um >> but it meant that um I'm of all of my great-grandfather, chief rabbi's descendants, uh uh my mother and I are the only sort of part which has any um sort of active Jewish um identity and ongoing engagement. >> You mentioned chief rabbi. If I could pull forward. Sure. >> You became close with a couple of other chiefs, especially one in particular. Was that before you went off to the Gush? That was still while you were in um in London or >> So, um Sema Weineberg introduced me to Rabbi Saxs. Uh Sema Weineberg was the long-term chief of staff, head of office, guardian at the gate of Rabbi Saxs. um she was really uh the person behind the scenes responsible before he became the global phenomenon but when he was in his prime chief rabbi years in Israel so Sema had a son called Mark who tragically passed away last week was his 15th yard site Mark was an incredible visionary um who's about 15 years older than me he'd been mazier of Bena he'd founded a very important community called Alion uh when Jews college died, he had been the driving force relaunching it as London School of Jewish Studies. You would have [snorts] loved him. He was the kind of guy who like he was so ideological and his ideology would be a spreadsheet like you know that that that's how he anyway Mark was doing an MBA at Cambridge when I was an undergraduate and when actually he finished his chief ravenet in 2012 I think >> and uh started spending a lot of time in New York between YU and NYU Washington Square over Washington Heights was more by Saxs. Anyway, so um he and his office um when it came to deciding between Basil and uh and Greenwich Village uh he said uh you got to come here. This is this is some someplace special. >> So that was remarkable. Well, you can't really turn that down, can you? Can't say that that the decision. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> There was one time he was speaking. It was in front of a big crowd at Lampardport Auditorium and I was sort of running in uh to get them you know because it was hard to interrupt those conversations and I was uh I guess a little bit abutled and uh you know I sort of run around the corner and he was coming the other way and I sort of bumped into him and I you know you imagine all the papers that I'm holding are flowing to the floor and he just I'm feeling you know he just grabs me and the last time we had spoken which had been a few months earlier uh had been a time when my wife had been sick and he just sort of put his hand on me and he says, "How's Julie? See you." >> And uh you know that when he looked at you like that, the guy on the stage in my mind when I think of him, he's the guy on the stage, but you had that kind of connection with him. >> I had that kind of connection and I'll I'll tell you more than that. One of the um this I inherited from my predecessor, Rabbi Gideon Black, who was uh still with the OU. Have you done an OU with him? >> Um have we done an OU? No. >> Oh, you should. His English accent's much better than mine. There's my There's my nomination. There you go. The nomination right there. My black. We're coming for you. >> So, he had started something which we continued and it was so special whereby Sachs would give us a full day once a semester 9 till 4 which we would divide up into 20 minute slots. >> Wow. And I would send out an email to our whole list serve saying sign up for your 20 minutes with the Lord. And I tell you there was there was no there was no email that I would send out that would get a a quicker response. Um orthodox conservative reformally orthodox uh academics. Um I tell you who loved him most Syrians right the rabbi Saxs and Flatbush like the the reverence that they had for for Malut. Totally something that a lot of people don't get because he was just such an accomplished public speaker. Incredibly shy individual. >> Yes. >> Very very shy and very very conflict averse. Um was not a fighter. >> Yeah. >> Right. And so I think being in America in his postchief rabbi stage was when he was really able to I mean he'd take part in our purish fields at NYU. That was not happening in London. >> Right. Um, >> right. Amazing. What what an opportunity pulling that like this backwards. You also developed a relationship with another one of the chiefs uh in my life. I think in your life uh Amital [snorts] you even I believe named your second child uh in >> Tal. Yeah. >> Tal is named for Rab Amital. And um so uh can you talk a little bit about about that relationship? Sure. Um yeah, I mean I feel like truly it was hooked that I was able to meet and and know these great people. Um my first year at Harion was uh Ravital's 80th um year and I kind of joked it was sort of like the Chinese era of Ravital. You know there were big things at Binyan Huma, there were book releases, there were things within the Yeshiva. joked that maybe when he would be 81 they'd stop making they'd stop making him 80th birthday celebrations and in retrospect we were sort of the last generation >> who really got to know Raal in certain ways Rabbi Sax and Ravi Tal are so different >> totally different from opposite ends of >> of the Jewish world >> I mean I don't think Ravi Tal had formal non-tra education you know, past, you know, what today would be third grade, if if at all. >> And yet in certain ways so similar in in personalities, in humanity, in in sensitivity, um it's it's very hard to capture Ravi >> and one of the his signature moves as it were was to bring a partner. >> Yeah. >> Likenstein, Zatal, our other Russa. um to really to be the rashisha and you know the the way they they balance things out. Um you got to experience that uh that as well uh right at the gush and u you know also a little different. Rabbi Saxs, you know, was, you know, to to as much as he was a somebody who connected, he was the, you know, the sage on the stage also, right? And Raal very much, you know, uh, embraced this this co-leership. >> In fact, the the original story is that Raal said, "No, there will only be one rasha and you will be the Rashisha and I will become the the Mashkan." Yeah. >> And [snorts] refused. [clears throat] Uh, in fact, the the the year that I referenced, his 80th year was also the year that he said that he announced his retirement. And I remember it's 18-year-old kid who didn't really understand anything saying, you know, lonovich, >> right? You know, this is the the the terrible schisms that, you know, have ripped apart some of the world's greatest over who inherits the crown. That's not going to >> happen here. >> That's not going to happen. takes a a deeply >> far-sighted leadership, a humility. >> He I I he never took himself too seriously. That that's really if if I could take take a million things from him. >> Yeah, >> he never took himself too seriously. >> I have some good stories about that. I was the Sarah Mashkin. I think you should zer, but uh we'll save those for another time. Um you find your way to NYU, you and Karine, seven years, >> Schmidt. Oh yeah. >> Yeah. And uh you didn't just embrace the NYU community, right? There was Baroo. Uh there was Cooper >> Cooper. >> There were there were others and there was school, >> right? And and and >> and there was an embrace also of that geog geographical space, right? Uh lower Manhattan that uh became a hobby for you some to some extent, right? The history, the culture. >> I'd say it was more than a hobby. It was it was a love. It took me I'm from the UK. I've been to New York uh a couple of times beforehand, but only as only as a tourist. It took me um a couple of years to to actually internalize where we were. It could downtown Manhattan sort of pushes in two directions. On the one hand, it likes to describe itself and NYU totally as this as um whatever hits the world hits downtown Manhattan first, >> right? It's it's the future. It's it's startup. It's disruptive. Um and NYU completely embraces that. and my my beloved colleagues at NYU who are sort of significant pillars of Jewish life there I think have also sort of built onto that and it's great and it's wonderful but at a certain point I realized that actually that the the the arrow of time equally points in the other direction uh you know Europeans like to laugh at America in terms of its absence of history but in in that little corner I mean you've got compressed Let's forget general. Let's just focus Jewishly. In in those few square miles at the tip of lower Manhattan, you have just got this astonishing abundance of of Jewish history. I would um at a certain point I developed a series of walking tours which um became sort of um part of like the identity of the community. Um the title we gave it was gangsters and gdylolin um which was one of my one of my favorite titles. Yeah. It sort of became the the brand and the identity of the community. And the way in which I would start it would be I'd say we we would start at a specific location. I'd say if you were to go back a hundred years, early 1920s, there were more Jews between the East River and Second Avenue, east to west, between Canal Street and 14th Street, north to south. There were more Jews in those two and a half square miles than there were in all of the land of Israel on the eve of independence in 1948. >> Wow. >> Right. Your Tel Aiva BV all of the kibosim is less numerically >> than was there on the lower east side not New York not Manhattan >> just >> and everything is there. Yeah. Right. Rasha Feinstein is there. River Fry Oshri is there and Bugsy Seagull is there. Right. and and and the workers and the trade unions and the theater and the art and I mean everything is there and what I wanted my students to understand is that they haven't just been dropped into nowhere. They're not foreign imports >> actually not very long ago their great-grandparents often actually their great-grandparents but but frequently they're uh but certainly >> related. this is where they came to America and to understand what they went through to understand the the in the the the terrible poverty the what the living conditions were like you know NYU 70,000 plus a year one of the most >> prestigious uh yeah >> and to just to have a that sense of humility with that >> but you also did something about the poverty not from the past you took that forward into the present right and you would run these said opportunities working with sometimes older people, sometimes not, but you know, people who had less means, who are now living in a world that did not have the riches, maybe neither the gdole nor the gangsters nor the, you know, the >> one of the paradoxes of the neighborhood is that on the one hand there is so much abundance there, the shops of Fifth Avenue, New York University, and on the other hand, there is real real poverty in need and in certain cases suffering. I I guess you know what what developed over time was a philosophy of creating a community which isn't just enclosed within itself. Not doesn't just happen to be in a neighborhood. It's of a neighborhood. And there are there are different ways of getting to know a neighborhood. One is to know its history as we were speaking about. Another is to get to know its needs right now this this moment and to understand how does our community organically connect to that. So what are the homeless shelters? Where are they? Can they be involved in our PURM programming? What is the the senior situation? Senior isolation and how does that then you know when something like COVID hits like how are you able to be a really significant uh you know bridge between unpleasantness and absolute disaster. Uh so that became so much a part of our world there. So, I'd be remiss if I didn't speak specifically to the present or the the more recent present post October 7th. And I'm sure you've seen some of the videos. I've had a a niece nephew there. Um NYU has not uh had great moments for our people uh in the last in the last couple years. Do you look back and wonder what would be if you would be there, how you would feel, what you might do? uh you not if you take away from anybody who's there on campus and and and and the brave work and the courageous work that they've done, but is is there something you look back or you look at and say, "I thought I had finished my job and I I I there's something else I could do." Or any kinds of reactions? >> Few reactions. I've had a number of people say to me, many people say to me like, "Wow, you got out on time. Uh you must be relieved that you got out on time." Now, in a certain sense, yes, they are right. Maybe we'll come on to talk about our work in Tel Aiv, but yeah, >> with all of the many many challenges in Israel, the work is KE. >> Yeah. >> But but a part of me feels I wish I was still there. I wish I could still fight fight those battles and and be, you know, be in a place where I care about to to uphold to to fight our corner and to represent our people and to represent our students. I think this might be missed in so much of the commentary on Jews and anti-semitism on campus. It's not simply that hateful offensive stuff has been said and that and that that these these campuses have become places where it can be very uncomfortable to be Jewish. That's that's only one layer of the story. The layer on top of that which is often missed is that these places have the potential and have been >> to be jewels in the crown of American jury, diaspora jury, of the development of young Jewish identity and leadership where you've just got such incredible diversity and resources and 19, 20, 21 year olds like for the first time saying, "I'm going to create something." When we'd have Shabbat for 2,000 people, the I remember the very first event that I was invited to at NYU was someone from Google. There was a conversation taking place between Ray Kurtzel who at the time was Google futurist and Robert Dingstein >> like and it's taking place in downtown Manhattan and they want our NYU Jewish students to be there >> like that I mean for all my love for Harion that wasn't happening at Har >> and so so it's not just anger at campuses over the last two years it's deep pain and sadness as well that what I what I experienced and my many hundreds Yeah. >> of students themselves were privileged to experience now may be called into question. >> Yeah. Okay. So, you you you escaped or left uh a couple years ago. Uh and frank frankly, we're we're we're prepared to leave the U and JIC uh and come to Israel uh where we are right now. Um and uh do something different, do something new. Come to Tel Aviv, go to Ben Yehuda Street, the 126 Shaw. And we haven't discussed what your title is. What are you doing now? What are you and Karine? I got to experience it a little bit last summer, but tell us a little bit about what are you doing now? Now we run a community [sighs and gasps] of um primarily 20s and 30s. Not exclusively, but primarily 20s and 30s. Primarily, but not exclusively olim. It's actually worth unpacking that um because there's some very interesting nuance there. >> Um in Tel Aviv, um Tel Aiv is actually Israelis don't like to hear this. Tel Aiv is actually a very small city. >> Um it's uh >> physically >> physically yes, it's quite quite a concentrated city. >> Um but we are what's called the old north but relatively >> central. We have this very wonderful connection with uh a Shul Benjuda Mayesh known colloquially as as 126. Um and we get to to plug in to that. Um and we have have this founded this wonderful JIC community in Israel. I mean we are very privileged to have to for the stars to align in terms of in multiple factors um developing maturing that wouldn't have been in place a few years earlier that JIC has established a presence in Israel that the organization as a whole understands that you know why invest so much effort in you university students for three years and then what just turned them into alumni and donors and like being >> like 20 I mean you think deeply about this Josh that that that 20s and even 30s we don't assume that someone graduates gets married moves to the suburbs join a sh >> and all of a sudden the rabbi and the rabbitson of that sh are going to take care of all their needs which is why we launched this emerging career professional department and are investing in that in that area but you're >> but and and in Israel it's even I don't know more complicated but sort of it's not you you go to college from 18 to 22 or 19 to 24 there's there's iterations especially at a time uh now where people between army service and sherut and and and uh you know developing families and so on and so forth. So it's it's it's an incredible time but it's an extended >> time in in Israel and you're you're sort of engaging with all of it. >> Yeah. and all those stages >> in in certain sta certain ways there's a lot of continuity between Manhattan and and Tel Aiv it's look it's an urban environment we I I would not know what to do with myself on a moshab or in the suburbs really like it would be lovely for a few days and then I' then I' I'd go crazy >> although since October 7th you've spent quite a bit of time in the farms in the field I do love to visit there certainly we can talk about our relationship with the um but it's it's I love. I'm I'm I'm obsessed with the idea of creating a Jewish community in a city. Um a great community which is full of vibrancy and love and Torah and and and Shabbat and filot and creating those connections with the environment around. So Tel a Viv some people might not be familiar you know that modern Orthodox aliyah of people certainly single in their 20s and 30s used to be associated almost uniquely with Urishaline. >> Yeah. >> Right. When when I was 23 24 like Katamon was the only game in town. >> Uh right. Did you watch Sugim back in the day? >> Of course. Yeah. >> It's a important historical show in case anyone's not seen it. [snorts] Um things changed at a certain point and and >> I don't think I fully had understood that they had changed till I came to visit. Uh you invited me to come down on a Monday night. >> It's great to have you. Anyone listening, welcome to join Monday nights. >> Uh you know it was >> what were your what were your impressions? >> It was I think you told me it was going to [clears throat] be about a 45minute uh you know engagement and and so on and so forth. It was 90moiling degrees. >> I apologize. Um the I the the the only thing that was cold >> we've got new AC's since then. >> The only thing that was cold were the burgers and French fries. So all I'm saying is people didn't come >> especially for you. >> They didn't come for the food. They didn't come for the you know the the AC. It was packed. They had to keep bringing chairs. People sitting around and round and round. I I I'm known as an exaggerator. So I I want to say like there 3,000 people there. It wasn't quite 100, but it was it was close enough that you know you you'd forgive me for for exaggerating up to 100 if that was it. And it was not 45 minutes. >> It was couple of hours and the engagement and people who looked and dressed in all kinds of different garb and people with different accents. >> Yeah. people who were cracking their teeth on English, a couple of whom I went over to afterwards and you you've hinted to this and I went over to there were Anglo who people who had made aliyah whose parents had made aliyah and there were Israelis >> and I went over to a few of them afterwards I said well just curious why are you here >> and the word that I that I would use is belonging community you've managed to create community in ways that I'm not I don't know because I don't know that exist in in a lot of [snorts] especially in the bigger cities I you said it's small but still in in in the cities with lots of population and you also you take them out of the sh right you do all kinds of I don't know volunteer opportunities I don't know sounds >> people laugh at me that I become famous for not using the word I try not to use it >> I I tried to avoid it here but [laughter] but to give them volunteer opportunities of giving right uh of certain I mean volunteering is is one element of it but I think we can even frame it from a different angle of being part of the story you know what's the posture of our generation the physical posture it's this right this is the only muscle that we move it's our thumb right we we we doom scroll to the end of the internet and we we encounter the world through this pixelated screen and you know living in a city and living in a very small country actually. You can basically walk out of the building you're in and the story is right there in front of you. And so it's a it's a core part of how we try to build our community to be a part of the story. >> Um, a couple rapid fire questions for you. >> Let's do it. >> Ready? If you could choose any Jewish historical event to witness, which one would it be? >> Blurry site 1905. That's where That's where I would. >> What's your go-to safe hair to pick up? go safe to pick up. Huge fan of is probably um clear until now. If you want to tell a viv safe there. >> Yeah. >> Um a lovely work called Nalat Yosf by Rev Ysef Zev Lipitz who was a leading Talmid of Slabodka moved to Israel in the 1920s settled in Tel Aviv. It's a perish migilla route. >> 30,000 foot question. Allah David Brooks. What would you do if you weren't afraid? >> Take risks with certain things that one can't say right now when one >> has certain uh commitments and obligations. But uh for the most part, I don't know if I feel fear is holding holding back. >> I have a feeling. Give you a chance to turn the tables. Ask me a question. >> What would you do if you weren't afraid? >> I'd make Aliyah. >> What are you afraid of? I feel a tremendous responsibility to take care of the people in my family. You know, people say, you know, you save up for a rainy day. Barashem, we have had lots of rainy days in our family and my wife should continue to be healthy. This she's now 23 years healthy. She was first diagnosed when our daughter was uh in her third trimester. >> Wow. So, um, that's there's always that that fear of being able to support and take care of and protect the those that you love. So, that's, um, >> there there's that's deep in the core. I don't even know at this point if it's real, but it's it's it's become core to to who I am to to have to be able to take care of the people that I love. >> Right. Will you give us a braha to to carry us out? >> Always said if I ever had a uh opened a restaurant, the the motivational speech I'd give to the staff on the opening day would be the following. There salanta was once in Paris, spent time in Paris. He was in a cafe and he had a tea or a coffee and he asked for the bill the check and uh it was some astronomical amount. He thought there was a mistake said to the waiter had the one one drink like surely what could it be? Is it this amount? We said, "Yeah, of course." You're not you're not simply paying for the coffee. You're paying for the the beautiful decor, the comfy chair, the beautiful people around you, the view, the ambiencece, the music that gets priced in as well. Said, "Ah, now I understand the you know, we have we our food are specific. um why on these you know fundamental categories that just general because you're not simply thanking Hashem for the glass of water right for everything we have around us to be grateful for that >> beautiful well I want to share with you that Hashem should continue to take care of for you to have continued thank you Hashem moments and take care of things in such a way that allows you to go back [gasps] and get that next degree. Thank you so much for being with us. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> [music]