 Good day May 40 here. I'm about to blow your mind. Did you know that the interests of Jews and the interests of Germans? Right and not already always 100% aligned. Did you know that the interests of Christians and Jews and Muslims are not always 100% aligned? Did you know that basically between the year 300 and approximately the year 1800 the interests of Christians and Jews in Europe tended to run in opposite directions and since about 1800 since the age of the Enlightenment the interests of Jews and Christians have tended to run parallel as societies have become more secular Jews and Christians have found things in common now Well, may you say 40 surely it is marked out by the will of heaven that the interests of Jews and Christians Will forever more be in perfect alignment Just swelling and growing and developing and becoming bigger and stronger together, right? It's just marked out by the will of heaven that this is inevitable This is the only way that things can move forward and I regret to inform you that no This is not the only way that things can move forward. We may very well have a Situation say in the United States of America where the interests of Germans Oh the interests of Christians and the interests of Jews are not 100% aligned. In fact, we may very well have the development of Say Christian nationalism in the United States and elsewhere in the Western world and that might mean that the That the interests of Jews and the interests of Christians are quite a distinct so Yeah, it's tempting to think that the way things have been for the past couple hundred years. This is just Inevitable all right Jews Christians together at just Moving forward from here on out just moving in sync Ebony and ivory, but no, right? You may very well get a Rise of Christian nationalism which puts a priority on the interests of Christians and more shocking news the interests of Christians And not always 100% aligned with the interests of Jews in the interests of Jews Not necessarily 100% aligned with the interests of Christians and more shocking news at the interests of the United States of America not always 100% aligned with the interests of the Jewish state of Israel and So sometimes these two states these two groups have a clashing interests What the hell this is shocking you just you just lowered my mind man Then let me give you some low IQ content from a little longer China scooping up US farmland Another indictment in this one's related to January 6th. That's why we're number one in cable news Fox News channel It's been over three years since the pandemic and millions of Americans are still working remotely But there's now a new excuse not to go back to work Racism the LA Times is reporting that black workers don't want to return to the office because the office is racist So they prefer to stay home white workers. Oh, you're gonna have to commute in The LA Times write this Laurent Barton weighed his options. He realized what he had to do working remotely during the pandemic showed him a whole different lifestyle No commute more time with his family and a break from the onslaught of microaggressions and other racist behavior He'd had to endure The LA Times even telling neurodivergent people people who experience mental abnormalities That workplace is ableist and some are eating it up So I just got yelled out for asking a very reasonable question So I'm applying to go somewhere and I just wanted to know are there accommodations for people struggle with time blindness and being on time They actually started yelling at me and saying that accommodations for time blindness doesn't exist And if you struggled being on time, you'll never be able to get a job I think that just anybody who thinks it's okay to just treat people like that. Yeah, that culture needs to be dismantled Fox news host Julie van deris joins me now. All right, so Julie we need to segregate ourselves to fight racism Is that what the LA Times is saying? I think they're implying that but what I think the pandemic has done is given birth to a bunch of Pansies and it was like the longest most arduous labor ever without an epidural. That's what we have basically given I wouldn't know what that feels like. Oh, I did. I was 10 centimeters dilated. I'm like get it in before it comes out But no, seriously, it's really sad because this is basically America at its worst. The pandemic is over There's no excuse get your butt to work if you don't want to show up to work find another job in fact 3% in 2021 of African-American white collar workers did not want to return to work as opposed to 21% of white Americans so I guess even white people don't want to show up to work I don't think it has anything to do with racism It's called lazy So is the office just a bunch of micro aggressions? I think everybody gets treated basically how they perform You know in this article it was interesting somebody actually complained You know, you're damned if you do you're damned if you don't like if I talk too much that I'm saying being told I'm socializing too much if I'm not engaging enough so people are have social anxiety I think the pandemic has absolutely turned everybody into a big snowflake people can't they don't know how to Socialize anymore. They'd rather hide behind their computers. You know how to socialize pretty wear sweatpants Well, I never had a problem with that. I do enjoy actually need more social anxiety. I have such social anxiety I don't know if you've noticed okay, and what are you again? Or you're you're not Latino you are English I am actually British and Colombian you're Colombian I am brave enough as a half Colombian to show up to work every day So did they never mention the Colombians to the Hispanics or the Latinos are they afraid to go back to work? It's just the African-americans, but I'm sure I'm sure if you ask a bunch of Spanish people, they'll say they want to stay home I don't think there's any discrimination on the laziness. I think I think everybody definitely enjoys working from home Especially in LA County. Yeah, oh my weather out there. Thank you very much Julie. Sure thing. Thanks Okay, we'll get to tonight's topic just a second what's going on in America America is funny It's like you have to laugh to keep from crying So I go to get blood work done right because I'm like, oh, let me check myself Make sure my vitamin levels is good my hormone levels at PCOS. Let's you know check some shit out and the lady says Oh, well you have insurance, but it'd be better that you just pay out of pocket And I'm like well, what's the point of having your insurance then and she's like well You have a $7,000 deductible So you have to spend $7,000 before your insurance even helps you so it's better to just pay out of pocket I'm like well, I paid 200 something a month, you know every month is that payment at least go to the $7,000 deductible She's like no So then I was like, well, what'll happen if I just cancel my insurance and they're like, oh well Then you'll be penalized, you know during tax time If that ain't the most gangsta Yeah, pay us $200 a month just to say you have us but we're not gonna help you until you pay 7000 and if you decide not to keep us you will be penalized I feel like this is where I'm out of mafia Yeah, well I pay about six hundred dollars a month in health insurance and I too have a $7,000 deductible, right? so This is this is simply reality right and You do get some benefits from from that that plan, right? Okay, that seems lovely. What's the what's the context? They're running away from police. They're just kids having fun Good old time. Okay, please silly announced they've deployed a significant number of offices of the central London shopping street over the next 24 hours Spending two reports of a shoplifting event on social media sites such as tiktok and snapchat Now a post on tiktok appeared to promote an organized robbery of an Oxford Street store with a date a time and even a dress code Okay, let's get to tonight's main topic Let's talk about the relationship between Germans and Jews my father said there are two kinds of people in the world Jews and Nazis Hmm, I think reality is a little more complicated than that, but what the heck So 2016 documentary here Germans. I'm always in the back of my mind. I'm thinking. Well, how do you really feel about Jews? Okay, so if you have a strong in-group identity Right, your primary concern is going to be how will outsiders relate to and treat and regard your in-group. So I don't think this is particularly Unusual, I would think someone with a strong say in-group black identity or gay identity, but have similar thoughts Okay, 70 years have passed since World War two many Jews continue to feel suspicious of Germans and Germany at this documentary came out in 2016 American Jew non-Jewish German were equally surprised by this development. They decided to host a dinner for non-Jewish Americans and non-Jewish Germans and Jewish Germans So isn't it wonderful that Jews are moving back to Germany all right hundreds of thousands of Jews now back in Germany Is it wonderful that Germany has become user-friendly for Jews? Isn't it wonderful when your homeland becomes user-friendly for a minority group now it is wonderful for the minority group and It also has many benefits for the majority, but it also comes at an enormous price The reason that Jews feel so comfortable in Germany now is because there is a dramatic decline in in-group identity patriotism nationalism pride Among Germans right. This is not good for Germans. This is really really bad for Germans All right, the greatest resource that you can have as an individual is to feel good about yourself But for good reason to have self-respect to feel like you have some Agency in your life that you have You know some control over your reactions and your words and your behavior and that you have reason to feel proud of the direction that your life is going and The quality of your relationships the quality of your savings the quality of your work Quality of your hobbies the quality of how you spend your time the quality of your volunteering All right about the greatest resource you can have is to feel good about yourself for good reason and About the greatest resource a nation can have is to feel good about itself for good reasons And so Germans feeling bad about themselves so many Germans seem to do is really bad for Germany and Not necessarily doing a favor for the world right that learning about the Holocaust is about the number one thing in German education for kids these days according to some reports I am no expert on German education of children is probably not good for Germans and probably not good for Jews Because whenever a group you know over steps, you know over reaches right there is a blowback So what works for the individual having good reasons to feel good about yourself to respect yourself Same for a nation right greatest resources of a nation is not oil That's not Petro dollars It's not high-tech Manufacturing the greatest resource for a nation is self-respect a good narrative about itself They're good rational empirical reasons to feel good about themselves now all the good feelings then have to be rational and empirical But there should be some rational firm You know historical empirical reason for why you feel good about yourself as a nation not just as an individual No, it can be adaptive to feel good about yourself beyond what's reasonable and rational and it can be Adaptive for a nation to feel good about itself beyond what is reasonable and rational but The people that doesn't feel good about themselves right a people that doesn't have a hero system It's not long for this world Right a tribe that loses all its markers of meaning loses its hero system It will just basically give up stop reproducing and Germans have stopped reproducing Right, they they despise their armed forces right any nation that despises its armed forces It's not it's not long for this world If you don't Respect yourself enough as a people to want to defend yourself particularly when you live in a hostile environment such as Germany All right, Germany doesn't have any natural defenses and If you don't respect your own forces, you don't venerate the sacrifice of people who join the armed forces are making if you don't respect them You're you're a nation not long for this world. So yeah on the one hand, it's super great The Germany's become so user-friendly for Jews, but Some of what's making Germany so user-friendly for Jews is really really bad for Germans I say It still feels awkward to use this word Juden or Deutschland with in English. I can say it sometimes And Louis says last time Germans had nationalism under Hitler They were given the worst collective punishment ever handed out in modern times. You expect them to try that again. Guess what? There are different ways of Practicing nationalism, right? There are different ways with identifying your people But it's not like all nationalists get the results that Germans got after the end of World War two, right? There's an exceptional circumstance that Germans largely brought on themselves So yeah, they're a healthy and unhealthy ways to develop an in-group identity That's true for individuals. It's true for groups true for communities It's true for religious groups for racial groups for ethnic groups for professional groups, right? They're a healthy and unhealthy ways of developing an in-group identity and So Germans developed an unhealthy maladaptive form of high in-group identity during the 1930s that led to a disaster for them I'm not even talking about the world. I'm not even talking about the bad results for Jews and for non-Germans I'm just talking about the bad results for Germans. So Sometimes increasing your in-group identity is a bad idea Sometimes increasing your in-group identity is a good idea, right? There is no one approach to life that's simply marked out by the will of heaven to always work in all circumstances Plenty of people when they increase their in-group identity, they become obnoxious They become, you know, blatantly racist. So they tick off everyone around them and they develop all sorts of troubles in their life So you can develop your national feelings your in-group identity You're a love and affection for your people in smarter ways or dumber ways You can exemplify and embody your in-group identity in smart ways or dumb ways at work in socializing when writing public transport when interacting with strangers Right, it's not like Developing an in-group identity is always good or always bad for you It's not like there's only you know good ways to have an in-group identity There are lots of ways to have an in-group identity that will be absolutely disastrous for you Not everyone can handle having a strong intense in-group identity But listen to Sean Hannity. Surely surely he will point us You know the way forward. I struggle with my identity. I don't know This is a secular I presume secular left-wing German teacher who is not Jewish Shall I feel somehow guilty? Do I say the right things? Isn't it shameful to say that? My grandfather who died in the war. I never met him and he left three little children Is he a victim? Is he a perpetrator? What is he? Is it even allowed for me to ask this question? So the line between victim and perpetrator isn't always clear most of us are sometimes victims sometimes perpetrators Might be true for your grandfather as well. I was home visiting my parents. I left a book behind about German victims and my mother said what is this book? But any group any individual can make an entirely empirical fact-based Account they can develop a narrative about why they as individuals or they as a group are victims Germans can do it Jews could do it blacks could do it gays can do it every group can build a victimhood narrative And you cannot have an in-group identity without having a substantial victimhood narrative But in group identity nationalism always goes hand-in-hand With a sense of victimization, right? There's no nationalism without a sense of victimization There's no strong in-group identity without a sense of being a victim true for Jews true for Germans true for everyone, you know What's a German victim My aunt lost one of her children in Auschwitz and she survived and Every single day every single day that she lived every single day she would talk about it Maybe at lunch maybe at dinner maybe in the morning, but she was never able to forget that through a fence She saw her child and lost it was not a day where she didn't think about it. This is in the back of my mind So this will always stay so I can't erase it Some complications between Germans and Jews all right the the story is not a smooth one This is dr. Fritz Dern professor modern European history the restrictions being ever greater. I I Felt very remote to put money with a with a certain measure of hatred So the South family escaped Nazi persecution emigrated to America in 1930 was the most Christian of all And his entire family converted to Christianity on my father's side my grandparents converted I Didn't know that I was people respond to incentives sometimes people change religions Because it is incentivized to do so by Nazi definition Jewish. There was a Nazis who made made me Jewish again and then I became Kind of proud of it Okay, so we have a lot of Israelis moving to to Germany. We've got a big hubbud set up in in Germany Got this Israeli musician here You know like she could say like things. Ah, you know the Germans the Nazis, you know But at the same time, you know, the Germans demachen guttuzachen, you know, they make good things, you know Psychic, you know, it's Auschwitz and Mercedes Germans do tend to produce high-quality goods Generational because the third generation in Israel Many of them they come to Berlin as the new holy land and it's it's like the big thing and So why an earthward Berlin be the new holy land for Jews because different Jews experience life differently and have different hero systems Right, if your hero system revolves around artistic self-expression, right Berlin may very well be a much holier land for you then the land of Israel and this is quite odd and I mean that after only 50 60 70 Because people are upset and they are disappointed by Israeli politics and I mean, I can't speak for the Israelis But I guess so the left is being essentially crushed in Israel Israel steadily move more and more to the right So if you're a left-wing Jew, you're gonna be appalled by the direction of Israeli politics and doesn't mean you're a self-hating Jew it just means that you have other values that are higher than the Jewish collective state interest Right, for example, if you're on the left it means that there are other values that are higher than racial and ethnic and religious identity such as equality and your your understandings of freedom and classical liberalism or modern liberalism It means that they they see the Germany has changed and that they can trust it the democracy Yes, I think it's really only because Berlin has become trendy. That's the only reason I don't think I don't think there's so much thought behind No, I think you must have some fear Why has Berlin become trendy because it's a heroic place for some people with a certain value system with a certain hero system All right, there's a lot of wonderful things about Berlin But there are a lot of wonderful things about Sydney, Australia not for everyone feeling of comfort and security Yes, Berlin is a great city of comfort But still you must have some feeling of comfort to come here Right nothing good happens between people until there's a feeling of comfort so there's no feeling of comfort between Arabs and Israelis there's no feeling of comfort between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians there's no Feeling of comfort between all sorts of groups in the world as long as people are in active conflict Just suggesting that Individuals just forgive and forget is not a viable strategy All right, so When right-wing pundas talk about how America's in a civil war, all right they are making people less mentally healthy less adaptive to life because You feel unsafe when you believe even if you just 1% believe Dennis Prager when he says America's in the midst of Civil war if Right-wing pundas are telling you that Joe Biden's the Western United States should ever that Democrats are working on destroying America You are going to feel less safe in the world. You'll have less mental health. You'll be less adaptive to reality Right, you'll be less prosperous Nothing good can happen until people develop a sense of safety an appropriate level of safety And so this is one reason why I loathe almost all right-wing punditry Which seen which seeks to whip up hysteria about what an unsafe position We're in under the Democrats and it's absolute nonsense for 99% of people 99% of the time It doesn't matter to your real life whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump is president and so Jews right now in Germany feel safe and This comes at a certain price to German in-group identity But yeah, it's good for Jews. It's good for many Germans who don't believe in nationalism It's good for many other minority groups such as Arabs This is an Israeli This is from a synagogue performance Together this is over time about rabbi Yehuda Taktol head of Habbat in Berlin. He has developed and today There's a thriving Jewish life in Berlin 20 years ago there were 30,000 Jews here today that 200,000 Jews It's true many people in America. I'm often in New York. Tell me who should care Why should we care for the Jews in Germany? I say look if Jews should move to Germany or not There's a completely irrelevant question. The fact is they are there if they are there We have to teach them the warmth and the love and the joy and the radiance and Louie says Safety breeds stagnation soft times make soft people not times make hard people Lack of safety gets people moving and motivates actions Yeah, most people will make worse decisions under stress than they will from a time of safety But in a time of high anxiety and danger. Yeah, some people will excel. Most people will not It's on the happiness on the spirit of Judaism. That's what it's about Chabad opened up in Berlin and Rabbi Yehuda Tastol set up a Hanukkah in front of the Brandenburg gate Which was as large as the Brandenburg gate itself. I Couldn't believe it. This made all the difference to me. I said, oh wow Hanukkah in front of the Brandenburg gate, and I can see it in West Palm Beach. I can see it in Miami I can see it in New York. I can't see it in Berlin let alone a huge one like that. So That's the Jewish life we have now in Berlin Decision to come to Germany was not such a big issue for me As a musician really you you just go right? This is Yuval Halpern, right? If your primary value is music or art or Some type of cosmetology Cosmopolitan culture then yeah, it makes sense that you'd move from Israel to Germany We're the best place for you to study and that's why I came to Germany Yeah, so this is Israeli teaching German non-Jews to lift their voices to Christ Chats says the left is not being crushed either in the US or in Israeli law schools or among most judges Trump made some headway and We see the progressive media organized pushback still going on in Israel about this This is these people who are known to be Nazis and their grandparents were all in the Second World War and they tried to kill you This is this education you kind of get in Israel and the chest says the weather is better in Israel Well depends on what type of weather you like So the first thing you do with the German is you think oh what did his grandparent do in the Second World War? That's his first thing you do and then you meet them and they're actually nice and say well, okay They're actually nice So all sorts of people are horrible in certain sectors of their life The dishonest in certain sectors of their life Reprehensible in other sectors of their life heroic in other parts of their life Nasty in some parts of their life peace-loving in other parts of their life right the situation frequently determines our behavior You know much more than any innate characteristics People are complicated now. We try to boil our friends down Because we want to maintain a positive Feeling about them and so we just reinterpret the bad things they do if we find out about them as you know Not representative and we'll make excuse if it's our friend or a member of our in-group Meeting my wife was for both of us very exotic for her to Know somebody out of Israel and for me to know somebody from Germany I think this is an important aspect of our relationship and of course these themes came up Well, I come to the family and they'll say oh He's Jewish. Is there anti-Semitism and the Germans are of course very very afraid to say something That will hurt the Israelis and they're really trying to be very kind and nice As Israeli if you say where you from I say Israeli I would see this kind like Let's be very nice now because right so as long as people don't feel safe and go to an exaggerated Or extreme effort to be nice. You're not gonna have real Congress between people he's Israeli and I mean once I was stopped by a police car And I showed him my eyes did nearly an accident actually was very very dangerous But he stopped me and said did you see you you nearly crashed into that truck and your mirror hit? And then I gave him my Israeli license. I Don't know if that was a reason he cut me some slack, but it's always there this kind of cycle of We did it. It's our fault Forgive us feel guilty. I mean, there's no day that doesn't go in the German press Without articles somehow related to the Holocaust or the same look if you did not participate as a perpetrator in the Holocaust You should not feel guilty or ashamed As a German or as a European or as a Christian for what went on there because you didn't do it You shouldn't feel bad about it in World War. So the subject is always there, which is actually also very similar to Israelis so we're kind of Connected in a very strange way that we both have this all the time being fed to us Right, this is a 2016 documentary on Amazon Germans and Jews were so much exposed right back to this dinner party between Jews many Israelis and non-Jewish Germans those you know bulldozers pushing the corpses and everything you know from a very early age and each young sure You know, that's why in Israel you also show it means Holocaust remembrance day But this show I humor which here, you know to the ears of German people. It's like blasphemy Now, that's the difference if you see the this perspective Yes, you see the corpses Pushing by bulldozers as a German you can't find any humor in that no no no That is the different perspective Don't want to it's the accumulation of accumulation yeah of these things when you expose it over and over Accumulated with that. It's the victim. It's the victim Privilege and the chat says the only progress on a Trump made was in getting the right to lay down do nothing for four years He placed three conservatives on the US Supreme Court All right, and he crushed immigration to this country in 2020. So he did did some significant things To enjoy You are completely all right, I don't want to debate that And Louis says like Trump supporters heard what they wanted to hear on Twitter and then they went back to sleep Yes, Louis sees other than you do he sees more deeply than you do. He is wiser than you are I mean, that's big reason why we come together and do this We're all competing who sees things more clearly who has their priorities, right? So welcome to the show Louie very Jewish kind of answering your question is to ask a question Are you a proud German? Do you know many Germans are proud to jump if it's it's not sexy It is not sexy to be German Americans are proud to be American Yes I'm honest Yeah, so this is a problem that it seems like many if not most Germans have in being proud about that German identity Like if you can't take pride in your individual life or in your community or your nation That's a really bad sign for you for your community and for your nation Right that the healthy thing is to take pride in your people. I Feel sometimes like a patriot on On democracy and on human rights. Yeah, so feeling like a patriotic German because Germany has Democracy in human rights is not nationalism, right? That's not feeling good about your people that's feeling good about certain bureaucratic processes and certain delusions that There are these things called human rights That's no basis for developing a strong in group identity among your people There's no basis for developing a strong nation-state. It's no basis for developing your national identity This is really bad for the German people. I Think that is the only thing you can create such a feeling and you any more and in this sense I feel I feel very connected to my country and to my culture the German Yeah, he feels very connected to his country and culture on the basis of democratic processes and Laws about human rights, but that's no basis the feeling connected to your people or your country All right, that's exceedingly weak That's like loving your children because they agree with you about some legal or philosophical matter You should love your children because they are your children You should love your people because they are your people you should love your nation-state because you live there and You you I would hope that you'd have descendants who will live there I'm an identity as is tainted. Let's say I am not a German. I am a European because that sounds Okay, this is Hubbard Weber a teacher secular left non-Jewish German giving really weak Basies for loving his people aggressive that sounds multicultural A open-minded I'm German sounds. I'm militarist. I'm I'm I'm I'm narrow-minded. I'm I'm I'm You know what I mean, I studied abroad I lived in England I lived in Brussels I lived in New York and Wherever I came the biggest compliment you could possibly give to me was to say oh, you're not German You don't seem German to us Okay, this is a woman who I presume is not Jewish a non-Jewish German woman us That's interesting. I never felt comfortable being German Sometimes people say oh, you could be Jewish too because I have a very long nose. I have this curly hair That was the biggest compliment you could possibly make honestly All right, that's really stop to to hold in my hands literally And I remember I was looking at it over and over and watching those pictures of their room on On top of the house. It had a huge impact on me. I could Not lose the feeling of deep guilt Right. She didn't participate in the Holocaust. She should not be feeling deep guilt about the Holocaust All positive and necessary Holocaust education was and is for German society There's been many all sorts of things are positive and necessary But you can take them too far. You can go too long. You can do it in too much depth And that's what it sounds like with regard to the role of the Holocaust in German education Any very problematic developments in that process where people over-identify with the victims Where they actually learn a lot about the Holocaust but the only images they see are of Jews as victims Right in some circumstances Jews will be victims and in other circumstances Jews will be perpetrators But in some situations that Germans will be victims in other situations Germans will be perpetrators. No people is willed by the Will by heaven to inevitably always be perpetrators or to always be victims Any kind of relaxed open but also Discussion-friendly interaction with Jewish Germans or Jews who live in Germany that becomes very difficult and Louis says the supposed right-wing Supreme Court It's effectively here right wing Supreme Court has had zero impact. They made abortions Include a vacation to a neighboring state right Many really dumb people can't figure out how to go to a neighboring state to get an abortion so You have a higher IQ than average. And so all sorts of things that you take for granted are going to have very negative repercussions for people Who don't have it together enough right aren't sufficiently capable to travel to another state and get an abortion In my opinion anything that is not considered 100% German and whatever that might be will not be accepted by the German population as German For instance, I always considered myself German while I was in school I wasn't so yeah in traditional Jewish life that the term gosh, right? Which literally simply means non-Jew but increasingly the bore Traditionally you go in Jewish life the bore the term goi or go ish takes on a negative connotation and Rabbis are increasingly reluctant in orthodox Judaism the way it's been practiced over the last 40 years to quote or to cite even non Jewish sources or to cite sources that are not you know fellow orthodox Jews So this is one symptom of growing you know in group identity. It happens among Germans It happens among Jews happens among all groups different than the others I had a different religion, but when I left school when I left this protected society I was never considered German when people found out and with my name that was fairly easy That so most people in America have no problem believing that someone who's Jewish is also American, but French National identity in German national identity is very different So from a typical French or German perspective, no Jew can be French. No Jew can be German All right, they just happen to be Jews who may very well have French citizenship or German citizenship, but they're not really German so Germans and the French and There are other countries in Europe have long enjoyed much tighter closer in group identity Social cohesion and social trust that would just be unfathomable and mind-blowing for an American now In group identity high cohesion high social trust sounds amazing, right? Who wouldn't want that but it comes at a price at the price is that Life is a little tougher for you if you are a member of a minority group In fact, it may be considerably tougher much tougher. So in Australia, it's a much more coherent cohesive You know in group identifying country than the United States Right, which is makes life better for most Australians most of the time The downside is that sometimes your Shiva kids or Jews who Identifiably Jewish walking around will get beat up or will be the recipients of verbal abuse That would not happen in a more multicultural America if I'd stayed in Australia It would be highly unlikely that I would have ever converted to orthodox Judaism, but in multicultural America You have many more possibilities in life, but this comes at the price of cohesion in group identity social trust sense of identification and you know national Bonds with your fellow American citizens in America generally speaking Americans feel like they've got almost nothing in common with their fellow Americans and So this makes it very easy to move from a Jewish to a Christian to a gay to a Muslim to an atheist identity Right America's probably about the easiest country in the world to switch between identities That's because American identity is being so considerably watered down. It's not nearly as strong as it was in the 1950s Right America in the 1950s probably the most cohesive High-trust version of America that we've ever had I was Jewish They always said oh, you're Jewish and they never ever afterwards accepted me as German I totally understand your point of view being Insulted or offended by that. I just instinctively would say Choose always interrupt All I want to say is it's just that Germans only know few Jews who live in Germany who have the identity you were describing as yours So it used to be you didn't have to lock your house used to be you didn't have to lock your car because we had a high-trust Cohesive society where people identified with their fellow Americans now we don't have that high-trust cohesive They're high nationalist society and so we've got you know rapid amounts of crime and distrust between Americans and a General lack of sense of any meaningful connection just because we're both Americans. It's not something they they don't feel comfortable with It's just that they that they're not used to it for a very sad reason because there are so few They'll happen to live most of the lives without ever encountering a Jew Yeah, most Germans he says will live all of their lives without encountering a Jew I would edit that to say without knowingly encountering a Jew, right? I unknowingly encountered all sorts of Jews before I went to UCLA at age 22 and knowingly met Jews for the first time and The Holocaust and Nazi crimes today is omnipresent in the German educational system Most German students will two three times encounter this from all kind of research We know that German students know much more than most Western European and American students about World War two and the Holocaust I heard how much mitzvah repeatedly he is later that His grandchildren know more about the Holocaust than about anything else in German history And I mind you I have my own feeling views on that. I think that's unfortunate It is unfortunate and this is Fritzter and a Jewish historian of European history Right, you should take pride in your country. You should take pride in your people Have a positive perspective on your people in your nation your nation state Okay, you must know about the Holocaust and so on you must know about national and socialism But that's not the entire History is not the only thing you should know So 55% of Germans now agree with the statement today 70 years after the end of World War two We should no longer talk so much about the persecution of the Jews We should put the past behind us even very famous writers and intellectuals spoke out for that position But I think people about the Holocaust Me Just rich is the German expression for the idea that we should stop the discussion about the Holocaust Even very famous writers and intellectuals spoke out for that position But I think people who address the issue in this way Forget that we are responsible for Process in which the younger generations get not only a knowledge but also a feeling for the consequences of our own past I'm not shocked to hear it again That is in Germany hatred against the Jews Yeah, if you have any kind of strong in-group identity, you're very likely to have negative feelings about our groups This is not something that's just unique between Germans and Jews If you would ask do you hate Jews or are you anti-Semitic and of course it would Denial why do different groups hate each other frequently is because they have vital conflicts of interest But if you ask them Do you think that the Jews have too much influence of course If you live outside Israel, it's nothing new In my everyday life, I would not feel Jewish But when you say I come from Israel Immediately, it's immediately Towards a German person. It's okay. I'm a Jew from this moment on and I know also That now the thought of my opponent of my you know as a Jew Is he for or against the Palestinians? And it is like that it is like that It's kind of a mistake of people to just think oh, he's Jewish He's responsible for Israel Even though he could be Jewish and never even been to Israel or he's religious It's like if you would take somebody Muslim and say well, why do you kill so many people in Syria? I think we have a new new form The this anti-Semitic must over the we're eating. It's not okay when you know it's the subject of Israel is disgust Upper Biden can Criticism of Israel will be used as a vehicle To actually turn the victims into the perpetrators and the perpetrators into the victims to emphasize That's because no group is ruled out by the will of heaven to only be perpetrators and to only be victims Things the other way around in the classical one is of course but now these Jews and Israelis do the same thing to the Palestinians as as We did to the Jews The political debate in Germany is difficult If you criticize the Israeli government for what they did in the occupied territories very fastly You are claimed to be anti-Semit. They say and why don't you criticize? Violation of human rights in Iran. Why don't you criticize a violation of human rights in Sudan? Why in Israel? the Ghada war of 2014 was used by Question the chat in Weimar Germany. How much of the interest of the average Jew Conflict with those of his non-Jewish counterpart. Well in Weimar Germany, there wasn't a high in-group German identity so when German Gentiles developed a high in-group identity with the rise of Hitler then obviously anyone who's outside the group It becomes a problem groups in an unacceptable way for the expression of brutal and Incredible kinds of anti-Semitism the difficulty of course is that We have to hold the space open for a critical discussion of The situation in the state of Israel as we are used to do it with regard to our own Government and our own country. Germany is a different country than it was 20 years ago Yes, it has a lot more immigrants has a lot weaker in-group identity. It's less nationalist It's less trusting their fellow citizens. All right less cohesive. All right more crime Germans feel less and less in common with their fellow Germans About 20% of Germany's population has a migrant background Whatever that means come from backgrounds in the Arab world in the Turkish world where there is unfortunately widespread Anti-Semitism, they're certainly not all anti-Semites, but they're coming out of this atmosphere where they're listening to Television channels. They're going on internet. They're hearing a lot of negative things about Jews and it's created a whole new problem in teaching Hearing negative things about Jews isn't what's causing people to be anti-Jewish It's the perceived conflict of interest with Jews such as if you believe that your religion is the true one then obviously Competing religion such as Judaism or Christianity or Islam, right? You're very likely to have some negative feelings about German democratic values And in teaching the Holocaust to this generation of course there are challenges of course to our difficulties, of course This is the Abad rabbi Abad necks. All right. Lubavitch is this branch of Hasidim. They tend to have a Pretty positive attitude on life. Of course there's anti-Semitism Of course there are problems when I came to the kindergarten 27th of February 2007 when on the toys or swatts that got painted of course it was sad But it's not going to take a so far track. No way on the contrary That shows how important it is to concentrate to rebuild with a positive energy Jewish life If in Europe Any new like right-wing power will arise. It will not be from Germany and there is there are no Nazis here There is an NPD. You know like a yeah, they exist, you know, it's a democratic country and they are there but Germany had its share and Therefore if you're asking me as a I'm saying as a Jew This is an Israeli Jewish musician to move to Germany commenting But why is it there an extreme right? Right because the extreme right sometimes has positions perspectives and coping strategies That are more adaptive to reality and better enable people to pass on their genes than other perspectives All right, sometimes the extreme less has the most adaptive strategy But I have to stress that I am an atheist. Okay, but as a Jew still living in Germany I feel it's much much safer than living in Israel And it probably is probably much safer for Jews now to live in Germany than it is to live in Israel much safer Much more relaxing much less stress much fewer fewer worries And phenomenon of the Philo-Semites So there's a people who loves us so much. So yeah, a lot of Jews are very uncomfortable with non-Jews who love them And embrace us so strong that we have very difficulties to Look didn't most German Jews say in the 1920s consider themselves Germans first and Jews second. I'm not sure First of all people don't always have an accurate perception of themselves. That may be true, but that may not be How their loyalties were perceived by the Gentile much of the Gentile population Did the Nazis spare even the most assimilated Jews? They spared some Jews who were married to Germans but Generally speaking the Nazis were anti-Jew whether the Jew was a communist or the Jew was an Orthodox Jew To take air to press Philo-Semitism the admiring interest in enthusiasm for Jews in Jewish culture by non-Jews just like Anglo Philo-Semitism if I really want to push the point here is almost as dangerous as anti-Semitism Right, that's absolutely absurd, but it is I think a weak reaction by some Jews being absolutely afraid of philo-Semitism If I have Accentureated positive notions about the Jews who are also fantastic musicians The Jews who have this fantastic humor. That's not so true If the Jews are the chosen people wouldn't that make them the master race? No, not necessarily every people on earth believes that they're specially chosen and have a special role to play in the universe Jews want to steer mankind towards the fulfillment of biblical prophecy probably fewer than One percent or two percent of Jews in the world believe in biblical prophecy Dramatic, but this is part of the stereotyping right the Jews who are so smart Why do we have stereotypes because generally speaking stereotypes are accurate And then twisting a little bit the Jews who are so well in handling money Right, and then we have these are kind of pseudo Positive statements about Jews the one about the money is obvious that how easy that can be anti-Semitic But every positive statement can turn into its exact opposite Okay back to 2016 amazon documentary here on The whole truth everything you always wanted to know about Jews Rather than a risky exhibition we considered it a necessary exhibition I mean a lot of german people have never met a jewish person in their life So how did you get the job my mother actually saw an article in new york times about this so this guy sits in a booth and The booth has a headline something like you know talk to a jew And she wrote me an email and said you know david i think you should apply for this job Was not our idea to have a jew in the box, but we wanted to have a jewish guest who answers visitors questions who Interacts with the visitor. It was very easy to get. I was actually I was shocked. They didn't they didn't like vet me at all It was kind of like, you know, oh, you're jewish. Yeah, go in the box. You know, I didn't even have to prove I was jewish people don't come with concrete questions. They come with a sort of agenda in a way There was a certain generation maybe of german people who sort of you know, almost want me to reassure them that everything is all right They're not interested in how was it growing up as a jew in germany Or they don't ask that at least maybe they are interested All right, there's a 2016 documentary about germans and jews Patient and you think you know everything about it and then you you find out there is another layer and another layer and another layer And this layer is never stopped because in every issue in every topic You always find something where germans are struggling with themselves and with their history and with their identity And the same is true also So generally speaking people don't thrive when they're struggling with themselves and struggling with their identity and struggling with how they feel about themselves And how they feel about their people. So to nations and People's do not usually thrive when they're struggling about their identity and struggling with their history Right the the most adaptive approach is to have a positive view of yourself and of your people and of your people's history If we're jews living here, so we're both Strugglers fighters It was a very strange feeling when I was offered a job in germany I debated a lot should I come and what may have helped me the most was the opportunity I had to interview heinrich bol who was a very famous german novelist shortly before he died I sent such a deep commitment and engagement with the german people From someone who was more aware than anyone of the evils of the nazi era And I finally said do you love germany? And he looked at me and he said It's not going to be easy for you here. Yes. I do love the german people But it's a very complicated relationship And I think it somehow helped me give me the feeling that It's not an easy black and white situation The question is actually do you think that that is possible that there is a gain? A new identity that you feel as well german as well or are you doing that already? So that we overcome this nazi distinction That's absolutely not necessary for me to feel german. I'm citizen of this country of germany That's a democratic country. I love to live here But it's for me. Absolutely not necessary to become a german. We became a multinational state So generally speaking I notice among jews the stronger their in-group identity the less likely They are to identify with the gentile state that is on their passport. It depends on how old you are And if I give you the answer it's I give you exactly the answer I would have never been able to wear the jersey of the german national team And the jewish kids today Can identify with the german national football team So to answer your question, it's a matter of time To call germany a home for me personally was not possible at all until last year When my son went to vienna to play there for makabi deutschland Okay, so this is a jewish sporting competition So all sorts of people are alive today because of big sporting competitions So you can have the worst people skills, right? You can be You know the most maladaptive in your approach to life and yet during major sporting events like the world cup right it's easy to form bonds and ties and to Participate in some sort of you know collective feeling They came in and they were shouting deutschland deutschland And it was a very strange feeling to hear your son shouting germany Right, so these are german jewish athletes screaming out the name germany identifying with germany wearing german uniforms I did not realize that still I was wearing all the Prejudice all the judgments of my father About germans and about germany I must admit that I did Recognize very late in what a wonderful Country i'm living in I feel that i'm living in a very democratic country today Maybe in one of the most democratic countries in the world Oh, doesn't that just want the Let's just warm your heart that you're living in one of the most democratic countries in the world. That's that's just such a fantastic basis for developing a strong cohesive in-group identity and You know developing a strong attachment and willingness to sacrifice to your people that you're