People of the Pod

In the days following October 7, Israeli filmmaker Shifra Soloveichik felt hopeless and hated, but not helpless. Inspired by women around her, she launched a digital initiative called Women of Valor: Women of War, to spotlight unheralded women with extraordinary stories during one of the most difficult moments in modern Jewish history. To mark Women's History Month, hear from Shifra about how she is giving a voice to Israeli women whose stories have gone unheard. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Shifra Soloveichik Show Notes: Learn more: Women of Valor on Instagram Senai Geudalia's Story on YouTube Sarah Lopez's Story on Instagram Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: 152 Days Later: What the Mother of Hostage Edan Alexander Wants the World to Know What It's Like to Be Jewish at Harvard Among Antisemites and Hamas Supporters When Antisemites Target Local Businesses: How Communities Are Uniting in Response How A 10/7 Survivor is Confronting Anti-Israel Activists on College Campuses Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Shifra Soloveichick: Senai Geudalia: So I'll start from the day before. It was Friday, October 6. That night was really fun. We were dancing in the street from place to place, like you know hakafot here, hakafot there. And he was like being so like himself, times 100. Hugging me and dancing with me and just, at the sea of Yosef, like that was Yosef in a bottle, like celebrating his people, celebrating the Torah and being with his family, like that was the peak of Yosef. You know, they say the neshamah [soul] knows 40 days before. So that to me, like he was like getting all of it in. Manya Brachear Pashman: That's Senai Geudalia, whose husband Yosef was killed on Oct 7.In the uncertain days following the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli filmmaker Shifra Soloveichik felt hopeless and hated, but not helpless. She used her craft to launch a digital initiative called Women of Valor: Women of War, an opportunity to lift up the Jewish women of Israel and share their stories of courage and perseverance. To mark Women's History Month, Shifra is with us now to discuss Women of Valor: Women of War. Shifra, Welcome to People of the Pod. Shifra Soloveichik: Hi, thanks for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman: You have shared a little bit about the genesis of this project on your social media. You felt self conscious, scared, like a lot of us did after October 7. Can you share how you channeled that fear? Shifra Soloveichik: So on October 7, myself, and like many Israelis, we woke up to sirens. My husband was immediately call for reserve duty that morning. And it was a very scary feeling. Because I had never experienced anything like that before. I grew up in the States. I moved to Israel when I was a young teenager, so my entire relationship, my husband, he was never in the army, so I never had that sort of experience within my relationship. The only word I can describe I could use to describe how I felt was scared. It was a very scary day. I remember being scared to walk to my in-laws house that they live very close by because there were sirens every other minute. And we lived in an area in Israel where there aren't usually a lot of sirens. So we knew things were going on. We also are observant Jews. So if we couldn't check our phones, we were keeping Sabbath. So we weren't able to understand what was going on. We were just hearing from people talking on the streets. We heard that maybe there was a terrorist infiltration, but we didn't quite understand the scope of what was going on. And my husband left. I didn't know what to do. I didn't realize that from that day, he would be in reserves for four months, and our entire lives completely changed. And just the first few days of the war was incredibly terrifying, because only after Shabbat did we realize what was going on. And over the next few days, did we realize what was going on. And there were two aspects that were very fearful. One was that physically what my entire life changed within a few minutes. And I was living, I wasn't living at home, I was scared to be myself. My husband wasn't at home. There was a physical war going on. I didn't know where he was going. On October 7, we didn't know anything. So it was just a very logistic reason to be afraid. And then on top of that, I would go on social media and I would scroll through Tiktok and Instagram and see, at the beginning level of support. But even then, there were a lot of people who were saying very hateful things calling what happened on October 7 a resistance. So there was just that aspect of fear. But there was also this very genuine fear of being scared of being a Jew and experiencing a level of hate that I didn't know was humanly possible. So I had all of these feelings of, of fear, and also hopelessness. And the only thing that got me through that time was being with other women whose husbands were also in reserve duty, being with family, being within a support network where we would sit around, and we would knit and we would talk, all of our schedules were all gone. We didn't have school, we didn't have work. We didn't have anything to do except wait around all day for our husbands to call us and just be scared. So that support system is what got me through. And it inspired me. And throughout living in Israel and reading the news stories of the horrific tragic things that were happening, I was also finding so much strength and the connection between the Jewish women that I was experiencing in my community as well as stories of Jewish women who were so brave and powerful, and empowering in their own right, in different ways from the war and those women would inspire me as well. Manya Brachear Pashman: So I love how you describe the subjects of women of Valor, –ordinary women who do extraordinary things, because that's often how I define the religion stories that I pursue–ordinary people who do extraordinary things inspired by their faith. What are some of the other extraordinary stories you have collected so far? Shifra Soloveichik: Yes, absolutely. So, Iris Haim, the mother of Yotam Haim, who was abducted from his home in Kfar Aza, and was in Hamas captivity and ran away from his captors. He was killed by IDF friendly fire, a situation that is just so unbelievably awful and horrific. And we interviewed Iris Haim as part of the Women of Valor series, but I think she's an embodiment of looking at evil in the eyes and still saying that she doesn't blame the IDF. She doesn't blame her people. And that at this time, we need to come together and be one family, which I think is something so difficult to feel sometimes during such hard times of war. But even more so after such a horrific tragic loss, she was able to, and she continues to inspire people through her perspective and her power. And I think in general, the women that I've been bringing, that we've been wanting to show a light or showcase on the series are women who, who are not letting their pain define them. Rather, they are taking the next step to be empowered through their story. I think in general, with everything that's happened since October 7, there's been so many awful tragedies that have happened to our people, to the Jewish people. And it's very easy for us as a nation to connect through the pain and connect to each other and feel each other's pain and kind of sit in the pain. It's more so, these women are letting their power, they are choosing to let that define them. And I think that's a really beautiful part of this platform that we're creating, which is connecting other women to our strength and to the beauty that comes along with the pain but it's not letting the pain and the evil define who we are. Sarah Lopez: Two weeks after October 7, I found out I was pregnant. I was honestly shocked and the joy that I felt was such a juxtaposition to the pain that I was feeling that it almost felt kind of wrong. My husband was in miluim at the time and I surprised him when he got back. For us it was like this little flame of light and joy during such a dark time. Now I don't feel like this is just another baby or I'm just another mother. Now this feels like a mission, it feels like a shlichut, to continue our Jewish legacy and bring life after we lost so many. It's kind of like a sign to our enemies, because us Jewish women, we're not gonna stop being strong and powerful. We're not going to stop living and giving life. Because we are women of valor. Manya Brachear Pashman: How did you find the women for this project, like Sarah Lopez, who we just heard from? Shifra Soloveichik: So we have two different parts of the project. We have documentaries, as well as a social media platform. They kind of work together, but they are kind of different entities in the sense that and the documentaries, I have four interviews with women that I specifically wanted to show their narrative, and our social media is open to everyone, any Jewish woman can send in her submission of what her life has been like since October 7, or how she defines what a woman of valor is. So with the submissions, we have so many women just sending us stories and ideas and thoughts. And they send it through asocial media form, in a social media structure. So they'll send you their reels, or posts or written posts or captions, and so many different ways. And that was just very organic, we post on our stories that we would love for you to share your story. And it comes to us. And it's just a beautiful initiative and way for us all to connect and feel seen and heard. And for the documentaries that came more from a film background of just research and reaching out to specific women that I wanted to amplify their voices. And that was our production team working on that. And that was more from things I saw on the news as well as friends of friends that I was inspired by and I was like, you know what, I need to share her story. So it kind of happened in that organic route as well. Manya Brachear Pashman: This project in many ways highlights how women are overcoming the unique challenges that face them in the aftermath of October 7. Could we talk a little bit about those unique challenges but also the added affront of doubt that Israeli women faced unspeakable crimes. The UN recently validated the claims of sexual violence against women by Hamas, for example. That seemed like an additional layer of trauma that Israeli women had to endure even if they weren't directly affected by it. How do you see Israeli women responding to those kinds of challenges as well? Shifra Soloveichik: The lack of condemning the sexual violence on October 7 was very hurtful, but I wasn't. I would have seen it coming. I wasn't surprised. Because just from the general feeling that and especially that's something I experienced a lot on October 7 was that everyone is kind of out to get me, like why would anyone believe me? No one understands me. I think there's a general feeling of misunderstanding amongst Israelis in general amongst all Israelis, not women and men alike. I think it's just or it's not something I was surprised by, which is very painful to say. I think what Israeli women are experiencing, specifically is kind of an understanding of where our priorities are and what we need to focus on in order to be strong and be strong for our husbands, for our children, our parents. There are a lot of Israeli women who are, who are soldiers and are in reserve duty, but also a lot are kind of also undeserved duty from the other end of supporting the war from a more spiritual and emotional perspective. I think that is the biggest challenge of kind of just not letting anything faze you and being focused on how can we continue the conversation? How can we continue our lives in a healthy way? I think if I were to sit and think about all of the injustice since October 7, I don't think I would be able to have it within myself to create a platform like this necessarily, because it's just so disappointing. But unfortunately, not something that I would have expected otherwise. I yeah, I think that there's a lot of immense trauma going on right now. Amongst all Israelis, I think I don't know the exact statistic. But most Israelis suffer from some form of PTSD. And I think when we let the outside voices kind of define our narrative,it just makes it harder. Like it's harder for us to kind of focus on how we continue, how we grow. Manya Brachear Pashman: You have described this war as not only one of physical violence, but as a spiritual battle against the essence of our existence, those are the words that you used. The existence of the Jewish people, is that what you mean by that? Can you explain it a bit? Shifra Soloveichik: It can be defined as against the existence of the Jewish people, but I don't think you necessarily you don't have to be Jewish to be an Israeli and to be part of this narrative. I think there are so many Women of Valor, who are not necessarily Jewish, they can be Muslim, Christian, and they live in Israel, and they are also experiencing tragedy from this war. I don't think it is particularly only a Jewish concept. But I do think that the general narrative against the essence of existence as Israelis and Israeli Jews is kind of what's going on. The spiritual war is that, it's part of the narrative that Israel should not exist. And the battle that we're fighting is, why shouldn't I? I deserve to live too, I deserve to be part of this, I deserve to live freely, why is this part of the conversation? And I think that's more of the spiritual aspect of kind of standing up for our rights to exist as a Jew, wherever I want to live. If it's in America, if it's in Israel, if it's in Canada, I have a right to exist. Manya Brachear Pashman: And do you see women in particular as fighting this spiritual war? Shifra Soloveichik: I believe that women are the spiritual leaders. I think from history and from the Bible that's how I've always connected to the role of women in Judaism, is that we are spiritual warriors throughout all the generations.I see it on a on a general scale, but on a very, very personal level, just me being at home while my husband was at war. It did feel like something out of the Bible, like what people talk about. I was just at home and you think, what do you do at home, when your husband's at war, it's just such a odd concept. And it just feels so traditional in a sense. And that reality was just very eye opening, of what is my role in my home. And I think highlighting that aspect, that more traditional role as an empowering thing, because that in my personal journey, that's kind of where it brought me, has just been, I think, giving a voice to a lot of women and saying, you know, stuff like your role in whatever you choose to do, whether that's be a warrior, or be a wife, or be a mother, be a commander in the army, like these are not contradictory things. I interviewed someone named Shifra Buchris, who is a mother of 10, who's also commander in Magav, in the border police, and she's also religious, and she also, saved tons of lives on October 7, she was driving back and forth from the Nova festival, just saving lives. I think people kind of can see it as a complex idea of like, what is a woman of valor? What is what makes someone a spiritual warrior? And I think it's just, it's, it's anything, it's anything if you're a woman, and you're, and you're fighting, in whatever way you're, you're a woman of valor. And she's a great embodiment of that, that kind of like, oh, is this? Are these identities complex? Are they contradictory? And it's, it's honestly, it's not. We are all living here trying to be there for our families, be there for our our friends and our nation. Manya Brachear Pashman: Why focus on women? Shifra Soloveichik: As an Israeli Jewish woman, I see a lot of emphasis on the men in our society. And I think also as a whole. Just growing up, I haven't seen so much representation of women voices that I connected with. I think it's specifically in Israeli society, there's a big emphasis on the military, it's more of a patriarchal society, I would say not necessarily in a bad way. I think it makes sense in the context of us having a lot of wars, and there's just a lot of emphasis and an honor placed on our male soldiers, because of what they do. And it's incredible, and they are protecting Israel. And it makes sense. That idea that I had with this project was to give voices to those who are not necessarily being honored or applauded, whether that's in the general society or even within our consciousness, I think, just giving a voice to people who have inspired me and inspire countless others, but you wouldn't look at them walking down the street and think, oh, yeah, they're super inspiring, and they're so strong, because I think it's more of a internal strength as opposed to like an external battle. And I think giving a voice to those women and those and that narrative has just been very empowering for me personally, and that's really what I hope to share through this platform. Manya Brachear Pashman: Shifra, thank you so much for joining us. To learn more about Women of Valor, check out @ValorStories on Instagram and Youtube - links are in our Show Notes. Shifra Soloveichik: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

"Listen to me, Edan. I'm here. I'm with you. I love you. Just protect yourself. Just be safe." These were the last words Yael Alexander spoke to her then-19 year old son, Edan, on the morning of October 7, 2023. Edan, an IDF soldier stationed on the Gaza border, was later taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. Yael joins us from her New Jersey home to tell her story of pain, uncertainty, and anguish over the past 152 days. This week, as President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address, she will be among the 17 American families of hostages taken by Hamas into Gaza on October 7 that will be in attendance at the U.S. Capitol. Visit AJC.org/BringThemHome to urge Congress to keep pressing for the release of the hostages. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Yael Alexander Show Notes: Music Credits: Dramatic Piano and Strings by UNIVERSFIELD is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. More Analysis and Resources: Hostage Families Will Attend the State of the Union. Here's What to Know. Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: What It's Like to Be Jewish at Harvard Among Antisemites and Hamas Supporters When Antisemites Target Local Businesses: How Communities Are Uniting in Response How A 10/7 Survivor is Confronting Anti-Israel Activists on College Campuses Tal Shimony Survived the Hamas Attack on the Nova Music Festival: Hear Her Story of Courage, Resilience, and Remembrance Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Yael Alexander: Yael Alexander: I told him at the end of the call: 'Listen to me, Edan. I'm here. I'm with you. I love you. Just protect yourself. Just be safe.' And that's it, we hang up. I didn't know I'm not gonna hear from him again. Manya Brachear Pashman: That's Yael Alexander, the mother of Edan Alexander, one of eight Americans still held hostage by Hamas inside Gaza. I recently visited the family's home in Tenafly, New Jersey, a small suburban town often dubbed Little Tel Aviv for its relatively large Israeli population. Throughout the town, there are reminders of the deep connection between its residents, the Jewish state, and its ongoing war with Hamas. A billboard downtown featuring Edan's picture. A weekly walk for the hostages not yet home. A moment of silence at the start of every school day. Signs of support staked in front lawns. As of this recording on March 7, 2024, it has been 152 days since Yael spoke with her son Edan. Those days have been a constant whirlwind of meetings, trips, tours—all in an effort to bring him home. Most recently, the family went to Israel for a painful look at where Edan was at the time of that last call. At the State of the Union address in Washington D.C., Yael and her husband Adi will join 15 other relatives of Americans murdered or kidnapped by Hamas, as guests of a bipartisan group of members of Congress. Yael Alexander: They told us it's gonna' be a long process, but I didn't imagine you know, I thought after four weeks max, they're gonna bring everyone out. And now we're four months, it's, I don't have words. Manya Brachear Pashman: Edan Alexander, a 2022 graduate of Tenafly High School, was one of two graduates that year who instead of going straight to college moved to a kibbutz in Israel and volunteered to serve two years defending the nation where his mother and father had been raised and his grandparents still live. Yael Alexander: August 2023, Edan came to the U.S. for four weeks. He came to visit us, to spend time with his friends from college. Everyone was here in Tenafly. So, it was like the best opportunity for him and for them, like after their graduation to be again. And it was the best vacation ever. And when I drove him to JFK. I told him: Listen, Edan, I really want to come and visit you during the holidays. And I told him: I'm gonna' come by myself, Sukkot. So please ask your commander and tell him that mommy's coming and give you some free time to spend time with me. So, October 1, I came to Israel. He came to pick me up from the airport. And we spent the two days together. Manya Brachear Pashman: After two days with his mom, 19-year-old Edan asked if he could return to the kibbutz a little early to squeeze in time with his girlfriend before returning to base. He texted with his mother throughout the rest of the week and Facetimed with her and his grandparents on Friday night, October 6th. He was stationed on the Gaza border. Yael Alexander: Friday night after the kiddush, in our house. He called me and I told him: 'Listen Edan, let's do a FaceTime. And he's like, OK, so I'm like, looking at him and he just looking so happy and great, telling me that he ate some chicken and rice and it was OK. It was fine. And now he's going to sleep because first thing in the morning on Saturday, he needs to get up to his watch.' And I'm like, 'OK, great. So say bye to Grandma and Grandpa and everyone' because we were sitting around the table. And it was very cute of him to change to the FaceTime because sometimes he doesn't want to do it. But this time he was like 'Yeah, cool. Of course. Let's do FaceTime.' And, that's it. Saturday morning, October 7, I'm waking up because my dad is opening the bedroom door and he's telling me 'Yael, you need to wake up. It's an alarm outside. It was 6:30-ish in the morning AM and we need to go to a safe place.' And the first thing that I'm thinking about, 'Oh my God, I need to check what's going on with Edan. So, I'm texting him, What's going on there? Are you OK? Are you safe? And then he's calling me. It was a few minutes before 7 AM. And he's telling me: 'Hey, Mom, we are getting a lot of bombs here. It's like a war. I'm seeing stuff. Terrible stuff. But don't worry, I'm safe. But it felt like all the conversation is start, also he spoke a little bit English. He was sound like he was screaming and full of adrenaline. And I didn't know what he's seeing or what is happening because no one knew. I told him at the end of the call, 'Listen to me, Edan. I'm here. I'm with you. I love you. Just protect yourself. Just be safe.' And that's it, we hang up. I didn't know I'm not gonna hear from him again. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yael called her husband Adi back in the States. He and Edan's younger brother Roy and sister Mika flew to Israel the next day. Still, for days, they remained in the dark, unable to get through to their son's cell phone. Unable to get any information. Yael Alexander: A lot of bad news, like you hearing, you know, all around. A lot of people murdered, horrible stories, like after a day or two you start hearing about these horrible stories from this morning of October 7, and still nothing from Edan. So we went to every forum that it was like, I don't know, it was like … one night, you don't know what's going on, the day after you're working with people on the phone that you never met, and you just trust them they're gonna find your kid. They had some you know, I don't know. Everyone was trying to help you and telling you, go to hospitals. Go and look, because there is a lot of anonymous soldiers or people. Go and look for him. So we've been everywhere like every hospital in Israel, like we went there and tried to understand where is Edan. On Thursday someone is calling me from the army and he's telling me that he's got a message for us. I didn't understand at first. What is this? What kind of message? I'm on the phone 24/7. We couldn't eat. We couldn't sleep, nothing, like in the loop. Like, try to find my son. And then I'm just catching myself like, Oh, my God, you have a message for us? Yes, yes. Where are you? So we are waiting for them. We wait for 40 minutes I think. I couldn't breathe. I remember my head like down, you know, between my knees and I'm just trying to breathe and breathe and breathe because I felt I'm going to faint. I didn't know what they want from me. We met them in this discreet room and then they told us that after they reviewed everything they know that Edan is took hostage by Hamas terrorists and they took him to Gaza. He was guarding a kibbutz that a lot of people got murdered. Thank God, they didn't touch him. They just took him from there. He was by himself. So, it wasn't like a conflict or nothing. Thank God. He was surrendering and they took him. There's something that we know. Manya Brachear Pashman: It was devastating news, but at that point in time, the best news that Yael and Adi could've received because it meant there was hope of seeing their son again. Yael Alexander: So, it's good. And they're looking at me like I'm a crazy person. Because this is the worst message you can ever get as a parent. My son is my life. He is my air, he is everything for me. But to understand that they took him and he's OK. It was like the world. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Now we can work to speak with everyone because he's OK. OK, he's a hostage. But still we have the hope that he will come back home. A day after we had a Zoom with Biden and all the American families. He was really with us, you know, he understand our pain, he could connect to this. He told us, as Americans, we are going to do whatever we can to help you to get through it. Like whatever we can, we are here and we are going to do it. And it was really comforting. It was like we felt the hug. We stayed a total of an hour and a half with the President. It was unbelievable because we were so confused. We just got a day before the message. So, we knew what is the situation with Edan, but a lot of families didn't know what happened to their loved ones. Not everyone knew if they were murdered, if they took hostage. Still it was chaos. Manya Brachear Pashman: 152 days later, eight American hostages remain missing: Edan, Itay Chen, Omer Neutra, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Keith Siegel, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Gad Haggai, and Judith Weinstein. Both Judith and Gad are confirmed dead. Americans Liat Beinin Atzili and Avigail Idan have been released. 32 Americans lost their lives on October 7. Nearly two dozen more have lost their lives since. Yael Alexander: A few days after, I left Israel with the kids, with Mika and Roy. I felt it was very tough to stay in Israel. I wanted to stay. I didn't want to leave because I felt that I'm leaving my son behind. You know, it's the worst, really, it's the worst feeling ever. But I said to my husband: Listen, it's not healthy here. The alarms, the panic, the worry, it's too much. And they're like in jail, in their house, in my parents' house. So, it's not healthy. I'm gonna go back home to Jersey, and I'm gonna try to have a routine, you know, again, with the schools, with the friends, with the community, like I'm trying to, you know, for them, because it's not healthy. So, my husband spent I think two weeks over there without us. I came back. My sister came with me with her kids and all our friends just was here, like, you know, I'm still getting food, everyone is taking care of us and so caring and loving and you feel the hug. Manya Brachear Pashman: Though Edan's absence is palpable every day, the rhythms of life have not stopped in the Alexander home, though they are frequently interrupted. Mika is waiting to hear from colleges and shopping for shoes to wear to prom. But she's also writing columns about her brother, speaking at rallies, and holding down the fort when her parents are away advocating. Yael Alexander: It's hard. To be 17 and to handle this, and she's doing a lot. After we came back from Israel, there was a big rally in Times Square, New York. And they asked me to speak, and I couldn't. I was like, numb. I couldn't say anything. So, I asked Mika at the same day. And she did it. And it was a great speech, from the heart. And it was in front of thousands of people. And since then, I am amazed by her. It seems like this situation because I'm keeping her also busy. I know that she can handle it, she's feeling like she's helping with the fight to bring Edan home. And this is super important to her. Manya Brachear Pashman: Meanwhile, in addition to traveling with his mother and marching for his brother, Roy is attending middle school, playing basketball, and preparing for his upcoming bar mitzvah, right before Passover. Edan was supposed to come in to New Jersey for that milestone. Yael Alexander: The first time that I saw Roy put the tefillin on and I just start crying because he's not a boy. He's looking more and more like Edan. And he's like, grown up now. I'm very emotional now when I'm seeing Roy. When I'm seeing Roy, he's not my little baby anymore … and I'm remembering everything that we've been through with Edan with his bar mitzvah and how little he was and it's very emotional for me now this time because we are such in pain, but still we are preparing for this, Roy's celebration. You know, bar mitzvah boy. So, it's a lot. It's sad and happy and you still trying to be OK for the kids to see you OK every day. But it's very hard. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yael, who baked cakes out of the family's home, and Adi, a diamond wholesaler, are juggling work obligations, meetings with senators and congressmen, travels to Washington and Israel, and media interviews, all focused on bringing their son home. Yael Alexander: I don't know what's next. Every day everything is so dynamic. I don't know what's going on. Like a day we here, a day we need to go to DC, like this is the thing now. My husband is going to work maybe two days a week now because he can't. We have the zoom. We have the meetings. Suddenly this come and this came. I'm not working obviously. I'm around it all day. All day and all night. You don't want to miss anything. I feel that everyone is really working. Also with the Qataris, also America, also Egyptians like everyone is doing whatever they can to make it happen. I'm really hoping, I'm going to be in Israel next week, I'm really hoping that some kind of miracle. Now I'm praying a lot. A lot. I'm talking to Edan nonstop the whole day but I'm also praying like actual praying and I'm just asking for a miracle. And just to see him, to hug him, to just to feel his perfect face. Just to be with him because, yeah. Manya Brachear Pashman: The Alexander family no longer lives in the house where Edan spent his childhood. They moved a mile away during his sophomore year in high school. Edan never spent much time in his bedroom. He preferred to be in the center of the action, camped out on the sofa downstairs so he could greet anyone who walked through the room. But Yael took me to the room where he slept as a teen. Beside the bed there now is a giant Torah scroll delivered by the local Chabad rabbi, dressed in silver plating and finials that jingle when the scroll is lifted. A prayer shawl is draped over the top. Yael Alexander: So you can see we have a Torah here. It's a beautiful Torah and this is something guarding Edan and is giving him bless to his return. Every morning, I'm coming in here and I'm doing my prayer. And I'm just talking to Edan every morning and I'm sending him a lot of strength in his heart and his soul. And I'm just here with him. And every night I'm saying 'Good night, Edan. I love you. You know, can't wait to hold you. Manya Brachear Pashman: Edan spent most of his young life in Tenafly. A happy-go-lucky guy, champion swimmer for the high school team, and a big fan of the New York Knicks. But he was born in Israel, spoke Hebrew at home, and visited Israel often to see both sets of grandparents. He even celebrated his bar mitzvah there. Yael showed me the photographs in an album she keeps in his room. Yael Alexander: Oy yoy yoy. Yes, Edan. You see? What a celebration. Yeah it's everyone. Manya Brachear Pashman: Still, Yael was surprised when Edan announced his senior year in high school that he wanted to postpone college and try Garin Tzabar, a program founded in 1991 for young Jewish adults who want to explore serving as lone soldiers in Israel's Defense Forces. Edan and 16 other high school graduates, including a classmate in Tenafly, moved to a kibbutz and did four months of training before committing to serve in the IDF. Yael Alexander: He told us that he wants to do the Garin Tzabar. I don't know, I felt proud. You know, because I've done my army. And Adi was in the Army, everyone doing the army in Israel. So, this is something that you do for your country, you know. For me, it was a great experience. It was great for me. And I thought also for Edan because he's doing this for two years and eight months. He's coming back, doing his college. So, Edan chose to do this. I was proud. I was proud. Yeah. I am proud. Not was. Manya Brachear Pashman: Edan's 20th birthday was on December 29, 2023. To call attention to his continued captivity, Yael and his brother Roy traveled to Israel and hosted a blowout celebration with live bands and balloons and media coverage. Yael Alexander: It was really important for me to do a celebration for him, to mark this day, I wanted to everyone in the news in the radio, everyone will speak just about one thing about Edan's celebration, because if he's going to hear something or someone is going to hear it inside, it's going to be the world for me. Because for him to understand that his mom is in Israel and also his brother and we are celebrating his birthday and everyone loves him and miss him so much. It's going to be major. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yael knows she's not getting all the answers about her son's whereabouts and well-being. Still, she continues to meet with whomever will see her and listen to her pleas to bring Edan home. Yael Alexander: I don't think they can give me the answers. But it's important, because every meeting that you are opening your family, your trauma, your kid, like it's connecting them to you, and they understand it and you're still relevant. And this is something that they're gonna think about it and maybe you're hoping that they will work on it, you know, to make the stand, to connect to us. And to do this. Manya Brachear Pashman: During the pandemic, Yael started baking cakes. She loved being in the kitchen and Edan loved it too. But since he disappeared, she has not baked a single pastry. She has replaced dough with clay, sculpting in a quiet corner of the basement where she can disconnect for just a little while and think about Edan. She showed me one sculpture that started as a balloon, but collapsed in the middle. Yael Alexander: Now it looks like a heart and there is like a crack in the middle. And I think this is my perfect piece. It's so imperfect and look like it's not done but I think it's done and I can't wait to take it to do bisque and to paint it because this is how I feel right now. Like with the crack in my heart. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yael has adopted other coping mechanisms too. A chair and a coffee mug full of cigarette ash now occupy a corner of the front porch as she has resumed smoking, which she hasn't done since she herself served in the IDF. She also has tried to create the reality she wants to see. Yael Alexander: We bought a new dining table last week. It's a huge one also because I'm waiting to the celebration for Edan return home. So, I'm telling my husband: 'Listen, don't say a word. I'm doing that because I'm creating something, and this is something good. So, we need to continue and praying that this is something that's gonna happen. We just holding and hoping and praying that he's OK. That he's still strong there, in heart and in mind, in everything. I'm all the time I'm praying 'Please, Edan. Please stay strong. Don't let it break you. Even if you hear the bombing you know people are coming to save you. You're not alone. We are coming.

What's it like being a Jewish student at Harvard today? With us to tell their firsthand accounts are Nitsan Machlis, Co-Chair of the Harvard Kennedy School Jewish Caucus, and Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard Divinity school student who is part of a group that sued the university–alleging that they failed to address "severe and pervasive" campus antisemitism. AJC's State of Antisemitism in America 2023 Report found that 24% of current or recent college students say they felt uncomfortable or unsafe at a campus event because they're Jewish. Listen in to hear from Machlis and Kestenbaum on how Harvard's administration has made Jewish students feel unwelcome and unsupported – and what they're doing to fix it. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Nitsan Machlis, Shabbos Kestenbaum Show Notes: Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: The Fallout from the University Presidents Congressional Hearing: What Does it Mean for Jewish Students? When Antisemites Target Local Businesses: How Communities Are Uniting in Response How A 10/7 Survivor is Confronting Anti-Israel Activists on College Campuses Tal Shimony Survived the Hamas Attack on the Nova Music Festival: Hear Her Story of Courage, Resilience, and Remembrance More Analysis and Resources: What is Students for Justice in Palestine, the Hamas-supporting Anti-Israel Group Being Banned on College Campuses? Confronting Campus Antisemitism: An Action Plan for University Students AJC Campus Library Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Nitsan Machlis and Shabbos Kestenbaum: Manya Brachear Pashman: Since the October 7 terror attack on Israel by Hamas, it has become increasingly difficult for Jewish students to feel safe on American college campuses. AJC's state of antisemitism and America 2023 report found that 24% of current or recent college students say they felt uncomfortable or unsafe at a campus event because they're Jewish. This is even true at one of the world's top Ivy League schools. Some might even say, especially true at Harvard University. This week, the co-chair of a task force set up by Harvard to combat anti semitism resigned. The second such departure after Rabbi David Wolpe resigned from an anti semitism Advisory Committee. He cited former Harvard President Claudine Gay's congressional testimony and events on campus, which reinforced the idea that he could not make the sort of difference he had hoped. The latest event on campus: a blatantly antisemitic cartoon circulated on Instagram by pro Palestinian student groups. Here to give us some perspective on the ground are Harvard Divinity student Shabbos Kestenbaum and head of the Harvard Kennedy School Jewish Caucus, Nitsan Machlis. Shabbos, Nitsan, welcome to People of the Pod. Nitsan Machlis: Thank you. Shabbos Kestenbaum: Thank you. Good to be here. Manya Brachear Pashman: So as I mentioned on Sunday, Professor Raphaela Sadoon resigned from her role on the University Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. Any idea why? Shabbos Kestenbaum: Sure. So when President Garber put out that announcement, it was definitely a surprise to many of us. The official reason was she wanted to focus on her administrative and academic responsibilities as a professor at the business school. But we know that that's not true. The very next day, The Harvard Crimson wrote an article detailing from members on the antisemitism Task Force, that she was incredibly frustrated with the slow pace, with the bureaucracy. And more fundamentally, she had asked Harvard to commit themselves to actually applying the recommendations that the taskforce would issue. And Harvard was not willing to do that. And I think that speaks volumes, again, about their priorities and how serious they are about combating antisemitism, that they wouldn't even commit themselves to listening to the advice of people that they themselves appointed. Manya Brachear Pashman: So what are some of those basic obvious objectives that you think the task force–what are your expectations for this task force? Shabbos Kestenbaum: Well, my expectations for the task force is nothing. I mean, the first one was so remarkably useless. It was disbanded after, what 40 days. And this one, I'll give it, let's say 100 days tops. But in terms of what I would want to see, and what Jewish students have been asking for for years, is I'll give you an example. When all incoming students come into Harvard, they take mandatory Title Nine training, and it tells them that things like fat phobia, like sizeism, like the wrong gender pronouns are forms of abuse, and they can be disciplinary, if someone were to engage in them. Why is antisemitism not included in that type of mandatory training? And why is it that we need the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust for Harvard to wake up to that reality? So that's number one. Number two, we need to see the fair enforcement of the school code of conduct and the fair enforcement of school policies. If you're a student engaged in antisemitism, the way that many of them are at the moment, you will be disciplined in the same way you would be and you have been, because Harvard has a track record of doing this, if you were engaged in racism, or sexism, or homophobia. But why the double standard when it comes to Jews? And then more fundamentally, we need to really restructure and reconsider DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on campus that have never included Jewish people. Not once. These are just three basic recommendations off the top of my head that we've been saying for so, so long. Manya Brachear Pashman: It seems like students and faculty are simply oblivious to just how vulnerable Jewish students are feeling. Case in point the cartoon last week showing a hand marked with a star of David and $1 sign holding nooses around the necks of a black man and an Arab. Can you share with our listeners, what kinds of explanations, apologies or consequences that you've heard about associated with that cartoon? Nitsan Machlis: That cartoon was really upsetting on a personal level. I'll share maybe attuned with the general theme here that I personally have never felt threatened on campus. I have friends who have had very bad experiences. I think antisemitism at an institutional level definitely exists. But I think that cartoon for me was the first time that I really felt like, wow, this is very upsetting. And this is something that could hurt me. I haven't had conversations with students about the cartoon. And I was actually surprised how many students were unaware that that cartoon had, in fact, been circulating. And many times I found that in conversations I'll have with friends, they will be very upset, but they didn't even know it was happening. So I will hear about this first from my Israeli circles or from my Jewish circles. But many students are really unaware the extent these images are circulating on campus. So I don't know if that directly answers the question of reactions. But for me, there's been this big question of how do people not know this is happening? And how can I be so upset for several days over this and my classmates are not even aware. Manya Brachear Pashman: Shabbos you, as you were saying, you're one of six students who has sued the university for not adequately protecting Jewish students. In fact, you personally encountered antisemitism. Can you share that experience with our listeners? Shabbos Kestenbaum: Sure. So unfortunately, I haven't just encountered it on a one off, but it's been pervasive and it's been consistent. But one particular example that stands out was the very first day of the spring semester here at Harvard. I was walking through Harvard Yard and I noticed that every single poster that called attention to kidnapped Jewish babies was vandalized and not just vandalized, but with horrific horrific antisemitism, saying that Jews are best friends with Jeffrey Epstein, that they're responsible for 9/11. And in fact, on Kfir Bibas, who's the one year old Jewish child, someone had written his head is still on, where's the evidence? So I, of course, reported that immediately, no action was taken. It was only after CNN and Fox News had covered the story that Harvard retroactively issue a statement. But anyways, the next morning, I get a unprompted unsolicited email from a current Harvard employee who asked me to meet him in a secluded underpass to debate whether Jews were involved in 9/11. I, of course, reported that. And then later that night, he posted a video on his social media waving a machete with a picture of my face, saying that he wants to fight and he has some master plan. And as I said, I recorded all of this, I went through all the proper channels, whether it was DEI, whether it was the police, whether it was the Office of Student Life. To this day, February 27, he is still employed at Harvard. In fact, a friend of mine told me he saw him walking through Harvard Yard just a couple of days ago. It is inconceivable that any other minority group would be treated the way that Harvard treats its Jewish student body. And that's what makes this lawsuit, unfortunately, so necessary. Manya Brachear Pashman: That sounds absolutely horrifying and terrifying for you. I'm so sorry that you're having to deal with that. And that's on social media. Have you also encountered people on campus? Have you had personal encounters as well? Shabbos Kestenbaum: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I'll just tell you the most recent incident that happened. There is a forum for Harvard students, specifically Harvard Divinity School students, and it's really just become a forum in the last couple of months to bash the Jewish state—It's genocidal, it's apartheid. And someone had posted a couple of days ago that they were going to organize an event demanding lawmakers pass a ceasefire resolution. So I responded and this is the first time I was really involved in this forum for months, I responded saying wouldn't it make more sense to ask Hamas to release all the Jewish babies that they kidnapped and to surrender and end the war and I was kicked out of the forum. So there was not space for mainstream Jewish viewpoints unless that Jewish viewpoint is anti-Zionist. Harvard does not value freedom of speech, the free exchange of ideas or intellectual discourse. what it values is a one narrative, one ideology, and the moment you are counter to that you are ostracized, you are bullied and you're isolated. Manya Brachear Pashman: Nitsan, have you encountered the same resistance to your point of view? Have you been reluctant to share that you're Jewish or Israeli? Nitsan Machlis: I have felt for the first time, uncomfortable with how I share my identity. And whenever I speak in class, either on Israel or my Jewish identity, I think twice about it. And I have friends who have had very difficult experiences in classrooms and have really been caught off guard, that constant feeling that you have to be on guard because you don't know what will be said and how he will reply to it. It's very exhausting. But again, what I want to emphasize here is that this isn't the case for everyone. On a personal level, I haven't felt unsafe on a day to day basis, and I have had overwhelmingly positive experiences with my peers in the classroom. At the same time, there's a lot of very upsetting behavior that's happening, like the cartoon we just discussed. But the reason I think it's important to also discuss these stories is because I think that that feeling of isolation can be very dangerous. So we need to separate fighting against all the awful things that are happening, but also listening to students who have had positive experiences with their peers who have stepped forward and supported them in this time. I think both from an Israeli and a Jewish perspective, the worst thing that can happen is for us to feel completely isolated from our surroundings. Manya Brachear Pashman: Nitsan, you are not part of this lawsuit. You have not been targeted in the same way. How are you trying to make a difference and change the climate there? Nitsan Machlis: I will say that my approach has been to first of all work with the administration. And I very much believe in this. I think there is value to challenging the institution from the outside, especially when they have disappointed us on so many levels. But as the chair of the Jewish caucus in the Harvard Kennedy School, we have tried with the other co chairs, to work together with administration and specifically with DEI offices. For me this is one of the most important asks to have DEI offices in Harvard and another campuses understand that religious identities and national identities are part of any policy of inclusivity. And personally, I've seen results here, I think there is a greater understanding that these offices should cater to the needs of Jewish students. And I think this is institutionally one of the most important places that we can make things better for students in the long term, and shift the mindset of how administration deals with different identities within the school. But this really requires an approach of being willing to work together with administration, even when they have disappointed us. To make the meetings, to speak to the deans, and to come with lists of of demands from our students. Manya Brachear Pashman: You mentioned working with University officials and leaders who run the DEI programs, there on campus. And I know that there has also been a task force formed to address anti Muslim and anti Arab bias. And both that group and the antisemitism Task Force are being advised by the university's chief diversity and inclusion officer. Until now, have the DEI efforts adequately included Jewish students, or let me just say, have they addressed Jewish students' needs at all? Nitsan Machlis: So pre October 7, not at all, at all. And I found that really shocking, even from having orientation presentations, where we speak about all the different identities in school, and no religious identities would be there. And I think that we had a similar issue with Muslim students in the school who also felt like their religious identity is not something they felt comfortable talking about, or expressing or asking for accommodations. And in that sense, I think we should be building bridges with these kinds of student groups and working together because this is a dual issue. So we definitely did not see any of that pre-October 7. And a lot of our work with the DEI Deans has been making them aware that this is part of their toolkit and part of what they should be working on on campus. And some of it is really basic stuff like celebrating Jewish holidays when we're celebrating different holidays. So giving that a space on campus, having people know that a lot of the student population are celebrating a holiday right now, building courses around antisemitism, talking about antisemitism in racism classes, clarifying who we can report antisemitism to on campus. So these are small milestones. But I think what's important here is the mindset change. And understanding that if we want to talk about being inclusive, then we should be talking about religious identities, too. Manya Brachear Pashman: Shabbos, there's the strategy of working from within, and there's this strategy of putting pressure from the outside. Do you feel like you kind of maximized used up any energy you had to try to work from within? Or is that in your experience, just not a successful strategy? And how did you decide to put the pressure on from the outside in the form of this lawsuit? Shabbos Kestenbaum: My mindset from day one was let's work with the administration, let's work from the inside. And in fact, when I was working with my legal team to draft this lawsuit, which took about three months, I was quite emphatic, and quite clear that should things change, I would be willing to drop the lawsuit in a heartbeat. You know, I don't want to do this. And I don't want to go to DC. And I don't want to appear on different conferences, telling strangers how bad antisemitism is at Harvard. I want to learn. that's why I came to Harvard. But much like they say about Palestinian leadership, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The Harvard faculty, the Harvard administration are the exact same way. They failed time and time again, not only did they fail, but they made the situation untenable, they made the situation so much worse. So my attitude in the past month or so has been these things are not amenable, we cannot change it. We have to dismantle it, we have to put pressure, outside pressure. Manya Brachear Pashman: What are some of the mistakes that you're seeing in this battle to confront antisemitism? Nitsan Machlis: The whole conversation on anti-Zionism being critical of Israel and antisemitism is a very, very, very complicated conversation. There are no easy answers. I wish I had easy answers. And we shouldn't be having a complicated conversation about it, we should not be having an easy answer to every single case of criticizing Israel is necessarily antisemitic. And when we do that, unfortunately, people take us less seriously. Again, it's very complicated conversation. And I think very much of anti semitism is tied to anti-Zionism. And these things are not separate at all. I think we need to be very careful with how we fight antisemitism on campuses. And I think the listeners of this podcast will hopefully be willing to understand that climate is very, very, very complicated. I'm very critical of Israel's policies, I was involved in a lot of political activism work, I'm also a Zionist, and I'm a proud Israeli and I will return to Israel to work within the Israeli political system. Manya Brachear Pashman: Have you taken precautions to stay safe? Have you changed any of your behavior? Shabbos Kestenbaum: Yeah. So you know, going back to this example of the current Harvard employee who taunted me with a machete, I had private armed security outside my house for three days, I had armed security follow me to synagogue on Friday night, you know, my parents are always calling and checking in on me, they very much want me to leave Cambridge and to come back home. And in the lawsuit, we also talked about how there was one instance at Widener library, which is really the heart and soul of Harvard University, where during finals week of the fall semester, there were hundreds of students chanting, globalize the Intifada, Palestine will be Arab, from the river to the sea. And Widener library's where I like to go. It's where I'm entitled to go as a Harvard student. And I, of course, made sure not to, not even go into Widener library, but to change my regular route. So I wouldn't even have to walk across these people. Because we already know as we saw in the week after October 7, these protests can get violent, they do get violent, you know, there was an incident of a physical altercation at the business school. So what has Harvard done about it? The answer is nothing. Manya Brachear Pashman: I'm just curious if your sense is that this climate already existed on campus, and October 7, that just intensified it, or are we just now paying attention to something that has long been there? Shabbos Kestenbaum: That's a great question. Well, before October 7, just as one anecdote, my first semester as a Harvard student, actually my first month, with the Palestine Solidarity committee invited Mohamed El Kurd to speak, this was his second time coming to campus. This is someone who said that Jews eat the organs of Palestinians. This is someone who says that the Israeli occupying forces have adopted the ways of Nazi Germany. And this is also someone that literally last night lamented on Twitter, that it's such a shame that we can't hijack planes to pursue our cause. I mean, calling him a terrorist sympathizer puts it mildly. Harvard has a strong track record, rightly or wrongly, but a strong track record of regulating speech that they find to be harmful to students. And they have a track record of rescinding invitations and even acceptances to students and to speakers in the name of promoting peace and safety for its students. The obvious and only exception is when it comes to Jews. We went to the administration, we said this is someone who supports violence against Jewish people in the name of Palestinian resistance. And the answers we got were shrugs on the shoulder, and well, there's nothing we can do about it. The hypocrisy and the double standard is so breathtaking, is so hurtful, is so demeaning. This was my first month at Harvard. So to say that this suddenly appeared out of nowhere, really does not encapsulate the pervasive problem of antisemitism at Harvard. And it also encapsulates how Harvard has enabled and in some cases, promoted this type of discourse and behavior amongst students and faculty. Manya Brachear Pashman: Nitsan, you are a graduate student at Harvard's Kennedy School of public policy and government. Your classmates are learning how to navigate the complexities of policy negotiations and international diplomacy. Do the conversations there tend to be elevated compared to the general campus discourse? Nitsan Machlis: I think this is exactly the vacuum that I've been feeling on campus. It took a very long time to be having serious policy conversations about this topic. And this is at the top policy school in the world. So if we're not having policy conversations on a foreign policy issue, the war in Israel and Gaza, then the people who are going to enter that vacuum are going to be bad actors and are going to be extremist activists sometimes, and their voices will be heard to a disproportional extent. Now, I'm not saying these conversations aren't happening at all, because eventually people stepped up and some of my more impressive professors were brave enough to step up into that space. But they've been lone actors in a system that as a whole has not led discourse of this kind. Manya Brachear Pashman: In other words, they're lone actors. There's not a community, there's not a mass, critical mass that is following in their footsteps. There really are just lone voices. Nitsan Machlis: As students, we've had to push for this. And I think it isn't my role as a student to be asking a policy school to teach me policy. Manya Brachear Pashman: You're not just Jewish, you're also Israeli. Does that help or hinder your role and your ability to carry on these conversations? I mean, you just said you're very critical of Israeli policies. To me I think that would help right in, in fostering conversations and teaching people that, you know, here are, these are policy conversations. Nitsan Machlis: It's a very difficult point. And I think many times, my Israeli identity goes before me and colors anything I say, no matter what my thoughts are on the government, no matter what my thoughts are on Israeli politics. And that's very upsetting. And that's something that many Israeli students have felt on campus. I also think that we're learning how to have these conversations. And we're learning how to be strategic about the people we speak to, and the way we raise awareness. I do my best not to give attention to the extreme people, but to work with moderates. And I think most students at the end of the day are a silent majority, who either are unaware of antisemitism happening on campus or are scared to speak up. And working with them can be much more effective, in my opinion, than working with people who are shouting the loudest on the edges of the spectrum. And I can speak for the Israeli community at the Harvard Kennedy School, but that's something we've worked on together as a community, how do we target the majority, and not the people who are making us most upset and who gets the headlines, who are speaking on the margins of the campus discourse? Manya Brachear Pashman: Being from Israel I imagine it was incredibly difficult to watch abroad, what was happening in your home country? Do you have family or friends who were directly affected on October 7? Nitsan Machlis: My brother had just finished his military service. He's an officer, he had actually come to the States for a visit and to travel after his service a week before October 7. And he got on a plane on October 8, and had been in Gaza for around three months since. And this is actually a crazy story. But in one of the only times that he left Gaza during that time, he called me up and he said Nitsan, what's happening in Harvard. And I found that shocking, that someone who was actually at the frontlines and actually in a war and actually endangering their own life, was asking me what's happening on a campus on the other side of the world. And it's crazy, it really is. Manya Brachear Pashman: It speaks to the effect, the emotional impact on the Jewish community at large around the world, what's happening at such a major college campus. I'm also curious what the reaction on campus has been to you having a brother who's serving on the front lines? Nitsan Machlis: That's a good question. And to be honest, that's something I don't feel comfortable sharing with most people in school. And that's a problem. There are people who know and there are people who have been very supportive. But there are many people who I've been concerned, what will they think of me? What will they think of my family? And it's a very difficult environment to navigate. Manya Brachear Pashman: I'm sure it is. That would be taxing for any college student whose family is fighting in a war anywhere in the world. Not just with this added element. Nitsan, I certainly will keep your family in my prayers. Nitsan, Shabbos: thank you both for sharing your difficult but different experiences on Harvard's campus. Nitsan Machlis: Thank you. Shabbos Kestenbaum: Thank you for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman: If you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with Julie Fishman Rayman, AJC's, managing director of policy and political affairs on the efforts in Congress to stand in solidarity with Israeli victims of Hamas' sexual violence and what you can do to make sure the plight of Israeli women is heard.

During their murderous rampage across Southern Israel on October 7th, Hamas weaponized sexual violence. Over 138 days later, denial of these crimes runs rampant despite verified evidence and testimony from survivors of the NOVA festival, the attacked kibbutzim, and freed hostages. Hear from Julie Fishman Rayman, AJC's Managing Director of Policy and Political Affairs, on the efforts in Congress to stand in solidarity with Israeli victims of Hamas' sexual violence, and what you can do to make sure the plight of Israeli women is heard. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Julie Fishman Rayman Show Notes: Act: Urge Congress: Condemn Rape and Sexual Violence by Hamas Terrorists Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: When Antisemites Target Local Businesses: How Communities Are Uniting in Response How A 10/7 Survivor is Confronting Anti-Israel Activists on College Campuses Tal Shimony Survived the Hamas Attack on the Nova Music Festival: Hear Her Story of Courage, Resilience, and Remembrance How to Mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a Post-October 7th World Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Julie Fishman Rayman: Manya Brachear Pashman: This week, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel delivered a report to the United Nations detailing the systemic sexual violence committed by the Hamas terror group during and after the October 7 attack on Israel. The horrific report follows a bipartisan resolution adopted by the US House of Representatives last week, condemning the use of rape and sexual violence. Here to discuss that resolution is AJC's Managing Director of Policy and Political Affairs Julie Fishman Rayman. Julie, welcome. Julie Fishman Rayman: Thank you so much, Manya. Manya Brachear Pashman: So anything bipartisan on Capitol Hill is rare and worth discussing. Can you walk our listeners through the details of the resolution and explain why there was such unity around it? Julie Fishman Rayman: Absolutely. So the resolution was introduced in January. And it really came out of a concerted effort on the part of mostly female members of Congress, who were hearing about what had gone on on October 7, and what was continuing to go on in Israel as it related to gender based violence and sexual assault. And they read the tea leaves of the deafening silence on behalf of the global community and said, if people aren't believing Israeli women, we are going to show that Congress, the American Congress, is united in believing Israeli women. So there are two resolutions, in the House and in the Senate, the resolution in the House passed. And they're pretty straightforward, expressing this sense, both of outrage and outlining some next steps. So in addition to condemning rape, and all forms of sexual violence as a weapon of war by Hamas, calling on nations to criminalize rape and sexual assault and hold perpetrators accountable, including by armed groups, which is somewhat of a different take on this. Calling on international bodies to really condemn these atrocities in a way that we have seen too many of them pause or hesitate or simply remain silent. Reaffirming the US government support for an independent, impartial investigation —this is very important— into what happened on October 7th and afterwards, and reaffirming this commitment to supporting survivors, which is, I think, so critical in this moment. It's one of those things you could say, Oh, of course, we support the survivors. But recognizing the reality of what's going on in Israel today, and how this trauma continues to play for those victims, is really critical, right. In this moment, Israel is not focused on supporting the survivors of rape and sexual assault, not because it's not important, but because they're still fighting a war and focusing on you know, rebuilding and what to do with the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced from their homes, to elsewhere. So in the hierarchy of need, addressing all sorts of trauma, is it has to be sort of lower on the totem pole and hopefully will be addressed. But that's a piece of what the international community can do and what Congress is trying to do. Just express that support and solidarity. Manya Brachear Pashman: Calling on international bodies to condemn sexual violence, international bodies such as the UN, correct? Julie Fishman Rayman: Yes. Manya Brachear Pashman: All right. Can you tell us a little bit about the report that the Association of Rape Crisis Centers released this week? Julie Fishman Rayman: It's a really important report. Not least of which because in some ways it's the first sort of fully fleshed out credible report about the atrocities of the seven. And in a lot of ways it's important also because it pushes us to be uncomfortable, right? I think a lot of why this issue has been sidelined or pushed aside is not just because Israel continues to be fighting a war. And their myriad other issues, the release of the hostages, etc, that are really, there's all these competing needs, both in our minds, as people who are sympathetic to these causes, but also in the world, and in terms of advocacy. But it really pushes a lot of these deeply uncomfortable themes to the forefront. So for example, there's a whole section in this report about the sadistic practices of Hamas, binding and tying, mutilation or destruction of genitalia, insertion of weapons into intimate areas, destruction and mutilation of the body. It's grotesque. It is hard to read about, it's hard to say. But in some ways, I think that's sort of our responsibility, right? We who have not thank God lived through this trauma can be the voices for those who have and may not feel comfortable coming forward to tell their stories, may not have the emotional capacity or stamina, to tell their story and relive the horrific trauma that they suffered. So every time I sort of talk about this issue, I try to make whoever I'm speaking to, especially women, say the really uncomfortable things that we're taught as young children not to say in polite society, talk about vaginas, talk about rape, talk about fondling of breasts and mutilation and all of these things. Because if we're not comfortable saying it out loud, we're not going to be comfortable doing that advocacy that's so important. Manya Brachear Pashman: Has sexual violence been used or highlighted as a weapon of war elsewhere, Julie, that we know of? Julie Fishman Rayman: It's enough of an instrument of war, that it's been deemed a war crime. I think that this, like so many things that took place on October 7, it was used to such a degree that the global community at some point will have to reckon with how we treat or how we consider sexual assault as an instrument of war. But certainly in lots of other places this is the sad reality. And I would say the sad reality of sort of the treatment of women. But of course, we know from October 7, that it wasn't just women. It was women, children, accounts of men being sexually abused. Even men who are still hostage in the tunnels in Gaza, there are reports of sexual abuse against them. So we sort of think about it in terms of gender based and focused specifically and solely on females. But the sad reality is, that's also not the case. And for men, especially, I think the stigma can be that much more heightened. So knowing that it could take years or even decades for us to fully understand the full gravity of the situation of what happened on October 7th against women. When it comes to men and other victims, we may never understand the full scope of what happened and what continues to happen. Manya Brachear Pashman: What is the progress of the resolution in the Senate? Julie Fishman Rayman: It's moving. It's been introduced, it has about a quarter of the Senate as co-sponsors, which is significant. There's a need for swift movement, I would say and greater advocacy so for listeners, they can go to AJC.org and find our action alert, calling on senators to co-sponsor and support this really important resolution when it's up for a vote. This is one where again, our advocacy is critical and sometimes we shy away. But it's much easier to send an email to your Senators than it is to actually have to talk about these really awful issues. So for anyone who is looking for a 30 second way to sort of comfortably take action on this important issue, the action alert is a really good and meaningful way to do so. Manya Brachear Pashman: Can you kind of walk us through the advocacy efforts that push this through the House of Representatives, but also are pushing it through the Senate? In other words, are there victims participating in this, families of victims? What kinds of stories, and again, this could be a very uncomfortable portion of our conversation, what kinds of stories are being shared with people to convince them to put their name on this resolution? Julie Fishman Rayman: A lot of the stories are coming from the family members and loved ones of current hostages. So there's there's an amazing piece of advocacy going on, in the halls of Congress nearly every week that that touches on this, but isn't entirely about the sexual assault. But it's about those families coming whether they're Americans, Israelis, or some other nationality. And they have family members who are still hostage. They are coming week after week, day after day, to speak to members of Congress to keep that issue at the forefront. And of course, for a lot of them the hostage issue is part and parcel integrally connected to the issue of gender based violence. So for example, there's a woman who has been to DC several times already. And who is coming back next week to talk specifically about gender based violence. Her name is Yarden Gonen. And she is an amazing advocate for her sister, her sister Romi, who is young, she's in her 20s. She was at the Nova festival. And she had this horrific experience of being shot, calling her mother saying I've been shot, I've been bleeding. And while she was on the phone, her mother relays that they heard screaming, screaming in Arabic, screaming in Hebrew. And then the sounds got louder and louder, the voices got louder. And then Romi shut the phone and was taken into Gaza and is still held hostage. She is one of the few women still held hostage. And so her sister tirelessly comes to tell her story. With this sort of recognition, this sad recognition that probably all of our worst fears. You know, hopefully not God forbid, but our worst fears about sexual assault are possibly happening to her sister with frequency or regularity. And she's one example you know. There's another woman who comes also to advocate in Washington, but elsewhere as well, who actually works on this issue. She works in rape centers and working on sexual assault in Israel for many years. So she comes to talk about her cousins and her family members who experienced a raid on a kibbutz but specifically through this lens and says, I know, the type of trauma that women experience. I know why they don't speak out, why it can take years, even not in war time. And this impossible situation that Israeli women are now being faced with right where they have to before they're ready before they have the emotional capacity, tell their stories because the world is not believing them. Because there needs to be this public cry, believe Israeli women. Me too unless you're a Jew, all of this you know, horrific silencing, that now they're they're forced into telling these stories and the long standing trauma that will certainly continue. not just because of what they experienced. not because of the sexual assault and rape but then also because of the the repeated trauma of sharing that with others. Manya Brachear Pashman: Of course, this advocacy is also happening in other countries as well. AJC's Berlin director Remko Leemhuis told us about Shani Louk, another Supernova festival goer, who was actually filmed by terrorists and that film was released. She was experiencing horrible treatment. Unfortunately, she did not survive her captivity. But certainly her story lives on in Germany, and her family has spoken out about some of the crimes committed against her. And there's certainly evidence of that, as well. Julie, who were the champions of this resolution on Capitol Hill, who really supported it, lobbied for it. And I'm talking about the US House of Representatives, but also which senators are indeed putting their name on it? Julie Fishman Rayman: So in the house, it was really the brainchild of Kathy Manning, Lois Frankel, Mario Díaz-Balart, and Jen Kiggans. And some of those names will probably be familiar to listeners. Kathy Manning is one of the co chairs of the bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism. Lois Frankel, another very outspoken Jewish female representative, who leads a lot of the sort of women's groups and women's caucuses on Capitol Hill. In the Senate, it's an all female cast, which I think is beautiful. In both the House and the Senate, you have two Democrats and two Republicans. But in the Senate, it's all women, Jeanne Shaheen, Kirsten Gillibrand, Doug Fisher and [Katie] Britt from Alabama. They've really emerged as champions on this issue. Especially, you know, Kirsten Gillibrand is the senator from New York. She's going to the floor nearly every week to tell the stories of hostage families, about what happened in Israel on the seventh, the sexual assault, etc. And she's not alone. There are true champions that have been kind of tapped into because of this unspeakable trauma. And their voices, I'm sure will outlive this war, certainly, the hostage crisis, I say, hopefully, and with a lot of prayers. That kind of advocacy continues. Of course, there are others. Everyone, I'm sure by this point has seen the images of Senator John Fetterman's office, where he has every single hostage poster, sort of wallpapered in his office. And his staff are tracking who's released, who's still being held, who do we know is already deceased? They're tracking it as closely as the Hostages and Missing Family Forum is in Tel Aviv. They're so on top of it. They're great friends. In Congress and the administration around the world. What you said about the work of our Berlin office is absolutely true. These issues are being raised by AJC at the EU in Brussels, in Paris, at the Vatican, really throughout the country and throughout the world. Manya Brachear Pashman: The only abstention in Congress was Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a woman. Has she explained why she saw problems supporting such a resolution, but also why she didn't outright object to it? Julie Fishman Rayman: Her response was really a case of classic Whataboutism. You know, how can you speak about the Israeli victims while not speaking about Palestinian victims? And that's something that we've heard increasingly on social media. Oh, there are there Palestinian victims as well of sexual abuse. It's a really twisted distortion of reality. While horrible things happen in wartime, there's there's no comparison to Hamas' systematic, targeted, brutal, sadistic, planned assault on Israeli women and anything that could be happening elsewhere. Hamas has really sort of set the benchmark and I say that with some irony for what sexual assault as a weapon of war can look like. So I'm not surprised by Congresswoman Tlaib's vote. It tracks with other votes that she's taken and other statements that she's making. And I think for her, it's very personal. You know, she has Palestinian roots, she has Palestinian family members. So I imagine for her, all of this is very, very personal, very sensitive. And she probably comes to this issue with a great degree of defensiveness as well. That said, the sheer fact that she was standing alone as the only voice not affirming this condemnation, says a great deal. Manya Brachear Pashman: Did she explain why she didn't outright object to it? Julie Fishman Rayman: I don't believe that she did. Manya Brachear Pashman: What else is AJC trying to accomplish in Washington right now? What more is needed? Julie Fishman Rayman: Certainly, we need the Senate to pass this resolution. There's this continued fight over foreign aid for Israel. How do we get Israel the support that it needs in terms of material and munitions, etc? And a lot of that is tied up in a political battle over, do we fund Israel alone? Do we find Israel and Ukraine and Taiwan and other allies who are sort of collectively fighting against forces of authoritarianism or anti democratic forces? And then, of course, then there's additional layers, do we also then fund efforts to secure our border in different ways? And the more you sort of add into this pot of money, the more additional avenues or or recipients the more opportunities there are for poisoned pills. So AJC is working really hard to try to continue the fight for Israel to get the support they need, for Ukraine to get the support that they need, as they continue to fight Russian aggression. It's an uphill battle. And so, so, so political. But those are the really the key advocacy items. And of course, we continue, as I said before, to support a number of family members and loved ones of hostages as they come week after week to tell their stories on Capitol Hill. Next week, actually, we have a delegation specifically to talk about gender based violence. And it's going to include the sister of one of the hostages who I mentioned before, a part of the Zaka search and rescue team who went and saw bodies as they were being prepared for burial and witnessed the clear and really atrocious evidence of sexual assault. A reservist for the IDF, who he was off duty, but the minute that he heard the news about the Nova festival and what had happened there, he went to help and try to try to rescue people and saw bodies that had clearly undergone sexual assault. Naked bodies, a male body with cut genitalia, talking about how it's not just women, who are victims here. A woman's body with her breast cut off a young woman with massive bleeding in and around her genitalia. And then also a survivor of the Nova festival, who saved himself by hiding in bushes, but heard repeatedly over and over again, the sounds of rapes happening. So we're bringing these people to Washington to tell their stories to members of Congress, to diplomats, to State Department officials and other members of the administration. To continue the momentum. We're really lucky that most of the audiences that we'll be reaching, do believe. They've already reached that first hurdle of believing Israeli women, but now need to be urged continuously to take those stories on as as their own to continue that advocacy and to make sure that those stories don't stand on their own, but they have echoes throughout throughout the halls of Congress, throughout Washington throughout you know, the EU, the UN, other multilaterals until this attention really gets this issue really gets the attention that it deserves. Manya Brachear Pashman: Why aren't women being believed? Julie Fishman Rayman: For all, for all conflicts like this, for any other case, massive or individual, where a woman has experienced sexual assault, our first response is supposed to be belief. We're supposed to believe, we're supposed to hear. It is the opposite of innocent until proven guilty, you are a victim until or unless it can be proven otherwise. We start with belief. So the fact that that hasn't been the case here, it defies explanation. It defies our understanding, and unfortunately, really heightens the need for the victims to tell their stories, the witnesses to tell their stories. It is horrific that these people are being put in this place where they have to continue to tell this story because people aren't believing them. I wish I had a better explanation for why they're why they're not being believed. That being said, there are reasons voiced as to why Israeli women aren't being believed. There are reasons given that to some may hold sway. And they're worth acknowledging, because that's part of the narrative that is incumbent on all of us to address and rebut. Part of it we hear is because there's not always that clear cut evidence. This was war time. The worst attack against Jews since the Holocaust. A truly traumatic moment for Israel. They were not doing the job that maybe in retrospect, they should have done in terms of rape kits, and documenting all of that evidence. For Zaka, the search and rescue team, they traditionally don't take photos, that's not a part of their mandate. And in some ways they feel it's a violation. You know, it's not a part of the holy work that they're doing in terms of collecting body parts and trying to keep victims, victims of terror of the seventh and preceding, trying to keep those victims as whole as possible. So there's this sort of dearth of evidence. But there's plenty of credible accounts. So I say that, but it doesn't explain why people aren't being believed. There's no explanation for that. ya Brachear Pashman: Well thank you so much Julie for joining us. And for those listeners out there who would like to do more and push the senate to adopt that resolution, you can go to AJC.org/BelieveIsraelis. Julie, thank you. Julie Fishman Rayman: Thank you for having me and Manya, I can't thank you enough and People of the Pod enough for shining some light on this really horrific story that needs to be at the forefront of all of our attention.

One in five U.S. Jews reported that local businesses where they live have been the target of antisemitism in the past five years, revealed AJC's State of Antisemitism in America 2023 Report, published this week. To dive deeper into this concerning trend, we spoke with Adam Deutsch who, since October 8, has displayed a "We Stand With Israel Sign" in the window of his Scarsdale, NY ice cream shop. In January, his storefront was spray painted with the words "genocide supporters." Hear from Deutsch on how his local community rallied against this hateful action and why he's been even more vocal about his support for the Jewish state and prouder to be Jewish. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Adam Deutsch Show Notes: Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: How A 10/7 Survivor is Confronting Anti-Israel Activists on College Campuses Tal Shimony Survived the Hamas Attack on the Nova Music Festival: Hear Her Story of Courage, Resilience, and Remembrance How to Mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a Post-October 7th World Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Adam Deutsch: Manya Brachear Pashman: The contrast was stark. The words "genocide supporters" scrawled in black spray paint across the windows. On the other side of the glass, giant stuffed animals and pillows embroidered with the abbreviation for I love you so much. This was the scene one morning in January at The Scoop Shop, an ice cream and gift store at a shopping plaza in Scarsdale, New York. The vandals also left their mark on a nearby boutique. Both stores had one thing in common: Jewish owners. This week, AJC released The State of Antisemitism in America 2023 Report, which for the first time found that one in five American Jews reported local businesses where they live had been the target of antisemitism in the past five years. With us to talk about the incident in January is the owner of the Scoop Shop, Adam Deutsch. Adam, welcome to People of the Pod. Adam Deutsch: Thank you for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman: Adam, if you wouldn't mind walking us through that morning when you discovered the graffiti on your storefront. Adam Deutsch: Sure. So my brother actually got a call, we're partners, got a call around 7am rrom the people who do the maintenance in the shopping center. They were with the police who actually noticed the graffiti. So we got a call from them saying that something was written on the store window. My brother was in the middle of getting ready to drop his kids off at school so he was planning on coming right after that. He called me. And we met over there and they were already starting to clean it off. But at first I couldn't really read what it said. The handwriting was very mishy mashy. But once we actually saw it, we realized that it was not good. Not like it would have been good anyway, graffiti on the store. But we realized it had something to do with the fact that we supported Israel or that we were Jewish or something along those lines. We weren't positive at first. Manya Brachear Pashman: So how did the vandals know to target your business? Adam Deutsch: So we have a sign that says We Support Israel with the Israeli flag in our storefront window. I think it was October 8, someone came to the shopping center and asked if we would put it up. We said absolutely. So we've had it up for a few months. A few shops in the shopping center do as well, the other store that was vandalized did also. So I don't think it had anything to do with the fact that I'm Jewish, necessarily. Because how would they know that? However, the fact of what they wrote, that they believe what's going on in Israel is genocide made them write what they wrote. Manya Brachear Pashman: So how did law enforcement respond? And I'm also curious if the shopping plaza's staff contacted law enforcement when they contacted you and your brother? Adam Deutsch: The police were actually, they do rounds in the shopping center. They do like a drive by all the time. So the police actually are the ones that saw what happened, the New Rochelle police department. They, the guys who do the maintenance of the shopping center were changing the garbages at the time. So it was like they told them, they called us. But there was a lot of police presence. And you know, the district attorney's office and there was FBI. I thought it was handled very well. Manya Brachear Pashman: So it sounds like they did report it as a hate crime. Adam Deutsch: Yeah, so it was originally being reported as a possible hate crime. So I know that they have not caught the person. But I was also told that since it was written on glass, as opposed to brick, which is not permanent. And the fact that it wasn't really derogatory towards Jews or towards any group, that it wouldn't have been a hate crime. If they got caught, they wouldn't have been arrested for a hate crime. Manya Brachear Pashman: I should add that the AJC survey found that a vast majority of American Jews and American adults, 93% of Jews, 91% of the American public, believe it's important that law enforcement report hate crimes, or even be required to report hate crimes to a federal government database. So I wonder if your incident is going to be reported and recorded since it was on glass. So bizarre. So and neighbors, how did the neighbors respond? Adam Deutsch: First of all within the first–this was at eight o'clock in the morning, by the time we got there, within the first half hour of us being there, my phone received probably 20-30 text messages. Someone created this flyer that they were planning on doing an ice cream social get together and a pro-Israel rally at four o'clock. I was planning on working by myself because it's January in an ice cream store, it's pretty quiet. I right away started texting all my employees, who are in high school. So I knew they couldn't get there until after three o'clock. But I said you got to come. I need everyone here. Not knowing exactly what it was gonna be like. But, you know, I was getting texts from everyone, people who belong to all different temples saying that their temple sent this out or, this group on Facebook sent this out. It was building a lot of steam. I was like, something's gonna be crazy today. It was already crazy what we woke up too, but I wasn't expecting it to really inflate business. But I mean, literally from 8:15 in the morning when I walked into the store until 10:30 at night, I didn't sit down once. It's still hard for me to grasp what has happened in these last few weeks. But the support from the community and the words that we're getting from everyone, and I mean, I shook hands with more rabbis in the last couple of weeks than I have since my bar mitzvah for sure. Manya Brachear Pashman: I am curious, though, if you changed anything that you did – I've been asking you, how did law enforcement respond? How did neighbors respond? How did you respond? Adam Deutsch: Aside from being an ice cream shop, we're also a custom gift store. So we do custom shirts, water bottles. We print and we do stuff for teams and schools and everything like that. So that morning, my brother had to go to our office, and he was doing an order for a bat mitzvah that weekend. So he literally went to the office, the first thing he did was, he printed five or six more signs, t-shirts that said we stand with Israel and the Scoop Shop logo and the Israeli flag. We now have five signs in the front window. He made a few thousand stickers that we were handing out to everyone. We were wearing t-shirts that said, you know that we stand with Israel. And I mean, we've doubled down and we I mean we're standing pretty strong. So that's the biggest thing that changed is that we have more support for Israel signage than we did before. Manya Brachear Pashman: Had you ever been targeted personally before by antisemitism? Adam Deutsch: Personally, no. However, in December, my daughter, there was an incident at her school where her and a couple of her friends were just sitting in class, she's in sixth grade. And a kid went up to them and started making some antisemitic comments to them. Not even knowing that they were Jewish, but like, he then asked them if they were Jewish. So the fact that this all happened, and I didn't really put two and two together at first, and I still don't think there's any connection at all. The school handled that. But I grew up in New Rochelle, and it's a very large city, and there's a lot of Jewish people in one part of town, and non-Jewish in another part of town and not like it's like, segregated like that. But like, there was always people who just didn't know or didn't understand. And, you know, just thought of us Jews as different, which is the same as it is in the world today. I knew it growing up, but I didn't think twice about it. I mean, I've never seen it as bad as it is now. Manya Brachear Pashman: What sets AJC's survey apart from others is that it measures perceptions of antisemitism, both among American Jews and the American public. And I'm curious what your perception was, before this happened or before October 7 did you sense that antisemitism was already on the rise or not so much? Adam Deutsch: I mean, it's been in the news a lot for the past few months. So like, since October 7, I mean, that's really what put it in my head more like, I always knew it was out there, but I never really thought it was more than usual or that it was more than other races or religion. You know, I didn't think it was different than other groups of people. But just seeing on the news since October 7, and everything like that, you see, I mean, literally every, every day on the news, there's something that says the word antisemitism, every day on Facebook, on Instagram, on anything I see online, it's, you hear the word antisemitism. But I never really saw it in my hometown. I didn't really think it was going to affect me personally, like, at work, or anything like that. Manya Brachear Pashman: Were you afraid? Adam Deutsch: No. Manya Brachear Pashman: Or are you afraid? Adam Deutsch: No. From what happened at the store, I mean, the person was honestly the worst vandal I've ever seen. They wrote a little spray paint on the glass that was literally taken down in five minutes, they wore masks, they were scared. During the rally, there was a rally, and someone came, a pro-Palestine person came wearing a mask, it's like, you're gonna come and talk smack, show who you are. Don't be, you know, don't hide behind something. If you have something to say, say it. I mean, I'm not a tough guy by any means. And I'm all for fun, and, you know, not controversy. But if you have a point to make, make it. These people literally came, spray painted in the morning. It's like, if you got something to say, say it to my face. Manya Brachear Pashman: So how do you talk to your children about this, especially since they've encountered some difficulty themselves? Or at least your daughter has? Adam Deutsch: Yeah. So I mean, look, I watch the news every morning. My kids are getting ready for school. And like, we have like our morning routine, where I'm sitting on the couch at one spot, drinking my coffee, my son's in one other area, getting ready for school, on his iPad, my daughter's doing her thing, my wife's doing her thing. But the news is always on in the background. And it just, you hear it. So like they ask me, you know, what does that mean when they hear the word antisemitism, and you know, we tell them, there are hateful people out there. And a lot of people don't like Jews. I mean, we tell them this has happened for a long, long time, and it's going to continue to happen, but we have to just be strong and be proud of who we are. And they get it, I think, but they're not scared. They're not worried. Manya Brachear Pashman: Do you think you would have been so brave as to increase your show of support for Israel if the community hadn't rallied around you? Adam Deutsch: Look, to be honest with you, we have the sign in our window, but I haven't really thought much. I mean, I see it every day when I walk in and out of the door. But other than that, it hasn't really crossed my mind too much to be honest with you. I'm not proud of that. Because obviously what's going on over there…I mean, I hear it on the news and I know what's going on, but I'm wrapped up in what's going on in my world here. But now that this happened, and the showing of support and the amount of people coming in and thanking us, we're doubling down and putting more signs up, and just telling us how proud they are, and how much they appreciate it. I mean, all I did was put a sign in the window. I mean, I didn't do anything heroic. I had someone come up to me and said, You're a hero. I mean, that was like, what? You know, that was a little odd, I'm not gonna lie. But, you know, I understand what they're saying. Because we have a way to show to the community that we stand with Israel, because I have a big storefront window that gets a lot of eyeballs on it. But all I did was put a sign in the window and opened my store for business. I don't feel like I did anything really special. Manya Brachear Pashman: Have you been kind of part of the Jewish community? Are you part of a congregation, or not really? Adam Deutsch: Yeah, my kids go to Hebrew school. We're raising our kids in the town that we grew up in, New Rochelle. My kids went to nursery school at Kehila, which is at Temple Israel in New Rochelle. That's where we belong as congregants. My daughter is going to be Bat Mitzvahed there in two years, we just got her date a month and a half ago. I mean, we're in it. Manya Brachear Pashman: I'm just curious if you've had conversations within that community. I mean, you said it was odd to be called a hero for putting a sign in your window. But I'm curious if other people have expressed reticence about showing their support for Israel, because of what's happening? Adam Deutsch: I see a lot of people in the store, from my temple and from all the different temples around just because we're right in the middle of everything. So people have come up to me and told me that they're glad that we did what we did. So I got a lot of calls at the store from different rabbis or different clergy from all different religions. When it first happened, but I got a call on my cell phone from my rabbi. So that was, a nice feeling, to get a call from your rabbi. He brought his kids to the, to the rally. I mean, it was knowing that even though I'm not really doing anything, I'm representing either my temple or my people. That's the least I can do. Manya Brachear Pashman: Have you been to Israel? Adam Deutsch: I have not. Manya Brachear Pashman: So what prompted you to show such support for a place where you've never been? Adam Deutsch: I mean, I've wanted to go for forever. I do have family that is from there. Plenty of my family members have been there. I just have never had the opportunity. When I was growing up. I mean, birthright wasn't really like a thing. It happened, like a few years after, like, I just like it started really becoming a popular thing after I was, you know, already working full time, and I didn't have time to go travel or do anything like that. But that would have been an amazing thing to do. We'cr talked about maybe doing my daughter's Bat Mitzvah in Israel. Now we're not really keen on going there at this moment, you know, but we'd love to, at some point, get there for sure. Manya Brachear Pashman: AJC's State of Antisemitism in America 2023 Report found that a majority of American Jews, 8 in 10, said that when thinking about what being Jewish means to them, caring about Israel is important. Do you agree? Adam Deutsch: Yeah, I mean, it's our place, it's our land. I'm not gonna say our country because it's like, it's not my country. I'm not Israeli. But I feel like it's the land of the Jewish people. It's our homeland. It's where we could all go, we should be able to all go and feel like we belong here. We are here as one. Manya Brachear Pashman: Adam, the survey's findings that we've been talking about here certainly show that I'm not alone in occasionally feeling alone as a Jew. Isolated. Once in a while, not all the time. But not always fully free to express my Jewish identity, my anxiety and concern about what's going on. And I host a podcast in the Jewish space. So I can only imagine how others who aren't regularly in this space must feel. What do you say, especially based on what has happened, what do you say to people who have felt that way? Adam Deutsch: I just think that it's important to know that people are gonna disagree with your beliefs and your feelings and who you are. And it happens all over the world, it happens everywhere. But don't let that change how you feel or how you act because whether you don't see it or feel it on an everyday basis, you have so many people in your corner and that have your back. It's like, I can't even put into words the appreciation I have for all the people in the community that have come out and continue to come out. And my brother and I looked at each other and we knew it was going to be busy that day, because there were rumblings. We never could have imagined in a million years. That would have been what it was and continued to be what it's been. It's incredible. It's incredible. And we're so grateful for it. A terrible thing happened. Not even though they did a good job on it, because like I said, they wrote a little spray paint, they wore a mask. But the stupid thing they did turn into an amazing coming together of the community and I'm glad that I can be a part of it because it made me, it made me really just sit back and think for a second how proud I am to be Jewish and to know that my people have gone through stuff like this and a million times worse than this. And we're still here and we're not going anywhere. Manya Brachear Pashman: Adam, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your experience. Adam Deutsch: Thank you. I do appreciate it. Manya Brachear Pashman: If you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with Israeli filmmaker Yoni Diller who escaped the Supernova Music Festival on foot, walking for hours through southern Israel's desert to safety.

Yoni Diller, a 28-year-old Israeli filmmaker, arrived at the Supernova Music Festival just hours before Hamas terrorists launched their unprecedented attack on Israel that killed 1200 people, including 401 at the music festival alone. Yoni escaped the festival on foot, walking for hours through southern Israel's desert to safety. Having survived this harrowing experience, Yoni is now traveling the world to share his story with political leaders, college students, and others, providing firsthand testimony of the horrors he and his fellow festival attendees witnessed on that fateful morning of October 7th. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Yoni Diller Show Notes: Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: Tal Shimony Survived the Hamas Attack on the Nova Music Festival: Hear Her Story of Courage, Resilience, and Remembrance How to Mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a Post-October 7th World A Spider Web of Terror: How Iran's Axis of Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas Threaten Israel and America Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Yoni Diller: Manya Brachear Pashman: During the Grammys this past Sunday, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. remembered the 401 people murdered and 40 kidnapped by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attack on the Nova Music Festival. Yoni Diller is a 28-year-old filmmaker from Ra'anana, a town outside Tel Aviv. Yoni and his friend Nadav arrived at the Supernova Music Festival just a few hours before rockets began flying overhead. At daybreak, he had expected to send up a drone camera to capture the scene of unadulterated song and dance in the desert. But he never got the chance to get his camera ready. Yoni is with us now to describe that harrowing day that started at dawn. Yoni, welcome to People of the Pod. Yoni Diller: Thank you for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman: Could you please walk us through what you saw that morning? Yoni Diller: So, when the sirens went on at 6:30, we saw hundreds of missiles heading our way. So we rushed back to our campsite. We packed up our stuff, we tried to leave, the parking lot was chaotic. And I suggested going a different way. This decision to head south towards Re'im, which is another village. I didn't think it would change or it will change everything, but it did. On the road, people originally told us to turn around, to do a u-turn. Manya Brachear Pashman: You told me earlier that was when a car riddled with bullet holes approached you and you found yourself helping a wounded women. That was 25 year old Shani Gabay whose remains were identified seven weeks later. At that time, when you were helping her, you heard gunfire in the distance and you tried to take cover in a nearby valley. Yoni Diller: Yes. I saw terrorists from a distance and continued to hide. A short moment later, mass shooting started in the Be'eri area, north of us. I checked my phone to assess our surroundings and our current location. At the same time, my friend's sister called him to check on him to check everything's okay. He promised everything's gonna be alright. And about that time about a dozen others had joined us and we start walking. But the best thing I could do at that moment is to scream for everyone to get down because bullets are flying up on top of our head. So when the gunshots stop for a second, we decided to head towards Patish, it was more than 24 kilometers away. My intuition told me that this will be safer there. Manya Brachear Pashman: Did you just say 24 kilometers away? How did you make it through an almost 15-mile walk? You're walking in fields, the open fields in the desert, without food or water for over four and a half hours. It's really really tough. The fear and uncertainty made it even harder. At some point, Nadav found a single grapefruit that gave us enough energy to finish the long walk to Patish. Throughout this journey we continued to hear automatic gunfire. Finally after 4 ½ hours we arrived at Patish. Emotions were mixed because we began to learn the enormity of what happened. Friends were missing and there were rumors of many people hurt and worse from the festival. Later on around 2 in the afternoon, a bus came to take us away, bringing us to Be'er Sheva and then to Tel Aviv. Then I arrived to Ra'anana finally. Safe and sound in one piece. I hugged my family and I understood just how lucky I had been. Manya Brachear Pashman: So can you kind of explain to our audience what is so wonderful about this festival, this trance culture and this music, this experience? Yoni Diller: So trance, psy-trance, electronic music, personally for me it's not a genre. It's like you said, it's a culture, it's the people in it. It's the free spirit people, liberal people, just all about spreading love. It doesn't have to be in a hippie way, just more in a way that everything is very simple, you know. Simply just be a good person, giving, ego's not involved, very laid back people. And that's the whole idea behind all these festivals and that's what's for me. It's about the people, it's about the music, it's about the art, everything together. I joined a group of friends, friends of friends, we were like total more than 20 people and two of them lost their lives there and two others that I know from another group that went with me to high school also. One got killed and actually the one the other one got kidnapped. These festivals, from event to event, you get to know people from everywhere. It's a small world. Manya Brachear Pashman: Your companion who was kidnapped, has he been released, any word on where they are now? Yoni Diller: No, one of them is still there. Hopefully he's still alive. I'm not even sure what's less worse, being kidnapped, or hostage, or being killed. We don't really know what they're going through over there. The best we can do is just wish for them to be released, no matter what the circumstances are. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yes, my colleagues here at AJC are working to bring about the safe return of all the hostages. Listeners can go to AJC.org/BringThemHome to learn more about those efforts. Yoni, do you feel like people outside Israel fully grasp the gravity of what happened to people there, or really how truly innocent the festival goers were? Yoni Diller: Unfortunately, you know, this generation wants to get fast news and simple news comfortably, and a lot of them consume content from, you know, platforms like Tiktok, or Instagram. And unfortunately, there's a lot of fake news out there, a lot of false accusations. And, you know, people sometimes deny that October 7 happened. And that's really unfortunate. I'll give you an example. I flew to the US after the event, I was part of this special delegation to do advocacy and telling the story to politicians in DC, in New York. And also, independently later after this delegation, I stayed another week in the States, and I took the train to these campuses. And I spoke and told my story. You know, campuses like NYU, Columbia, I went to Harvard, MIT, Yale, and Princeton. Six campuses in three days. It wasn't easy. I was really exhausted. But the fact that I had that meaning that, you know, I'm there to tell the story. Not for me, not telling the story for me. I'm telling that story for people to actually know what really happened, you know, the truth. I'm saying this for people who weren't lucky to tell them to tell the story themselves, or for the families. So what I saw, when I told the story, is a lot of people were actually in shock, like, wow, I didn't know if this would really happen. Like, how can you not know, we're in 2023. Information hasn't been easier to be delivered from place to place up until this moment, and how do you not know exactly what happened? There's videos everywhere. Manya Brachear Pashman: You mentioned that students were actually shocked that when they heard your testimony, and what happened. What other kinds of reactions are you getting, both reassuring reactions and negative reactions? Yoni Diller: I would say that the positive reactions I had a lot, a lot of good reactions. I mean, most of the people I spoke to or through this Hillel organization and the campuses. And, you know, people come up to me after the event and they feel very sorry, and they sort of it was really nice, but I would say that the only time that I dealt with some, somebody that was maybe a negative was at Princeton, there was this guy, some 18 year old kid. Apparently he's not one of the Israeli supporters I would say, is an understatement. And he had a weird comment. It took him actually 10 minutes to ask me a question, at the end of the lecture, I asked if anyone has any questions, and he asked me something. He was very embarrassed to ask me this. But he said something about should we feel bad for the Palestinians, they've been oppressed for many years, October 7th was legitimate, it should have happened, something in that kind of way. So instead of attacking him and try to humiliate him, or trying to make him look really bad, make him look silly, I told him, Look, I can talk to you about it. No problem. I'm not here to talk about politics or give you history lessons. I'm just here to tell my story, this is what happen. Again, I can get into it, but I wasn't really interested,I wasn't sure it was really appropriate to just get into that, because he just wanted to find some action. In terms of antisemitism or just being against Israel, I see it's a very broad trend, nowadays. I had this event with Douglas Murray the other day. And he said, this generation is Gen Z, you know, everyone wants to be an activist, everyone wants to be an influencer in some way. And people calling Israel, telling them they're calling colonialist or doing genocide, all that. It's very easy to use these buzzwords, okay, but most of the people don't even know what they mean. Most of the people when they shout from the river to the sea, don't even know which sea or which river they're talking about. But a lot of these people feel a sense of meaning, oh, we're part of something, although they don't know 100%, where they're part of part of. So my mission, or one of my main meanings, is to educate people and telling them in a very simple way, what really happened because I'm the proof that October 7, I'm evidence to all this all this thing happened. So no one can actually tell me that this didn't happen. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yoni I am curious, how you are healing, how you are taking care of yourself, and whether these opportunities to speak about what happened are therapeutic, and what music is playing in your healing process? Yoni Diller: Well, as I tell the story more, at some point I feel it comes out more easy and less challenging. As I tell it more, I feel I become stronger. You know, because you just can't keep this stuff in your stomach, you gotta share this stuff, and be very careful how you share it. I've read this book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, I'm sure you've heard about it. And I read this book while I was doing this whole advocacy work, and, you know, doing this journey in the states, in Europe, and it gave me a lot of strength. And, and it was part of my healing process, you know, to have this meaning. But the main point wasn't really, you know, spreading the story everywhere. I mean, it was important, but how do I bridge that story to something more positive? So that was part of my healing process. In addition, I have friends and family that are very supportive. And I'm very lucky to have them. Manya Brachear Pashman: Do you encounter mostly Jewish audiences with whom you speak? Or do you encounter non-Jewish audiences and recipients? Yoni Diller: It's mixed. It's mixed. Mostly mixed. A lot of them are Jews, though, because I was hosted by Hillel. So a lot of them were Jews. Also for security reasons. At that time, I decided to go to Harvard and MIT when there were all the riots. I went there by myself to speak and they had to make sure everything's secure and they had police on the outside, the inside, it really kept everything very safe. Manya Brachear Pashman: And did you get any surprising reactions from non-Jewish audience members? Yoni Diller: Just from that incident in Princeton, but if the event was more like for everyone, I'm sure I would get responses from so many other people. And it would be a disaster, it would just be a mess because it would be me probably arguing with a couple of kids screaming stuff like free Palestine and stuff, things that have no connection to what I came for. And, you know, just misses the whole purpose. So we try to do something more organized, more the Jewish crowd, because let me tell you this, okay. A lot of Jews, Israelis that live in the States, whoever it is, the campuses, they know what happened, but most of them don't know from a survivor or someone who's really there. In addition, a lot of them don't have the self confidence to combat this antisemitism and hate in their surroundings, they feel afraid to stand up. I mean, if I survived it, I'm just a simple Ashkenazi guy from Ra'anana. And, you know, I survived it. You know, I wouldn't consider myself a big hero. I mean, I was very lucky. And again, you know, I've been through hell. But the last thing I should do is be silent and just stay home. I got to speak up. Hey, guys, look this is what happened, you know, get your head up. People are in a much worse situation, you have no reason to be afraid. We went through the Holocaust, we've been through, you know, 3000 years of hell. And we've always survived. So we're resilient. And that's kind of the message that I came to convey. You know, that's one of the reasons I'm there to speak. Again, you cannot fight antisemitism with the other side's kind of method, let's say, they would scream stuff, and be violent. You can't play that game. Let them yell and play that game or spread their lies. What you should do is, you know, you gotta really pick your crowd, like I said, You got to pick your people. You got to be more united, you got to speak, you got to spread facts. That's what you should do, every Jew in the world. Because we're stronger than ever. Nothing can break us. History has shown it. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yoni, do you think that you will return to the supernova festival or any other music festival? Do you think you'll dance again? Yoni Diller: I'll even dance more. You know, this is what they want, disregarding what happened and everything. I guess that these terrorist organizations, not only they want to, like physically hurt you, they will also want to mentally break you, okay? And they want you to fear them. So the last thing you should do is be afraid of that. So you got to do the opposite. They probably would want me not to dance anymore, not to go to these festivals or just not enjoy my life. I'll do the opposite. I will go and I'll dance even more often. Or I'll just you know, create more joy. And that's one of the ways to really combat this battle. So to your question. Yes. I will not stop, maybe it'll take me some time. I'm not sure if I'm so ready. But slowly, you know, you got to really listen to yourself first. That's the most important. Manya Brachear Pashman: Yoni, thank you so much for sharing your story and I hope to see you dancing again very soon. Yoni Diller: Hey, thank you so much for having me. Hopefully, people can hear this and they can spread the word. Manya Brachear Pashman: If you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with another Supernova survivor Tal Shimony as she discusses the genesis of the exhibit 'Nova 6.29,' where the community aims to tell their story and honor those killed and taken hostage. Tal guides us through the horrors she witnessed during the deadliest attack on a music event in history.

Dancing. Costumes. Music. Rockets. Running. Chaos. At 6:29 am on the morning of October 7, Tal Shimony went from dancing in a field outside the Southern Israeli kibbutz of Re'im at the Supernova Music Festival to running for her life as the site was attacked by Hamas terrorists. Tal guides us through the horrors she witnessed that morning, and the exhibit 'Nova 6.29,' where the community aims to tell their story and honor those killed and taken hostage, in the deadliest attack on a music event in history. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Tal Shimony Show Notes: Song credits: Clear Test Signal Artifex Remix - Nova Tribute Learn more: Tribe of Nova Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: How to Mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a Post-October 7th World A Spider Web of Terror: How Iran's Axis of Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas Threaten Israel and America Unpacking South Africa's Baseless Genocide Charge Against Israel Countering the Denial and Distortion of the 10/7 Hamas Attack Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Tal Shimony: Manya Brachear Pashman: More than 3000 people were at the Supernova Music Festival that began on Friday night October 6, and was meant to last through the next day. But at 6:29 am on October 7, it came to an end. In the horrific hours that followed, more than 400 people were killed and more than 40 kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. Survivors organized an exhibit at the Tel Aviv Expo to tell their story. 'Nova 6.29' is named for the moment when rockets began falling on the tribe of Nova desert rave. During an AJC Project Interchange Fact Finding Delegation to Israel in December 2023, my colleagues met survivor and organizer Tal Shimony. After hearing her story, we wanted you to meet her too. Tal, welcome to People of the Pod. Tal Shimony: Thank you so much for inviting me, it means a lot for me and also for my tribe. Manya Brachear Pashman: So before we begin, I'm hoping you can kind of help our audience understand your tribe and understand just what the tribe of Nova or trance culture is, and what were people celebrating that morning? Tal Shimony: Yeah, of course, I will explain to the audience about trance culture and who we are. It's named after music, electronic music. What's very interesting about this music, it came to Israel around the 80s from the area of India, and very soon became a very popular culture here and a very big scene here in Israel. Every weekend, we have around 20 parties that are happening in nature, that are celebrating this culture. The trance culture is connected in a way to the more liberal and free culture, connected to the yoga world. Which means it's a very global and international thing. We're speaking about love and peace. In all of the international trance festivals, it's not very much allowed to bring national flags. You're not allowed to bring flags of your own country. You can bring flags that are stating a peace of love or stuff that are representing your group of friends, but nothing that is representing anything national. The aim is to do a community that has no judgment. That everyone can join it. If you're a good person, and you love nature, and you love humankind, and you love the music, you can join. And that's the Nova tribe's main values. These are the things that we are standing for. And the gap between what happened to us at 6:29 that morning, and of course, the whole day after, because it's not just that moment that was horrible. It was the whole day after it and of course, until now it's still going on. And from that moment on, the gap between this and who we are and what we are and what we came to celebrate is so big. For me, this is the unbelievable thing. A lot of time I ask myself, What am I doing here? What happened? Why did it happen to us? Manya Brachear Pashman: How many festivals have you been to personally, and what took you to that one in October? Tal Shimony: I've been going to trance festivals and nature parties in Israel since I'm really young. I live in a really small village in the north that is quite hippy. So these things are a part of who I am and what I do since I'm around 15. My first International Festival was in Hungary when I was 19. So I traveled to festivals around the world when I was very young. Today, I'm 25. So this thing has been a part of my world for a while now. And Nova festival came into my world around two years ago. I went to the same festival as I went to the first time. And I didn't want to go alone. And some of my friends connected me to one of the Nova producers, Nimrod Arnin, or the way I call him, Nimi. He's a good friend. And became sort of a little love story, not in the romantic way. But in a way they opened their arms to me, this production, said come join us, just be with us as our friends. And I just fell in love with these people. They are so beautiful. The people who will lead this community are people that are full with heart, all they want to do is give good to this world. They volunteer monthly as a production. And we have another volunteering now and this week on Friday. This is something that they do all the time and, and every time and at some point, I decided that every time I'm going to come to visit Israel, I will visit in the time of the Nova festival. I've been living in Berlin for the last three and a half years. So it's not like it's been easy for me to come to the Israeli festival of Nova. But I did. I felt like it was important to me to do so. And they really produce something that is in international levels. Just like the Hungarian festival I went to or the Portuguese Boom famous festival or Universo Paralello, which is the festival that Nova worked in collaboration with in the seventh of October. The international trance community is hugging us as much as they can, because it's also very complex for them. This is for me what this thing is about. Manya Brachear Pashman: Can you take us back to October 6, and then October 7, Tal, and tell our listeners what you went through that day personally? Tal Shimony: Yeah. So I was not supposed to be at that party. But I got a call from one of the producers, my friend, his name is Dov. And he needed help in a new ecological team. He's been building up this first of a kind ecological project in an Israeli festival, using reusable cups in the bar, and handing out trash bags to the audience and differentiating trash, plastic trash and non-plastic trash, things that are really revolutionary in Israel. And since I was living in Berlin, in Germany, as you know, is top one in this thing. He called me and he asked for help. I was supposed to come to Israel for the winter because the Berlin winter was too cold for me. And I decided I'm going to take my flight a bit more earlier than I planned and landed in Israel in the second of October. Which means the sixth of October was my first Friday at home after many months. I was doing a Friday dinner, shishi, Shabbat dinner with my family. Around 11 I took a ride with a friend. And we had two other friends in the car and we drove into the party. I arrived around 12:30. And I said it to you before the podcast that my boyfriend is one of the leaders of this production. He was already there. He was setting up the event, so this is why I had to take a ride. And he had his car there. And then he was really tired, he went to sleep. And I started working. At around 4am, I got a radio. And I started doing my job. And around 5:45, actually, quite exactly, my friend Yarin, he was going to play. His DJ name is Artifex, you probably know this name. He is the last DJ who played at the party. I woke up my boyfriend at 5:45, and I told him, let's go to dance, I can take my break now. And we can go and hear Yarin play on the main dance floor. It's a really big dance floor. It's one of the biggest he ever played in, so we were very excited for him. He's a good friend. And we went to dance. Now you see in the dance floors of, especially of Nova community, but generally in the trance community, you don't really need to stay next to your friends, you can walk around, everyone are friends with everyone, everyone is super friendly and nice. And I think it's a very beautiful atmosphere. As I said, no judgment, everyone was smiling at you. Manya Brachear Pashman: And then the sun starts to rise over the festival, right? Describe that for us. Tal Shimony: I don't think there are words that can express how you can feel when the sun is rising on a desert party in Israel. First of all, the Israeli sunrises in the desert are the most beautiful thing you can see. Really. I've seen a lot of sunrises, in a lot of places in the world, I'm traveling quite a lot. This is something else. The atmosphere is magical. And also, you are dancing in the dark next to people that you don't see, when suddenly the light of the sun comes in, and you can see the people around you. You can see their eyes, you can see their faces. And I think around 6:20 the sun was already starting to rise and at 6:20 my boyfriend said he's going to the bathroom and I asked to join him. He found me in the dance floor somehow, which was luck for both of us. And we went to the bathroom, we went outside the bathroom at 6:29. And I can see a missile from far away. And I asked my boyfriend, didn't you say there is a ceasefire? And the minute I finished my sentence, hundreds of rockets are already flying above my head. And when I say above my head, you need to understand it was very, very close to my head. Physically, you can really feel the echo on your body, the echo of the Iron Dome, disarming these missiles. Now we are in an open field and as an Israeli I know that open field missiles are not usually being disarmed by Iron Dome because it's protecting the villages. So we are deciding to go away from the area of the party. So if there will be any missiles exploding on the ground and heating something with electricity, so we will be safe. Like us a lot of people are doing so there is a lot of mess in the beginning. Very fast the music is turned off. Very fast our head of security, Aviv Avraham, rest in peace, who was murdered at the event after saving lots of people's life. He's calling on the speakers that there is a red alert, which means missiles, that the party's over and everyone should go outside of the party area to their cars, take their cars and go away. Now we are production members. We also meet some of the production members outside the area of the party. And we don't really know what to do. Should we go, should we help the security members take everyone outside, what should we do? We go back to the area where my boyfriend's car was, next to the police improvised tent that was there. We have 27 police officers on the job, 80 security members, private security that the Nova is hiring. And one of the police officers was screaming from the tent: everyone who has a car take your car, go away, the party's over. Manya Brachear Pashman: Did you still feel compelled to stay or did you follow his orders and flee? Tal Shimony: In the moment that these missiles are flying above my head at 6:29, I immediately get an anxiety attack. So everything I'm telling you right now are stuff that my boyfriend told me. And he was leading me through. So he was leading me out of the area of the party, and then into the car physically taking me because I was incapable of walking, my body completely froze. I couldn't speak. I couldn't say anything but the name of my dog for a while, because she was home. And this is the only thing I could think about. And also saying to him, What can we do? Can we help? He said, I also said that, which is quite funny, because who I can help to when I'm like this. The mind can be very tricky at that point. We take the car, we go inside the car, and we're driving through the emergency exit. From the left side of us, we can already see the traffic of cars coming out of the event, it's 4,000 people, around 2,000 cars. One road. There is no other way. We take the left turn towards the north, and we drive away. At that point, we decided we're going to take a safe house. We didn't know there were terrorists. We knew they were only missiles. So we decided we're going to go to the artist's house the production has rented. And we're going to go to the protected room there because this is the safest place we know. And the closest place we know. My boyfriend was also thinking about stopping on the road, in the protected houses that are on the road, protected rooms. These places became death traps that many of my friends were there and murdered. And some of our friends were there and were lucky enough to survive and tell horrible stories from there. And I am very lucky he thought that way. And then for some reason he didn't do so. Everything is very random. We arrive into this house. He's opening his phone and you can see a message in the group that says that there are terrorists in the party. I'm calling my best friend, Or. She was working in the entrance. I can hear gunshots when Or is talking to me. She's talking with me for a while, around 20 minutes, where she's been led by police officers in the field, trying to escape terrorists that have arrived. And the conversation ends with, Tal I have to ditch my car, I'll call you later, bye. And she hangs up. Manya Brachear Pashman: I hope you will tell us what happened to her later. But what is going through your mind at this point? It seems so cliche to ask, but what do you remember feeling in such a moment of confusion and utter chaos? Tal Shimony: Helplessness I think is the best way to describe the way I feel right now. I want to go out, take my take my boyfriend's car and go and save everyone I can, because this phone call is just one out of many we got at the same time. We get notified of people we know being murdered. Some of our friends saw it happening, and they are texting us. And then we realize everyone ditched their cars. At that point a couple, a friend of ours in, one girl that he managed to take with him. They're coming into this safe house and they are telling us that they saw someone completely wounded from gunshots on the way they wanted to take him and help him and he told them leave me here. I'm out. Don't take me, you will die. And they had to continue driving because they were shooting at that time. And the stories that continue to come and at some point we're being asked by our production to start gathering locations of our friends that are hiding and running away from terrorists. We are posting everywhere online that we need people to send us the locations and that we need people to help us get to our people. At that point one of our security members with some military man's that were in voluntarily arriving into the era. He managed to sort of take back the area of the party from the terrorists, because they conquered it. Even when I say it, like four months ahead, it still sounds to me like a movie. At 8:30 I get a video call from the same friend, Or, this time, she's running in an open field and I can see the terrorists running behind her. And I scream at her to run as fast as she can. And I scream at her that I love her. She doesn't really talk. She says to me, she loves me back. And she hangs up. She was saying goodbye. Now you see, I was a shooting instructor in the army. And I see my friend in an open field when terrorists are shooting at her. For me, she's dead. There is no other option. And she's a friend of mine, and also everyone else who was sitting there with me. And we all hear her in this conversation and we are completely broken at that moment. Half an hour later, I get a sign of life from her when she says to me, Sister, I got shot. She got shot in her leg. She survived. But after she got shot in her leg, she had to run 10 more kilometers with a gunshot in her leg. She survived, but I think her soul died that day and she had to rebirth. Manya Brachear Pashman: I am so relieved to hear that Or survived. When were you finally able to leave the house that you were trapped in and go home? Tal Shimony: This house is not far away from the area of the party and definitely not far away from Gaza. It's next to a city called Netivot. Netivot is a small city in the area of Sderot and Ofakim, and the terrorists are arriving there at some point. They're not arriving into the village we are. And there is a civilian squad who is protecting us. But they are getting very much closer to us all the time. We have television so we can see it on the news that they are getting closer. And this entire day, I'm trying to send locations of people that I know and people I don't know and I get phone calls from worried mothers asking me to see what's going on with their child. And this whole thing is happening while in one hand, I have my phone, and I'm calling people in the other hand, they have a knife. Because they are coming closer. And I need to protect myself. And this feeling of fear and helplessness being all the time switching, and anxiety attacks that are being escort me until this day, and on the seventh of October, I think I had around 48 hours of an extended anxiety attack that was going on and off. At 5pm, my boyfriend decided he had enough and he doesn't want to stay in this house in the dark and we want to go home. We are calling the head of the civilian squad that is protecting the little village we are in. We're telling them we want to leave. And he says to me on the phone like this, listen, I can't guarantee you're going to survive this, right, it's your choice. We have no idea where they are right now. This is your decision. I don't take responsibility for that. And we decide to leave anyway. I don't remember anything from that ride, only two burned cars. And that's it. Manya Brachear Pashman: Thank God you survived that trip. Tal, how have you coped during the weeks and months since then? Tal Shimony: I think in the first week, I didn't sleep at all. Everything is very vague. The day after the seventh of October, the eighth of October was the hardest day for me because I realized how many people I know lost their life that day. And then started a week that was the most horrible week in my life. So every day I go to around three funerals of people that I know from the international festivals, from home, from other circles in my life, and some of the funerals of my friends I couldn't arrive because they were in the parallel time for another funeral. And the decision was to choose which one of my friends I'm saying goodbye to. Some of them were also in areas of risk, like the desert, like the Israeli South. And some of them were in the North that was very much involved at that point. Nimrod Arnin, my friend who welcomed me into this community, his sister, 19 years old, Ayelet Arnin, was murdered. So we went to, of course, to her funeral, and there was an alarm. And it's 30 Nova survivors in a house that doesn't really have a place for us to be protected. So we couldn't stay for this funeral. We all left. It was very sad. And that's how my first week goes. I still carry with me marks of this. Anxiety attacks that are happening. My sleepless nights, nightmares that are worse than anyone can imagine. Yeah. This is my life right now. Manya Brachear Pashman: This is so unfathomable, and Tal, and I am so grateful to you for sharing all of that, because I think it is hard for so many people to truly fathom the horrors of that day. And I imagine that is part of why this exhibit came together. Can you tell us how it came together, who's behind it, and kind of describe it to our listeners? Tal Shimony: So all the villages next to Gaza–Kibbutz Nir Oz, Kibbutz Re'im–all these beautiful places that were burned out by Hamas, they have something to show, they can show people this is what happened to us. The Nova parties, just like any other international festival, are being built and disassembled in a matter of hours or days. And we had nothing to show. Our community is the biggest community hit by this day. A third of all the victims from the seventh of October are coming from the Nova community, it's such a big number. After the seventh of October, the first thing that we did as a community was building a healing center for the community where we had body treatment, mental treatment, workshops, everything we thought about that can help people. Of course, at some point, the artists of Israel came to play music for us. And during that time, some producers in Israel came to help us because some of them are the dinosaurs of the tribe of trance in Israel, it's a big thing. And they wanted to help. And one of them came up with this idea of rebuilding the area of the party, as an exhibition for the public. And this exhibition, what you can see there, is the original party place. So it's the shadow tent, the big one that everyone can see in all the videos, is being rebuilt there. The bars, the camping area, the stages. We also have there toilets. The ones that I left from, and these toilets are now full with bullet holes, real bullet holes, from the terrorist attack. For example, we know that around 30 people were hiding in these toilets and only three came out. And you can see and bear witness with your eyes on these things. You can see how many bullets are in every cell, they really didn't let anyone survive. You can see burned cars, because Hamas just burned everything they saw with every measure they had. So if it's special explosives that burns everything very fast and at a very high temperature, if it's RPGs, if it's fuel, they used everything they had. Some people were hiding underneath the car, inside the trunk, and they were burned alive. And you can see that there. I have so many stories of friends that we found their bodies in cars. And it took so long to identify the bodies because when you burn the human body, there is nothing left. Manya Brachear Pashman: After living through what you did, what was it like to see the scene recreated and memorialized for the exhibit? Tal Shimony: For me, the first time I arrived into this exhibition was horrible. The most horrible part was not all these things. The most horrible part was the screens. We had screens of pictures of the kidnapped people, and a screen of murdered people, all the faces, pictures of them. And between these two, we had a little place of lost and found. Everything that was found in the area of the party was brought there. Some people find their stuff there. It's a very exciting moment. But there is one table that was always staying the same. I call it the fun table. So when you are going to trance party or into a Nova party, you usually bring with you stuff that makes other people happy. Because this is the tribe, this is what we do. So for example, I like to put on a costume of a fairy. So I have my wings, and I have my elf ears and I have many glitters. And some people are going around with really nice, beautiful, colorful umbrellas. Some people are going with a Hollywood sign of action and running around the dance floor and saying action to people. Some people are going with water guns and shooting at people in the dance floor. It's very warm in the Israeli desert. And people brought all these things with them. Some people bring some juggling, very expensive juggling stuff to entertain themselves and the audience. And this table was always remaining full. And at some point I realized why. I was thinking to myself, if I would lose my own juggling equipment which I bring to every party, if I would lose it in the area of the party, I would come back to take it. There is no way. It's so expensive and it's so sentimental and it's so personal. And I know that my mother would never know how it looks like. So I believe that most of the things in this table were belonging to victims because they were just staying there for so long, and they look so insignificant for someone from the outside. For me, that was the most hard table, hard area in the party, because you can see the pictures of the victims and you can see equipment that you understand that the only person who can take them is this people that belongs these things, because they are so personal. Manya Brachear Pashman: You make a really good point about the exhibit memorializing a culture that's so ephemeral, so intangible. And I'm curious if there is a therapeutic quality to the trance culture? And is there a therapeutic quality to this exhibit, both for those who have organized it, and for those who are visiting? Tal Shimony: I always end my tours there, when I was doing tours, I was always ending them with this table that I told you about in the last one and I always told them that I still see the hope. Because I know I have my festival clothes at home and also all my friends and we all have our fun stuff, waiting for us to come back dancing. Because for me, dancing means healing. Dancing means therapy. Dancing means being connected to myself. And the great Raja Ram, which is a very big DJ, famous trance DJ. When he was asked about dancing in a trance festival what it means, he was saying something very beautiful. He was saying you forget who you are. You forget your identity. You forget your job. You are just there at that moment. And that moment is so beautiful. And I think we all need to come back dancing. We have every Wednesdays now a Healing Center, a community day that has being end with two hours of trance music. And there are therapists around if someone needs help, and some people are not staying. They know that at 8pm starts a set, a set of trance, so they are not staying because it's too much for them. They're coming there for the therapy and they're coming there to meet their friends and be together and hug. And some are staying and fighting through it. And it's a beautiful thing to see. It's a beautiful thing to see but it takes time. I have to say that. We are trying to be back dancing but I have to say I tried a few times to go to nature parties, and it ended up with very big anxiety attacks. And I'm, let's say a very high-functioning survivor, I can help others, which is not something I take for granted. So yes, definitely, we will dance again. And we don't say this sentence…again together as a community. Because it's a part of our healing. I believe my friends, who are not with us, are very proud of the Nova tribe, for continuing dancing, for trying to heal and come back to the dance floors. This is what they left for us. They said to us with everything, with everything they have, dance. With everything they have. They will not die in another way. They died in the middle of one of the most beautiful things you can do. Unfortunately, a very horrible death. But if I want to remember these people, as they were, I would like to remember them dancing on the dance floor with me. And they will dance with me when I dance everywhere. Manya Brachear Pashman: Tal, the Grammy Awards are this Sunday, February 4th. Of course, it's not just an awards show. It's a platform for artists to speak out or pay tribute, and we've seen that after horrific events like the shooting at the Route 91 country music festival in Las Vegas or the bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in England. Do you feel that the music world has spoken out about Nova? Tal Shimony: Definitely not. I would expect the music industry to talk about it at the international level. You can say, we are not talking about politics, we don't talk about Israel, we just talk about Nova. I think it's something that is possible to do. But it takes some bravery. Because people are connecting what happened with Nova to what happened generally on the seventh of October, and for me going inside the music trance festival is like going into international grounds. Really, it's just like the same for me. And the thing that the music industry is forgetting is that, as you said yourself, there were so many music events that were attacked by terror before. And that can happen in every trance music festival around the world. They forget it, that each and every country, also in the US, there is many, many festivals with this type of music and this type of culture. They forget it, it could have happened everywhere else, everywhere else. And of course, I would have expected the Grammys to do something about it, but I don't. I know how it works. When it comes to Israel, it's always been separated. It's just like all the women organizations that are always talking about rape publicly. When it came to the seventh October attack, which women were raped, by the way a lot of them were raped in the rave, in the Nova party. We have testimonies of our friends. Yesterday, even some of the representatives of the UN came to our Community Day to speak with some of the witnesses, because they came here to Israel to do it. I can't understand why they need to come to believe me. There is a movement now that's called Me Too Unless You're a Jew. And when I saw even the name of it I was like, how can they separate me from the rest of the world, if I was in an international festival, music festival, just like anywhere else in the world? Manya Brachear Pashman: What would be a meaningful tribute in your eyes? What would you like to see at the Grammys on Sunday? Tal Shimony: I think they should do something similar to whatever they did on other occasions that terror attacks were happening, for any music festival or any music performance or in any other thing. I think they are creative enough and they are very good producers, they are bigger than, than whatever the Nova will ever be. So I trust them to know that they should recognize the fact that there was an attack in a music industry related festival. But I'm also not expecting them to do so because I know that this festival was in Israel. And everything that is connected to Israel or to Jews is being treated differently. People are saying it's not antisemitism, but I'm asking myself, so what is it? Manya Brachear Pashman: Will this exhibit travel, Tal? Will there be an opportunity for people around the world to see this and to memorialize this community? Tal Shimony: Yes, we are working on it, very hard, actually. I'm a part of the international team right now. It seems like the first destination might be New York or LA, but the United States. I think it's very important that everyone who can will come to this exhibition when it will arrive to an area that is close to them because it will mean a lot to the Nova community and also to the Israeli state. Manya Brachear Pashman: Tal, thank you so much for joining us. Tal Shimony: Thank you so much for inviting me. It means a lot and I'm so grateful for being here today. Manya Brachear Pashman: If you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with Mark Weitzman from the World Jewish Restitution Organization, on how Holocaust museums worldwide and in Israel are grappling with the aftermath of October 7 in their exhibits. And tune in next week, for another conversation with a Supernova survivor, Yoni Diller. He shares his journey from that field in southern Israel that morning to American college campuses. Manya Brachear Pashman: The music heard throughout this episode was the last track played at Nova on October 7, when Hamas terrorists stormed the festival. The remix by DJ Artifex was released in dedication to all lives lost and forever changed that morning.

This week, Mark Weitzman from the World Jewish Restitution Organization, joins us to discuss the links between the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the Holocaust, and how Holocaust museums worldwide and in Israel are grappling with the aftermath. As International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches, we also delve into the direct connection between Holocaust denial and distortion to the denial and distortion of October 7 events, and how both are rooted in antisemitism. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Mark Weitzman Show Notes: Learn: AJC's Translate Hate Glossary: See why Holocaust denial / distortion is antisemitic. Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: A Spider Web of Terror: How Iran's Axis of Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas Threaten Israel and America Unpacking South Africa's Baseless Genocide Charge Against Israel Countering the Denial and Distortion of the 10/7 Hamas Attack 4-Year-Old Hostage Abigail Idan is Free–Her Family is On a Mission to #BringThemAllHome Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Mark Weitzman: Manya Brachear Pashman: One could easily say the October 7 Hamas invasion and massacre in Israel is one of the most well-documented terrorist attacks in history. Dozens of smartphone cameras and GoPros filmed Hamas terrorists crossing the border between Gaza and southern Israel murdered more than 1000 soldiers and civilians and kidnapped more than 200 others, the deadliest antisemitic attack since the Holocaust. But just like the scourge of Holocaust denial, October 7th denial is growing. Mark Weitzman is the chief operating officer of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, a nonprofit that pursues claims for the recovery of Jewish properties lost during World War Two. He's also the lead author of the working definition of Holocaust denial and distortion for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance known as IHRA, and chairs the IHRA Working Group on museums and memorials. As we approach International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Mark has joined us to discuss how we can make sure the world does not forget or deny any atrocities committed against Jews. Mark, welcome to People of the Pod. Mark Weitzman: Thank you very much for the invitation to be here. Manya Brachear Pashman: Mark, you are an expert on Holocaust denial and distortion. What does it have in common with the denial we're seeing around October 7? Mark Weitzman: I think there are clear connections between people who are downplaying or distorting the events of October 7, and those that engage in Holocaust distortion or hardcore Holocaust denial, because both are linked by an attempt to try to explain what is for them an uncomfortable historical reality that targeted Jews, whether the Holocaust or the events of October seventh, to justify their preconceived political agenda, which often includes an antisemitic conspiracy theory, either as its base or as its method to achieve their goals. One of the root causes of Holocaust denial distortion, from the antisemitic perspective, is the attempt to say that since the Holocaust, there is a certain sympathy for Jews as victims, and sometimes that turns into political sympathy or support for the State of Israel. Sometimes it turns into actions that are pro-democracy or anti-racist in terms of society and saying that we've seen what happened in Auschwitz, we don't want our society to go in that direction. So we're going to take certain positive steps. Those people who want to turn the clock back to a world where people could still be judged by their religion, their race or whatever signifier, often have to grasp with the Holocaust. It's the paradigm of what can happen when society turns evil. The same thing in the sense is at the root of October 7 denial. It's the attempt to say that, Oh, no, we don't want to allow any sympathy to Jews or Israelis, we have to justify it or explain it away in a way that allows us to accept the reality of what it happened, because denying it puts you in a really sort of cuckoo cage of denying what's obvious to everyone what happened there. So in this sense, in a particular sense, it can be by saying that, Oh, yeah, it happened there. The Israelis were killed, but they were killed by the Government of Israel. The hostages were not really taking the Gaza, they're actually hidden in Israeli buildings or holdings. That, you know, this is all part of a plot by Israel and the US government, aimed at undermining the Palestinian narrative and drive for freedom. But the goal there is similar, it's to grapple with a reality that most people would find repugnant. An anti semitic reality. The latest poll in the US shows 80% of the US population support Israel versus Hamas. And in an attempt to justify their stance, their pure antisemitic stance, they have to deal with that reality. And so you can't ignore it, you can say it didn't happen. Since as you pointed out, it's one of the most photographed and verified actions in recent memory. So you try to twist it away, and turn it on its head. Manya Brachear Pashman: But how do people wrap their heads around this fantasy fiction? Mark Weitzman: These conspiracy theories are linked. And I don't think enough people have realized this or paid attention to it, that Hamas's original charter, 1988, actually quoted, literally quoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is, as we all know, the Bible of antisemitic conspiracy theories. And they literally based their charter, it's the only western document quoted in their charter, their original charter. And it links the events of October 7, with the history of antisemitic conspiracy theories. This is not an anti-Zionist document, the protocols, it's an anti-Jewish, antisemitic document. So there's a direct connection there. The Holocaust is the most documented event in human history. There are films, there are millions and millions of pages of documents. There are so many archival records of survivors, of perpetrators, of war crimes tribunals that have, you know, judged and and entered into evidence, the effects of the Holocaust, the reality of the Holocaust, not just in the United States. But look at the David Irving trial, the famous David Irving trial. But all the war crimes trials in Europe as well, to say that it did not happen, or to twist, it requires an effort of will. And it's not just on the individual level. In our work at the WJRO, we see governments today that do not want to deal with restitution, and use manipulation of the Holocaust, to try to get out of it by claiming that it was all the Germans, the local collaborators had nothing to do with it, or that the numbers were inflated or that we don't know what the value was, what was really owned by by Jews at that time. All sorts of methods used to evade trying to make some payment, some form of restitution, and then to survivors and part of our mission is to set forth and ensure that the historical record, even in terms of the theft of Jewish property, is well established. So when we get to the events of October 7, particularly in an era where fake news, where people claim to believe all sorts of conspiracy theories, whether it's related to COVID, whether it's related to American election results, and a lot of these people kind of bond together. The underground of election denial and some of the anti-COVID extremists, and some of the Hamas or some of the October 7 deniers or distorters. Very often, they live in the same atmosphere, in the same basement, they imbibe the same fumes, they're in touch with each other. Very often they're cooperating or believe in similar conspiracy theories. And this is one of the problems that we have as a society, amplified by social media, is to separate the real from the fake, and to try to limit and minimize the impact that the fake has on real life, on mainstream society, and politics, and culture, and so on. Manya Brachear Pashman: So as I mentioned in the introduction, International Holocaust Remembrance is January 27. You just returned from a meeting with representatives of Holocaust institutions around the world. How did these museums come to be? I mean, was it a bricks and mortar movement to counter Holocaust denial, was it seen more broadly as a tool to fight antisemitism or something else entirely? Mark Weitzman: Well, I think that most of these came to be, first of all, through the efforts of survivors. In so many cases, it was the survivor community that were the driving force behind it. And yes, it was in response to antisemitism and to Holocaust denial. But those movements were not, in a sense, the dominant factors that we may think today. It was a sense, I think, more of trying to pass on what they went through, both to the Jewish community, their children and grandchildren, and so on, but more importantly, to the community writ large, meaning that to the world at large, whether it's the US or the UK or Canada. They wanted people to learn the lessons from what they had gone through and survived. They wanted people to not to have to deal with the same things that they dealt with. And it's fascinating to me, one of the most interesting things that I find in the field is that today, and not only a majority of visitors to Holocaust museums, the vast majority, are not Jewish. But the majority of people who work in these institutions are not Jewish either. There are people who have dedicated their lives to some second career, some it's, you know, a career long commitment to both studying and teaching and passing on lessons of the Holocaust. So what began sometimes within the Jewish community, as a survivor-led effort, at this point, there are very few survivors still actively involved in this, especially, you know, on that level, and it's evolved into something that is broader and larger than just the Jewish community. Manya Brachear Pashman: We had your colleague Rob Williams at the USC Shoah Foundation join us at the end of last year, and the Shoah Foundation is collecting testimonies from October 7 now. And I'm curious, are other Holocaust Memorial institutions developing programs or adding evidence from October 7, to their collections? Mark Weitzman: I think one of the things that came out at the meeting, which was at the Holocaust Museum in Washington about a month ago, was that these institutions are grappling with October 7, and it was very clear. And part of it is that most of these institutions had not tried to be politically based. In other words, they did not conceive of themselves as taking a political stance one way or the other. And the supercharged atmosphere of October 7, the events of October 7, the atmosphere post October 7, caught them, I think, by surprise, and they're still grappling with how to respond and how to react to it. There has been a tremendous amount of interest, of support. USC is leading the way with a tremendous effort of taping the survivor accounts and making them available. But I saw conversations, we had conversations from certain speakers in how to address October 7, how to deal with antisemitism in the wake of October 7. Because again, these are people who are not necessarily the the you're an expert in the Holocaust is that's really mean you're an expert in what's happening with Israel and Hamas and the Middle East, and, and so on. And it's a very different field, a very volatile field. And they're in a position that they had not anticipated. So I think that there was a shock. There's a strong sense of moral support, moral based support for Israel and the victims there, there is a strong commitment to, I think, keeping the message of releasing the hostages first and foremost in people's minds. But how exactly to go about it, what the best way to achieve those goals is still something I think some of them are wrestling with. Some are doing even little things like one museum that I know of, has in their gift shop, a sort of small section of Israeli objects for sale, that the proceeds will go back to, you know, to some of the communities or some of the people in Israel who have been evacuated or need support. So it can be a small thing like that could be educational programs. It can be public statements that could be hosting events, it could be showing the testimony. It could be learning more about the background that led up to it. There are a lot of potential paths and ways that they're engaging with. And I think each of them are finding their own path right now. But they were in the process of grappling with something that they had not anticipated. And this is somewhat novel, for them to have to deal with. Manya Brachear Pashman: Generally, do Holocaust institutions try to avoid Israel or kind of leave Israel out of their exhibitions, their collections, and really focus on the Jewish communities of their particular country? Mark Weitzman: I think it varies. I think that, you know, in a broad sense, they're not necessarily want to be seen up till now at least, as partisans in a political struggle or political battle. But there was clear recognition in so many of them you that you can't leave Israel out of the story, because you had survivors going to Israel. You had the Zionist youth groups, let's say in the Warsaw ghetto, and other places that It helps spearhead some of the revolts you, if you ignore those parts of the story of the narrative of the Holocaust, then, you know, you're not being true to the history of it. Would you show where survivors ended up after the war? Certainly, you know, a huge number of them, percentage wise ended up in Israel is one of the, you know, the prime spots for survivors to go to. You have many of them worked with Yad Vashem, for example, and have a relationship there. You have the righteous among the Gentiles, which is a story that almost all Holocaust museums wanted to have some focus on, because it's a prime example of non Jews responding in a positive way in the most dire circumstances, but the certification of who is a righteous Gentile came from Yad Vashem, in Israel. So there are, you know, inextricably linked to it, but you went, you didn't, and what they try to avoid, was taking a, you know, sort of a partisan position, should Israel do this action? Should this Israeli Government be supported against that Israeli government or, you know, so on and so forth. But the broad idea of Israel's right to exist of Israel as a place of refuge for the survivors as Israel, a change in the narrative of the history of the Jewish people in the 20th and 21st centuries, all those had to be part of the story and are dealt with, but in different ways in in many of these institutions. Manya Brachear Pashman: So you also traveled to Israel at the end of last year. And I'm curious up until now, how have Israelis talked about the Holocaust? Is it a cornerstone of their history as a modern nation, maybe not so much for the younger generations, and could October 7, connect some dots and change that? Mark Weitzman: Well, I led a small mission for the WJRO, and went down south to Kfar Aza. And also met with evacuees. And it was an incredibly moving experience. And the reality of what happened there, going to the exhibition on Nova, music festival is something that I don't think any of us who participated will ever forget. And it was interesting, because we had two guides, from the Israeli army, from the spokespersons office from the Israeli army, two young women who were with us in Kfar Aza down at the border, one of the worst hit places. And they made the connection. And we had a Holocaust survivor with us, as well. And she made the connection. And there was a resolve that, you know, this is something that we didn't think we would ever have to face firsthand. This kind of targeted destruction of Jewish civilian life. I don't think Israelis have fully come to grasp and understandably, with the implications of what happened, I think it may take even a generation or two, to kind of work this through in some ways, and I don't think…it may be premature to make judgments. But I think that there's no question that hearing over and over again, the worst act of violence since the Holocaust, gives a frame and a context that is going to keep the Holocaust as part of the conversation about this. Israel prior to this, there have been a lot of efforts. I mentioned Yad Vashem earlier, it's certainly one of the cornerstones of a historical, cultural life in Israel. But it wasn't the only place, there were other kibbutzim, such as up north, Beit Lohamei Ha-Getaot, the ghetto fighters kibbutz that had the same similar mission of educating about the Holocaust. The Israeli government that no matter which party the Prime Minister belongs to, has always been very strongly supportive of Holocaust education. Has been a partner key partner of WJRO, and its work on restitution issues and efforts. So the Holocaust has been, I think, part of the Israeli consciousness. But I think it was viewed as historical in many ways, this is what our grandparents went through. This is what happened over there in Europe. And now that reality is shifted a little bit, that, Oh, something that can be spoken about in the same sentence, not the same, not comparable in many ways. But it's here, and it's now. Manya Brachear Pashman: So how do the events of October 7 alter this year's observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day? Mark Weitzman: Throughout the world, I think you're going to hear a lot of linkage in a way of people saying that, we can't forget that, you know, what happened, the victims. So many places are involved, for example, in the reading of names of victims names. And yet, for many of us on a weekly basis, or whenever we can, we still read the names of the hostages, and try to get them returned in those efforts. So there are going to be you know, connections like that connections made about the threat, the ongoing threat to the Jewish people. The fact that since the Holocaust 80 years ago, we haven't faced anything like this, like we're facing today. Um, certainly in the West, the in the United States, the conversation is certainly going to include the fact that Jews are in an unprecedented situation in this country in terms of anti semitism. The questions of the people trying to erode support for the existence and legitimacy of Israel take on much more significance, especially as they become much more high profile, the attempts. I'm sure there'll be part of, they are part of the political landscape for the forthcoming elections. Manya Brachear Pashman: AJC often cautions against comparing tragic events to the Holocaust because it risks trivializing the genocide of 6 million Jews. But I have heard well-meaning people make that comparison. In this case, is it a legitimate analogy? Mark Weitzman: Israel as a state, was able to strike back and respond in a way that Jews could not do during World War Two. Governments in the West–the UK, France, Germany, and so on the United States, of course, first and foremost, have responded forcefully defending Jews align themselves with Israel. Whereas governments in the West prior to World War Two, basically ignored, accepted or complicit in the Nazi actions. You know, those kinds of differences are significant. And the fact that as I said public opinion in the United States is firmly on the side of Israel compared to on the side of Hamas is also significant. So I think we have to be careful about making kind of glib historical comparisons. We're not powerless today. We were powerless in the 1930s. But that doesn't mean that our situation is not problematic and dangerous for us today it is. And we have to recognize that. But we need to do that, factually and calmly and realistically, we need to find our allies. And they're our allies, in many places, and to work together with them. Because the threat to us, particularly today, from Hamas, and allied groups like that, and their supporters, whether from the extreme left, the so called progressives, or the extreme right, is a threat to liberal society, in general. And that's something that we need to be able to share, and to work with our allies to turn that thread back. Manya Brachear Pashman: Mark, thank you for sharing your expertise and cautionary advice. Mark Weitzman: Thank you very much. Manya Brachear Pashman: If you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with Dr. Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute as he helped us make sense of the renewed terror threat, how Iran's terror proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis are coordinating their strategy and attacks, and what the U.S., Israel, and its allies are doing to fight back.

This week President Biden re-designated Yemen's Houthis as a global terrorist group amid its increasing attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, the Hezbollah terror group continues to threaten Israel's northern border, and the Israel-Hamas war continues as Hamas still holds more than 100 Israeli hostages taken on 10/7. Matthew Levitt, Fromer-Wexler Fellow & Director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute, joins us to help make sense of the renewed terror threat, how these terror groups are coordinating their strategy and attacks, and what the U.S., Israel, and its allies are doing to fight back against Iran and its terror proxies. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Matthew Levitt Show Notes: Learn: 5 Things to Know About the Houthis, Their Attacks on Israel and the U.S., and Their Treatment of Yemen's Jews Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: Unpacking South Africa's Baseless Genocide Charge Against Israel Countering the Denial and Distortion of the 10/7 Hamas Attack 4-Year-Old Hostage Abigail Idan is Free–Her Family is On a Mission to #BringThemAllHome What Would You Do If Your Son Was Kidnapped by Hamas? Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Matthew Levitt: Manya Brachear Pashman: This week the US military struck a Houthi arsenal in Yemen that had threatened US Navy vessels in the Red Sea. It was America's fourth strike on Houthi turf since November 19. Meanwhile, the Hezbollah terror group continues to violate a UN Security Resolution and threaten Israel's border, and Hamas still holds more than 100 Israeli hostages taken during the October 7th invasion and massacre. What do all these terror groups have in common? Returning here to discuss is Matthew Levitt, the Fromer-Wexler Fellow & Director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute. Matt, welcome back to People of the Pod. Matthew Levitt: Thank you so much for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman: So let's start with the terror group making the latest headlines. The Houthis? Who are they and why has the Biden administration just re-designated them a terrorist organization? Matthew Levitt: So the Houthis are a separatist group in Yemen, based in the north of the country. They are Shia, and they get support from Iran. But they're not exactly the same kind of Shia as Iran. And they aren't exactly the kind of proxy that says jump when Iran says how high. This is a relationship of convenience and my enemy's enemy. And they both hate the United States and the west and hate Israel. And the Houthis have been for years an ineffective, and for the Iranians an inexpensive and risk free way to complicate things for the Saudis. So for years, the Houthis were shooting at the Saudis when the Saudis were involved in the Yemeni war, after the Houthis had taken over. And that's one of the reasons why things are a little sensitive right now, because there have been efforts to try and negotiate a ceasefire between the Houthis and the Saudis. The Saudis aren't happy with what the Houthis are doing right now in the Red Sea. But they also don't want to rock the boat. The Houthis have as part of their mantra printed on their flag, Death to Israel, Death to America, Death to Jews, all three, they're not particularly, you know, unclear. And so they have flown drones towards Israel that have been shot down, they have fired ballistic missiles at Israel, some of which have been shut down by US Navy vessels, at least one was shut down by the Saudis. Just pause to think about that for a minute. The Saudis weren't thinking this was aimed at them, the Saudis shut down a Houthi missile aimed at Israel, which suggests that the Israel-Saudi reconciliation track, while very much on pause, is not over. And the Israelis have shot down some including for the first time ever using the arrow anti-missile system, which shot down a ballistic missile in lower outer space. Now, the Houthis have tried to leverage their position geographically by targeting ships in the Red Sea. They claim that they are targeting only those ships that are owned in whole or in part by Israel or have serviced Israeli ports. They've hit some American ships as well. They're clearly getting intelligence from the Iranians on this. And it has disruptive international freedom of navigation. And you have now a new problem in terms of getting things where we need them to be to stock our shelves, because boats that would normally go up the Red Sea and through the canal are now going around South Africa. Manya Brachear Pashman: And this volatility on the part of the Houthis is also compounded by what's going on with Hamas, and also Hezbollah. Is Iran the common denominator here, Matt? I mean, is that what all these terror groups have in common, or is there much more? Matthew Levitt: So it's true, the Houthis claimed that what they're doing is in support of the Palestinians. But what we are seeing for the first time put into action is the strategy that was developed by the late Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, who was killed in Iraq several years ago. And that strategy was what he called uniting the fronts. And so this idea that across the spectrum, and it really is a spectrum of proxy, activity of sponsorship. Hezbollah is at one end very, very close to Iran, the Houthis, I would argue, are at the other end, and Hamas is kind of somewhere in between. Getting them all to be able to coordinate their activities, when push comes to shove. Now, Hamas for its part is very happy with the Houthis. They're quite disappointed with Hezbollah. There are reports in the Arabic press, that Hamas expected that Hezbollah would get much more involved and Hezbollah didn't when they saw the US naval presence, you know, two aircraft carriers. Whatever the specifics, Hamas have been very vocal about how displeased they are with the level of support they're getting from Hezbollah, though that has been significant. And they're pretty pleased with the support they're getting from the Houthis, which is outsized what might have otherwise been expected from the Houthis. Manya Brachear Pashman: So the alignment of these groups with Iran, what exactly does that mean? Does that mean that Iran is pulling the strings? Are they funding the activities? All of the above? I mean, you mentioned the goal of coordinating all these proxies, but does coordinating go as far as collaborating? Matthew Levitt: So I don't want to get into a semantic discussion of what exactly is the difference between collaborating and coordinating. I think what's important to understand here is that it's not like in the movies, where everybody's getting together at a meeting with evil laughs, coordinating all that they're doing. There have been some meetings, we know that for at least the past few years. Iranian Quds Force, Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad had been meeting at what they call, their term not mine, a joint operations room in Beirut. What all is coordinated is not entirely clear. You've had Iranian and some Shia militants from Iraq, the Ḥashd ash-Shaʿbī making statements recently about how, you know, generally things are coordinated right now. Frankly, the level of coordination took a hit with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani. And there was no one with the gravitas to kind of bring all these proxies together. So they actually leaned on Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Lebanese Hezbollah to come in and serve that role not only kind of mediating between the various Iraqi Shia militant groups, but also the others, the Hamas is that Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis. So they're not all sitting around a big conference table. And you'll do this and you'll do this, but they're all getting support–financial and often weapons from Iran. There is some significant cross pollination in some personalities. So for example, for the first time this week I've seen in the open source, Israelis say that the head of the Redwan special forces unit in southern Lebanon that has been firing anti tank guided missiles into Israel multiple times a day is a guy known as Abu 'Ali Al- Tabataba'i. He was in southern Lebanon for many years. Then he was sent to Syria, where he worked with Iraqi Shia militants and Quds Force. Then he was moved from there to Yemen, where Hezbollah had a very, very small contingent, maybe a couple of dozen. But the fact that they sent someone that senior was telling. I actually wrote a piece of Foreign Affairs about this years ago, when it came out that he was sent to Yemen. He was designated by the US Treasury, there's a Rewards for Justice from the State Department to reward out for his head. Well, he now is back from Yemen, got a promotion and is the overall head of the Redwan unit. And he has at this point, all kinds of personal relationships. And so there's a little bit of cross pollination, you might talk about the people you know, from back when you went to college together. And back in the day the Al Qaeda would talk, did you go to the duranta camp in Afghanistan? Do you remember that trainer? Well, now there's a similar thing going on in the Shia extremists milieu? Did you go to the camps together? Were you in Iran at the same time, or Iraq or Lebanon at the same time? Which trainer did you have, who did they send to you? And so there is coordination happening, but I don't think it's Houthis. Sometime this morning, you're going to be targeting a ship. On the flip side, there is some open source information about ships that you can find and their ownership. But it's clear that the Iranians are also providing them information that is not public. And they're also clearly working with Hezbollah. If you go back to October 7 itself, the plotline of October 7, fire a bunch of missiles under that cover, infiltrate across the border, take as many civilian communities as possible, kill a bunch of people, kidnap others across the border. That was the Hezbollah plan that the IDF Northern Command was preparing and training to deal with for years. And it was Hamas who used it, so you can see some of that connectivity. Manya Brachear Pashman: Ah, exchanges of strategy. Matthew Levitt: Strategy and more. It's not every tactic. It's not every every instance, but there is certainly overall strategy that they're coordinating. There certainly is communication. There certainly is movement of funds and of weapons. And, and this is the first time we're seeing that type of coordinated effort involving militants from Iraq, Iranian assets in Syria. You know, at one point, the Iranians flew a drone and crashed it into a school and a lot. The drone flew down. Jordan didn't cross into Israel until the very end went into a lot. It was a school where children evacuated from communities in the south, are being educated. I don't know if it's luck. I think it is. I don't think the Iranians had intelligence to know exactly what time class got out. But it was, you know, a couple of hours after class got out could have been much, much worse. And even just today, there are reports of things being shot towards Israel, around the Red Sea. Manya Brachear Pashman: So are we at risk of a wider war? Or does anything stand in the way of that? Matthew Levitt: Yes. We really are at the brink of a regional war. And I see a lot of people, a lot of press saying that Israel has done something which brings us to the brink of a regional war. And I challenge that Israel is responding to not only the attack on October 7, but to all kinds of attacks. Still, the United States also is not bringing the region to the brink of war, when United Kingdom strike Houthi assets in an effort to prevent them from being able or to deter them from carrying out attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. Ultimately, this really comes down to how far do Iran and its spectrum of proxies want to push the envelope. I think at the end of the day, they're actually quite happy with what's going on. So long as the fighting in the Gaza Strip continues, I think they feel justified in saying this can go on. They have said, Hezbollah and others have said, that this can stop when the fighting of the Gaza Strip stops. Whether that is what they actually mean or not is something only time will tell. But I think at the end of the day, the decision about whether or not this spills into a broader regional war doesn't rest with Israel or the United States or the United Kingdom, those that are responding to the aggression. But it's the aggressors. How far does Hezbollah want to push this? For a long time, Hezbollah was only hitting military targets in the north and now they're selectively hitting some civilian targets. Killed a mother and her son in their home in northern Israel just a few days ago. Generally, they're still hitting military targets but it's escalating a little bit in response to the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri, which was a big deal because they killed him in Hezbollah stronghold. They hit some pretty significant Israeli military targets, a radar installation on the Hermon mountains and Northern Command Headquarters near Safed. Those appear to be one offs. Do the Shia militias do something more? Do Iranian assets in Syria try and infiltrate more drones or rockets? Do the Houthis get lucky and hit something particularly big and bark something more. There's lots of ways for this to unintentionally, to escalate. But I do think that all parties right now don't want a regional war. That said, Hezbollah, Iran, the Houthis, the Shia militias in Iraq, certainly Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, some of the groups that we're seeing very active in the West Bank right now are quite happy to see this level of pressure on Israel and starting the first of what I think they want to be a trend, of these types of coordinated assaults. Manya Brachear Pashman: So why don't they want a wider war? What is their goal? Matthew Levitt: They all have as part of their goal, their raison d'etre, destroying Israel, kicking the United States out of the region, undermining Western powers in the region, etc. But they all also understand that you go too far, and you open up this to a much broader conflict. The United States has barely gotten involved. They've done a few very, very small things in Yemen. They have been very supportive to Israel's effort to defend itself. While the US has sent significant forces to the region, they have not done anything, for example, regarding Hezbollah in Lebanon. They've not done anything in terms of the Hashed al-Shaabi in Iraq attacking Israel, though they have responded very, very, very few times, I might add, to the significant number of times Iraqi Shia militants have struck at US military targets in Iraq and Syria. They understand that this could get much bigger. And ultimately, Iran understands that if things escalate too much, that the fight is going to come to Iran. And it won't stop. They also really don't want Hezbollah in particular, to go too far in the moment. Because all those rockets that the Iranians have provided to Hezbollah in violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, since the 2006 war, they're not there primarily for this. They're there to deter Israel and anybody else from attacking Iran's nuclear program, which by the way, the Iranians have been pushing the envelope on throughout this period of conflict since October 7. And if anybody should attack Iran or its nuclear program, this is seen as Iran's best second strike capability. It's why Hezbollah has basically not fired almost anything other than the Kornet anti tank guided missiles, fired a couple of other short range things. But none of the precision guided missiles under the longer range missiles, that's all, but that powder is dry. That's all for now. And I think Iran doesn't want those spent right now, and also doesn't want these to escalate to the point where the Israelis go ahead and try and take them out under the cover, or in the context of this current conflict. So there's a strategic set of goals and they believe in, you know, the concept of muqawima, of resistance. There's this idea of muqawima patience, right? This, from their perspective is what God wants, it will eventually happen. This past three months, this is a huge step on the road to resistance victory. This is a huge success in terms of galvanizing multiple forces to unite the fronts. Doesn't all have to happen right now. But they believe that this is very much a sign that they're on the right path, and it's a step in what they would consider to be the right direction. Manya Brachear Pashman: Well, Matt, thank you so much. I appreciate you explaining who these terror groups actually are and helping our listeners better understand the headlines. Matthew Levitt: It's always a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. And if you want more, there's plenty more at WashingtonInstitute.org. Thank you for the work you're doing and for having me on the show.

The International Court of Justice is currently hearing South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. Professor Geoffrey Corn from Texas Tech University joins us to explain how we got here, the case's significance, and why the claims of genocide are baseless. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. Episode Lineup: (0:40) Geoffrey Corn Show Notes: Explainer: What You Need to Know about South Africa's Baseless Genocide Accusation Against Israel Go Deeper: 5 Reasons Why the Events in Gaza Are Not "Genocide" Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: Countering the Denial and Distortion of the 10/7 Hamas Attack 4-Year-Old Hostage Abigail Idan is Free–Her Family is On a Mission to #BringThemAllHome What Happens Next: AJC's Avital Leibovich on the Hostage Deal and Challenges Ahead What Would You Do If Your Son Was Kidnapped by Hamas? Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Geoffrey Corn: Manya Brachear Pashman: The International Court of Justice is holding its first hearings in a case filed by South Africa, accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. While it could take years for the panel of judges to rule on the genocide accusation, South Africa has asked the judges to issue a restraining order of sorts in the coming weeks that could among other things, call on Israel to halt its effort to root out Hamas and bring home the remaining hostages, at least until a verdict is reached. Here to explain what's at stake and the questions that the court will need to weigh is Professor Geoffrey Corn, Director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University. Professor Corn. Welcome to People of the Pod. Geoffrey Corn: Thank you for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman: So you are an expert in international humanitarian law and the law of war, which to some those terms might seem contradictory, or are the? Are they actually one in the same? Geoffrey Corn: No, they refer to the identical branch of international law, historically, we call this branch of law, the laws and customs of war. Before the end of World War II, it was referred to as the law of war. And then, of course, with the advent of the United Nations Charter, technically war was prohibited. And states engaged in armed conflicts. And so the name evolved for many years to be referred to as the law of armed conflict, the Loack, that's still what it's called. And in official US circles, we have the Department of Defense law of war manual, and the army law of armed conflict manual, most of the world today refers to it as international humanitarian law. And that, as you know, it can be misleading because it suggests that it's really focused on human rights. In fact, IHL, or international humanitarian law is a synonym for the law of armed conflict. It's the law that regulates the conduct of hostilities, during conflicts between states or between states and non-state groups, and protects victims of war. Manya Brachear Pashman: So let's cover another basic distinction or definition that will help listeners decipher all of this, the charges that I spoke of in the introduction, they had been brought in the International Court of Justice. And now that's the 15 judge panel of the United Nations. Not the International Criminal Court, which is also in The Hague, but charges individuals with war crimes. So can you explain for our audience the purpose of the International Court of Justice? Geoffrey Corn: Sure, the International Court of Justice is part of the mosaic of the Charter of the United Nations, a treaty that was created in the aftermath of World War II, to manifest the international community's determination that wars not be the mechanism by which states resolve their disputes. So there are a variety of mechanisms built into the Charter of the United Nations, the one people are most familiar with is the Security Council, which is vested by the treaty with enforcement power. So the Security Council has the authority to authorize measures for the restoration of international peace and security. So for example, in 1991, when the coalition conducted military action against Iraq to force it out of Kuwait, that was done under the authority of the Charter of the United Nations and the Security Council resolution to restore international peace and security. One of the four components of the United Nations is the International Court of Justice. It is a successor to a prior international court that sat in the Hague, and its singular jurisdiction is over disputes between states, or to give advisory opinions on international law as requested by the Security Council or the General Assembly. But the primary function of the International Court of Justice is to serve almost like an arbitration mechanism when states have disputes so that they can resolve them in accordance with international law without resorting to force to resolve those disputes. And so it has no jurisdiction over individuals. It is, as you know, very different from the International Criminal Court, which is a treaty based criminal tribunal, and its jurisdiction is dependent on whether or not the individual is a national of one of the treaty parties, or whether the alleged crimes occurred in the territory of one of the treaty parties is Israel is not a party to that treaty, nor is the United States. But Palestine is. They've accepted Palestine as a member of the court, which means the prosecutor for the international criminal court has jurisdiction to investigate and pursue charges for any alleged war crimes that he believes have occurred in Palestinian territory, which includes Gaza. So two very different courts, very different consequences for their assertion of jurisdiction. Manya Brachear Pashman: So now, both Israel and South Africa are signatories of the 1948 Genocide Convention. That is precisely why these charges have been brought to the ICJ. It's because they are both signatories of that treaty. Geoffrey Corn: Yeah, so I wouldn't say charges, I would say accusation. Right, because when we say charge, we tend to think of a criminal accusation. Let's remember that an accusation is just that. It's not proof, it doesn't prove anything. If you read the filing by South Africa, it really is an exercise in selective fact assertion and ignoring inconvenient facts, there's a lot more to this story that we're going to see when we see the Israeli filing in response. So the Genocide Convention says, if there's a dispute between signatories or contracting parties to the treaty, they agree to allow the International Court of Justice to resolve that dispute. So one of the aspects of South Africa's filing is that they alleged that they've made a number of diplomatic forays to Israel demanding that they explain how what they're doing is legal and asserting that it's genocide. And Israel has not responded to those diplomatic forays, and therefore, that's created a dispute within the meaning of the treaty. And one of the things the court is going to have to resolve is whether there is in fact, a dispute between two members of the treaty as a jurisdictional predicate to even reaching the question of whether they should impose preliminary measures. Manya Brachear Pashman: And does that precede the ruling on provisional measures? Geoffrey Corn: It will be it will be part of the ruling. In any in any court of law, there's always a question of jurisdiction. Now, in most cases, it's not complicated. If you commit a crime where you live, the state has jurisdiction over that crime, but in the international realm, it's often a matter of debate as to whether or not the tribunal that has been requested to adjudicate an issue is actually vested under the law with the power, that's what jurisdiction means the power to resolve that issue. So the first issue that the court's going to have to resolve is whether it in fact, has jurisdiction pursuant to the terms of the Genocide Convention. And then if it says it does, then it will go to the question of whether there is a compelling case for preliminary measures. Manya Brachear Pashman: So we know South Africa has a history of anti-Israel positions, it has historically sided with the PLO, Palestinian Liberation Organization and it now appears to be supporting the Hamas terrorists that govern Gaza. There also might be some political posturing going on here ahead of a national election. But how did we get here? A genocide claim against the Jewish state. Geoffrey Corn: I think the answer to that is twofold. I mean, the first is that there is a widespread public perception that the level of carnage being inflicted as a result of Israeli Defense Force operations in Gaza is intolerable. And it's created a perception among many that the Israelis are actually not just trying to defeat Hamas' military capability–they are trying to destroy in part the Palestinian population of Gaza, that that's their intent. Now, I personally believe that that is a highly erroneous inference to draw from the facts on the ground. But this is part of Hamas' information campaign. This should be unsurprising from the inception of this conflict, they know that they cannot defeat Israel in battle. And this is one of the ironies of Israel's military struggle against Hamas. And I would say even if it occurs, Hezbollah. These highly capable organized military groups are under no delusion that they have the capability to confront the Israeli Defense Force and defeat it on the battlefield. For them, combat is not about defeating your enemy. For them combat serves their information campaign. They use combat to create conditions to advance their strategic information campaign of delegitimizing Israel, but more importantly, in creating pressure both within Israel and externally to force Israel to terminate its operations before it achieves its combat objectives, which are much more traditional, which is to defeat your enemy on the battlefield. So if you think about it, for Israel, what does operational success look like? It looks like Hamas' military capability has been completely destroyed. The word destroy is a military doctrinal term, and it means that you are combat and effective without substantial reconstitution. What is Hamas' is operational objective? It's to be there when the proverbial and literal dust settles. And that means they've got to do something that compels Israel to stop before it achieves its military objective of destroying Hamas. They can't do that by force. They can only do that by getting the international community to pressure Israel to terminate its operations before they've achieved these objectives. And the best ammunition Hamas has to do that is creating the reality and the perception of the indifference to the human suffering that's occurring in Gaza. So this is all connected to a strategic objective of Hamas. And that's why the most prominent statistic that we hear day in and day out is what? The civilian death toll in Gaza, which ironically, never apparently includes an enemy combatant. I guess the IDF is fighting shadows, because apparently they're not killing any enemy, because every casualty is asserted to be a civilian. And I don't want to, in any way, minimize the tragedy of human loss and war. But you cannot find an enemy that's determined to create conditions where you have to inflict civilian casualties without doing so. And that's the strategy from inception that has snowballed into a public perception that Israel's objective is much more nefarious than simply defeating Hamas. That's one factor. The other factor to be to be candid, is the terribly bombastic statements of certain Israeli government officials that fuel this perception that you have an ulterior motive here that's separate from just achieving a legitimate military goal, and the failure of the Netanyahu administration to be more aggressive in sanctioning or isolating the officials in the government who make those foolish statements. Manya Brachear Pashman: To be fair, I should note that Prime Minister Netanyahu did post a statement to social media after this interview was recorded in which he insisted that Israel has no intention of displacing the Palestinian population from Gaza and permanently occupying the Strip, despite those calls from some Israeli government officials. Israel's legal team is quite likely going to emphasize the extensive precautionary measures taken by the IDF to minimize civilian casualities and they will also quite likely emphasize the ongoing humanitarian relief being facilitated by Israel since mid-October – tens of thousands of tons of medical supplies, food, water, shelter equipment. Still, that doesn't change the level of carnage you mentioned, which is incredibly disturbing for all of us. You predicted early on that the notion of proportionality would become an issue. You predicted that back in October, regarding Israel's response, and I'm curious if you could kind of explain the notion of proportionality, the misconceptions about proportionality when it comes to warfare. Geoffrey Corn: So it's a critically important question, because if you read the 84-page submission by South Africa, they make what they allege to be the indiscriminate nature of Israeli military action, a centerpiece of their proof of genocide. o when we talk about proportionality in war, there are two different aspects of proportionality we have to understand. The first relates to the right of the state to defend itself. And that really functions no differently than if you were walking down the street and somebody attacked you under the law of self defense. You are allowed to take self help measures to protect yourself, but those measures have to be proportional to the threat. It is a mistake to assume that that is only limited to tit for tat response. They fire a missile, you're allowed to fire a missile. If someone swung a punch at you on the street. The law doesn't say you're only allowed to swing one punch back and then wait for them to punch you again. You're allowed to take reasonable measures. So if we think about Israel's action of self defense against Hamas, what do we know? We know Hamas represents an ongoing threat of significant military and terrorist violence against Israel. And the only way that Israel would be able to be confident that it's restored its security, the security of its population, the security of its territory, would be to take military action to completely destroy Hamas' military capability. So the way that that self defense objective is translated into military terms, in the military as a whole, you need to do what is necessary to be able to come back to the political leadership and say, the people in southern Israel are safe again. And so the idea that Israel should just terminate operations and build a wall is unrealistic, because they tried that already. They've had more limited military action against Hamas in the past, and Hamas has demonstrated over and over again, an ability to bypass their defensive measures and inflict death and injury on Israelis. Once you're fighting, there's another component of proportionality, which is the one that we're all focused on now. And that has to do with what we call the incidental or collateral consequences of attacking a legitimate target. So if I'm going to attack a building, because there's an enemy fighter in the building, and I know that in doing so, I cannot avoid killing civilians, I have to make a proportionality assessment under the law of armed conflict or international humanitarian law. For each individual attack, the commander has to make a judgment. First, the commander has to assess the military value of attacking the target, then the commander has to assess the unavoidable civilian risks that will be created by conducting that attack. If the commander concludes that the risk, the harm to civilians would be excessive, compared to the concrete and direct military advantage, then the attack would be considered disproportionate and indiscriminate within the meaning of international law. So if I were to put a question to your audience: you have an enemy commander, you identify him in a bunker, that's the enemy has put under a congregation of civilians deliberately, maybe the bunker is under a school. And he's a high-level enemy commander. And you've done everything you can to get civilians to evacuate. But you know that the only way you can kill that commander is to conduct an attack that will result in 20 civilian casualties. If we took a poll right now, is 20 civilian casualties excessive in relation to the value of attacking that target–we'd probably have as many answers as we had participants. So the reality is that when we look at an aggregate number, even if we take Hamas as numbers at face value–23,000 civilians have been killed. And we say that proves all of the attacks were indiscriminate. It's a complete distortion of the process of analysis. Because you don't do an aggregate number, you look at the individual attack, you have to decide what was the value of the attack? What was the risk that was anticipated? What measures did the attacking side do to mitigate risks? What measures did the defending side do to exacerbate risk? And you put all that into the equation. So there's been a complete distortion of the way this is actually supposed to function. And what we've created and what South Africa has done in its filing is it's created, almost a strict liability standard. If you kill X amount of civilians, your attack is indiscriminate and it violates the proportionality rule. I always ask a question in response, if you tell me that killing 100 civilians as a consequence of killing a high level enemy commander is too much. How many are okay? Can you give me a number? Is 50 okay, 20,10. There's no book. There's no manual, there's no equation. And that's why my view from inception has been the much better mechanism for mitigating civilian risks are the steps you take before the attack to reduce that risk. And when we look at that, we see no moral equivalency because you have the Israelis trying to figure out ways to reduce civilian risk, and we have Hamas deliberately engaging in conduct that exacerbates civilian risks. Manya Brachear Pashman: There's been a longstanding concern that in the United Nations, Israel faces a double standard. Other nations don't face this kind of scrutiny when they are involved in armed conflicts, though this court has taken up separate Genocide Convention cases filed by Ukraine against Russia and another filed by Gambia against Myanmar. So is this once again a double standard or is this different? Geoffrey Corn: Here's one of the ironies, because the effects of combat had been so visible in Gaza. The assumption is we should be dwelling on whether or not Israel is conducting war illegally. Hamas has fired over 10,000 rockets at Israel, they don't even pretend to be trying to attack military targets. They're just firing rockets at the civilian population, which is the blatant first level of violation. Now, fortunately, Israel has prevented most of those attacks from achieving their intended objective. But that doesn't mean they weren't illegal, because the law doesn't focus on whether you achieve your illegal result. It focuses on what you're trying to do. So when people like Bernie Sanders writes an op-ed in the New York Times and says, Okay, I can see that what Hamas did on October 7 was a war crime. Well, first off, that's, you know, I mean, that's self evident. But what's ironic is he doesn't acknowledge that what they've been doing ever since October 7 is war crimes. Every time they fire another rocket it Israel. They are the ones that are blatantly an indisputably violating the law of armed conflict. And yet it's the Israeli Defense Force that is the subject of international scrutiny persistently And it's no surprise because this is the nature of modern warfare. It's a bigotry of disparate expectations. And the Israelis know it, and they're not released from their obligation because they're fighting an illicit enemy. But it is it is corrosive to fail to acknowledge that the pernicious tactics of that enemy are largely responsible for the level of civilian suffering destruction, that is becomes unavoidable when you're fighting them. Manya Brachear Pashman: There are still more than 50 hostages still being held by Hamas, their well-being unknown. Does that change the equation for these court proceedings or the court's decision on provisional measures? Or is that a variable for the International Criminal Court to take up? Geoffrey Corn: There's no doubt that Hamas' has objectives and its stated purpose is to commit genocide of the Jewish people in Israel. There's not going to be but what about them argument. I don't see that happening. I think it becomes much more significant for the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, because hostage taking inhumane deprivation of liberty or war crimes within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. We know Hamas is not going to prosecute its own individuals. And so the credibility of that court is going to, I think, demand that they investigate and prosecute the summary execution of civilians on October 7, the sexual violence against victims, the hostage taking, the deprivation of access to the International Committee of the Red Cross. All of these are blatant violations of the law of war, and are within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. So if I were the ICC prosecutor, and I would look at this as objectively as I could, I would look at the conduct of the Israeli Defense Forces and whether or not they've taken corrective measures against what I believe were violations of the law. No military is perfect. There have been examples of Israeli soldiers engaging in ill discipline and unjustified conduct in Gaza. And the Israeli Defense Forces have an obligation to investigate and discipline their own. I would look at how effectively that had been done. I would look at Hamas' actions. And if I believed there was credible evidence of a violation of the charter that was being ignored by the institutional leadership, I would indict. And if I never got them in front of the court, that's not my problem. My objective is to demonstrate that there have been violations that are worthy of being adjudicated. Manya Brachear Pashman: Thank you so much, Professor Corn. I really appreciate you breaking this down for us. Geoffrey Corn: Thank you for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman: If you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with Dr. Robert Williams, Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation. He joined us to discuss the history and tendency to deny atrocities committed against Jews and the foundation's added mission of collecting the testimonies of October 7 survivors.