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so you can listen to any Being Frank virtually anytime that you want, on
any format that you want. It's the intelligent thing to do. We're taping
this program on the thirteenth of April. We've just passed a very holy week
where we celebrated, or many of us sell rated to pass Over Easter and
Ramadan. You know, the origins of Judaism draped back more than thirty five
hundred years, primarily near or in modern Israel. Today, Jews can be
found in virtually every corner of the globe. However, despite their long and
storied history, Jews still number only about fifteen million worldwide. That's about point
zero two percent of the human population. Arguably, their contributions and practically every
field of human endeavor far outweigh their numbers. From science to entertainment to business,
Jews can nearly always be found near at the top of these and many
other professions. Still, for thousands of years, despite their sterling achievements,
Jews have been persecuted like few other cultures. The Egyptians, the Romans,
the Byzantines, and the Nazis, among others, have all done their worst
to eradicate them from the face of the earth. Yet Jews have should not
only survive against those odds, but thrive under the ugly specter of anti Semitism.
Instead of getting better, it only seems to be getting worse. The
most recent study by the Anti Defamation League showed that anti Semitic incidents have risen
by over thirty six percent and continue to rise. Why why still? Why
now? Joining me now to share his perspective is Paul Adler. Like most
of my guests, his accomplishments are far too robust for me to repeat all
of them here. Let me just say he's a successful businessman, lawyer,
philanthropist, husband, father, grandfather, leading citizens of his Jewish community center
and Nayak, the town in which he and his family reside and he's also
a member of the board of the Holocaust Museum, Holocaust Museum and Center for
Tolerance and Education. Oh, thank you so much for taking the time to
be with us here on being Frank. Well, Frank, thank you for
having me. And it is very topical the discussion on anti semitism here in
Rockland County and around around the country and throughout the world. So and just
coming off of the Holy Week, as you just mentioned, really amplifies the
need for us to have a little bit more education and a lot more tolerance
as it relates to each of our differences and the common ties that bring us
together. Paul, I'm very happy that you're here and if it makes sense
to people, but very chagrined if you will that that I have to we
have to be having this conversation again, as they mentioned in the opening,
and it's a question I want to say for later about the increase in numbers
and whether you know they can be interpreted a number of ways. Are they
new numbers or are we just more aware of them? But let's save that
for a little bit further down. I want a little bit of background before
we get to that. And I'll explain in a little bit more detail what
I mean about that. Tell us a little bit more about you and the
role you play and the role of faith plays in your life. Obviously,
as I said, you're a leading member of the Jewish Community Center as well
as a member of the board of the Holocaust Museum, So faith obviously plays
a strong role in your life. Can you define it for us? Yeah,
I think that. You know, it's it's my north star, and
our family gathers around and celebrates our faith, and it's very much a part
of our family life. It guides me in my business and my charitable and
philanthropic endeavors. As a lawyer, you know, we are commanded in Deuteronomy
to pursue justice. Justice, justice shall you pursue, and not an easy
task. Justice is not always the truth. Sometimes it is. It is
it is making a decision that is just and fair. And we live in
a world of many exceptions and special circumstances. So justice is a little bit
like the cheese and Monty Python. It moves a bit here and there.
But the precepts that my faith and the Christian faith and the Muslim faith teach
really all boiled down to you know, doing onto others as you would have
been doing to you, um, and everything else, as they say in
the law, is dicta. You know you you you have to start there.
You have to have that respect, and respect comes when you're educated,
and when you're educated you can be tolerant. And I don't even like the
word tolerant all that much anymore. I think it was of a certain vintage.
But the idea is that you're not upset by somebody else's differences. You
know, you should celebrate the differences that I should celebrate your differences from mine,
and then find that common element that brings us together. I think we're
too focused on the differences lately. We want to develop that. But you
know, something that comes to mind, and even as common as a fiddler
on the roof with the song, tradition, tradition seems to be a very
important element of in judaism Um, explain that a little bit, and how
important the tradition you mentioned, the Friday night Shabbat, etc. This is
a tradition and you and it seems important to you that you observe certain traditions.
And again it's it's to be a very strong tenant in Jewish life.
Why because the tradition guides the future, the tradition ties us to the ancestral
past. It brings family together in a way that is soothing and comforting knowing
that these tenants, these traditions that you follow, are the same traditions,
maybe modernized in some way as as as Abraham started out with. And there's
a great comfort to us. On Friday nights, we have Shabbat dinner.
And I've been involved in political endeavors and business endeavors, and certainly in the
thirty six years that I'm married with the family, there has been not one
political social event that I've attended in thirty six years in married life, because
my first responsibility is to have family and friends at a Shabbat meal at our
home or maybe at the home of somebody else. But that was something that
you know, people have said to us, well, you'll you'll see that
won't work out when your kids get to a certain age and they want to
go out and everything else. We said to our kids, this is this
is who we are. If you want to have your friends over, that's
fine. But we never really had to get to that point of having that
conflict with our children about whether or not they could go out on a Friday
night. And it wasn't a restriction the sabbath. The Friday night was really
a rest fit from the rest of the week. It was the moment where
nothing else mattered. The cell phone goes off, we're sitting around the dinner
table, and it's just what we do. And it's been enriched by having
friends and family, and particularly having people over that are not of the Jewish
faith, who who who sort of come together and say, you know,
we sort of do this. You know, we we do our you know,
our our get together on Sunday and its Italian family. We have our
pasta and our family get together on a Sunday afternoon and do what that is.
There's something very comforting about it. And in the world where everything is
at that wickedly fast pace, you know, thirty seconds is an eternity that
starting Friday night, that's just a rest It It just it just recharges the
batteries and brings you back to what's important, and it just it makes me
and my family feel whole in a very spiritual way. Well, you know,
it gives you a sense of a value of I'm sure other things compassionately.
These are all things that are important and shared certainly, and as you
mentioned in the beginning, all the great faiths, if you will share that
as a tenant. But what's been amazing to me, and I want to
wind this to our original topic, which is anti Semitism, that despite everything
that is so admirable about the culture from the as I said, it's disproportionate
point zero two percent of the population. And you could reel off from Einstein
off the top of your head, one of the maybe the greatest genius of
all time, that a Jew, etcetera, etcetera, all these fantastic values.
They contribute so much to society, with good values that I believe we
all share. Uh, Yet there's this still and it's it's it's even got
its own special word, anti Semitism. Why, Paul, where where does
that that? Where does that come from? I don't, I don't.
I don't get it, because, as I said, the qualities that I
see are such admirable ones given within human nature forgiving, of course, not
everybody it's the same or a menure whatever. So I don't want to trivialize
it. But overall, as a sense of value, extraordinary ones that we
all should share. If we don't yet, there's this ugly specter of anti
Semitism that continually rears its ugly head. You are thoughts, onto, why
how is this happening? Why is it happening? Well, I think as
faiths, different faiths evolved um um in in order to you know, it's
like a marketing campaign. In order for your faith to to move forward or
to become dominant, you have you have to take on the brand leader.
You have to take on UM the UH, the O g H, the
first monotheistic religion and UH and and so UM. And you you dabble that
in with a little bit of propaganda or misstating of history that Jews are responsible
for the killing of Christ as the savior. Um those things and and and
a and a liturgy that was up until Vatican too was regularly taught UH as
part of the dogma Um. It's very hard to ask people. It's very
hard to have people like that group of jew was when the the basic tenant
that you know about Jews is that they're the ones who killed your savior.
And you know that that's why you know, in this very present day of
misinformation and propaganda and AI and everything that's going on. When when people saw
a source of of of education as the Internet, you know, how do
you know it's true while I read it on Facebook? It must be true.
When you see those kinds of things happening. Um, it exacerbates the
anti Semitism which is which is settled into many different cultures. And then you
might get into, for example, the the Islamic Jewish rift, which really
had to do with turf right become geopolitical. It's amazing, right, it's
veried wrapped in religion Northern Ireland. It goes on, right, you know,
some kind of turf war going on. We're in the same place and
and well it was holy when you were there, but now it's more holy
where we are. And if you've gone to Jerusalem. If you've been to
Jerusalem, there is a very special feeling about best place in Like I've traveled
around the globe, there's no other place in the world that you feel this
great spirituality like you do in Jerusalem. And then you you take it down
even just go to Temple Mount and you've got the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
and the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall. And you know,
if you fell over one way or the other, you could hit two of
the other sites. I mean in the whole world. You're in a you're
in a it's like being in Niac and being on the corner of Broadway in
Maine, and that's where everything everything happened. And so there are a lot
of things that that happen. And then and then of course you know over
the years between from the Romans to the to the Germans. Um you know,
with Nazism, uh you you you can take a trope that not only
are these people responsible for, uh you know, the killing of Christ,
these these same people are the reason you're having problems today. It's a scapegoating
and it's worked real well. And and here we are eighty years later after
the end of World War Two and it's it's working well again. Well,
is it's Is it mostly? I wouldn't say simply that's ridiculate? Is it
mostly? Because Jews are such a small segment of the population, yet,
as we mentioned, because of their achievements and their levels are are disproportionately noticed
for lack of a better word, is that a viable there's point zero two
percent. I mean, that's a pretty small minority, it is, and
and I and I think it's because we all have those common roots. Right,
Even if you are attenuated from your faith, at some point in your
life, there was something that you you were, you're baptized, your barn
mitzad you you you you had, you had a special ceremony in in Islam,
you did. There's always something that you you know, we we we
we walk away from faith at a certain age and then we come back to
it at a later date. Um. But those hard lessons, um,
they're hard to shake when you when you grow up with them, you may
become erudite, and you may even become more educated. But at some point
in time that happens. Even with the black community in this country, it's
a huge minority of uh, you know, as opposed to the majority.
You know, And and when you see what you see that, how is
it that this you know, uh, huge class, this minority class which
has been disregarded and disrespected, is still because of so many of our problems.
You know, if they if they only and then dot dot dot,
if if this was different, dot dot dot, then it's just typical that
whenever there are problems, economic problems in particular, people need to blame somebody
else, or they don't like their lot in life, they blame someone else.
Well, how you know, anti Semitism can be seen as a big
thing. White Hood's burning crosses not only for black people, but for Jews
and sometimes in some cases even for Catholics, anybody who's different. But how
would you deal with with someone? And you mentioned people have, for example,
Holocaust deniers, despite the mountain of evidence, including my father's own stories.
Who was with the Third Army and liberated bouch involved and told me early
on as a young man, Frank, never forget that cruelty that man can
visit on another man. I saw it, never forget it. So it
was always part of my early education. And I think you mentioned how important
that is. But yet there are still people despite all of that. I
could look them right in the eyes and excuse me. I've heard the stories
directly from someone who was there, and they'll still deny it. How do
you deal with that? Well, jeez, I wish I knew. If
I knew, I'd run for president. I'll tell you this. We see
it today. You know, you know, I don't want to get hyper
political. But you know when you have somebody who said I could go out
in the middle of Fifth Avenue and commit a murder and half the country wouldn't
believe I did it, and I could do it in broad daylight. The
fact is that when when the tropes are used, you know, Jewish power,
dual loyalty, the notion that you're only loyal to Israel and you're not
loyal to our country. Same thing they tried with Catholics in the in the
early in the midst of the mid part of the twentieth century, where you
know, John Kennedy was not loyal to the country, he was going to
be loyal to the pope. And those kinds of things, Those those notions
and tropes work particularly when people feel aggrieved and there's always a leader that makes
you feel agreed that it's normally a leader that you know, we need an
Aryan race. And of course Hitler was was the least Aryan of them.
Um you know, you know, the blonde, blue haired you know told
you know, he was none of those things specimen and then and then of
course you know it's the wealthy billionaire. It tells the who tells people who
are in the middle and lower middle and low incomes that you know, the
reason for their problems is somebody else and it's you know, not him,
and somehow they identify with him. They like his gold toilets, or they
like whatever it is. And the fact is that, um, it's it's
always been about the propaganda that people are are able to perpetrate on other people.
And I and I tell you it comes down to the fact. At
the Holocaust Museum we educate. Last year we educated forty thousand kids going out
to the schools or then coming to the Holocaust Museum, which is located on
the campus of Rock and Community College in the lower level of the library.
And it's amazing to watch these kids get the aha moment. What are you
talking about? I mean, what is Holocaust education? It's up one paragraph
in the history book. You know, it says from nineteen thirty eight till
nineteen forty five, you know, a death spot, you know, perpetrated
mass murder on the world, and you know it was hateful and the d
goes on and it doesn't go into how it happened, why it happened,
could it happen again? And it could happen again and the sad part of
it is, Frank, it could happen again in this country. Well,
you know, in our pre interview and I mentioned it the statistic from the
Anti Defamation League, the most recent report of increase of thirty six percent,
and you had suggested if I interpreted it correctly, and of course you can
correct me if necessary, but you seem to suggest that the number appears to
be rising. But in a sense it's always been there. There seems to
be more of a sense of awareness or that it's okay to express it.
In other words, it's not necessarily a new sentiment, but it's found a
new expression politically, and let's not dance around it. With the most recent
past administration, that of Donald J. Trump, seemed to give a voice,
or at least more voice to those that had been silent for a long
time. But kind of murmuring under the surface, is that a correct assessment?
You tend to agree it is. It's very correct. Anti Semitism not
on the rise. It was always there this political landscape. And by the
way far left far right can now unmask. You know, on the far
left, the Zionism is racism. It's not about Jews. I said the
word Zionism. I didn't say jew, but the Zionist state is the Jewish
state of Israel. The last president ushered in a in my opinion, a
return to political incorrectness without consequence. And so you can say what you want,
scapeboting, financial insecurity, instability. They're lethal cocktails for Jews around the
world. And and so what's happened now is the lids off, the lid
blew off. And it's it's no coincidence that these mass shootings m the kinds
of hate speech that you see on the internet and then denying what it meant
or what you what you were saying. And so when you have that pausible
deniable, that plausible deniability by just saying I said that, but I didn't
mean that. You know, you can't say that people who are marching around
Charleston saying the Jews will not replace us, and and and they're fighting people
who are protesting them. You say, well, they're good people on both
sides. How I mean this moral equivalency that that you lay down for it
is says, well, we sort of agree with that, we sort of
agree that that's really going on. And and I'm going to say that,
and they're good people on both sides, which is really just a wink to
the to the to those people who who had to keep it, who had
to keep their hoods off, but they could put their hoods back on and
do it. And you know, and and you saw they were marching in
a khaki white shirt uniform kind of thing that all these different um homages to
to totalitarian hate around the globe, you know, whether it's a brown shirt
or this kind of uniform or the um um the kinds of you know,
um vigilanteism that takes place the lids often you can say what you want.
The Holocaust Museum we're dealing with. You know, we took it upon ourselves
to deal with the issue in Pearl River, for example, when a an
opposing team came to a pro River high school and a black man on the
team is doing a you know, a foul shot, and you know they're
they're hooting and hollering, like making ape calls to to to distract the black
player, and and and it's written off as well, kids will be kids.
No kids were taught to hate. And and somebody said somewhere we're not
going to get in big trouble for doing this, and that's what happened.
And and I'd rather live in a world where we where we had more control
over where people controlled their emotions in that way, rather than be a motive
and just say what's say what's on their mind, because they somehow have a
right to say that, you know, because that's that's what they're getting from
leadership these days, that you can say these things. It's really it's it's
disconcerting, you know, it's it. We have on Monday, on the
seventeenth, I run a program at the courthouse. We do the Holocaust Remembrance
Day at the courthouse. Says to what do you do at the courthouse?
Well, the last line of defense against the Nazi rule? You know,
Hitler burned the rocks, the Reichstag down, suspended the Congress there right,
the legislature that they had. So what was the last line of defense before
the courts? The courts in the judiciary and the bar. And what Hitler
did in World War two remarkably enough, but not illegal because the Nuremberg Laws
codified that hatred, codified race laws, codified purity laws, codified everything that
they did, including the imprisonment and use of these people, the undimensioned the
people less than humans. And why did that happen? Because the courts,
the judiciary succumbed to his power and no longer swore an oath to the Constitution,
but swore an oath to a man. And so we do this Holocaust
remembrance event at the courthouse to remind the judiciary that they are the last line
and the people in the legal profession are the last line of defense for the
Constitution. No, Paul, nothing happens in a vacuum. And with that
mind, I think we need to talk a little bit about the situation in
Israel. I know you've been a big supporter, You've received some recognition from
from the state of Israel. But there seems to be a bit of a
paradox there that somehow mirrors a little bit of what's going on here. Kind
of a power hungry leader in Netanyah, who, at least in my opinion,
I should be qualifying what I'm saying in my opinion, and and a
bit of a paradox there where a state which prides itself on freedom and openness
still has an issue with the Palestinians that continues and there seems to be a
move towards much more of a religious right than a secular government, and something
that we're dealing with very much here in Rockland County and throughout the Northeast as
well. But one step at a time, some of your thoughts on Israel,
what do you feel is going on, are their solutions, what can
be done there, and what does what effect does it have on us here?
I'm very, very sad about the state of affairs in Israel. The
current Prime Minister, whom whom I know and who I worked with when I
was chairman of Israel Bonds and he was Finance Minister thirty some nine years ago,
was always a you know, a sort of a you know, an
old school conservative, you know what I would call some of the old school
Republicans. And today, in an effort to to beat his um legal problems
in the in the state of Israel, he is attempting to dismantle the independent
judiciary in that state, the Democratic State of Israel, which is a Jewish
state. It has a parallel track. It is the Jewish state by the
UN mandate, and it was set aside um after World War Two so that
there would be a safe haven for Jews around the world who had nowhere to
go. Right the Saint Louis other other other people who tried to flee Germany
couldn't get in any other country in the world, sent back to the concentration
camps, exterminated. So you have a free state of Israel. And Netanyahu
is, in my opinion, attempting to dismantle the very thing that makes it
the only democracy in the Middle East. It is he is playing with the
most important, uh, foundational block of the modern state of Israel. Um
and and and in doing so, he's wrapped it in that he's doing this
to provide for the security of the State of Israel, which is what they
all do. So give me your liberties and I'll give you security, you
know. And I think it was Franklin who said those that give up liberty
for security get neither. And and and so this this this guy here,
he got together with a really unholy alliance um and I chose those words carefully
of a fractional right wing fringe groups that have you know, in the parliamentary
system. You know, this group has six, that group has five,
this group has seven ministers. You know, uh, people elected to the
to the Knesset, and and put together and said to these folks, I'll
give in to your desires to eradicate the Palestinian population here in Israel. You
just give me what I want, which is the ability to control the independent
judiciary. And their answer is, well, we we we really rely on
our religious courts in our internal differences. So if you want to take control
of you know, and some of these, some of these groups here couldn't
fathom that a woman could be the Chief Justice of the State of Israel Supreme
Court, or that you could have and by the way, there is an
Arab member of the Supreme Court. Um They're like, well, you can
have that, because it doesn't mean anything to us. And he's turning around
and dismantling one of the great achievements in human kind, the creation of State
of Israel nineteen forty eight into one of the most technologically advanced countries in the
world, where ideas and medicine and technology abound. And he's really he is
Israel's Trump in my opinion, and that's my opinion. I am an unabashed
democrat, but I will tell you I have been a very strong supporter of
the State of Israel. As I said, been on the Israel Bond Board
for many years, founder at the JCC Holocaust Museum, I'm on the Justice
brandeis Law Society, the Jewish Bar Association Executive Committee. And I will tell
you that his blatant disregard for the rule of law, all to help one
man is probably the most dangerous cancer on the State of Israel we've seen in
a long time. I'm I'm shocked by what's happened. I think a lot
of people make the mistake sometimes and people have been burnt by it criticism of
the State of Israel without necessarily criticizing the people of Israel. And I think
there's a there's a fine line there that sometimes in criticizing some of the policies
of Israel, often people are labeled as anti Semitic for that. And I
don't think the two things are necessarily connected. I agree with be a big
supporter of Israel in general, and yet just like this country, it ain't
perfect. Well, you know, you know, you know, with Winston
Churchill set of America, it's the worst country in the world beside from all
the rest and and and I feel the same way about Israel in many,
many ways. But you know, I can distinguish between the current political leadership
and my love for the State of Israel and for what it represents. And
when you take a look at demonstrations that have six hundred eight hundred, nine
hundred thousand people in the streets, that would be the equivalent to thirty million
Americans. Just remember six million or seven million people live in the State of
Israel. I could be off by a little bit. So if you can
imagine ten percent of the country demonstrate, or twenty percent of the country demonstrating,
imagine what that number would be here in the United States if they if
everybody took in the same percentage to the streets. So the people of the
State of Israel realize they're at a crossroads and are doing what they can to
push this government out. You know, this is the fifth government in four
years in the State of Israel. They've never had this situation and Nathan Yah
who has played loomed large in those last five you know, short ill fated
governments that have you know, that's the parliamentary system. So I'm hoping that
this coalition falls apart and Israel can find its way again. Before we go
to the break polling, I think we need to talk about the issues that
challenge us here in Rockland, Orange. On some of the surrounding areas which
have huge populations of ultra orthodox communities which tend to be insular. That creates
friction between themselves and the communities around them, jew and Gentile, and again
there's that move towards a religious right rather than the secular. How do you
how do you see that playing out here? And again I know at times
it can be the root of some of the anti Semitism here because their particular
brand of Judaisms seems so extreme to others who may not necessarily know. And
as I said, they tend to be very insular. The communities that is
tend to be very insular, and there seems to be a limited amount of
outreach. How how do we deal with that situation here where there are sometimes
these ultra large communities that put burdens on infrastructure, fire codes, etc.
And it causes conflicts between the surrounding communities and their communities themselves. What are
some of your thoughts on that? It comes down to education, understanding.
My feeling about the community is and I've known the Rockland communities very well for
a very long time. And there is so much good in many of those
communities. And yet because they are so identifiable, right, they're different than
secular Jews, and I use that term, and you know, people are
secular looking maybe and so so they may not be secular in their faith,
but they're secularly looking Jews as opposed to Jews who you know who who've done
a traditional garb by the way, a garb that's not that doesn't come back
thousands of years. It goes back to the eighteen sixties in Poland. Yes,
and that's what it is, right. They procreate, there's a there's
a there are large families. And the sad part of it is that most
of those folks are good, god fearing human beings, live in the United
States of America and live here in Rockman Country. The problem is that on
both sides, on in the in the religious community, in the Hasidic religious
community, uh, there's little understanding of the rest of the world, and
the rest of the world has little understanding about who they are and how they
practice and what their traditions are. So we don't understand it. And then
of course you know, any wrongdoings committed or perpetrated by someone from a Hasidic
sect become amplified. They are very identifiable. And the truth of the matter
is that if there were more respect and understanding. For example, take fire
codes for a moment. Right, not everybody is violating the fire codes,
but those that are are doing so because they have disregard for our volunteer firemen.
They have disregard for the rules of safety. They have disregard and that
the building codes are not there to stop them from their way of life.
They're there to protect them in that way of life. But if you look
at it and say those building codes are onerous to me, well, well
too bad, because you need to build structures a certain way for fireproofing.
You need to tell the local building department and fire departments that you've put up
a wall. And you can't send that volunteer fireman someone who said I'm going
to help my community by learning how to fight fires, get on a truck
and run into danger to help you a person, I don't know whether you're
black, white, yellow, purple, jew gentile or Muslim. I'm going
to go in and help. I'm going to go in to help save you.
And the only thing we find out is that you turned off the fire
alarms, you turned off the sprinkler system. Well, you don't have a
right to do that that. I don't care who you are, you don't
have a right to do that. And what's happened is you can't live in
modern day America and be isolated. We're just drawn together. Right. You
can say I don't like electronics. I don't like all of these things.
But the fire alarm rings through an electronic system that goes to the firehouse and
they call people on their on their devices and say come run, pick up
a truck, put on your uniform, and come fight a fire. So
you have to be respectful of that. And if the building code says something
like a three story structure or four story structure requires a fire escape, well
then you have to put it up. I don't care that it's somehow infringes
on what you perceive as your religious right. You can practice as you want,
so long as you understand that you have a responsibility as a citizen of
Rockland, the citizen of the state of New York, a citizen of this
country of the world. Yeah, yeah, Paul, let's take a little
break. When we come back, wrap up when we talk about how do
we get there, how do we reach people in general? Jew Gentile who
said Muslim around the world through a sense of understanding of and I think you
mentioned it very importantly in the beginning. We have a hell of a lot
more in common than we don't. But let's take a little break first.
You're watching being Frank. We're the only way to be is Frank. My
very special guest talking about anti Semitism and much more is Paul Adler. And
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Frank. Well, at least I'm back. I'm Frank Labono, your host,
our engineers mister Neil Richter, and our very special guest tonight from the
Holocaust Museum is mister Paul Adler. We're talking about anti sebatism and possibly the
way forward. Remember we're here with the fresh topic every week on Being Frank,
So check us out here on Hudson River Radio dot com or wherever you
get your favorite podcasts, Paul. Before the break, we were talking a
little bit about improving two way communication, okay between groups that seems to be
sorely lacking, not only between Jews, Gentiles and Muslims, but between people
in general. How do we get back to a level of civility where we
can really can disagree with one another yet at the same time accomplish things together.
It used to be somewhat possible at least I thought it was. It
seems to be gay more and more of a distant memory. How do we
get back to it? Well, you know, I think there are a
lot of basics that we we've forsaken over the years. You know, we
used to teach civics, and we used to teach a sense to people.
I knew. I grew up with it here in the county that you were
part of a greater of a greater good. You were part of the society,
and you had a role to play, and you had to be an
engaged citizen. Uh And in doing so, Um, you you understood what
that meant. You understood that that that meant that we would we would try
to work together, that there was a bipartisanship, if you will. I
remember coming up in the political world there where boy, we could fight like
hell, but somehow civility was intact because you could go out afterwards for a
drink or coffee, or hang out at Hogan's or do something, and you
just people from all walks of life, everybody all got together and realize that
we were human beings one to another. Um. You know, I think
what happens. I don't think people get to know each other. I don't
think they understand that, Hey, my kids in the little league, or
my wife works, my wife is in the church choir, or I am
doing this and or we've got similar in you know, similar interests. And
so what's happened is we've we've become uh siloed uh and uh we don't we
don't want to serve on the planning board or the zoning board, or the
village board, or the town board or the county legislature. We want to
just be pissed off about what they do. Well, absent your input,
absent your responsibility to be that engaged citizen. Um, you can do it.
And by the way, in modern day Rockland politics, the most successful
brand of politics is that brand that uh you know, that creates the difference
that that exacerbates the differences between us. Right, why do we have awful
zoning in Rockland County? We have exclusionary zoning, which always gets you what
you don't want. Right, we're not going to have that multi family come
in because we don't want dot dot dot. Well, we don't want blacks,
we don't want brown people, we don't want black hats. We don't
want this we don't want that, so we'll do something, probably nothing,
and then we'll find out that the property is sold, and then somebody's going
to turn around and say, you know your zoning was exclusionary. I'm going
to sue you. I'm going to bankrupt your town, your village, your
county, and I'm going to get what I want anyway, when when we
should we should understand that the diversity that works so well, isn't it interesting?
In New York City? You don't hear about the pitting to get You
don't hear about the pitting of the Black and Jamaican community in Brooklyn against the
Hasidic community in Brooklyn, because the city itself is so diverse, and it
creates that where you're walking on the street and you're not offended by or not
taken aback by the customs and practices of one group or the other. Right
you want to addressed modestly and that person doesn't. You You you want to
not work on Saturday, and that person doesn't want to work on Sunday.
It somehow works down there. But over here we we have found in the
political world that capitalizing on those differences, the fear monitoring is what has driven
people apart? Right, we are just ready to just full out of our
socks the moment any diverse group comes into what we consider our town. You
know, in that in those quotes, and that comes up all the time,
all is tribal again. We tribal. We totally try want to stick
to our tribe. Another tribe comes in, they have to be attacked by
you know, it's an ancient thing. It's certainly within humans, but we're
supposed to get Part of the point that I think of all religion is to
get to a more sublime state where we are more accepting of one another.
I think that's the ultimate goal of most religions, is to get to a
point of acceptance where you know, everybody's got and in a sense, in
a certain I remember, Frank, you know, you know when you're of
an age, when you're growing up, and you know, I knew full
well I was Jewish and we lived in West Knak, and most people in
West Nak were not Jewish. We were a minority of a minority. And
you know, I remember, you know a friend of mine, you know,
teenagers and we were invited over to spend Christmas Eve with uh. You
know Christian family. And I said to my mother, what do I do?
She says, you go, you go and you and you celebrate their
faith. You don't have to believe it. You don't have to become part
of it. It won't change you. But you you you have to.
You have to go and celebrate. That's important to them. And I always
took that as a very important life lesson that um and I understood what it
meant to them. I understood that. You know, to this Jewish kid,
Christmas was just the day you got gifts. But no, it was
the birth of the Savior. It was important, it had it had everything
to do with their faith. And when you do that and you understand people's
customs, it's not taboo. It's not I don't know, I don't I
don't know what to do about this now, No, you can understand that.
I you know, over the years, politically, I've gone to countless
masses and and other religious events, and you know, in Catholic Church,
I've celebrated with the emms here in Rockland and the mosques and they're all beautiful
in their own way. It doesn't it's not going to convert me. It's
not going to change me. But but we're so. I remember telling somebody,
a political person, that I was at the mosque and how really wonderful
I mean, I had dinner there. They was wonderful. They went out
of their way to accommodate my dietary, uh, you know, concerns,
and and how beautiful it was. What did you take off your shoes?
Yes? I did, because that's a sign of respect, just as you
would expect someone to put a yamica on when you go into a Jewish synagogue.
So I think that that somehow we've lost that, we've lost that ability
to to help you celebrate what's important to you and understand why you do what
you do and how you do what you do. And I think that part
of that is that people have learned that they don't even have to vote.
They can still voice themselves thinking I'm just I'm this great cipically involved person and
I'm going to sit behind my keyboard and pound out crap and I'm doing my
part. No, you're not, you're not. Yeah you're not. You're
not really doing anything except I want you to tell me a little bout.
During the break, we discussed some of the exciting events that you have coming
up at the courthouse, and it helped me just say it properly. Yamah
Showa yoma show. It means that the day of the of the Showa,
which is the Holocaust, right, that's the that's the Hebrew word for it.
So it's a Holocaust remembrance event and it commemorates um uh. You know
there's a day April seventeenth where the world remembers the Holocaust. You know,
never forget, never again that that that um you know, that famous saying
that that Elivazel came up with. So on on Monday at two o'clock at
the Rockland County Courthouse. Everybody, anybody in listening distance is welcome to come
to the court at bar seventeenth of April. Seventeenth of April, at two
seventeenth of April, at two o'clock, Um, all the deliberations in the
courthouse stop. We all we all assemble in the jury room of the courthouse.
The Administrative Judge of the ninth Judicial District is presiding, and we will
do a Holocaust remembrance because we do it at the courthouse, because the last
line of defense against systematic legal hate and bigotry and division like it was in
Nazi Germany, where it was all legal under the Nuremberg laws. The last
line of defense is the is the judiciary and the legal bar, you know,
the members of the barn. Some interviews, Paul, I just want
where at the time, Yes, yes, yea, we interviews tell us
about you, Frankly, we have we I've interviewed seven Holocaust survivors that are
in their late eighties, early nineties into the mid nineties, and we interviewed
them and rather than ask them about their experiences during this terrible period, we
asked them to look back over the last eighty years since the end of the
war and asked them if they were concerned about the state of democracy in this
country and around the world. And to a person, they all were,
and they saw great similarities and they drew lines connecting what they saw in Germany
in the twenties and the thirties that led up to the organized hate of the
Nazi regime. So it's quite it's quite profound. I hope you can all
attend. Great word. Well, we'd like to thank Paul for being frank
and his intelligent conversation. Loved it. It was really we got into a
lot of paul I really appreciate it, of course, especially that's really pauled
and come back. We can always have these conversations. So is a pleasure.
It's all to an intelligent man like yourself, and of course let do.
We'd like to thank our listeners who take the time to give us a
voice in their lives. Remember we offer a fresh topic every week and you
can catch us wherever and whenever you get your favorite podcasts like Apple, Spotify,
iHeartRadio and the rest. Remember check us out on the Being Frank Facebook
page. Let me leave you with these two last little nuggets. This comes
from King Solomon pub Urbs twenty four sixteen. A righteous man falls seven times
and gets up, simple enough, folks, keep getting up, keep falling,
and keep getting up. You've got some great music. It's a new
release to world premiere sort of at least from Bobby Belfry, and it's called
Free Raid. Your host, Frank Lebono. We hope to have you for
the next Being Frank. We're the only way to be is Franking. Thanks
for listening. The summer was always right behind that goddamn cloud, So get
you exercising all those spears out loud. The cold rain was long. Now
we read the hay hole tidy come up better days, said LEA. I'm
in a fucker backgroubbas, streamers, weaving colors, dying, flying cats,
said LEA. I'm beaded from the ground. All the faces come to life
with a glorious sound. Oh, looking back is only good to grow from
it. We allow myself to be thrown in a fire up, but even
to the worst of sunsel show. Despite the mask we wear, we are
not alone, said leave. Everybody's free to visions that chimes heard the dream,
said Lee times business still be this finally on the surface without care.
Welcome back to free Red, Welcome back to you. We saw the untroubled
brother had somehow made it through. Welcome back to free read. Welcome back
to you. We saw the untroubled brother had somehow made it through. Time
to get together, Time to get together. Oh oh, now that we
are home again, we must stake we are always great to malpeasons, hate
and greed. It is true we are one, but that's not how we
act. We are easily led by ringleaders to manipulate that, but to leave
everything is crystal clear. Again at this time the thinking being bituver. Now,
I am said, made as his brouet of Lavender Hills, we breathe,
if we could only see the belief that kills Oh oh, oh,
you re n welcome back to you? Oh Memona, had I made it?
Oh re come back to you? Hudson River Radio dot com