In this episode of The Jewish Futurism Lab, Mike Wirth sits down with Shai Davidai, the Israeli‑born social psychologist and former Columbia Business School professor who became a prominent voice for Jewish students after October 7. Together they trace Shai’s journey from secular Israeli kid to public Jewish advocate, unpack what really happened for him on campus, and explore how his training as a social psychologist shapes the way he reads our power, our responsibility today, and the continuity of our legacies tomorrow. They talk about fatherhood, professorship, and podcasting, and ask what kinds of institutions, communities, and narratives the Jewish future will need.
Episode Transcript (Auto-generated- some errors may exist)
Welcome back to the Jewish futurism Lab, where we unpack Torah, tech, and tomorrow. I’m Mike Wirth, Jewish futurist, community artist, and design educator, coming to you from Crown town, Charlotte, North Carolina. Today, I want to introduce you to Professor Shai Davididai. He’s an Israeli born social psychologist and former ColumbiaBusiness School professor who became known around the world for standing up publicly for his Jewish students afterOctober 7th. This is the episode where we put Shai’s story, his scholarship, and his activism on the table and ask what they might teach us about the Jewish future. Let’s get into it, y’all.I first encountered Shai like most of you on TV and online in the days justafter October 7th. He was this strong voiced guy standing outside the gates ofColumbia University and he spoke with such clear conviction and a sharp understanding of what was actuallyunfolding around him at his university and with his students. Now he’s nolonger at Columbia University and he’s a podcast host with the show Here I Am.shy as a dad and a strong Jewish voice and I was delighted when he wanted to talk about being professors, parents andJews and about the future. Here’s my interview with Shai Davididai.So friends uh we are here today with uh an incredible individual um ShaiDavididai originally from Israel and now you live in New York right? New York City. Yes.New York City for now. Fantastic. Um, Shai, we’re we’re luckyto have you here today and, um, we want to start off with just some basics before we get into some, you know, hottopics, but um, can you share a little bit of your background and really your Jewish story with us?Man, whenever people ask that question and say, “Oh, we’ll just start off with something simple. Tell me your background. Jewish history, Jewishstory, Jewish theology.” Uh, look, I was born and raised in Israel. Um, when theone thing that’s extremely beautiful but also weird about growing up in Israel isthat you don’t need to think about your Jewish identity. It’s I tell people it’sin the water. You know, you just dip your toe and you’re Jewish. Um, to tothe extent that even the 20% non-Jews in the country have a lot of Jewish education and history because, you know,you live in this country. Um I tell people it’s the only country that doesn’t suffer from anti-semitism,suffers from a lot of other stuff. Um but you know that my um typicalAshkanazi Jewish story uh my maternal grandparents came from Romania. Um afterrealizing that there was no real future for Jews in the Eastern block. U this isin the 1950s. Um, my paternal grandmother was brought as a very younggirl to Jerusalem in 1935 by her Zionist. Um, my grand great-grandfather,her Zionist father and my paternal grandfather was actually born in Britishmandate Palestine. Um, but his father also, you know, they came to um, theOttoman Empire out of pure Zionism. Um, we weren’t religious at home. We weren’tobservant at home, but every Friday night we would do the kadouch. Uh partially because I’d say my grandfatherwas an atheist, but my grandmother was a believer. Um and he cared more about,you know, his wife and his love and his atheism, which I think is important. Andso we grew up doing kouch. I have family that’s become more religious. I have family that’s anti-religious. And I’msomewhere in the middle.Fabulous. Um, and uh, you you found your way to the United States and uh, startedto study uh, social psychology at the New School. Well, I studied at the at I worked atthe New School as a professor. I studied at Cornell. Yeah. My wife and I um, shewas my girlfriend at the time. Um, we wanted the American experience, the the,you know, the higher education experience of the United States, which I was infatuated with. And,you know, we were 27 at the time. This is almost 16 years ago. We were untethered and let’s let’s go tothe US and see what happens. And I got my PhD in um, social psychology. My wife got a master’s in creative writing.Fantastic. Fantastic. And then you made your way before arriving at Colombia then to New School as a as a facultymember. Okay. Yeah. Faculty member for three years at the New School. Very interesting place I must say.Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. I I was a student there at Parsons and then uh also taughtfrom 01 to 03. Definitely a different different time then for sure. Um butthen uh you know you made your way to to Colombia and um how’d that feel likehow’d that feel first going to Colombia and kind of getting into that ecosystem there? So I must be honest it was the bestthing in the world. It was my dream job. Andso so the history of that is 2000 around 2018 I was teaching at the new school. Iwas, you know, I was satisfied but not super satisfied. I felt like there mightbe other things out there for me. Uh I was thinking about, you know, moving back to Israel with my wife and then wehad just one kid. Um and you know, but we put the brake on that and and we said, you know what, let me first see ifthere’s another job in New York City so we don’t have to uproot our entire lives. There were two jobs listed thatyear, 2000. And I think it was 2018 when I was applying and one was at NYU, onewas at Colombia and I knew both were long shots, but you know what? You you missed a 100% of the shots you don’ttake, right? So I applied to both. NYU never even responded, never replied tomy messages. So who knows, maybe they’re still considering. I don’t know um what happened there, but Colombia, I wassurprised if they offered me an interview. So, I showed up to the interview again, not really expectingmuch and then I got the job and I was I wassuper excited. This was my as an academic, it’s a dream job, you know, it’s in the in one of the best cities inthe world with one of the best funding with the best minds, best students. It was really like where I hoped I wouldget tenure and stay for the rest of my life.I I could I could I could see that, man. That that must have felt amazing. Um,talk about, you know, uh, kind of as the honeymoon there started to die down and,you know, did you see or notice any sort of things on campus starting to percolate before October 7th or did itjust hit? Yeah, the truth is I did not. Um, in retrospect, you know, having like nowthe the hindsight, you know, 2020 and and looking at everything and connecting the different dots, I can definitely seethat this was percolating. This was, you know, coming. But as I was living it, itthe honeymoon didn’t die out. It really just one day just stopped. like I was Iyou know every every job has its ups and downs, but I never even thought that mebeing Jewish or Israeli had you know had any bearing on on howmy work was going. But then you know then October 7th2023 happens then I say October 8, 2023 which the moment the war started in thediaspora and since then I um you know within days I realized this is not theplace that I thought it is.M that that must have been like a sinking feeling, you know, having yourdream uh become a nightmare kind of overnight.Yeah. You know, it it was more of shock, surprise. Um a lot of this thing wheresince then a lot of Jewish people have described in their own different fields as like this feeling of self-doubt.Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I’m the one who’s wrong. Maybe you knowmaybe like my interpretations are are off the mark but then I realize no thisis just gaslighting like what’s happening in the university my university other people in veryuniversities or in their companies or whatever they are you know what’s happening is just unacceptable but so sobefore there was the sadness and the frustration and the grief and all the you know million stages of coping withanti-semitism there was just like this. I can’t believe this is happening. This isn’t supposed to happen.Yeah, I I can concur. It I definitely know exactly what you mean. Talk about that idea of the selfisolation, right?Really feel like everybody around me screaming and when usually when people do that, I’m probably doing somethingwrong. But in this case, I’m sure like you, I couldn’t find anything that I wasdoing wrong in that moment that would have merited any of the responses that,you know, not only that you were hearing and seeing, but you know, in my little tiny college, we didn’t have protests uhlike y’all did um up in Colombia, but there’s still chatter amongst the faculty. you know, there’s stillconversations and things that um you know, that that people had around andyou didn’t know me at the time, but I had sent you a DM on on Instagram like October 12th or 13th, I think. I forgetwhen you started to show yourself on TV, or at least they started showing you. And I had asked you, I said, “Hey, I’mat this small little college, uh, you know, working with Jewish life in the South. you know, what kind ofrecommendations, what what would you offer us, you know, out in the field um as a way to handle or to deal with thesethings? You know, um I kind of realized as I was typing that to you, you probably didn’t know in that moment. Youwere living it, right? And it was unfolding and unpacking uh right before that, but we’ve had some time sincethen. So, you know, you you’ve uh moved on from academia, I believe. Um whatwhat do you have for the rest of us? Like how how can we kind of carry on with some wisdom?Yeah. Well, first of all, I don’t know if I uh I can live up to wisdom. Um I’mstill waiting to uh get older so I can be wiser. But umI would say for me, you know, like I said, looking back, Irealized that there were a lot of warning signs. Uh some of them I just didn’t notice or you know weren’t uh thealarm wasn’t going you know loud enough but some of them I was aware of and Iminimized or brushed away or this is a French idea this is a French studentgroup this is a French faculty um you know because honestly because I didn’twant to believe because it was very easy for me being an academic you know it’s whatever Well, at the New School, atColumbia Business School, like all those places, it was very easy for me to be an academic and says, “Oh, I can clearlysee the anti-semitism of the extreme right.” And you got to remember like this is the time of um tree of lifeshooting, the the Kabad Palmway shooting. Um it it was very clear like the extreme right yes there’santi-semitism but it was much harder for me to accept the fact that there is there’s hatethere’s anti-semitism not just in the extreme left but also inside the institutions where I callhome and when that happens like for a lot of us the the cognitive dissonancekicks in and I was just brushing things away I remember reading DeborahLipstat’s book about anti-semitism and nodding along the entire book and then the moment it starts talking aboutacademia I started like instead of nodding I was I started like going likeno with my head like this isn’t right this isn’t right so I wasn’t ready to accept the realityum so the moment things started and and you know my eyes were like really wideopen to see all the things were happening at Colombia and at Harvard cover campuses I decided this was aconscious choice that not only will I neverum never not see this but also I will make sure that everyone else sees this. So now it’s myresponsibility to make sure that other people especially other people who like me are motivated not to see it will seeit. So when I travel around the country and I speak with different communitiesand and and groups and organizations and students and faculty, I tell them like Ican’t come to your campus or your group or your organization and tell you what’s wrong because I don’t live that. Youonly know what’s wrong and you only know what the right response is or should be.But what I can tell you is the same, you know, the same goal that I set for myself. Like if you don’t make sure thateveryone sees this, they just won’t see it. So for some people that means makingclear that they see it in classrooms. Uh if it’s students raising their hands andchallenging their professors, for some it’s in the outside on campus, you know, with student organizations, with groups,with community activities. For some it’s visually just making stickers, posters,infographics. Um for some it’s going to city council and um testifying in frontof city council, writing letters to opeds, whatever it is. Like you know,whatever you can do to raise the awareness to say like this is we knowthis is happening and we need we need to make sure that every Jew and obviously every non-Jew also realizes that it’shappening. I guess that’s my advice. I don’t know. You know, some sometimes people want more concrete, like tell mewhat to do now. Where should I aim? When should I shoot? And I’m like, that’s that’s up to you. Um, mine is more ofthe the brand of let’s start getting everyone moving and then things will bebetter. Um, and you know, I’m curious like as we look forward to to move andto act and you know, um, uh, try to march somewhat in in unity and harmony,um, you know, are there things out there that you’ve seen like forms of Jewish identity or activities, behaviors, orcommunities that like feel like prototypes for something new that couldwork? Um, you know, we’ve seen a lot of uh things in reaction to October 7th andin reaction to a lot of the the hate and the things that are out there, butanything proactive that you’ve seen that you feel inspired by? Yeah, definitely. But I would say thatthe unit of analysis in um Jewish life, Jewish history is not the individual,but the community. And I would and and and the the the future of the Jewishpeople, I believe, lies in community, not in Jewish individuals. And what I’vefound powerful both internally and also externally is Jewish communities, Jewishevents, Jewish organizations that run the gamut of Jewish identities. What Imean is when I go and I’m at an event where, you know, people can’t see me, but you know,I’m all tattooed up. I uh I identify as an atheist Jew, but where I’m standingnext to a reformed rabbi, a conservative rabbi, and an Orthodox rabbi, and we gotpeople with black hats and beards. We got people that are um completely likegender queer, whatever it is, you know, all the different kind of Jews, but we’re all standing together.We’re sending a message to ourselves that you know the community is more important than our differences than eachindividual but also we’re sending a message to the world because then the world sees us from the outside and theycan’t divide and conquer. Right? One of the things that are happening is in NewYork City anti-Jewish hate crimes have been the highest hate crime of alldifferent groups uh for nine years straight. the the the vast majority of the victimsof that do not look like me. They are orthodox or ultraorththodox yeshiva boysfrom Brooklyn. But when we stand together and we say look from the outside it might look like we’redifferent but from the inside we’re actually all the same despite our you know lifestyle differences. I think thatgives us a lot of power and that at the end will be the source of how we we beatthis. For too long in in Jewish history, we’ve been fighting on who is right. Youknow, is it the reform? Is it conservative? Is it Orthodox? Is it Jews? What like Cabala? Like and sayinglike no, we’re all right. We we need all of the different types in order to tomove forward. I totally agree. I I think you know power and community is is is amazing. Umand I think you know uh do you agree that like we need to still have a blendof legacy institutions you know like these universities are are have shown that they can’t behave well um do youthink that it’s time to say goodbye to them or do you think that there’s a a role for them uh mixed in with uh Jewishorganizations even looser organizations you know podcasts like we’re talkingabout Um I guess my question is do do you see that we should we go out on ourown or should we still stick with uh you know Colombia’s Harvards uh Cornell’sand and other places uh you know do you think that they can be better? I definitely think they could be better.I wouldn’t I I don’t I don’t like wasting my time. And if I thought thatthey couldn’t be better, they couldn’t be improved, uh I wouldn’t I wouldn’t wage this fight. I wouldn’t, you know, Ihave better things to do with my time than, you know, than bump my head against a wall again and again andagain. Um so I definitely think these places can and should be better. Um notjust for Jews, but for everybody. the but also with with this fight that I’vebeen waging for the past two and a half years I’ve realized how bad things are. Now when I say bad,it’s not necessarily that every day, you know, a Jew, every Jew feels excluded,like not at all. But how bad in the sense how institutionalized, how part of the system thisdenigrating perception of Jews and Israelis um is in in these uhuniversities. But I if we if we couldn’t save them,then I would just say let’s leave them. But I don’t think we I don’t think we need to leave him. Not Not yet. I alsothink that Jews had such a outsizedcontribution to the academic system in the United States andleaving them now or fleeing them is exactly what, you know, the theestablishment would want us to do, right? We come, we build and then we leave. Um, we did that in the, you know,in the story of Egypt. We built the pyramids and then we leave. Um, now fromEgypt, we had to flee because we were enslaved. Uh, I don’t think we’re there yet at at Colombia and Harvard. I thinkwe can keep fighting and and making sure that we reap the fruits of the,you know, that our ancestors have um, planted there. So, one thing we do onthe show here is we’re always looking at uh you know what is this intersection between the Torah, right? Not asnecessarily a religious document, but a cultural one technology and then the tomorrow, right? Um and you and I, welive in this kind of fault line between social media, mass media, and these old anti-semitic narratives. You know, theyall collide. Um, so if we were to look ahead here for a second, what have you seen or maybe you’re dreaming about liketools, narrative strategies do you think that Jewish people will need uh to stopjust playing defense and start authoring stories, right? Uh uh that other peopletell about us. Where do you think we’re heading with that? Small question. Um yeah. Uh, look,the only reason that you and I and the 15.8 million Jews exist in the world isbecause our ancestors made some decisions that increase the chances ofJewish continuity, right? And some of those decisions were um are are stillcontroversial um and I don’t like to get into them like intermarriage and stuff like that but some of those decisionsare just technological right they they invented the synagogue the betset rightand I say and you know and I say it in Hebrew because the word for synagogue betset means house of congregation nothouse of prayer not house of worship but house of congregation right that was a technological advancementthat did not exist in the world back then that basically said you’restateless. You but you’re still a nation. You have places to congregate. So unlike all the other people, thenations like the the Moabites, the Canites of the the ancient past, youknow, who didn’t have that congregational technology, and I say technology with air quotes, we did. Sowe congregated and we kept going. We had we came up with things like the uh thebar and mitzvah later but the bar mitzvah right the idea of how do weincorporate the next generation into our um into our community so that they keepthat going. We started saying our prayers in you know sing songy stylesand every group Ashkanazi safaric misra has their own tunes in order to u makeit easier for people to memorize right it’s much easier to remember the lyrics of a song than just the words uh printedout loud printed out um without the song. So these are technologicaladvances. We don’t think of them as such, but they were at the time that increase the chances that the nextgeneration will stay Jewish. And what I think we should do is one, keep thosetechnological advances from the past because they’ve been proven to succeedand see what can we come up with that builds on the same ideas. the idea ofcommunity, of memory, of portability, um, of moving from one generation to thenext. And if we’re able to really take those ideas, both from the past and thennew ones, and synthesize them, I think we will be able to really increase thechances of Jewish continuity. And that’s the goal. The goal is not to fight anti-semitism. I mean, of course, wedon’t want anti-semitism, but the goal is to make sure that the Jewish story doesn’t end with us. Um, so for me,those are the the most important things we can do. Wonderful. Great, great words to to liveby. And you seem to be having a a an excellent experience unpacking so muchof this on your new podcast. I don’t know how new it is anymore. Um, but uhon here I am, haneni. um you know the the blueprints thatyou’re putting down, the the theories, the the rules, the kind of the filters that you’re building to to pass people’sideas through. Um you know, if that were to become some kind of blueprint uh inthe future, you know, what do you think from what you’ve learned so far that we should be doing differently? I knowyou’ve you’ve touched on it a little bit, but uh you know my question really is like you ask a lot of people is howdo you know with your efforts to keep this Jewish continuity going? How do you know that it’s a success?Right? That’s that’s the biggest problem and and I think you’ve really identified the big problem is you do not know,right? It’s it’s the same like you’re planting trees to um you know to fightdeforest deforestation. How do you know you’re a success? The truth is you’re going on faith. Not religious faith, butjust faith that you know the future will uh bear fruit for what you’re you knowwhat you’re putting now into the soil. Um andand I understand that a lot of people when they don’t have that certainty, they don’t have that assurance thatthings will work, they turn to God or any other met metaphysical belief. Idon’t have that. Um it’s just not something that my brain is wired to do. So for me, it’s just the faith in theJewish people. I I know I don’t know but I feel very strongly that if we allspent 10% of our time worrying about Jewish continuity then we won’t have toworry about Jewish continuity. The problem is that when most of us takeJewish continuity for granted and don’t worry about it, we actually create thereason that people like myself worry because our ancestors did not takethings for granted. They did not take their their Jewish identity. They did not take the the the belief that thingswill continue for the Jewish people or that the Jewish people will continue for granted. they fought for it or they withtheir lives with you know with their resistance with our survival the momentwe started taking it for granted is the moment we started endangering that so I don’t know if we will succeed but I doknow one thing if we don’t do anything then we will fail yeah yeah absolutely um gosh that’sthat’s pretty dire um I’m yeah I tell people I am I am a I don’t knowwhat the opposite of inspir spiration, but I’m I’m not an inspirational speaker. I might inspire people to dothings, but you don’t you don’t listen to me and then say, “You know what? That’s a great TED talk. I feel greatabout myself.” You know, I uh I I this is the truth. The truth is that, youknow, we’ve we’ve we’re living in an unprecedentedly incredible time to be Jewish. If we justlook at what our ancestors and I’m not even talking thousands of years ago, I’m talking like 200, 300 years ago wentthrough. Uh at the same time with unprecedented benefits, we haveunprecedented challenges and I can only hope that we we rise up tothese challenges. Yeah. Yeah. Mam mama. Um so you know arethere are there any kind of uh practices or ormindsets or things that you think that is essential for Jewish people to bedoing? Now I know you said we should dedicate 10%. I love that. That’s like, you know, like it’s almost like Saddaka,like give Saddaka of your mind, uh, you know, and your efforts, uh, you know, to build like is therestuff that y’all do on the on the Here I Am podcast where, um, you know, you kindof ask like, uh, tips, tricks, kind of daily things, mantras, things like that.Yeah. So I so the first thing that I I ask when Ihave guests on my podcast who are Jewish because I also have non-Jewish guests. But when I have Jewish guests, the firstquestion is what kind of a Jew are you? And I’m surprised by how often peoplehave never given that thought. You know, very smart, very inspiring Jewishthinkers. Um, and I and I like that because the question is not are you aJew or who determines whoever you’re a Jew, but the assumption is you’reJewish. Now you get to determine what kind of a Jew. So I guess the first thing is you need to know what yourwhat your entry point to this experience advant adventure is, right?And some people say they they go through the religious route or the belief route. Other people go from the moreum ethnic route or the cultural route or the activism route. But the one thingthat I find that everybody mentions or alludes to is community.That their Jewish existence, their Jewish experience isonly in relation to their communal Jewish experience. And I think that’s animportant thing that is sometimes difficult for Americans and especiallynon-Jewish Americans to understand because the US is such a hyperindividualisticsociety. You and you alone define everything about yourself, your futureand also your past. Whereas the Jewish experience says yes the individual has alot of importance but the individual lives in a family and a community andwithout the community the individual can’t fulfill themselves fully. So if you’re a religious person and there arecertain prayers you cannot say without a minion the at least a quorum of at least 10 Jewish adults right what does thatmean that means that you cannot fulfill your entirety of Jewish experience without a communityum same things for the you got like the you got different things where you just you have to live it with other people soI think that’s the biggest trick and it’s it’s not a concrete so much But really it’s you have to find your Jewishcommunity. Now that Jewish community can be in a religious one like in a synagogue. It can be a cultural one likein a Jewish community center. It could be a student one like in school. Itdoesn’t have to be focused on Jewish activities. But the community needs tobe Jewish. It should also be open to non-Jews, right? just like, you know, there’s no exclusion going on, but thecommunity itself needs to have some Jewish identity to it. Um, and I tellpeople, find that. Find your Jewish community. It’s so much easier fightingthe hate when you’re not alone. And it’s so much more fun enjoying the smallvictories when you’ve when you’ve reaped them together with someone else.Oh, those those are great to put in our pocket. Um, I want to ask you here aboutbeing a dad and about being a Jewish dad. I’m a Jewish dad and I askincredible questions every day about what I should be sharing with my kids. I have a 17-year-old and a 13year-old. Um,I think your kids are a little younger. Yeah. Yeah. 10-year-old and a four and a half year old.Thank God. Amazing. um has how you talked to them aboutbeing Jewish or anything else changed um in this time that you you’ve kind ofnoticed and uh said with your your uh your wife like hey we should be morethoughtful about this or or how’s that looking like? Yeah. So the first thing I um I willtell I tell every parent is your kids don’t listen to you but they do look atyou and I so it’s not so much what you tell them as how what they see you actdo behave say to other people etc. So Istarted wearing a Star of David, my Mandavid. Um, every day just that’ssomething that I do every day, weekday, weekends, every day. I just the first thing I do in the morning, I put it on.After a while, my son wanted to start wearing one. I didn’t tell him you should wear a Star of David. I didn’ttell him you should be proud of being Jewish. I didn’t tell him you should be openly Jewish. I just I was just doingso myself. My wife was doing so herself and all of a sudden he wanted one. Um,you know, we we do a Shabbat dinner and you know, and the kids know this is likeit’s a must. Like if they have a thing, they can leave, but we’re not going to be we’re not going to leave with thembecause the household is Jewish. Um, you know, so we do the kouch. I neverexplained why it’s important to do the kouch and something like that. I started by just doing it. After a while when wewere doing it, I started putting more meaning into it, explaining, you know,about my grandfather and how he used to do it, explaining why other Jews do itaround the world, explaining different stories. But but that was after we started doing things. So a lot ofparents when I and will tell me, you know, I’m I I’m really frustrated. mykids are not, you know, they’re they’re not speaking up on campus. They are not doing this, they’re not doing that. AndI just asked the parents, are you like, are are you doing those things?Are you walking around introducing yourself to your colleagues as a Zionist? Because if not, then why wouldyou expect your kids to do so? I I know this this is sometimes it’slike a little bit of a trit advice, right? like you know your kids will follow your actions morethan your words but it happens to be true. Um the other thing I tell peopleum parents is as your kids get older your influencesyour influence on them decreases and their peer group increases. So yourability to affect their life goes from direct to indirect. While when they areyoung, you can directly affect their life. When they’re older, you indirectly affect their life through their peer group. So if you surround your kids withthe peer group that you would want them to be like, they are more likely to turn up like that peer group. But if youdon’t if you don’t give them that scaffolding, that infrastructure, then you don’t know what peer group your kidswill be like. You will choose and then what they’ll end up being like. Fantastic. I’m over here taking notes.This is this is awesome. Tell me if it works. Yeah. You know, 17-year-old is very different than athan a 10-year-old, I must tell you. Yes. Yes, indeed. Indeed. Um and uhyeah, it’s been interesting to to go through this with them. You know, they they ask very different questions.that’s really sound, you know. I think uh giving them space and also modelingis really important, you know, and and also sharing your own things. You know, I’ve shared with my kids like I’mterrified when I have to have these conversations with people who I thought I knew and trusted and cared for and,you know, worked with and supported to to find out that they’re, you know, their thoughts about Jews and Jewishpeople are completely opposite than than what um I had originally suspected. Uhyeah, but Shai, this this has been amazing. Uh appreciate you letting me take you tothese different places and relive memories that maybe aren’t fun. Um andto have you just share these these insights and and I I would go out on a limb and say they’re pretty wise, myfriend. I know uh you haven’t reached an age yet where maybe you’re willing to accept that.I I don’t I don’t know. But really I tell peoplewhatever works. You got to find the way it works but not whatever works in theagain in the hyperindividualistic whatever works for you right because if I did whatever works just for me. Iwould probably be on a beach somewhere disconnected from social media disconnected from history and thepresent and the future. Um, but you got to think about whatever works for the values you want to put out there in theworld. And you know, you just try. Ifyou come out, if you come into this with love and withfact-based reason, logic, you you can’t go wrong. The moment youstart coming into this with anger or hatred or resentment or you knowfocusing on the the less factual stuff that’s when things start breaking apart.So just come towards this with positivity both the fight against anti-semitism and more importantly thefight for Jewish continuity. I think I think we’ll be okay if we alldo that. Amen. Amen. All right. All right, I gotto get that on a t-shirt or anything that you’re working on rightnow that um you’d like to share with the with the community or anything you want to promote? Wow, I got a lot. Yeah. So, first ofall, you mentioned my podcast. Here I am with Shai Vidai. It’s a weekly podcast and we’re always looking for more bothpeople to host but also audiences, different audiences. Uh, I have a book coming out on October 6, 2026,um, called American Intellectual Anti-semitism, which really is ahistorical, psychological, and sociological foray into everything that’s happeningon campuses. I uh, and I’m working on a new project now. It’s a it’s a weekly very very short podcast called Pragmatic Judaism which is basically just ideasabout Judaism with works. How do we keep um how do we keep Jewish continuityalive uh irrespective of whether we do or don’t believe in God irrespective ofwhether we do or don’t believe that the Torah was written by God or by very verywise uh ancestors. Um, how do we how do we make the most of of Jewish life uhfor people like me and everyone else? So, keep an eye out. It should be out in about a couple of months.Fantastic. Well, looking forward to that. Those podcast episodes will beepic and people will be taking notes. I know I will be. I’m always looking for ideas, right? And it sounds like you are, too. Well, thank you so much for having me. really. I mean, it’s it’s and and by the way, when I talk about activism, when Italk about getting involved, like a podcast, like I’m not I’m not saying everyone should go and, you know, tie themselves to a nuclear plant and say like, you know, Green Peace now. Like it it you have a podcast, you areamplifying other people’s voices, you’re getting other people thinking about this. That’s a sort of activism. That’syou’re being active rather than passive. So, and I’m not saying everyone should now start their podcast, but find athing that you can do to get other people active. That’s that’s the that’s what you can do to make things betterfor all of us. Fabulous. Well, Shai, we we appreciate you having the hutzbah to uh get on thenews, to stand up for your students, to stand up for uh Jewish life on yourcampus, and to have the vision like you do now, to to walk forward. So, you know, is Ratashm uh hope we get tocollaborate and do some fun things in the future. I hope so.