The Ultimate Jewish Podcaster Crossover! Call Me Back with Dan Senor + Being Jewish with Jonah Platt

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Finally, the episode of Being Jewish you've been waiting for, Podcasterpalooza.

He's the host of Call Me Back, the world's number one podcast for all things Israeli culture, politics, and current events.

I'm the host of Being Jewish, the world's number one podcast for all things Jewish culture, identity, and current events, obviously.

Like corned beef on rye, it's a match made in Jewish heaven, and it's time to chow down.

He's Dan Senor, I'm Jonah Platt, and this is Being Jewish.

Dan, your show, Call Me Back I would imagine if not everyone, 90% of the people listening to this have listened to your show.

To what do you attribute Call Me Back's massive success?

One of the interesting things about podcasting is there are really no barriers to entry.

So you record a conversation, doesn't require that much infrastructure to record a conversation relative to other forms of media.

Yeah.

And you put it out there, and it either finds an audience or it doesn't.

Alana and I had been building this, the podcast we have, before October 7th, well before October 7th, focused on other issues.

But I would say about one of every five episodes or four episodes dealt with Israel and the Middle East.

Right.

But it wasn't the consistent theme of the podcast.

October 7th happened, and we basically decided, without a lot of thought or conversation or no strategic plan or no whiteboard, that one of the things we saw that was missing was exposing to those around the world the conversations that were happening inside Israel as Israelis were navigating this new world, this impossible world, this impossible war- Yeah that they were in.

And the dilemmas and the challenges that they were working through as they were navigating this new world.

Now, there's a tendency, I think, for people who don't follow things over there th- as closely as you and I do, it's all kind of black and white.

Like it's like a, they, they view it all as like a one-dimensional conversation.

And if, for anyone who's actually spent meaningful time in Israel, you know there's nothing one-dimensional- Sure … about the conversations inside Israel.

And when you see how Israelis who don't always agree with each other, who sometimes stridently disagree with one another, are wrestling with these dilemmas, I just think it gives you an appreciation for, like I said, this impossible situation they're in.

And we wanted to expose those conversations to the world and, and, but the key was to do it in English, right?

In, in well-spoken English.

Right.

And so it was more accessible to a lot of people.

So that's what we decided to do.

We had, to be clear, we had no idea if this would have an audience.

Was this you going, "I think this will appeal to folks," or was this you saying, "I would like to have this, so I'm gonna make it"?

The latter.

Mm.

I, I, I felt that there was, that this was missing from what we in the West were exposed to- Yeah … in terms of the conversations happening inside Israel.

I just said, "Let, let's get it out there." A friend of mine, Jon Podhoretz, said to me about six months after, he said, "You know, if you had like actually tried to plan this out and said, 'This is what we're gonna try to accomplish.

This is the market we're gonna try to target'" Right … "it would have never worked." It was totally improvisational.

It was totally organic.

It was, I'm sure like this is similar to what you experienced.

Yeah.

It's like the conversations I wanna have.

Right.

So these are the con- I, I don't know if other people wanna hear these conversa- these are the conversations I wanna have.

We'll put it out there.

So what happened after that?

Uh, three things happened.

You experienced exactly what I'm talking about.

One is we all felt like the walls were closing in on us over here.

As, as Rabbi David Ingber, who I know you now know well.

Yeah.

And that was a terrific set of interviews you had with him.

Thank you.

So he's a close friend and, you know, he's bar mitzvahed both of my kids and- Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

He's like a member of our family.

All right.

Shout out to Rabbi Ingber.

Yeah.

Rabbi Ingber Uh, said to me soon after October 7th, it's a line that's always stuck with me.

He said, "On October 7th, we learned that Israel was at war And October 8th, we in the diaspora learned that we were under attack.

Yeah.

Which I actually think is a brilliant, sadly, a brilliant way to frame what each of the communities were dealing with.

'Cause Israel was at war.

It was a horrendous war.

It was a shattering of Israel and Israeli society.

But when you are at war, if you are a nation at war, like the modern state of Israel was or is, you have agency.

You have an army, you have an air force, you have an intelligence agency, all of which was caught off gua- guard on October 7th, but then you can fight back- Mm-hmm … and then defend your country.

In the diaspora, we don't have any of those things.

We were under attack in ways that I don't think any of us, me included, I mean, me especially, I, I couldn't have imagined it.

Nobody.

So there was this sense that, like, am I taking crazy pills?

Like, you know, everyone was saying, you know, my colleagues, they- they're saying things that are shocking to me.

They don't understand.

I've been involved with this nonprofit cause for years and years and years.

I thought I shared values with the person I was involved with, that nonprofit or that political effort or the community school, the public school, the private, you know, w- what-- The teacher in my kid's class- Yeah the professor at my kid's co- So what is going on?

And so I think many of us in the community were just looking for some, some, like, ground truth, some sense of, like, a conversation I can trust.

I may not always agree with it, but I can trust it.

I think the people participating in the conversation, even if I don't always agree with it, are operating in good faith.

Mm-hmm.

They're not trying to, like- It's a safe space.

It's a safe space.

And so, so I think the podcast tapped into that in the Jewish community.

Totally.

I think, again, couldn't have planned for it, but I think there are many journalists in mainstream media, some of whom, I won't name them, but some of whom you've had on your podcast.

Uh, a number of journalists in mainstream media who may be Jewish, may not be Jewish.

These are not people who wake up every day as cheerleaders for Israel, but these are people, coming back to operating in good faith, they also don't wake up every day with a sense of hostility to Israel.

They're not looking… You know, they know it's complicated.

They know it's layered.

And, and I started hearing from a number of these journalists saying, again, mainstream print and television news organizations saying, "You know, I'm listening to the podcast regularly because I do feel that it's…" Again, we know where you, Dan, are coming from, but they did feel like it was balanced, particularly because we would have voices on that often disagreed with each other within Israel.

And the third audience that we tapped into, which I could have, would have really never imagined, was a non-Jewish audience.

Right now, and I think it's grown since we last surveyed this, right now about a, a twenty-five percent of our audience is not Jewish.

Wow.

And it's a lot of non-Jews, Christians in the United States, but it's-- and Canada and, and the UK and Australia, but also, um, in the Arab world, the Muslim.

We have a, we have a big audience in Saudi Arabia.

We have a big audience in the UAE.

And I first learned this from, from a Saudi diplomat in the UK who was quoting these, you know, citing the episodes, citing different guests from my podcast.

And I said to him at one point, I said, "Why are you listening to this?" And he said, "Because if you are, in this case, a Saudi diplomat, the only info you get out of Israel that's accessible to them in English is the official statements of cabinet meetings or the Prime Minister's office or, or the official statement of the, of the IDF spokesperson's office." Or he said, you get American journalists or British journalists interpreting what's happening in Israel.

Right.

But you don't actually get to hear Israelis in English having long form, long form, intelligent conversations an hour at a time.

You know, that's not soundbite.

It's not like a six-minute segment on CNN.

It's like a real conversation.

Yeah.

He says, "We don't get that." And if you're a Saudi diplomat, in his particular case, and you want to understand how Israelis and the diaspora is dealing with this moment, there aren't a lot of places to get it.

So like I said, none of those three scenarios I could have planned for.

To your point, it's the conversations we wanted to have.

Yeah.

But those are the audiences we found.

How are you measuring your Jewish versus non-Jewish audience?

So we've done, we've done about three surveys.

Like, please respond to this listening.

Yes, yes, yes.

And, and they've increasingly gotten more sophisticated, uh, in ter- and, and more granular.

So the first couple of surveys we did were pretty good and pretty interesting.

The most recent survey we did is, is v- the, the methodology was pretty robust, and we've learned a lot.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

Yeah, yeah.

Is there anything you won't talk about on the show?

Wow, that's a great question.

Oh, so I think there are real debates and disagreements, obviously, within the Jewish world and within Israel that, that I think are important to elevate.

And people can have very tough things, things that I, you know, really strongly disagree with.

They can have very tough things to say about Israel or Israeli decision-making, and I welcome those if they are, like I come, come back to are they operating in good faith?

Are they doing this out of a, uh, that they wanna make Israel better, that they're disappointed by something Israel is doing, but they're not looking to cut ties with Israel, they're not looking to finger wag at Israel, they're not looking to virtue signal for other audiences about Israel?

They wanna… They, they love Israel.

They wanna make Israel better.

They're frustrated with Israel, like many Israelis.

So I welcome those discussions, or if there are people who just have an axe to grind, and it's not really about, it's really just, like, scoring points against Israel, there are plenty of places- Totally to do that.

They do not need the Call Me Back podcast to do that.

The one thing I have recently thought about that I haven't done yet is these trends in American society and Western society on antisemitism are obviously alarming.

There are people I really have known for a number of years and have trusted, even though I disagree with them, and they are saying things that are shocking to me now And about Israel and the future of US policy towards Israel, and they've gone, in my view, to a pretty dark place, a pretty shameful place, and yet I kinda want to have one of them on the podcast, not to do a gotcha thing.

I'm not w- looking to, like, capture them in a sound bite that they'll, that'll embarrass them.

I actually just… I really wanna understand how have they gone to such a dark place?

Like, just explain to me.

I'm, I won't… I may push back a little bit here and there.

I'm not looking to, like, clip things and then, like, make them go viral.

It's not what I do.

Yeah.

I do wanna understand how, and I have a couple people in mind, I don't wanna mention them.

But, like, there are a couple people that are just, like, you've got… I'm like, "You've gotta be kidding me." Like, do you really?

I'm gonna, I'm gonna assume you really believe this.

And- How'd you get there?

How'd you get there?

Explain it to me.

Explain your logic.

Some of it is illogical.

I assume you're talking about colleagues or relationships from- Yes … the Republican world where you- And the Democratic world.

And the Democratic world.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Political voices, ideological voices, people who are in professional politics or professional political media who I know w- where they are now is not where they were a few years ago.

W- so what's changed?

Just explain it to me.

Like, I, I actually think this environment we're in right now is so… It's bananas.

It's like, like, I come back to this, like, taking crazy pills.

Sometimes my wife says, "You're, you're like, you're, you're crazy.

Like, you, we wanna go understand it?

It's, it's, it's rank anti-Semitism." You know what I mean?

It's not… There's, it's raw.

There's nothing, there's nothing to understand.

She's probably right, but I still… I actually think it's important for us to, like, hear someone, again, not, not in a, like, counterpoint kind of way where, like, both sides are defensive.

I actually wanna draw them out.

I actually wanna understand the logic.

Yeah.

Now, there may not be any logic in it, and that kind of conversation that's, like, meaty could reveal that.

I would imagine there will be a logic.

It's likely a faulty logic, or based on misinformation or disinformation or, you know, some wrong turn along the way, but everybody's ended up somewhere somehow.

But like I said, I think the process is important.

Again, come back to the b- or beginning of our conversation, it's important to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know if it'll import- be important to anyone else, but, like, I wanna have that conversation.

Totally.

Particularly 'cause, like you know, I mean, you especially know this, you know people well.

You think you do.

And then you see them saying these things, and- You just feel like I, I think you know better.

I think you know that you know better.

I just wanna know where, like- Yeah … am I misreading this?

Are you misreading this?

So, like, and I, and I don't know if it'll have an audience, but it'll be interesting to me.

Well, you've, you've already got the audience.

Yeah.

So, you know, that part's taken care of.

Quick pause, fam.

We just got to a part in the conversation that I have clipped out and am giving exclusively to my kehillah.

That's Hebrew for community.

My subscribers are gonna get this interesting conversation that Dan and I just had about his Ark Media podcast platform, the different shows on there, the different audiences, the Israeli tech scene, all kinds of interesting stuff.

But you only get to hear it if you're in the in crowd.

So join today at beingjewishpodcast.com/join to get this exclusive weekly content, merchandise, preferred ticketing to my live events, a monthly live stream with yours truly, and a whole lot more.

All right, let's bring it back to Dan.

How is this not your day job?

That's a great question.

I don't understand.

I get that question a lot, and I would say, I think I can manage for it not to be ni- my day job- Because it is the content we're talking about.

If it were any other content, it would be impossible.

Which is to say I'm very immersed in Israel, the Middle East, Jewish life.

I, you know, every free minute I have, I would say one of every two or three of those free minutes that I have, this is what I'm thinking about.

You'd be having this conversation anyway.

Exactly.

This is what I'm reading.

This is, these are the con- The, the… By the way, I would say two-thirds of the journalists and political actors from Israel that I have on, in regular rotation on my podcast, I've been talking to those guys for years, like one way or the other.

Right.

I'm on the phone with them all the time.

So it's not, so it's almost like, let's record this conversation.

Right.

By the way, that's often how the episodes are recorded, is like we just kind of bang out a, a, a structure, and we, we kind of do a lot of improvising.

Sometimes makes our, our producer Alon crazy.

But it is like a real live conversation.

So these are the conversations I'm having anyways.

I've been immersed in Israeli politics and Israeli history for as long as I can remember.

So it's like, I don't want to say it's second nature, but it's just, it's, it, it doesn't require a lot of prep.

Mm.

Like I… You know, it's like my-- Alon, on one of these Q and A's we just did on Inside Call Me Back, we got a question from someone about what's the difference between what the diaspora hopes for from Israel's next prime minister versus what Israelis hope for?

Do they, are they prioritizing different things?

It was a great question.

And one of the, one of the, you know, priorities for the diaspora that I focused on is I find the diaspora, it's important to them that an Israeli prime minister represent Israel well in the way the diaspora wants Israel to be represented.

Right.

Like being able to present in English and communicate and debate well over here, and… 'cause, 'cause many in the diaspora are making the case for Israel or the case for the US-Israel relationship.

And it's not helpful when you have Israeli leaders who undermine many of our efforts to make the case for this alliance.

And so, so what, one thing that has happened over the last, you know, 30 years or so is Netanyahu, love him or hate him, one thing he has done is he has upped the game on what's expected internationally of an Israeli prime minister in terms of their ability to speak in Eng- English.

The truth is he's an outlier, Netanyahu, in this sense.

If you think about Sharon, Ariel Sharon, someone I greatly admired, or Yitzhak Rabin, someone I greatly remi- admired.

These were leaders who did not speak English well.

Yitzhak Shamir, another leader I, I greatly admired, didn't speak English well.

There are very few who communicate in English well.

Golda Meir, Avigdor Lieberman, Shimon Peres, Moshe Arens, you know, and then obviously Netanyahu.

So I get this question in real time.

And I just start riffing.

Mm.

And I'm riffing on every Israeli leader, foreign minister, you know, prime minister, other officials, and grading their English going back, like, 40 years.

I mean, really, I started doing this.

Uh, I mean, Alon had to edit it down.

He's like, "It's too much.

You're like-" An encyclopedia.

"You've gone down this rabbit hole of whether or not David Levy, who was the foreign minister in the Shamir government in the late '80s and early '90s, whether it was a problem that he only spoke French and Hebrew and didn't speak…" And I, I went down this… But you can only have that info at your fingertips if, like, this is, like, this is the water I've been drinking for years and years and years, which come, come back to your question, is really the only way I can this-- I can do this podcast as, like, a hobby and something on the side and not make it full time, because the prep… I, if you ask me, "Now do a similar podcast about the fu- future of the US-Pakistani relationship," I would not be able to do that- Right … if it were not my full-time job.

Right, right.

And it sounds like you have a great partner- Yes … and your producer, and- Yes.

So Alon is Israeli.

Mm-hmm.

He lives in New York, but he's Israeli.

Uh, he worked in Israeli journalism, uh, at one point in his life, and he's steeped in Israeli news, and he has a real feel for the Israel- the conversation happening in Israeli news, in Israeli, the journalism scene.

And so we really are constantly trying to make sense of the, of the, of, like, kind of where the news story's going inside Israel.

How, how'd you two get hooked up?

I've known Alon for, I don't know, probab- at least 10, 12 years.

We worked on a couple of projects years ago.

One was a, a documentary, a documentary project he was an editor on related to Start-Up Nation, which was the first book I co-authored, and then we just worked on random projects over the years, and then we became close friends.

And during COVID I, I was, like, really fascinated by podcasting.

Leave Israel and the Middle East out of it.

I was very f- I was increasingly fascinated by podcasting as a medium.

I thought it was the most interesting medium in media.

Yeah.

I think it did something and does something you can't get in any other form of media, which is giving the audience two things.

One, the feel of that they're a fly on the wall in a- That intimacy … in a conversation like this, right?

So they're just like, they're sitting there with Jonah and, and Dan in the studio.

They might as well be, like, you know, part of the conversation.

Hi, guys.

Slightly unstructured, and so it doesn't feel so, like… You know, when you go on a, you know, you, I, you know, you've been on CNN or one of these cable news shows, it, it's not their fault, it's just the way they're structured, but it's a very unnatural way to have a conversation, right?

Totally.

You're having a four-minute conversation, and you could be on the cusp of making a, a- an enormously important point, and it's like, and you have the audience that's about to have their cathartic moment, and then Jake Tapper says, "Well, we have to go to an ad break." And like, it's like, are you kidding me?

And it, there's no reason, like, in no other conversation would you, would Jake stop Jonah at that exact moment and say, "I'm cutting you off"- Right … but for the fact that there's this, there's this, you know, kind of forced structure.

Structural structure.

Yeah.

Right, exactly.

So this kind of conversation, if Jake were having that conversation with Jonah, he, he would say, "Let it roll.

Let's go." Right.

"Let's go four minutes, 40 minutes." You know?

Mm-hmm.

It can, we can just go on and on and on, and it's, and so, and that's actually the way real humans communicate, right, is they have a conversation, and if it's really interesting, then it flows.

So I thought podcasting was, was, was wonderful for that reason.

And- The other thing I learned, and I, as a consumer, and I consume a lot of podcasts, is when you're listening to a podcast, the, the voices or the voice of the podcast is the listener's inner monologue.

Meaning, it's hard to think about much else when you're actually listening to a podcast.

If someone's listening to us- Right … right now, they have those earbuds in, right?

They're listening.

They can be running, working out, they could be doing the dishes, walking the dog.

They can't be reading something else.

Right.

It's actually impossible.

I've tried it.

Hmm.

It's impossible.

You can't even really be checking, like, your phone or scrolling.

It's just hard to concentrate on anything else when you have the earbuds in.

Yeah.

Um, you can't really be… You can't watch TV.

So it's one of… But, but if you're watching TV, you can be reading something.

Right.

Right?

If you're watching a movie, you can't be checking your phone, but with podcasting, it requires a level of focus that almost no other medium, you know, requires.

And so when we have loyal listeners who are giving us two or three hours a week or more to listen to our podca- That's valuable re- real estate because you have their undi- most more or less their undivided attention- Yeah … for very complicated, intense topics.

And so A- Alon and I were both interested in podcasting.

It was cool to us that it required… You could just experiment.

As I said earlier, there were no barriers to entry.

And so we decided during COVID, when we all had a lot of downtime- Yeah … we decided during COVID to start a podcast just to… A- and so that's how we got started.

Obviously, like I said, October 7th changed the focus of it.

Wow.

I've, I've heard you say that your audience for the show is more politically left of center than you are, that you might expect.

What does that tell you?

Like, what do you learn from that?

I think a lot of left of center Jews feel homeless in the diaspora today, and they find it hard to find community- Hmm where they can have conversations, um, where they don't have to agree with everyone in the community on everything, but they can agree on this issue, and they won't be pushed out, canceled, marginalized.

A- and- A lot of my guests are left of center.

Like, like I'll, like take someone like Scott Galloway.

Mm-hmm.

So Scott Galloway came on the podcast on Calling Back early on after October 7th, and he's very, you know, he's self-identifying left of center.

He's a, you know, he makes it very clear.

He's a… But he, but he's unapologetic.

I hate to say the word but, because he- you should be able to be- And … left of center.

Right, and.

So he's left of center and, uh, he, his Jewish identity increasingly matters to him.

He, he said he calls himself a, you know, an October 8th Jew.

Uh, he grew up total- totally, as he says, again, I'm, I don't wanna put words in his mouth.

He will say he's, he grew up a- atheist.

You know, he knew he was Jewish but had no connection to it.

Certainly wasn't literate in, in Judaism, didn't identify strongly, but it was, it was who he was.

And then combination of him being in the business and tech world, being in the left of center politics, being a journalist-ish, and being a professor.

Right.

So imagine all those worlds, and you see what happens after October 7th, and he, back to my am I taking crazy pills?

He falls into the am I taking crazy pills category.

Yeah.

And so he started speaking out, and I had him on the podcast soon after October 7th, and I had two fascinating kinds of reactions.

One reaction was from my conservative, my right of center friends And he said things on domestic policy, not related to Israel, that on the, on the podcast that were, you know, would be maybe offensive to some people who are right of center, and they were like, "Why didn't you challenge him on that?

Why didn't you challenge him on that?" He, and I'm like, " 'Cause I'm not interested in getting in a fight with him on the podcast about right left social issues in the United States." He would've just made these passing references.

I said, "That, that's not what we're doing here." Yeah.

And so he… So, and, and by coming on the podcast, us not getting on a fight, in a fight on those issues, letting him say what he felt about those issues, but also talking about how his position on those issues are also perfectly consistent with how he feels about Israel, and America's alliance with Israel, and his growing Jewish identity.

A lo- I mean, I could not tell you how many left of center people told me, "That episode came out, it landed in my WhatsApp feed, and it was like speaking to me." Mm.

"I felt like, oh, I have a home.

I'm with this guy." Yeah.

And then they circulated it to lots of people they know, and again, back to my point, there was no plan, but I don't discriminate against people with that, you know, worldview at all.

I just… It's not about discriminating one way or the other.

It's just like I welcome people on to talk about these issues, and so more and more left of center folks were coming on who were, were conveying, A, how they, strongly they felt about being a Jew and their connection to Israel, how offended they were and a sense of abandonment and, and feeling unmoored- Mm-hmm post-October 7th with the, with the ideological professional communities they were in.

And, um, and then they would, like, talk about how they're reconciling all this, and I just think those kinds of voices- Resonated with a lot of people who were looking for a home.

And so that is why much of our audience is to the left of me.

Interesting.

Okay, so let's, let's shift gears a little bit.

Okay.

Let's talk a little bit about the Jewish future.

Okay.

Uh, last year- Small, small topic.

A small topic, but y- one you've covered.

Uh, you wrote an article for Commentary, you gave an address at the 92nd Street Y.

Um, and you and I are actually very aligned- Mm-hmm on what you said there- Yeah … and a lot of what I've said on this show.

So I wanna talk a little bit about solutions- Mm-hmm … to some of the stuff we're worried about.

So let's start with day school.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, which we both agree is super important.

Money is the issue, right?

They can't compete with public schools on price.

A lot of them fail to compete with private schools on what they're able to offer.

Mm-hmm.

How do we fix that?

I felt strongly about day schools before October 7th.

Post-October 7th, I'm seeing it.

I'm on the board of a day school.

We are now seeing families apply to Jewish day school, and it's not the, only the experience of the day school I'm on the board of.

I s- I see this elsewhere, too.

We're seeing families apply to day school who would've never considered day school before October 7th.

Yeah, totally.

Families whose kids are either in elite private schools, independent schools, secular private schools, or kids are in public schools, and they're moving their kids after sixth grade or after eighth grade, somewhere, like, midway.

They, this wasn't their plan, and now they want in.

And the reality is many of these day schools are turning too many of these families away because the system cannot absorb, as it's currently constructed, that many people.

Now, partly it's a space, physical space.

Like, they're not built- Well, that's a good problem to have.

Right.

So we gotta build infrastructure, right?

To absorb the demand.

So there's, there's too much demand, and I'm not saying too much in a negative way.

There's too much demand in, like, thank God there's too much demand.

Wow, that's inter- that's not the case in LA.

Okay.

So it's, it's definitely the case here- Cool in the Northeast.

So we gotta expand, we gotta grow the infrastructure.

And for many others, they want in, but it's cost-prohibitive.

That's more the case.

There's a young man, I don't say young.

I say young man.

He's, like, in his late 20s.

It's just increasingly these days- Eh … I say Fair.

Yeah.

No, it's funny.

I spoke to my kid's s- uh, senior class at his Je- at his Jewish day school the other day, and I referred to a decision I had made in, in my life, a career decision when I was 32 as, like, a big decision I had made.

I was giving these kids advice, and I s- and I referred to when I was a young man, I was 32, and they looked at me like, "When you…" 32 is like you're, you're old, and you're talking about… But anyways, that's why I'm very sensitive to this question.

You, you can relate.

I, I get it.

I can totally relate.

Exactly.

32 is years ago.

32 is like you're a kid.

Right.

So there's Judah Taub, who is, uh, an Israeli venture capitalist and a, served in one of the most elite units in the IDF and is a real thought leader in public intellectual in Israel, and he's been working on some of the biggest developing moonshot solutions for some of the biggest challenges facing Israel and the Jewish people.

One of those moonshots is trying to figure out the answer to, to this problem or this question which is… Or let me, let me state the problem.

The problem is It's too expensive to be Jewish in America.

Now, when I say that, people are like, "It sounds… Uh, what do you mean it's too ex- You're, you're applying, like, a cost basis?

A cost formula to what?" Yes.

Now, if you tell me you just wanna be an assimilated Jew, and you don't wanna be connected, and you don't want your family to be connected to Jewish life in any kind of institutional way, that means no Jewish day schools, no Jewish camps, not sending your kids to, on a summer trip to Israel, group trip, teen tour, teen, teen trip to Israel, not sending your kid on a gap year to Israel.

If that is sufficient for you to be Jewish, then it's not expensive.

Right.

But I don't believe that's sufficient.

No.

I believe Jews and Jewish parents need to make decisions about putting their kids in social situations where they are in social- where they are in bubbles, what I call bubbles in a good way, Jewish bubbles, where their formative experiences are when they're growing up, where their formative relationships are growing up.

You have very young kids, right?

You're s- I do, yeah.

Okay.

So, so my kids are older, and I've seen this.

I like to think that my, Campbell and my relationships with our kids will be the most important relationships that will form them, but it's just not true.

It isn't.

The most… And I know this is gonna be hard for you to hear 'cause y- I know.

No.

I know.

I know.

You still got time.

You… Enjoy it.

But the most important relationships that our kids have had are relationships with their peers.

It has more of an influence on them than ev- anything.

So then ask yourself, "Well, what kind of peer groups do you want your kids to be in, where they're forming those relationships, and making those decisions, and deciding who they are, and deciding their values, and deciding what's important to them?

And what kind of, like, social norms do you want to, to kind of exist in that community or that bubble that they're in?" And if you care about your kids being Jewish, then you better think about places like day schools, camps, gap years, et cetera.

The problem is, as Judah Toll argues, it's too expensive.

Yeah.

And so if you map out over the life of a Jew from when they're young to… It's, I mean, it's scary when you see the numbers.

Oh, yeah.

It's scary.

Tens of thousands of dollars.

Beyond.

Beyond.

Beyond.

And again- A year.

Oh, oh yeah.

Over the li- exactly.

So it's, it, when you add it up, it's really shocking.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's one trend line that's impossible or bad.

The other trend line is, if you look at forecasts for the Jewish community, let's just stay with America, the f- Jewish community in America.

The Orthodox community, growing.

Yep.

The Modern Orthodox community, growing.

Great.

Yep.

The non-Orthodox community, exactly.

Dropping.

So if we say to ourselves, we want there to be a diverse Jewish community, we want it, the Jewish community to grow.

Unless we figure out a way to make Jewish life for non-Orthodox Jews not cost-prohibitive, we're not gonna avoid that- Right … that crash.

Right now, based on data I've seen, about f- only 5%, 5% of non-Orthodox kids in America today go to Jewish day school.

Yeah.

It's nothing, okay?

Now, what I've been arguing at the 92nd Street Y speech and in other, uh, venues, what I've been arguing is, if we com- everyone comes out Like, what's gonna happen to us after October 7th, after this crazy period we've just been through?

And what I've been arguing is we will hopefully, God willing, look back at this period and say, at this time that we were under attack and the world, you know, the f- like, the ground beneath us was, was, was, was shifting and shaking, that actually what came out of it was a renaissance in Jewish life.

Mm-hmm.

So you only get that renaissance if these institutions that I'm describing, where I think Jews, young Jews should be, are flourishing and welcoming and affordable.

It only works if they're affordable.

I'm hoping that Jewish philanthropy in America today and in other diaspora communities makes a priority.

There are ways to do it.

I'm working on a couple projects related to this.

There are ways to make Jewish education and Jewish camping and other projects affordable.

It requires… And, and at scale, so that you can get that five percent.

People say we… 60%, 70%.

No, let's start with 10%.

Yeah.

Let's start with 15%.

Let's double it.

By the way, the ripple effects of that, if you go from 5% of non-Orthodox kids in day schools to 20% or 15%- Huge … I'm not gonna s- name the family, but, like, I'm thinking about one family that was thinking about coming, and thank God is coming, to our day school.

Uh, they have a kid who's coming out of a secular private school, fancy private school.

He's coming for high school, so he's coming after eighth grade.

And I remember thinking to myself, "If that kid stays in the school he's in-" Or he comes to our, to the Heschel School.

When I think about the payoff in terms of life decisions, in terms of what the decisions that, that kid, God willing, will make then- It's like a sliding doors moment.

Exactly.

So what, what kind of price do you put on that?

Who that person will choose to marry, who that ch- person will choose to invest in community with.

I mean, what ch- what decisions that guy will make for his own kids.

I mean, it's just … Right, it's a sliding doors moment.

So I, I think there are ways to do this at scale to make- Well, that's what I'm waiting for, is the how.

I know.

I know.

No, so- Is it, is it about supporting individual schools, or is it about supporting some sort of larger pot that goes to these schools?

So this is … Wow, you're really getting into it.

You're asking the right questions, and I'm, I'm taking you a little bit behind the, the, um, scenes of some of the conversations.

But I'll, but I'll … But you're, you're zeroing on, on exactly the right question.

So there's, there's basically two approaches.

They're not n- necess- necessarily mutually exclusive.

One way to go is to say we're gonna create basically a, a fund, a big fund that will make a commitment, make a pledge to every Jewish family that, assuming y- there's the financial need in that family, Jewish day school will not, never cost you more than X.

And whatever it costs above X, 'cause the, the r- the problem with the Jewish day school model is it is very economically inefficient.

It's very expensive because- It's two schools in one.

It's two schools.

Exactly.

It's a dual c- I try to explain this, but it's dual curriculum.

So y- the kind of administrative staff, the kind of educational staff.

You need double of everything.

Exactly.

It's very expensive, so there's no way to do it cheaply.

Yeah.

The only thing you can do is subsidize it.

So do you have some kind of fund or project that makes a commitment to every Jewish family, "If you are in need, don't worry.

You can choose your Jewish day school knowing that there'll be support for you above a certain level." Can't be, like, zero.

Right.

But, but above a reasonable level.

Crazy that doesn't exist yet.

Keep going.

Okay.

The other way to go, again, not mutually exclusive with the first- Right … is to say we are going to id- identify What's working already, 'cause there are some phenomenal Jewish day schools- Mm-hmm … in this country, in certain pockets of this country.

Let's identify the best Jewish day schools and figure out what each of them would need to make them even more excellent th- th- than they are, and even more excellent than they are means expanding the number of students they can take in.

So what would it take for you to do what you're doing, still be excellent, maybe even be more excellent, because to your earlier observation, which is spot on, there are a number of Jewish families who say, "Well, my kid's in a, in an elite private secular school, and by going into Jewish day school, I'm, like, settling." Right.

"I'm, like, downgrading the quality of education he or she's gonna have, or the opportunities he or she's gonna have, or the colleges and universities that m- uh, w- will be an option for my kid, and so I can't afford to do that." I actually think there are some Jewish day schools that don't make you settle if that- Yeah they think that's settling.

So let's figure out what those schools are or, or what schools, or what Jewish day schools are on the bubble and could be that, and what kind of resources they would need.

And again, all against the backdrop of, of increasing the pool, increasing the number of students they can take in.

These are two different approaches.

Again, they both can be done, and I think myself and others who are thinking about this and working on this are trying to address that answer.

Good.

So maybe the next time I come on Being Jewish I will have an update for you.

I hope so.

Yeah.

That would be a great- Yeah reason to return.

Among the encouraging signs I've seen is when I have this conversation… I'm telling you, Jonah, like, and this is including with people who have extraordinary means, they're serious philanthropists, when I get into this, they light up.

Good.

And these are people who have not been in the game.

Yeah.

These are people who've endowed- Well, that's another issue.

That's the other part of the issue.

I know.

They've endowed chairs and, you know, at the l- the nation's top universities, and had dorms and dining halls named after them, and they've done all this stuff, and, and lecture halls and, and they, and they're like, "That was a complete… W- What, what on earth was I doing?" Yeah.

You know, and they're the, the chairman of the, the symphony and the, and the museum, and they feel like th- "I've been lighting money on fire." Yeah.

"I wanna redirect my philanthropy." And when I talk about this… I mean, I, I even saw it with the 92nd Street Y speech with the State of World Jewry.

People were reaching out who have extraordinary means, who care- And they're ready to make a pivot in their philanthropy.

So that is why when I say, like, an opportunity for a renaissance in Jewish life, I think we are, like, at an inflection point.

I hope that's true.

A lot of the stuff that you just talked about, a lot of those programs, organizations, institutions, are family focused, kids focused.

What about adult Jews, childless adult Jews?

Like, what… Where is their entry point to Jewish connection right now?

So I, um, when I gave the 92nd Street Y speech, I included, w- was mostly focused on young, on young people, because I actually think that's the hardest nut to crack, and it's the most expensive nut to crack.

Mm.

First of all, there's, there's a lot of engagement to be done as, uh, as a young adult or as an adult in Israel.

There are all sorts of programs that one can do to go spend time in Israel.

I mean, again, it depends on where you are and the age.

You know, there's, there's, um… Like for instance, I've just been talking about this in our podcast, the Hartman Institute in Israel.

Yossi Klein Halevi and Danielle Hartman from the Hartman Institute co-host a podcast, For Heaven's Sake, with us, and they have a summer learning program where they take adults to just, like, it's, it's almost like a Jewish intellectual version of a teen tour.

Cool.

Where you, right, go to Jerusalem and go sp- And it's, like, for beg- for beginners, and you go to Hartman, and you… By the way, some of the best scholars.

It's, it's people like Yossi Klein Halevi, and, and Micah Goodman, and Tal Becker.

These are all people you know.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you get to go study with these people and go spend time in Israel and go- That's amazing.

Right.

There's a lot of these kinds of programs for adults that I, if I had the time, I would actually go do these things.

You don't have to… I mean, I, I really, the, it's, it's an amazing way to engage.

And then there's growing innovative projects over here for learning and engaging for adults.

So my friend Dan Loeb, who I mentioned in the 92nd Street Y speech, after October 7th, uh, he started something called the Simcha Torah Challenge, where he's just creating these, like, virtual spaces for young adults to basically study Torah every single day if they want in different groups and learning groups and whatnot, and the thing has taken off.

And, like, out of thin air.

Like, he just created this space for people, and that's more geared towards people who may or may not have kids, but it's not for kids.

Right.

I, I just think there's a lot happening now.

There, there could be more.

There should be more.

But I think if you want to engage and build community, there are ways to do it.

Yeah.

You must be finding this exact demographic of people reaching out to you, right?

Like- Yes … this podcast is probably a way for people to be a part of a conversation, even though they don't have a traditional Jewish path, or they may not have Jewish kids, or they may not have kids.

I mean, I'm, I'm- Totally, yes.

Yeah.

I mean, that, that question was motivated by conversations I've had with people who listen to the show or follow me online who are sort of feeling left out of the conversation- Right … a little bit.

Right.

So you know who else has tapped into that for me, in my audience, is, um, Rachel Goldberg Pollan.

Mm.

So Rachel is a Jewish educator by training, and she's famous, tragically, because- She spent as much time as she did fighting for her son's life, Hersh.

Right.

Her profession was in Jewish education, and she happens to be, and I've worked with a lot of Jewish educators my entire life, she's one of, if not the most impressive Jewish educator I've ever spent meaningful time with.

You know, we do a regular cadence where we work on the Jewish holidays together- Right … and we study.

The next one coming up is on Tisha B'Av.

Nice.

Which I was gonna give her a pass on.

I said, "T- Tisha B'Av's a pretty dark holiday." She insisted that we do Tisha B'Av.

Nice.

So we, we study together, and the reaction we get from these episodes, I've actually never seen anything like it.

Because she is a deep, as, you know, in terms of, like, she's a very literate Jew, so she's deep on the content.

She is funny and charming.

Mm-hmm.

She's a great storyteller and communicator, and she explains without alienating.

She makes it all very accessible, and every time she and I drop one of these episodes where we study Shavuot or we sh- study Rosh Hashanah or we study Pesach or w- whatever, the feedback we get, and it's usually from this demographic that you just asked me about.

Mm-hmm.

Which is like, "I don't have a lot of formal Jewish education.

I don't wanna go all in.

I don't have a family." It's easier when you have a family to build this around.

Right.

There's so many on-ramps when you have a family.

"Yet I wanna do more than I'm doing." Right.

And she has a way of making it accessible and engaging and not intimidating.

So we get that from, from Jews from this demographic you're describing, and we also get it from non-Jews.

We get a lot of non-Jews who reach out and say, s- in a similar way that I was always struck, like Elie Wiesel- Mm-hmm … was a Jewish public figure that could reach non-Jews.

Yeah.

Right?

Right?

Millions of kids have read Night.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Including non-Jews.

I think she has that kind of reach also.

Yeah.

Making Judaism something that is relatable to non-Jews.

So Dan and I are running short on time here, so I think we're gonna have to do a part two, Dan.

Like, we're gonna, we're just gonna have to figure it out.

Even if it's remote, we'll have to get you in.

This is the beautiful thing about podcasts, is we- Right?

… can just say we're gonna pick it up.

Yep.

You know what I mean?

Like- Exactly … you know?

So any time, we'll figure it out.

By the way, it's very Jewish that we just, like, have a conversation and it doesn't have a real end.

And so we'll just, like, pick back up where we left off.

We'll find another time when you can fit me in between your 10 shows and your day job- … and your travels.

So we will end on something a little lighter, as, uh, I like to do with a little game.

Oh, boy.

We're gonna do a lightning round.

Even though you're not technically Israeli, because your show is so focused on Israel, we're gonna do my Israeli version of the lightning round, which we call Ze or Ze.

Hummus or tahina?

Tahina.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

Okay.

Shishlik or pargiot?

Pargiot.

Same.

Wow.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Mets or Yankees?

Mets.

Jets or Giants?

The Mets is about the relationship with one of my sons who's a huge Mets fan.

I do not have a super strong view on this.

He's a teenage boy, and when you're a father of a teenage boy, any downtime you can get with him is the best.

Mm.

Including nine innings sitting through a Mets game, as I did last Sunday as they were getting crushed.

So the Mets, that's what that- I get that.

The Jets, it's tribal.

Mm.

I, he brought the Mets to our family.

I brought the Jets.

You have a Jets some- oh, your phone case.

Yeah, my phone.

Yeah.

And so I'm, I'm obsessive about the Jets.

I'm sorry.

Uh, yeah, but it's like being Jewish, right?

It's forever next year.

This is our burden.

Forever next year.

You know, Shana Ba- Yeah.

There's always adversity.

You're always striving.

It's always hard.

It's always character-building.

That's right.

Right.

And so Jets.

Podcasting or finance?

That's a great question.

I mean, finance is my job.

Podcasting is my golf game.

There you go.

Yeah.

Nice.

Shabbat in New York or Shabbat in Jerusalem?

I romanticize Shabbat in Jerusalem.

It's like, it's my happy place.

Mm.

Okay?

And yet Shabbat in New York, it's been one of the most, if not important things for my family.

If I had to pick one thing, like gun to my head, Dan, one thing that has been, like, the most healthy decision you made with your wife about your family- It, in, in addition to getting married and having kids, it's, we made a decision that Friday nights would be just untouchable.

They were our time.

They could be with other families, but it would be under one roof, people not spread out going- Right … different places, and together around one Shabbat table.

It's, it's been just, um, anchoring.

It's the power of Shabbat.

Right.

Toronto bagel or New York bagel?

New York.

Easy.

Startup Nation or Genius of Israel?

Startup Nation.

Mm.

It's the OG.

It's the OG.

Saul Singer or Paul Singer?

They're both family, and they're both thought partners.

That's a great question.

And I've actually learned a ton from each of them in different ways.

If I had to count on one hand the people who had the biggest impact on how I think about different parts of the world, it would be those two Singers.

Mm.

And Wendy Singer, another Singer, who's my sister.

What a family.

Yeah.

Amit Segal or Nadav Eyal?

Oh.

This is like Sophie's Choice.

Yeah.

We could skip that one.

Yeah.

Anti-Defamation League or National Football League?

National Football League.

I, I appreciate a lot of the work the ADL does, but after Judaism, football is my religion.

Utica or unicorns?

Utica.

Paul Ryan or Logan Paul?

Paul Ryan.

Bibi Netanyahu or B.B.

King?

Bibi Netanyahu.

Zoran Mamdani or Mandana Dayani?

Oh, that's easy.

Mamdana Dayani.

That is, like, that's, like, right over the place.

That was a layup, right?

Yeah.

Well, you know, their names sound similar.

Yeah, yeah.

Shout out to Mandana.

And the, the question we ask all of our guests, challah, rip or slice?

Oh, so we definitely rip.

Uh, rip and throw.

Rip and throw?

Rip and throw.

Not even a, a, a polite pass?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And, and because we often introduce a lot of non-Jews, there is always this flash of, like, are they, what is this barbaric- Right tradition they have- What is this savagery?

… where they're whipping these pieces of challah across the room.

But again, back to teenage boys, as these kids get older, it's, like, the coolest thing in the world, right?

They say the motzi, and then the challah goes flying.

It's like party time.

Amazing.

Well, this was party time of a different kind, but Dan, thank you so much for being here.

All right.

We'll do, we'll continue this.

And we'll do it again.

All right.

The show is Call Me Back.

It's everywhere you get your pods and at arcamedia.org.

If this conversation moved you, please share it with at least one Jew and one non-Jew, and be sure to like, subscribe and comment.

I'd love to hear from you guys.

All right, that's it for me.

I'll see you all right back here for the next mellifluous episode of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.