Being Jewish with Jason Alexander! Seinfeld Star on Israel-Palestine Peace, Jews on TV & more!

Watch and Listen

I always say to people who have knee-jerk answers about anything in the Middle East conflict and you go, "You got an easy answer?" Well, then you probably don't understand the situation.

For some people, Jews are Seinfeld.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

When Jews are hurt, I feel that there are people out there that will kill you because you're a Jew.

So, you might as well know what you're dying for.

Welcome back.

Welcome back, everybody, to our brand spanking new season of Being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.

I am thrilled to be back in this chair, back in conversation with you and back in conversation with some spectacular Jews and allies we've got lined up for you all season long.

And today's guest, well, he's a doozy.

Had to go big for the season premiere, right?

So, how's this?

My guest today is a Tony Award-winning classic movie starring generational TV comedy icon.

He's also a proud Jew who has used his stature to raise money for countless organizations like Magendavid, ADL, Jewish Federation, the Israel Cancer Research Fund, and many more.

He's the man who showed us how to double dip a chip, nap under your desk, and declare with full confidence, "It's not you, it's me." Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Castanza Bonanza, Jason Alexander.

Thank you for being here.

Castanza Bonanza.

Not bad, huh?

Not bad.

Somebody was writing.

Somebody was up all night.

That's right.

Okay.

I'm glad that's a a fresh one for you.

It's a fresh one.

Well, thank you so much for being here, kicking off this new season.

I'm just so happy to be in conversation with you today.

It's good to see you.

So, for for those of you who don't know, which is I everybody but my wife, weekly shout out to Courtney.

Uh Jason and I have spent time together in two other environments.

The the most previous was I was in an acting class that you were the teacher of, which was awesome.

I I really enjoyed it and learned a lot.

And the best part was that because I was sick the penultimate class, I didn't get a scene partner.

And so when I came in the last class, you were my student, which was amazing getting to to to do that with you.

That was so cool.

Was I any good?

Do you remember?

You were very good.

Yes.

You heard it.

Got a future.

Yes.

Okay.

And then the first time that we were in a room together was days after October 7th.

Actually, we got put into a room by Mr.

Lubetsky, who's who I'm trying to get on this pod.

We're going to make it work one day.

Uh Daniel Lubetski, who I know you have a a long-standing relationship with.

But when I came and saw you in the room, I was like, "Oh, Jason Alexander's engaged." And then as I learned more, it's, oh, he's not just a little engaged, he's a lot engaged.

And we're going to get into all the different ways that you are engaged as a Jew and, you know, out in public as a Jew.

But first, let's start here.

What does being Jewish mean to you?

Like what does it look like today for Jason Alexander?

It's a shirt I can't take off.

That's for sure.

Um I believe that I walk through the world basically wearing, you know, the history of the Jewish people on me.

the way I speak, the way I think, my sense of humor, um the way I was educated, um the way I think about community, um the way I think about comedy and communication, it all is informed by the very deep Jewish influences and roots that I have had since I was a kid.

What it does not contain much to the chagrin of many of my fellow Jews is much of the religiosity of of being a Jew.

I have great faith.

I'm very spiritual.

I believe in God.

I've never been even when I was going through my religious Jewish training.

I have never been um attracted to or much of a fan of any kind of formal religious doctrine or practice.

My current credo is build bridges not borders.

And I find that my exposure to religion and religious people gives me more borders than bridges.

So it has never been um a big part of my celebration of my Jewishness.

Although my boys were bar mitzvah, you know, we we we usually have a seder.

We do the Hanukkah.

We do some of the stuff.

Joyous occasions for you.

They are.

And it's important to the boys.

You know, when Dana and I had to make the decisions starting from when they were born, we we thought about, are we are we circumcising these boys?

Are we doing the birth thing?

And do we send them to Hebrew school?

Do we bar mitzvah them?

Yeah.

I think they had a far better Jewish education experience than I had when I was growing up.

Shout out to Wilshire Boulevard.

Yep.

But, you know, I when they when they were railing against it, you know, because it was taking up their weekend, they said, "You guys don't even do this.

Why are we doing it?" I said, "Because there are people out there that will kill you because you're a Jew.

So, you might as well know what you're dying for." And I I think they found the value in it.

And Gabe, particularly my older son, he surprises me because he'll do some things that I didn't expect that I don't do.

Like I'm I don't really observe the high holidays.

Gabe fasts on Yum Kipper every year.

It's important to him.

Um he married a girl who's not Jewish, but there is Jewishness in that house.

As I told you off camera a minute ago, my my grandson is going to a temple-based preschool, right?

She's not particularly religious either.

So, they do Christmas, they do Hanukkah, they do and he's exposed to everything and that's kind of great.

But to go back to your question, my Jewishness, my Judaism um is something I've never walked away from that I'm rather proud of that informs everything I do.

And the only crap I take is that people go, "But you changed your name." And I go, I didn't change my name.

You have a stage name.

A stage name.

If you look at my license, I can't get on a plane without being Jay Greenspan.

That's when you when you called me earlier, Jay Greenspan popped up on the phone.

You bet.

My real name is Jay Scott Greenspan.

And my mother named me Jay, but always called me Jason.

And I was going to be Jason Scott.

That was always my fantasy.

And I got to the front of the line and said, "You want a stage name?" And I went, "Jason Scott, please." They checked every spelling there was.

Scott with a K, Scott with two T, Scott with one.

Even Jason, J A I S I N, spelled like raisin, was taken.

They went, you can't have Jason Scott.

Wow.

And in that moment, it was the first time I thought, I bet my dad probably feels not great about me even wanting to lose his name.

And I thought, oh, he's Alex Greenspan.

What if I was and I went, Jason Alexander?

They went, "Sure." And it was that that's how it happened.

It was not even a moment of thought.

That's a great stage name.

Yeah.

served you well.

It's been fine.

Um I I read in an interview last year while we're talking about the sort of religious vacuum uh that you found like your Hebrew school to be all form and no content.

And with that vacuum you sought your own content which was filled with spirituality but not necessarily religious spirituality.

You say that you're spiritual, you have your connection, you have your faith.

Like what does that mean for you?

Like where do you how do you connect to God or like how much are you doing that?

So, you know, it really became better defined for me when when my boys were born and they started saying, you know, what do you believe, Dad?

Do do you believe that we exist after we die?

Do you believe, you know, and I I remember saying to um Noah, my younger son.

I said, you know, I really I really don't know, Noah, but I said, there are people who believe that our spirit continues and that in a way it gets recycled and we become new people or we become new creatures and we have different experiences.

But the same people that believe that often tend to believe that we are all parts of a a sort of bigger soul and that we we are literally soulmates and soul mates travel together.

And he said, "But do you believe that?" And I said, "Well, here's the crazy thing.

The very second you were born, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt if I had to give up my life to protect you, I would do it.

Why would I do that for a stranger?" So, I said, "I don't know.

I think I think we're connected." So, in starting to talk like that, I started to think about, well, what do I believe?

And I and I started to read some really fascinating spiritualbased books and and where I got to is a place where I am happy to believe that time space and our our world is a creation and a creation by a purposeful and sensient something and that we are living in the purpose of discovery, learning, delivering information, delivering experience, exploration, whatever it may be to serve that creation or creator.

And I don't believe that we're in a place where I go, "Hey, if you could give me a break, I'd really like to get this job." I don't think it's that kind of thing.

But I do think within it, people say, "If you're not religious, how do you define your morality?" And I go, "Well, if it is in the spirit of creation, I think I'm in line with the creator.

If I have to destroy, diminish, dismiss um in order to move my agenda or my belief forward, I think I am not in accordance with a creator.

And it becomes very easy for me to delineate between those two ideas.

It's sort of like the uh enlightenment watch maker kind of idea that somebody built the watch and now the watch is going, right?

But somebody built it with a purpose and the way that it's meant to function.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, what have the last two years felt like for you since October?

Oh, it's been great.

Yeah, a great time.

We're having a blast.

It is a fascinating, challenging time to be Jewish and especially to have been a Jew who believes that my relationship with Israel was valuable and and my aspirations for what Israel is, was, and could be.

and they're all in the mix now.

I don't I I feel like in so many ways that have nothing to do with being a Jewish human being, but I feel like I don't know where the foundation of anything is.

I don't know that the ground I stand on is ever solid.

Things that were absolutes for me are no longer absolutes.

Things I believed I knew and understood and could go check.

I got that.

I now go erase the check.

I I don't know much anymore.

In some ways, it has been an invitation to expand beyond this the the limits of my own determinations and experiences.

Here's a perfect example.

I go, "How does this person not see things the way I see it?" And now I go, "Oh, none of us see anything the same way." Yeah.

You and I can both look at this microphone and I say it's a microphone and it's black and you go, "Well, it has some black to it, but it's a charcoal and there's a gray and there's lights and there's whites and it is a microphone and you could define it that way, but it's also a recorder and it's also with and you know we there's so many my couple's therapist says to me and my wife, you could both look at the Eiffel Tower.

One of you says it's red, one of you says it's blue." Absolutely.

You know, and what I realized was that no two people see reality the same way, but we had a bridge in a certain set of agreed upon facts.

Yeah.

And what has happened not just in the last two years but in the last 10 years if not more is that the the the factual connectors that allowed us to exist in our own realities but converse and and communicate have been really put through the mill and the incredible explosion of the conflict the the Palestine and and Israel conflict and the actions that both sides have taken and the the the horrors that have come from it and the way the world has changed as this event reverberates out of the world.

it.

I mean, listen, it it's awful, but it's but my removed experience of it is, as I say, that I I don't I feel like I walk on sand and I just keep looking for solid ground to be able to plant anything I know into a foundation and it's it it eludes me still.

That's very articulate way of putting I think the way a lot of people are feeling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Clearly you feel a sense or or have felt a sense certainly as a Jew of lending your star power and your name to many Jewish causes and events going to Israel as you say not to pontificate but to attract media attention.

Um speaking up even as a Jewish representative during your Seinfeld days over a particular episode which we will speak about.

Can you articulate sort of what your philosophy has been as a public Jew of like how you're going to approach that and use your name and think about that?

Well, the truth is I don't you know I don't run it through the Jewish filter.

The fact that some of the things you're talking about because I've I've gotten up and tried to help a lot of various uh individuals and causes that I thought had merit.

Some of them happen to have a Jewish affiliation to them.

But that's not that's not the reason I do or don't respond to it.

There is no particular call or or you know sort of secret sauce or secret satisfaction to the fact that the advocacy I might be doing is specific to Judaism.

There have been a couple of occasions where I've had to check in deeply to go as a Jew, should I be doing this?

And one of the ones um and it had a wonderful effect because I knew I didn't know enough was not long after October 7 where I was asked to advocate for one of the child hostages.

Right.

And I knew at that time that already children on children in Palestine were being killed as a result of this conflict.

And I and I was always going, do I advocate for one child and not advocate for another child?

They're all children.

They're children.

Mhm.

And I had to go deep on that and and go, okay, this is this the message they asked me to give was actually not political.

It didn't take a side.

Yeah.

It they asked me to be the voice of that child and just say, here's my name.

I'm 9 years old.

Here's the things I do, and I'd like to go home.

Yeah.

And that was something I thought I could do and I would do it for any child.

You would think the answer would be, well, if it's Jewish, I've signed on and I'm there.

And I actually, if anything, I kind of go the other way.

I I make sure that being Jewish is not overly influencing my willingness to advocate for this thing without thinking it through a little bit more.

Yeah.

What is What is it that you are?

I don't because I am allergic to being part of the cult of any cult.

I don't want my moral clarity to ever be deacto.

Right.

When Jews are hurt, I get hurt.

I feel that.

Yeah.

But I don't want the you hurt my team, my family to be the absolute spur to whether or not what I'm being asked to advocate for is righteous.

What was the emotion for you a few moments ago just thinking about that child in that situation?

Yes, of course.

I I feel these kids.

I just feel the children of the world.

I guess because I'm a grandpa now and and I know my time here is limited.

You know, there's less than there is more and the world has changed so in the last 25 years.

I can't I know I'm not supposed to be here much longer because I'm a I'm a dinosaur from the 20th century and I go this doesn't even look like the world I grew up in.

So I can't make the adjustment that the children of the 21st century have to be able to build this 21st century and they're not being given the chance.

And it it shatters me every time I think of what's going on to the with much of the children of our world.

But to be in the middle of this conflict, to have had that horrible massacre happen in front of your eyes and be dragged away from your family and held in whatever conditions they were in, or to be innocent of all that and the victim of your own government.

Yeah.

And now bombs are falling everywhere you go.

And if you get sick and go to a hospital, you're not safe there.

And you have no childhood.

You have no we we are still reeling here from the interruption in our children's education from the pandemic.

That was child's play, not to use the pun, compared to what these children are going through.

And I just don't know how we ever save their lives or give their lives meaningfully back to them.

It and it it shatters me every time I think about makes sense to me.

So let's go back to that sense of responsibility that took us down this road.

What would you say is the difference?

Like what's the line between advocating for something and pontificating about something?

I feel like pontificating is a little bit of virtue signaling.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, "Look at me.

I think this is the bright shiny thing, so I'm going to stand next to it and bathe in its light." Advocating is going a little bit deeper in and going, "This is messy.

This is dirty.

This is rough.

The fact that it needs advocation means it's not a slam dunk, right?

So now you have to become knowledgeable enough to be articulate and to be able to deal with the fact that it's not always clean and that if you stand up and advocate for it, some of what's messy and dirty is going to get on you.

You have to be willing to go, okay, it's still the value of it is worth that for me.

Pontification in this world is actually more dangerous right now than advocacy.

Why do you say that?

Because if you make a glib comment if you if you go with the oh yeah I believe blah blah blah is right cuz you saw it on the internet and you read two sentences about it and you go that's right is it seems bright and shiny and right half them people that you have just said that to are going to go right on brother and the other half are going to go you are the worst vermin in the world.

Sorry for the southern accent.

I don't know why I went that vermin.

Sorry southern people I didn't mean to do that.

I was just trying to do a you know thing.

Um I used to do more of that online and I've backed away from it not because I am afraid to do it but because I found it ineffective because it's not a real conversation.

You can't get into the the complexities of a of a conversation.

Sure.

So I was either preaching to the choir or antagonizing the opposition.

Right.

And I thought, everybody that would knee-jerk oppose me if I said this online, if I got into a room with them, and I started with, "What do you care about?" We're going to have a lot in common, right?

And I can get into a conversation about, "Yeah, I care about that, too." And so, I feel like my advocacy for this supports that, but you feel otherwise.

Tell me about that, and we'll get to a good place.

That's the bridges, not boundaries, right?

I found that online advocacy was boundaries not merges.

So I've basically stopped.

The cardinal rule is you got to get offline and it has to be face to face.

And then it's that key.

It's that curiosity that genuine curiosity of let me understand you before anything else.

Yeah.

Otherwise what are we doing here?

Exactly.

Cuz I I have trouble believing that everyone out there who seems to be in opposition to me is a terrible person.

I just don't believe it.

Some of them are, but certainly not most of them.

Most of them are people just like me who ju who want the same things I want but we think the path to it is different and for each of us it may be different and we have to make room for those differences if we're going to cohabitate in this space and so but that doesn't happen on a you know 148 character blurb exactly right did you happen to catch that list of Hollywood folks uh boycotting working with Israel Yeah, you didn't see this.

Okay, so about the list is up to about 3,000 names of folks who have said we're not going to do any work at all with any Israeli creative artists or companies or anything because they're all literally Israelis, not Jews, just Israel.

Israelis.

What do you think about that?

If I take that at the best intention of what it is, it is a way for people to that profoundly believe that what's happening from the Israeli side of the equation is is not correct at this point.

It's a way for them to say, how do I communicate that in an impactful way to try and make change?

And the only way I know is to say, well, I will withhold my cooperation, my services, my collaboration.

That makes sense to me to a certain degree.

The trouble is it it can smack of other things.

First of all, it can smack of anti-semitism.

It can it's hard to delineate having something to say about the government of Israel's approach to this conflict is different from the government of Israel's approach to other things in Israel is different from the existence of right or wrong of Israel is distance from the existence right or wrong of the Jewish people.

I mean, it's all it's very different stuff and it's hard to make a bold stand against one without it being equated with the rest and it and very hard for them to articulate that even if they wanted to.

The other part of it is, is it impactful?

Does it make a difference?

I don't I don't know.

And the third part is how informed are you when you make that choice, right?

because it can be pontificating and not advocating.

Uh to to use our example from before, and I'm not accusing anyone on that list of being one or the other, but it can be that if you don't have a profound understanding of the entirety of it, you know, cuz I always say to people who have knee-jerk answers about anything in the Middle East conflict, I go, "You got an easy answer?" Well, then you probably don't understand the situation because you know the Israelis are really smart and the Palestinians are really smart.

Yeah.

And they haven't figured it out.

So you got it.

You figured it out from over here, right?

In in Van Nice.

Great.

Terrific.

You must be unbelievably smart.

Right.

The part of it that bothers me the most is you you you listed three things.

The second one is the impact.

And if your goal is to impact the government, impact the conflict, taking it out on, you know, hairdressers and makeup artists, you know, the most actually liberal part of that country, I don't think is the way to do it.

I know, but you're talking about people that are so far removed from the conflict, right, that they're trying to exert some sort of wherever they hoping that it will ripple back, reverberate back.

I I get it.

I'm I I get it.

Mhm.

How else do you communicate to the top of the food chain your stance that I can't support you if this is going to be the path you go down?

It's it's very hard to do it.

And that's why anytime somebody says let's boycott, let's let's you go it's a double-edged sword.

Yeah.

Because it hurts innocence possibly with even more impact than it hurts the guy at the top.

So, you know, for sure.

I think that's a a good perspective to hold.

You have a quote that I really like that I want to read back to you.

Acting is a pretty useless profession.

It serves the actor because it is our passion and joy and it can provide great joy to the audience as well.

I just appreciate you saying that because I feel the same way and I think a lot of time, you know, actors sort of speak as if, you know, there's a higher calling there or they're really impacting things in a meaningful way, which of course entertainment and joy and, you know, feeling like you're being seen with what you're is is hugely important, but at the end of the day, you're doing it because you like doing it.

That's what you got into it for.

Yeah.

You may st I found that I stumbled into a grace that I didn't realize was possible in my profession.

And I I've told this story a couple times, but I'll truncate and share it with you.

So my mom was a nurse and a nurse educator all her life.

And she really did want me to go into medicine.

I mean, she she tried I had many jobs in the hospital.

She really tried to push me that way.

And when I knew that, you know, I was going to potentially have some success as an actor and I was certainly going to pursue it, I actually said to her, sorry, Ma, she because she always used to say, the the greatest life you can live is a life of service.

If you can live a life of service to other people, no matter what you do, you're in the sweet spot.

Yeah.

And I'd said to her, I think I'm kind of serving me, you know.

I'm sorry.

It's pretty good.

I I don't know how to I'll try and do some other nice things along the way, but I think my my general um work in this life is going to be very self- serving.

And it wasn't really till I got Seinfeld and Seinfeld started to click where the where the quality of the interactions with the fans changed from, hey man, I love your work.

Hey, you're really funny.

Hey, that all that good stuff, right?

Which again is sort of like you're great.

you're great into what happens all the time now, especially since it's still out there in a big way.

I hear from people or meet people every week who come up and say, "I was going through dark stuff.

I lost a parent or a child.

I was unemployed.

I was financially my health was gone.

I was serving overseas.

I I mean, just things were dark.

You got me through." Wow.

I could watch what you did with your friends and I could laugh again and I could have I could get clean for a little bit.

And when I started hearing that over and over and over, I went, "Oh, there's a service to this.

If you're lucky enough, there's a service to this." I love that.

I love I love hearing that.

So, let's talk about Seinfeld.

That old chestnut.

Seinfeld.

That was a TV show.

Yeah.

That's when I was just a kid.

Watch it.

Okay.

So, Seinfeld, very Jewish show in this specific New York Ashkanazi kind of way.

Are there any particularly fun Jewey bits or moments that stand out to you or that maybe you influenced their inclusion?

Oh, I didn't influence.

Crap.

No, but um No, I think you know when Judaism was allowed to, you know, enter the show, it was always really fun.

I mean, the most blatant because it the cards are on the table is is Brian Cranson's character, Tim Wattley, the dentist, who converts to Judaism for the jokes, just wants to get be in on it.

And Jerry being offended, not as a Jew, but as a comedian.

That kind of stuff is great.

When they allowed themselves to embrace these characters that Jerry and Larry knew so well from their own lives, that was always glorious fun.

I know people think there was some sort of stance about it.

There really wasn't.

Yeah.

No.

Um I, you know, Jeremy and Larry would both tell you, you know, character was not important.

Plot was not important.

Nothing was important.

Funny.

Is it funny?

Jokes.

We do it.

That's That was it.

There was one one Jewish themed episode that you didn't find so funny.

Yeah.

Called the Bris 5, episode 5.

You come to the table, Reed, and the portrayal of the Moyal character was so offensive that you spoke to Larry David about it.

What was that decision like for you to like I'm going to approach the boss and talk about it?

Well, I had done this once or twice before, not about Jewish issues, but anything that wasn't like George related that you'd gone up and spoken about before.

A famous one is that very early on within the first four episodes when Julia Julia was not in the pilot and then she was brought into the show, thank God.

U but there was an episode called The Pen where Jerry and Elaine go down to Florida to visit his family and Kramer and George are not in that episode.

Now, I was a New York-based actor living out my dream.

My fantasy as a kid was to be working on Broadway.

The 1980s, my whole career was on Broadway.

Yeah.

I was making a great living, living in New York.

I wasn't looking for film and television.

Now, suddenly, I'm in this TV show that's that I'm enjoying.

I I like it very much, but it's not building fast.

It's sitting on the bubble, right?

And the head writer writes me out of an episode.

So I went to Larry at the next table read and went, "If you do it again, do it permanently.

If you don't need me to be here every week, I don't need to be here." Now, if I had known what Seinfeld was going to become, I would have shut my damn mouth.

But at the time, there was no indication of that.

And I knew that I had a career that I loved back in New York.

So I I could say it with conviction.

So Larry was used to seeing me coming on.

Okay.

The thing about the bris was that the character of the moil which especially the non-Jews is one of these very cloaked in mystery and what the hell is this that where you cut off the foreskin of the penis in this primitive ceremony you mutilate the child and you know it has all kinds of if you want to look at through an anti-semitic guy this is an easy portal to look Yeah.

And here to my mind, it's the first depiction of the Moy in on television that I've ever heard about.

And you're writing him not as a flawed character.

That's fine.

As a child hater, right?

A mutilating child hater.

And I went, Larry, I can't stand behind that.

I You can't do I can't You can do it.

I can't stop you, but I won't be in that episode.

And And if asked, I will speak out against it.

I I'm telling you, it's hard to bump me as a Jew.

I give you lots of leeway for Jewish humor and you can walk all kinds of lines with me.

But that was that was a bridge too far.

And and he was really taken back.

He went, "You're serious about that?" And I I got to tell you, in my memory, Julia was with me.

And Julia's not Jewish, but I I believe that Julia was with me on that because I don't think I was doing it alone.

Julia, let us know if it's true.

Yeah.

But anyway, they did a major pass on it and tried to soften it.

It and I went along with it.

I still thought it was an offensive episode.

I I It's not Did you feel that as you guys were shooting that scene?

Yeah, I did.

I can't speak for anybody else.

I just thought this is not making it funnier.

I mean, there's lots of ways to present, you know, if you were a nervous moy, right?

That's funny.

Yeah, that's it.

you know, a guy who needs a steady hand, you you'd have fun.

But to make him unbelievably unpleasant, right?

Obviously, we're we have a different mindset in the culture these days in the way that we think for all cultures, how we're presenting things.

So, you know, now knowing that that's a thing that like for some people Jews are Seinfeld, like that is a Jew.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

There's plenty there.

If you hate the Jews, there's plenty there to go see.

And if you find the Jewish people to be different than you, but interesting, there's plenty there for you.

And if you find the Jews to be entertaining as hell, there's a lot there for you.

Whatever window you want to have on Judaism, you can find the backing for it in our show.

All right, last Seinfeld thing.

I've actually been quoting a Seinfeld thing in my Jewish advocacy lately.

I'm talking about the Jewish people in this country and I say we need to be opposite George because the the keeping our heads down, trying to blend in, trying not to annoy people, like diminishing ourselves for the hope of being left alone, right, doesn't work.

And we need to be opposite, George.

Like, what is the opposite of that?

Let's see if that works.

I think that's what we need to do.

I think we as Jews need to be, you know, loud and proud and normalize that we're here.

We take up space, we celebrate our accomplishments, we don't, you know, downplay them.

All all of the opposite things.

So, I've just the way I've been referring to it in my meetings is we got to opposite George this thing.

There's a lot that I agree with you on about how for reasons I don't fully understand.

A lot of American jewelry does keep their head down.

You don't make trouble.

It's a fear thing.

I think for for at many times in our history, I mean almost our entire history, it was a survival tactic.

Absolutely.

But we're fortunate, I think, where we are in this country now that we are not in imminent physical danger here on Friday.

Well, let's talk again on Monday.

I don't feel that way.

I'm sure some may disagree with me.

I know some people feel very unprotected and on edge.

I feel safe in this country physically generally as as a you know, the millions of us that are here.

However, was it six, seven million Jews or something?

And I think the like clearly the keeping your head down thing, it didn't work.

Like we're we're people.

No.

And there's no reason to do it.

But I I also what went through my head as you said that was it's what it's how we started the conversation by saying you might as well have Jew written across my forehead.

I I I so am.

There's no downplay.

Well, I'm not talking about you, right?

But I mean a part of me is interested in exploring in my own mind the need to stand up and assert I am this and Jew.

Why can't I just be this?

I am this.

Well, whatever it is, whatever I'm standing up for, whatever my morals, my values, my accomplishments, my contributions, whatever it is, why why is there a positive side to uh also asking everybody to filter them through and I'm a Jew and I would say that of any group and I am and I am I am of this group.

I am of this people.

I am in this tribe.

by I'm part of this community.

I'm Does it make what we're celebrating more important, more impactful, more valuable?

And I I wonder if that's part of the perceived head down as well.

I don't want to be prideful.

Part of what we know about Jewish history and part of part of perhaps one of the root causes of anti-semitism is especially in the diaspora Jews though small in number have succeeded disproportion succeeded disproportionately and it may be that we don't want to tout our success whether it be um career finance education accolades whatever it may be because we we're we don't want that trope to be part of the machinery of the anti-semitism.

So there's both sides of the equation.

If we hide and keep our heads down, no one will know anything about us.

They won't think of us as Jews.

They'll leave us alone.

Other side is if I'm if I go, "Oh my god, thank you, Hashem, for everything I've been able to accomplish." Everyone will go Jew.

I mean, so you're you're damned on either end of the spectrum.

So, if you're damned either way, I think we should at least, you know, take ownership and be proud of who we are and happy with our accomplishments.

If they're going to come after us, whether we hide or whether we say, "I did this." Because you're right.

I mean, that's where the fear is.

The fear is that if you say, "Look what we've done.

This isn't isn't this great an amazing thing." People are going to go, "See, it's what we said.

They're controllable." But they say they say it anyway, you know?

Right.

Okay.

So, let's move on to some of your other Jewish projects cuz you've gotten to a lot of so much Jew in me.

You really do.

So last winter you played the iconic role of Tevia at Lamarada.

Yeah.

Um shout out to Lamada.

I was in Floyd Collins there in 2014.

Sure.

The Ovation winning uh production.

Well, good for you.

Thank you.

Um I got nothing.

Yeah.

Well, I read Tevia at least was was sort of a bucket list.

Always wanted to play that role.

So, you got that.

What how was that experience?

Magical.

Magical.

Um for a number of reasons.

One is the show was everything I hoped it would be and more.

Do you mean as a production or as the role as an entity itself?

You know, I've always loved the show and I thought, do I love the show because when I hear that music, it hits a chord in me that goes back thousands of years.

Do I love it because I recognize the voices in it?

Do I Why do I love it?

And what I found out for me at least in the in that production was there are things contained in that show that are so hugely magnificent that I was not fully aware of.

And then that company of actors became one of the most special ensembles that I've ever been part of.

They just were magnificent people.

And um and we did it at a time where it became unbelievably meaningful again and impactful again because we went into tech rehearsals the night after Trump won the election again and the fears that were immediate in that community of our fiddler show about what will happen.

He's he's very anti-immigrant.

What's going to happen to the immigrants in a show about immigration?

Roie Wade had just been overturned and there was a lot of talk about conservative Christian values and the the place of the woman and a woman had been defeated again, right?

And all the women in our company were like defeated as w as women.

Yeah.

And for me, what I learned Fiddler to be about, it's a show about here's a man who regardless of whether you think his life is successful or not, whatever structure he has in his life, is based on a set of rules and principles that give him his foundation and give his community its foundation.

And they and they're mandated by God and they don't work for his children.

And three times, I'll cry again.

Three times in the show, his daughters beg him for the space to be who they are.

And even with Kava at the very end when he says, "God be with you," he chooses his children.

Yeah.

Over God, over community, over structure, over everything else.

That to me was why that show had to be done at that moment.

And it and it based on the audience's reaction to it, people who had seen many, many productions of Fiddler said, "I've never seen it before." Wow.

That's beautiful.

Yeah, it was great.

That's awesome.

Okay, so let's let's go to a different Jewish role and experience.

1986, Stanley Jerome in Broadway Bound.

Oh, yeah.

Jewish family.

You bet.

and sort of you know similar in a way to to Fidler navigating life and changing times and uh but the opposite of Tevia and that you know Tevia is all ritual and tradition these guys are all culture right then you got to direct it so like what what did you try to capture as the director and and how if at all did that relate to your experience as the actor when I was doing it as an actor I thought it was a really great comedy that sort of had these little excursions into a dramatic scene here, a dramatic scene there.

When I directed it all those years later, I went, "This is the greatest drama that Neil Simon's ever written." And nothing about it is not a drama.

It just happens to be a drama in the mouths of two funny young men.

Right?

But when I directed it, all that I cared about was allowing the audience to experience Neil for a sophistication that he was not usually equated with.

It's just sort of like a comedy guy.

Light comedy guy.

Yeah, I mean sure he was writing of his time and there are pop references to his time that wouldn't be impactful anymore and some of the sexual mores and politics are outdated but his constructions uh his executions I think are incredibly sophisticated.

His observations of human behavior are incredibly sophisticated and he was I think still is America's most prolific playwright.

He is the William Shakespeare of the United States in that he wrote 36, 37, 38 plays.

Crazy.

34 of which were huge commercial successes and some have stood the test of time.

And he is not invited to the party.

If I go to New York and I say, "Let's do a revival of a Neil Simon play." That would be a fiveminute meeting, right?

All things come back around.

Maybe it's just not I would hope the revival something's going to flip in the culture and everybody's going to want Neil Simon.

Yeah, I hope so.

Yeah, I hope so.

All right, one more I want to get into.

Uh, 2022, you directed Steve Levenson's If I Forget Here in Town, Steve Levenson of uh Dear Evan Hansen fame, the the bookw writer for that.

So, tell tell us a little bit about that play and if it's stayed with you since that time based on, you know, all we've experienced in the last couple years since, you know, you a year and a half before October 7th.

Yeah.

So it's about a Jewish family um mostly the grown children a brother and his two sisters uh in that family and the sort of central event of it is that the brother of the uh in there is a professor of Jewish studies I think at Colombia I think they name it as Colombia who has written a book in which he advocates that the best thing the Jewish people could do for themselves is to forget the Holocaust.

called foretting the Holocaust, right?

Stop, you know, referring to it.

Stop using it as the the, you know, I call it the Danny K shoulder wound in uh White Christmas.

Um, and as a result of it, he gets cancelled is essentially the the centerpiece of play and how that reverberates to the family, how the family reacts to him, and then there's other little personal dramas that happen around that.

And I thought that was an absolutely fascinating Yeah.

fascinating.

Now what happened with our production in order to solve problems of production in that space I happed on an idea that then became very prominent in that production and sat in dialogue with the main theme.

So, if I forget, as written, takes place much like Broadway Bound does in a two-story house.

So, the normal set for that would be a two-story house, sort of like a doll's house cut in half, and you see all the different rooms.

We were in the Fountain Theater whose entire stage is smaller than your studio.

Yeah.

We could not put more than one room at a time.

And so, we went into rehearsal and I've got actors taking out furniture and putting in furniture and the whole flow of the play is just stopping.

It was awful, awful, awful.

And I said, "There's got to be another approach to this.

I I need to to get these scene changes down to nothing time." Right.

In the play, the family has historically owned a store.

And one of the main things is the father is becoming scenile and failing, and it's time to get rid of the store.

But it's it's a big sacrifice to the family.

one of the sisters wants to turn it into her office for a new venture and everyone's going we got to give it and I thought okay what if I make this a memory play and by doing it all I have to do is start it in the store the set is what's left of the store it's the closeout sale there's a few things left on the shelves there's a few little pieces of furniture and we just cobble the bare necessities for each room of the house together with items that were left in the door.

I went, "Boy, Jason, you are the best director on Two Feet.

What a brilliant solution." But it still took me 30 to 60 seconds to change the set every time.

And I went, "There's nothing here." I either turn off all the lights and the audience sits in the dark or I see them watching the family moving chairs here.

What can I do?

What can I do?

What can I do?

Another story line that runs through the play is that the the brother, the man, the professor who wrote the book and his wife have a daughter who's got mental health issues who has gone on a birthright trip to Israel and she has a breakdown in Israel.

And we don't know what happens to her when she comes back.

We don't we never find that out.

That character is not in the play.

Doesn't exist in the play.

It's just spoken about.

And I thought, okay, it's a memory play now.

What if during the interludes as the cast is changing the set I could tell story only in movement between the father and that daughter so that in some way she is explaining her story to her father through this movement while the set was being changed.

Wow.

So, we hired this dancer and we brought in a choreographer and we created a storyline of what happened to this girl on this journey and why her mental health broke down yet again.

And it became a story that she became more and more entrenched into some spiritual aspect of Israel that was overwhelming to her at the same time that her father was moving away from it.

And the last image was there's an there's a tone poem that Steven wrote at the end of the play where the whole cast you know does one line at a time of this tone poem.

It's very abstract thing in this otherwise very realistic play.

M.

So what I did as they were were reciting it is I had the daughter take all the remaining pieces of furniture on the set and create a wall and by the end of the poem she and the entire family were on one side of the wall and her father was on the other and he was trying to reach through the furniture to make contact with her and that was the last image of the play.

And I I will say I thought it was brilliant.

That sounds sounds pretty cool.

Hey, it resonated and it gave another aspect of looking through the central question of do we do ourselves a service or a disservice by distancing ourselves from our history um our fragility um you know that that's the central question about if Jews keep harping on this and how we were victimized and how we were almost destroyed if our entire culture is about never again Never again.

Never again.

Does that make us respond to things in a way that is no longer pure?

You know, are we holding on to the wrong inciting incident is what the play was examining.

And then juxtaposed to it was this thing that said we are entrenched in this place and this history in ways we do not know until you stand on the ground.

And and it either gets you or it doesn't get you.

But if it gets you, you will never escape it.

And you are asking us to put distance between our history and ourselves, father.

And what you're doing is putting distance between Jew and Jew.

Yeah.

This is actually a good segue.

We're talking about Israel.

I want to go back to, as we mentioned at the beginning, this one voice movement.

Um, this is how you were introduced to Daniel Leetszki and what brought you to Israel, I think, many times, right?

Yeah.

I had gone once with ADL with ADL.

That was my first trip with Manny Aisenberg and the ADL um and and had a really extraordinary experience cuz I had thought I never wanted to go to Israel.

You know, my mother would always say, "You'll go to Israel and you'll know what it is to be a Jew." And oh jeez, I'm thinking the whole place is going to be Toras and Tea and black coats and I, you know, I thought this is not going to speak to me.

And then I went and we had a very profound and different experience of it.

Um, and I became, you know, a huge, oh my god, Israel could be the the greatest democracy in the world.

It could be the example of the world.

But then when Daniel invited me back and I started, you know, um, seeing it through all kinds of different lenses, that was really engaging.

Okay.

So, I want I want to hear all about these lenses.

So, first let us know like what was it's now called Peaceworks Foundation, but what was One Voice Movement all about?

So, one voice was um an offshoot of of peace works was a business venture that Danny had started.

It was not just Israel and and Palestine, but it was peoples or nations that were in some sort of conflict.

And he would go to a pecan farmer in one place and an olive oil grower in the other place.

And he'd make a product that involved pecans and olive oil and he'd go, "Now you're in business together." And he was using business to build bridges.

Cool.

And in doing so in Israel and Palestine, he partnered with a gentleman named Muhammad Dwar.

Muhammad was an Israeli Arab.

And anecdotally in their um experiences of both the Palestinian people and the Israeli people, what he found was, and this was back in the early 90s, the vast majority on both sides of the people were moderates, right?

And not only were they moderates, but if you really asked them, they went, "It's going to be a two-state solution." And they could tell you most of what the major policy planks were going to wind up looking like.

They could tell you.

Yeah.

And so Daniel and Muhammad determined that what was keeping the process from happening was a failure of leadership on both sides.

Of course.

So they said, "What if we could we could create an organization and a movement that allowed the the majorities on both side, the people to in essence negotiate their own plan for peace, their own settlement for a two-state solution.

And they would vote on topics back and forth where there was consensus they would build.

Where there was disagreement, they would bring in experts to see if they could find a way to create consensus.

And they would pass this ballot back and forth between Palestine, Israel, Palestine, Israel.

And eventually they would have a document for peace with a two-state solution that the people would then take to the leaders and go do this and we'll agree to it and and you won't have to sell it to us.

We got it.

And I thought that's brilliant.

And what they lacked at the time that I met them, as Daniel said, peace initiatives in Israel are like Kleenex.

Everybody has a box of them, you know, so you can't get any attention for them.

And if you can't get attention, we can't get investment.

We can't get people behind the movement.

Right?

And he said, "If you would come to Israel, Israel Seinfeld is such a thing.

Um, you know, the press will come." And I said, "So what you're saying is I go, the press comes to see me." And I go, "So glad you're here.

Here they are, these guys." And I remove myself because I'm not part of the solution.

I'm not Israeli.

I'm not Palestinian.

I I if I know my place, I can do this.

And it was really Muhammad who got me to go.

Muhammad told in our first meeting he talked he told a story about his son Fi um that broke my heart again as a as a father.

He he was talking about FO I think it was 12 years old at the time and he came to his dad and said Dad remember when I said I was the worst in in my class in in math and I was struggling and I said to you dad I'm going to be the best in my class and I did it right dad.

And he said you did father you didn't.

He said, "And remember when I started in the soccer team and I was really not a very good player and I said, "I'm going to be the captain of the soccer team and I worked at it and I worked at it and I became the captain of the soccer team and I did it, Dad.

Do you remember?" And he said, "Yes, buddy.

I know." And he said, "Dad, I'm going to be a martyr." And Muhammad turned to us and said, "I need your help so that my son doesn't keep this promise." Wow.

And you know, you can see what it does to me.

It kills me.

And so I went right up to Daniel and Muhammad and I said, "I don't know what I can do for you, but if you do, I'm willing to do it." And that's how I got involved with them.

And that's that was the opaces of going to Israel for the first time.

And then through Daniel and Muhammad, eventually on one of my trips, I did something that most Israelis hadn't done.

I was taken into the into Palestine.

I went to Ramala.

I went to Kia.

I went to the outskirts of Gaza uh and met the Palestinian board and met many many many many Palestinians who were engaged with One Voice, some allin, some speculatively um and had great conversations and got all that other perspective to it and it was an an amazing time.

You mentioned earlier that you don't always or often celebrate Yam Kipur.

Mhm.

Will you be reflecting at all this upcoming Yamipur?

You want my crazy answer?

Yeah.

So, I reflect every day.

Yeah.

Um I end my day writing in a in a daily journal about all the things I would be contemplating on a Yam Kapoor.

I should get annoyed on Yam Kapoor.

Why today?

Why today?

Why isn't the rule do this every day?

I'm sure there's a, you know, Tommudic answer to that that I don't know.

Always is.

There's nothing if not answers that Tom, right?

I'm with you on that.

All right.

As we like to do on this show, we're going to end with a little lightning round.

Going to throw a couple fun ones at you.

All right.

Nothing in Hebrew, please.

I know.

Aba, I There you go.

Beautiful.

Any dream roles still left for you?

Yes, but I'm no longer uh available for I can't I would be inappropriate casting.

What are we talking about?

I I had I'm gonna direct it, but I always wanted to play Sweeney Todd.

I thought I I had some ideas for that character that I've not seen anyone explore that I thought would be in line with what Steven had in his head and valuable.

You don't think you could still pull that off?

I don't think I could sing it at this point.

And you know, a 66-year-old Sweeney is a little uh Yeah, I should be the judge at this point.

What's the George line people most quote to you?

Probably I was in the pool.

Oh my god.

I'm sorry.

I thought this was the baby's room.

I'm really sorry.

I was in the pool.

I was in the pool.

The one I usually quote is serenity now.

Serenity now.

Favorite Israeli food.

So I don't understand.

I guess I do understand because they've told me that it's the the fact that the produce is grown in soil that is not it's very challenging soil gives their produce flavors that I don't find anywhere else.

So really what I lived for every day was the Israeli salad, the chopped tomato, cucumber, onion, olive, olive oil, salt, and I went this is like crack cocaine.

This is amazing.

That's awesome.

It only by the way only in Israel do I have that experience.

I've had med Israeli salads all over the world.

Totally.

They don't taste like that.

What's your bagel order?

You can't go wrong, you know, with no cream cheese, onion, olive, cucumber, lettuce.

You can't go wrong.

Lettuce.

Yeah.

Sometimes though, and most recently.

Okay.

White fish salad.

It's the white fish salad with all of the other condiments to I don't know.

When I go fish on a bagel, it's mostly just like cream cheese, fish, maybe onion, maybe tomato.

Yeah.

You're not.

Yeah.

You're dragging a garden from We asked this of everybody.

Kala, rip or slice?

Rip.

If I'm eating just the kala, but the best French toast on the planet is kala French toast.

That's what I'm saying.

Slice it up.

That's what I'm saying.

Last one.

You've got a wrapped Jewish audience here.

Do you want to leave us with any words of encouragement or wisdom or love or final thoughts?

It's a thing I've been saying everywhere I go and a thing that I'm slowly learning to do myself.

We go nowhere by asking questions like who did you vote for?

What party are you a part of?

What tribe do you belong to?

Where do you live?

Where did you grow up?

Where did you do?

But you know the things that kind of define us or pin us to an ideology or a position or the question that I try to lead with more often than not now is tell me what you care about and I'll know exactly who you are and exactly who we are together and and we it is the it is the best introduction to a new person that I Fine.

Tell me, what do you care about?

I love that.

That's great.

And what I find is um for the most part, there's a commonality to what human beings care about.

Well, that those other questions are for ostensibly is what can we connect on?

What do we have in common?

This is such a more Yeah.

direct way of getting there.

Yeah.

I love that.

Jason, thank you so much for Jonah.

This is more painless than I thought it would be.

I'm so glad.

You know, you you've proven to us that it's not a lie if you believe it, and there's always another marble rye worth fighting for.

Wow, look at you.

By God, you've done the research.

Another huge thank you to the master of his own domain, Jason Alexander, for joining me for our season premiere today.

Make sure you check back here Thursday as we will be continuing to release our second edition of the show, 30 Minute Menches, every week for the foreseeable future.

That's a double dip of being Jewish.

So, be sure to subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your pods so you don't miss an episode.

We've also got a gorgeous new website at beingjweishpodcast.com, and we're finally selling merch on it.

Yes.

So, have a look around, grab your favorite BJJP swag, and rock it out with us.

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

Serenity now.