On the morning of Oct. 9, 2023, Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback appeared on the radio with LAist on 89.3 FM. With host Larry Mantle, Rabbi Yoshi discussed the impact of Hamas’s terrorist attack against Israel—indeed, as Rabbi Yoshi says, a pogrom—on the wider Jewish community.

The lightly-edited transcript is below:

Larry Mantle
From Stephen Wise Temple is Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback. Thank you very much Rabbi Zweiback for joining us just share with us what you’ve been hearing from your congregants in in the wake of these terrible events.

Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback
Thank you so much Larry for having me on. It’s a terrible, terrible moment for our community and frankly, for all good hearted people anywhere. How can you see these images and and not be broken? A grandmother, you know, Yaffa Adar, 85 years old, being kidnapped, a young woman, Noa Argamani, 25 years old, who went to go listen to music and enjoy herself with friends, being being kidnapped, abducted, and the fears of what might be happening, unfortunately, what what we know is happening to some of these people. It’s just absolutely horrendous and heartbreaking. And again, not just for Jewish communities, and not just for Jews worldwide, but really for any person of conscience. Our community is, is quite shattered. And at the same time, there’s incredible resolve and resilience.

Almost 2,000 people gathered last night at our synagogue here in Los Angeles, in a wonderful program co-sponsored by the entire Jewish community, the Los Angeles Jewish Federation, and the board of rabbis and synagogues and churches and other faith leaders were there, elected officials. Mayor Bass, it was quite amazing. And that gives us a great sense of strength, even in our sorrow. Even in this pain. We know that we’re not alone. We know that we have friends and allies who recognize just how horrendous and indefensible. This attack is and and we really want to hear from more of our friends and more of our community crying out in in horror and shock and even anger and saying this kind of behavior will not stand. This is not something that can be tolerated by anyone.

Larry Mantle
We’re talking with Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback, who’s Senior Rabbi at the Stephen Wise Temple in Bel Air. David in Bakersfield says, “I served in the IDF. My daughter lives in Tel Aviv upset is not a strong enough word for what is going on.” Yeah, I don’t I don’t certainly I don’t have the vocabulary, David. I-John in Rancho Cucamonga says, “Anyone thought about is what Israelis have been doing to Palestinians when Palestinians open their doors to Israel?” I John as I said, I really, I want to avoid groups attacking each other during the course of this conversation. I think policies are fine to critique, but important to to not label. Particular people’s as we talk about this is obviously at this point, so emotionally overwhelming for so many people involved where at 86689357 to two, that’s 866-893-5722.

Julie in Studio City says, “I’m heartbroken for everyone involved. But as a Jew, who does not believe always in Israel. First we have to look for the root causes. We need to move away from our old ways of thinking to find peace.” Rosea, said, “I’m from the Middle East, I’ve been following this whole life. My whole life, no act of violence is going to fix the issue in the Middle East. Responding with force isn’t going to fix anything.” Rabbi Zweiback, what are you providing for your congregants who, you know older congregants who might have lived through the Yom Kippur War? The Six Day War who who for them? This is bringing back memories of those terrible events with something horrific as well.

Rabbi Yoshi
Well, sadly, tragically, the Jewish people has experienced tremendous trauma over the last really three millennia, which isn’t to say that other peoples haven’t experienced their own trauma. I wouldn’t deny that for anyone else. But as a Jew, it’s absolutely inescapable. And what I spoke about last night, with our community is that what we’re seeing happening in Israel right now, what we witnessed on Saturday, the pogrom, the massacre. We’ve seen that before in places like Kishinev, in places like Fez and Tripoli. It’s happened really in every generation. And one of the the miracles of the last 75 years is that at long last, we were given the dignity to be able to defend ourselves. And that, that dignity is a heavy responsibility. And it’s, it’s a challenge that many of us can only imagine if we’re not actively engaged in that. And so I recognize that it’s not simple, but it is the responsibility of the government and the army to protect its civilians, just as we would expect, here in America that our government would do the same for us. And so in a situation like this, where you see innocents targeted, because of their innocence, the goal of the terrorists was to slaughter children and teenagers and you know, elderly and abduct as many of them as they could. And that’s the kind of thing that we need to assure our communities that, however difficult it is, however challenging and painful and fraught, it is, we will stand up to this kind of behavior to this kind of aggression. And we will do whatever it takes. And I’m grateful that we have allies around the world, including the United States that is clearly saying this will not stand on we will be there with Israel to try to respond.

Larry Mantle
Rabbi, thank you so much for coming on on this day that is so full of deep and painful emotion. We appreciate you joining us and talking about the members of Stephen Wise Temple, how they’re responding to this and your thoughts on this as well. Thank you very much.

Rabbi Yoshi
Thank you, Larry.