Join Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback as he talks with an eclectic variety of thinkers, artists, and change-makers about their experiences (Jewish or otherwise) and their own search for meaning and purpose in their lives.
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Episodes
Naming antisemitism when we see it
by Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback The other day a friend of mine who lives on the East Coast reached out to me about a disturbing email exchange she had with the head of her child’s private school. She had written to the headmaster expressing her disappointment and concern that the school had not once sent out an email decrying the terrifying uptick in antisemitism over the past year, particularly over the past few weeks during the heightened tensions in the Middle East. She noted that the school, with her full support, had previously sent out messages regarding acts of racism and anti-AAPI violence. He replied that he didn’t feel comfortable “taking sides” in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Imagine a similar situation—war breaks out between India and Pakistan. At the same time, there are incidents of bigotry and hatred (possibly sparked by the violence thousands of miles away) directed at the local community [...]
John Oliver fails Natan Sharansky’s “3D Test”
by Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback Last week the comedian John Oliver devoted a segment of his HBO show to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He acknowledged at the start that conversations about the Middle East are fraught. As he put it, “If I may quote the riskiest thing you can say on a first date: ‘Let’s talk about Israel!’” The Israel-Palestine conflict is indeed extremely complicated, which is why so much of what has been said and posted online over the last few weeks is riddled with inaccuracies. Oliver admits that it is confusing and difficult and acknowledges that he cannot hope to recap such a rich and complex history in a ten-minute segment. But then he attempts to do just that—and joke about it. In doing so, he distorts the most recent conflict. His main point seems to be that because Israel is the more powerful player with a much more sophisticated [...]
Invocation at HUC-JIR 2021 Rabbinic Ordination
Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback's invocation at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion 2021 Rabbinical Ordination held at Stephen Wise Temple on Sunday, May 23, 2021: The great Jewish American poet, Muriel Rukeyser, was told by her mother that she was a descendant of Rabbi Akiva. This, Rukeyser later explained, was why she wrote seven poems dedicated to the second century sage. One, published in 1960, was commissioned by what was then known as the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. It was called “The Way Out” and it explores themes of Exodus. It includes a verse that is particularly appropriate to this moment: Akiba rescued, secretly, in the clothes of death by his disciples carried from Jerusalem in blackness journeying to find his journey to whatever he was loving with his life. Rukeyser later acknowledged that she knew that the sage smuggled out of Jerusalem in the “clothes of death” was actually [...]
A message from Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback
Next week I’m traveling to Omaha to visit family. I phoned my sister yesterday to make plans for our time together. She asked how I was doing and I told her that it had been a very trying few days given the frightening event that had happened a few nights ago right here in L.A. She didn’t know what I was talking about. She didn’t know because outside of Los Angeles, the event wasn’t widely reported. It sure should have been. It’s the kind of event that every American, every decent and good hearted person should hear about and decry. The realization that while much of the world seems to have a great capacity for empathy for all sorts of suffering, its concern for the suffering of our people seems rather limited. Millions of our people have been terrorized over the past few weeks in Israel (and many hundreds were [...]