The Conflict Between American Jews and Israel with Guy Golan & Guy Chet

The Zionists, even the socialists, they’re secularists, but they were biblical people. They knew the Bible because their parents were religious and they grew up on the Bible and their national identity, their national history, where did they find they find it? They found it in the Bible. When Israel was under British rule, British mandate, there was a commission that investigated this. Why should Jews get this land? Why shouldn’t it be left to the local inhabitants? And so they asked him, what is your legal claim to this land? And he dropped the Bible on the table. This is my claim.

Hey everybody, welcome to Covenant and Conflict, where we’re looking at ancient truths, modern issues, how they relate to one another. Today I’m super excited because we have two special guests, guy Golan, Dr. Guy Golan, and Dr. Guy Chet. Dr. Guy Golan is a professor at Texas Christian University. Dr. Guy Chet is a professor at the University of North Texas. We are going to get into a really interesting conversation about the American Jewish community, the Israeli Jewish community of which these two guys are from, and how that interacts with evangelical Christians. So enjoy this episode. Let’s get after it.

Thank you both for being here. Guy and Guy wrote a book, my Brother’s Keeper, it published recently, right? Because you’re talking about October 7th in this, yeah, in April of 2024. So I find the book very fascinating. You made me read it before we did our podcast, so I had to. I did want to read it actually. But just tell us before we dive too much into the actual content of the book, My Brother’s Keeper – The Complicated Relationship Between American Jews in Israel. Tell us what motivated you to write the book and why now?

So we started writing this a year before it was published, a bit more than that because I don’t know if you are aware of this, but the year before October 7th, the whole year, Israel went through this really insane turmoil over this judicial reform that the government was trying to push. And there was a big opposition and it was a political explosion, and it had this ripple effect in the American Jewish community, which is very subject to the Israeli opposition’s voice. So American Jews were really kind of concerned that we hear that Israel is becoming a dictatorship of fascism. And a friend of Guy’s organized some house talks with us, with American Jews to explain what this thing is, what’s going on in Israel. And it was this by an opponent of the judicial reform. And so we’d meet these American Jews, and on the way home we’d drive together, and we would talk about our exchanges with these American Jews and what they don’t know about Israel, these things that are new to them or all sorts of definitional things and differences between Israeli Jews and American Jews – Orthodox Jews and reformed Jews. And he said in the car, we should record ourselves having these talks and have them listen to that because they don’t know all these things. And so then he came up with the idea, let’s just write a book. These conversations that we’re having about all these differences between American Jews and Israeli Jews, let’s put it on paper and have them read it.

It’s even more that Israel is the most covered nation on earth. Israel gets more media attention than most nations around the world. Yeah, totally. And yet most people, everybody’s talking about Israel, but nobody knows much about Israel. And what we found is that American Jews don’t know much about Israel at all. So this book aims to provide context and background.

Alright, so that’s going to be, what you just said is probably fascinating for a lot of people. American Jews don’t know much about Israel. I’m not pinning that on you. We won’t put that in the graphic. Okay. Two Israelis say American Jews don’t know nothing about Israel.

It’s actually backed by, there are studies by Jewish organizations, and it turns out that the American diaspora, the American Jewish community compared to Canadian Jews, Australian Jews, south African, English, French Argentine, Jews – the American Jewish community is the least Jewish by whatever marker, whatever parameter. Like the response to the question, are you Jewish? Do you know Hebrew? Do you go to Jewish services? Have you visited Israel? Do you belong to Jewish organizations? Do you have Jewish friends? By every marker, the American Jews rank lower than Jews in other places. So American Jews, for a variety of reasons, are less connected to their Jewish parts and Canadian Jews, Australian Jews, whatever, and certainly Israeli Jews.

Okay, so walk us back through that, because you do that in the book at the beginning. You essentially go back to the 17-1800’s. And so just start us from there and quickly go through what has led to this, what has led to the American Jewish population having a different affinity or relationship with Judaism versus a lot of other people in the world? I think in the book you start talking about the Jewish enlightenment, and then some of the decisions that were made in some paths that were made.

And the grand bargain, right? The grand bargain that is offered to European Jews where they’re told, look, if you can remove your Jewish identity, your Jewish markers, take off the yarmulke, act less Jewish, you can become a full citizen of Germany, France, Holland, wherever it is. And it’s not just technical citizenship. It’s like you can integrate into society, you can join the elite, you can be a part of our community. And a lot of Jews took that bargain. So this is the beginning of the reform movement in Judaism. And it really is important because it goes to the first question that we ask in the book, and that is, are the Jews a nation, a people, a religion? Where exactly do we stand? So this question of what is Judaism for you as an individual is a key one. I’ll let guy talk about that.

Yeah. So up until the Jewish emancipation, this opportunity that for the first time in 2000 years, they were given the opportunity to become citizens and normal parts of the community, the French community, German community, this is 1800’s. Up until then, it was not a question, are you Jewish by religion or are you Jewish by ethnicity or Jewish by nationality? It was not a question, you’re Jewish. These are different people. They’re their own nation and they have their own God or their own religion. They’re so interconnected. It was a whole thing, a united thing. Once the emancipation separated, allowed you to become a Frenchman and an Englishman, and Dutch, it clarified that, look, I’m as Dutch as you. I just have a different religion. He’s a Dutch Catholic, he’s a Dutch Protestant. I’m a Dutch Jew. And so at that point, the connection that for 2000 years, 4000 years has been fused between the nation and its religion has been separated, and now it’s up to you to decide in what way are you Jewish? And the reform movement, and its various splinters declared that my religion is Jewish, but my nationality is French, Russian, whatever. And so from that point on, it became a real question for Jews and therefore for non-Jews, what are these people? Are they a nation? Are they, and obviously different people give different answers. For the Nazis, they’re a race. For these, they’re a nation.

And this is where our book really comes into play and it says, look, in Israel, the answer to the question is very simple. We are all of the above. In the United States for reform Jews, the answer is, well, it depends. It has consequence. It has consequence. Because social identity theory tells us that our identity, we will predict a lot of our behavior, including our voting behavior, who we associate with, how we interact with one another. Fascinating stuff.

And you can see how, again, before emancipation, Jews had hard lives because they were marginalized and persecuted, but they didn’t have an identity crisis. They were who they were. Once you’re allowed to become a part of the nation, and now you have to choose to make this bargain, and now it starts depending, and you have to, it’s a crisis. In what way am I Jewish? If I took off my Jewish markers and I don’t know the Jewish language, and I don’t know all these things about Judaism. In what way am I different from my Protestant fellow countrymen? And so it creates an identity infusion or identity crisis for Jews who want to be real American, real Dutch, real whatever, real Frenchmen. And so what part of Judaism does it leave in their identity? And it’s like I said, now it depends and it’s hard for them to answer. And again, for Jews up until 200 years ago, and for Jews in Israel, it’s not a difficult question because it’s not a choice.

I have a question. You mentioned three different markers, religion, nationality, or ethnicity, but then you mentioned a fourth one race. So when you say in Israel, we say yes to all the above. Which ones do they say yes to?

No, we didn’t talk about the race.

Yeah, but I want our listeners to know that. I hear that a lot. Where is Jewish, a ethnicity, religion or a race?

I think the average Christian would say Jews are a race. I think the average Christian would. So can you talk about that?

So the notion that, so first of all, I need to, as a historian, I’ll clarify that the meaning of race changed. Up until I think the 1800s race was understood. As we understand ethnicity, the word ethnicity didn’t exist. Then with scientific racism in the 19th century, the science of race came about. And that’s where we get our understanding of race. So maybe older texts refer to the Jewish race, and that’s simply because they use race in the way that we use ethnicity.

When you say scientific, do you mean like DNA?

DNA. Okay.

And so again, before DNA, when they use race, they clearly weren’t talking biologically, they were talking in the way that we talk about ethnicity. It’s this kind of where you came from, origin, your culture or your peoplehood. And so I think, again, using our terminology today, race is an idea that the Jews as a race is something that is associated with the Nazi racial theory. Whereas the traditional understanding of Judaism is that it’s an ethnicity and nationality and a religion.

And a people, and this goes back to the identity crisis of American Jews. American Jews are trying to balance their multiple identities, their identities as Americans, their identities as Jews, their identities as members of the Democratic coalition. We’ll talk about that later on, I’m sure, and multiple other identities. And as you said, when you have multiple identities, sometimes it can be challenging.

Yeah. Okay. So we’re in the 1800s, and obviously this reform is happening in Judaism as this emancipation is going throughout all of Europe, not just with Jewish people, but it’s kind of going through Europe in general America has our revolution in the late 1700s and the French Enlightenment in the late 1700s over there like 20 years later or whatever, 30 years later. So that’s happening in Europe. So we get to America. So just real briefly, fill us in. I think most Christians wouldn’t know what was the origin point of the American Jewish community, because today half of the world’s Jews almost live in America and almost the other half live in Israel now. So we’re really converging at this point. So just walk us briefly through that.

So today, it’s really a unique situation in the history of the Jewish people, that the entirety of the Jewish people live in really only two places. There are about 15 million Jews in the world, maybe 16, 7 million live in Israel, 7 million live in America, in North America. Whereas for 2,000 years it has been dispersed everywhere. So Jews existed in a very small number in colonial America and really just in New York because they came with the Dutch colonization. Then after the revolution in the mid 19th century with large immigration from Germany, more Jews arrived. And then there was, at that point, the numbers was, I forget, 200,000 or something like that. And then there was a huge wave of Jewish immigration, I think three and a half million or so from the late 1800s to the 19-teens or something. And that’s because of a wave of murderous persecution in Eastern Europe, the Russian Empire, Poland. And that’s where the bulk of Jewish presence today comes from that wave.

But let’s point to that because first the Germans come and they establish the religious infrastructure for Jews in the Northeast. So when the Jews come from Russia later, early 1900s, there is already a system and infrastructure of reformed synagogues.

I see.

They bring them in because the reform movement was the strongest in central in Western Europe. They’re in Germany,
Especially in Germany. And so those Jews, like I said, brought the infrastructure and the intellectual infrastructure for reformed Judaism that allows you to be a Jew in your home and just a regular American on the street. And then when those Russian Jews came by the millions who were not part of the reform movement, there was no reform in Russia because there was no opportunity to become a regular member of the community of the citizenship in Russia. When they came here, they kind of settled into the Jewish communities that existed, and the option of reform, which would allow you to not be chased down the street, to find a job just like a regular American, to have business partners, to become business partners with Americans, have Christian friends, to intermarry, all these things were available to them. And so they kind of embraced –

These are things that are available thanks to the reform movement. And this is why the majority of American Jews belong to the reform movement and the conservative movement and all the splinters that came out the reform movement. But American Judaism is primarily reform Judaism, and this is historical back In America, In the United States.

So we’re going to drive the train right into the station now. Go for it. So for Christians, and for a lot of the people who are watching this are probably Christian, I think we have found that it is one of the challenges for an evangelical that’s developed over the last maybe even 20 years. There’s been this massive movement of evangelicals going to Israel, taking trips to Israel. And obviously you go there a lot and you build relationship with Israelis, Israeli Jews. But then what we’ve learned, right, David, is that a lot of churches send people to Israel, they take trips to Israel, they have relationships with people in Israel. There’s a synagogue a block away from them, and they don’t even know these leaders, these Jewish leaders. And from what I found, it’s because of some of the things you’re talking about. There is a value divide. It’s the same ethnic group of people in Israel and America. But you mentioned this guy, this sort of democratic affiliation, and obviously evangelicals would affiliate more with a Republican conservative affiliation. So walk us through, because you spend a lot of time in the book talking about this, and you have quite a few chapters specifically about Christianity and evangelicals relationship between Israeli Jews and American Jews. But help people watching or listening to this understand why this is difficult. And you’ve set the foundation in talking about why America is mostly reformed Jews and what they believe and so forth.

Okay, so chapter I think 15 is why Christians Out Love Israel. And then chapter 16 is, why do American Jews Fear Christian Zionist? Wow, what a great topic. Well, let’s begin with identity once again. There is a famous book called Why Are Jews, Democrats, why Jews, liberals? And the answer to that question goes back again to the early days of Jews in the Northeast. They were a part of Roosevelt’s coalition of ethnic whites, the Italians and Germans, the Polish. And Jews in the United States were always involved in progressive politics, progressive in the terms of labor rights, civil rights, later on, gay rights. You see Jews standing at the forefront of any movement that’s trying to broaden the coalition and allow people in and allow people to be accepted. And the thinking here, really – so the minority experience – the minority experience to allow the minority to be accepted by the majority. And I want to go back to an earlier chapter in the book where we talk about Hollywood, because a lot of the early Hollywood movies deal with the same phenomenon, right? David, you’re a comics guy, right? Yes. My favorite superheroes, it’s not Superman, not Batman, not Spiderman, it’s X-Men. Think about X-Men. What is Professor Xavier all about? What is he trying to do? He’s trying to get the mutants, who are the few and the persecuted, to be accepted and live together in broad society. In broad society. Now, who do you think came up with the X-Men? Jewish authors, right? And we see this message over and over in early Hollywood – Frankenstein, Superman – we talked about Superman in the book, this whole notion of let us, the few integrate with the many.

And by the way, about Superman. So first of all, he’s this alien who came to this country and is trying to blend in. But also, I didn’t know this, his moniker or his title in the early comics was Champion of the Oppressed, really? And the Roosevelt Coalition was referred to and still is by historians as the coalition of the oppressed. And so all these advocates saw themselves as the champions of the oppressed. And so they created the comic hero. That’s amazing.

So going back to this is why American Jews found their home in the Democratic Party, it was the party of the so-called oppressed, and Jews have always been a part of the Democratic Party here in the United States. And there is not a single constituency out there with the exception of African-Americans who are more likely to vote for a democratic candidate than American Jews.

And just to clarify, non-Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews, because of that values similarity that you discussed, biblical, religious large families, they lean heavily conservative towards the Republicans, but only 10% of American Jews are Orthodox. So Jews on the whole lean heavily democratic, even though Orthodox Jews lean heavily Republican. And again in Israel, the overwhelmingly dominant stream of Judaism is orthodoxy. And look, the Orthodox understanding of Judaism is it’s comfortable with its national identity and the fusing of religion and nationality and ethnicity and peoplehood. And so all these things are features of right-wing thinking. And that explains the right-wing tilt of Israeli Jews, of Orthodox Jews in America, and the left-wing tilt of people, including American Jews who are less comfortable with nationalism, religious in the public square, religion in the public square.

And it goes back to another question that is really fundamental, and this is an argument that we have in Israel itself. The argument between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem between the, so-called modern world and the traditional world. Don’t forget, Israel is a tiny country with very different people. And the question is, why are we here? The question is, I want to go back to Zionism because it’s an important discussion. We talk about in the book why the Left initially embraced Israel and why the Left moved away from Israel as the years went by. We hear a lot about Zionism these days. We see protestors, anti-Zionists on the subways, threatening that Zionist in Subway. What is Zionism? Zionism is very simple. It’s a National Movement. Before – Zion is a synonym for Jerusalem. Zion is, and by extension, it refers to the land. So it refers to Jerusalem and by extension, the land of Israel. It’s a biblical term. Yeah, it’s a biblical term.

And I want to talk about biblical places in biblical terms. So Zionism is a national movement to give the Jews a homeland in Israel. There is a question about why here. Why couldn’t this home of the Jews, why we could have put in Cuba or in Uganda or maybe in Tanzania, Madagascar. Madagascar, yeah, been great, but it wouldn’t work anywhere. And even the forefathers of Zionism who were mostly secular, they’re secular socialists. They understood, David Ben-Gurion understood this can only work in the land of Israel because it goes back to the land and the people. And this is another place where evangelical Christians are much more similar to religious Israelis than secular or to Irreligious Israelis, just Israeli Jews.

Yeah. Look, the Zionist movement, what you’re talking about, they knew it had to be an Israel because there were a national movement. You cannot have the Serbia national movement struggling for liberation from the Turkish Empire to establish a Serbian nation in some corner of France. It has to be Serbia. The meaning of nationalism is the fusion of a people, a land, and a language. And so if the Jews are going to have a national homeland, a national movement, it has to speak Hebrew, which they did not speak in Europe. It has to be in Israel, and it has to be the Jewish people and the Jewish religion.

And then it goes back to the book and the places and the people and how familiar you are. So when you talk to people about Bethlehem, when you talk to them about Tiberius, when you talk to them about, I’m trying to translate in my head from English,
I tell them, Bethlehem. When you talk about those places, many American Jews are not familiar with those places because they don’t know it from the scriptures. They’re not familiar with the scriptures. So when they hear about those places, they’re like, oh, that’s Palestinian Territories. Why are we there? They don’t know about the tomb of Joseph, right? They’re not familiar with those places. So they’re like, oh, we’re occupiers. But Christians are familiar with this place. Religious Israelis and Israelis who grew up learning the Torah are familiar with those places. And that’s a huge difference in the psychology of how we think about Israel, how we think about Zionism and why we’re here.

And I don’t want to diverge too far here because I’m opening a can of worms, but this would be why on this basis, the American Jewish community is so supportive of and endeared to a two state solution, right? Because they would say, what does the biblical heartland, which is what some call the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, which is home of some of these places, Joseph’s tomb, Rachel’s tomb, and Hebron, they were like, what does it matter to us? They just give us the coastal area so that we can be safe, and sure we can share Jerusalem. So this is kind of the fundamental underpinning of it. I guess it goes back to even religious ethnic culture and how they even understand themselves as Jewish people where they don’t even know some of these places. They’re just places in the West Bank that fight are being fought over. Right?

Look, they’re not the Zionists, even the socialists, they’re secular and everything else, but they were biblical people. They knew the Bible because their parents were religious and they grew up on the Bible and their national identity, their national history. Where did they find it? They found it in the Bible. So early Israel, and Israel still today is very connected to this is where Samson fought this battle. This is where Gideon did this. American Jews don’t have that experience, which American Christians do, because Christians do know about all of Joshua’s campaigns and the locations, American Jews like left-Wing in America, they don’t know the Bible. So these things don’t speak to them.

There’s a story, Guy mentioned Ben-Gurian earlier, when Israel was under a British rule, and the British mandate, there was a commission that investigated this. Why should Jews get this land? Why shouldn’t it be left to the local inhabitants? And so they asked him, what is your legal claim to this land? And he dropped a Bible on the table, said, this is my claim. And again, it’s something that they believed it, not because they were religious, but they accepted the Bible as a real historical account of the Jewish people in their ancient homeland. They felt, and they wanted to clarify that we are the indigenous people of this land. And that goes to the heart of this discussion, the two state solution who is indigenous here. And the question that poses, if Jews are not indigenous to the land of Israel, then where are they indigenous?

Right. Yeah, exactly. So let me fast forward to October 7th and post-October 7th. You guys wrote the book after October 7th. So how do you look at some of the things that you write about in the book? How has this changed? Because one of the things you mentioned, and I forget which chapter is just even the typical reformed Jew in America would look at Israel, the land of Israel as a historic place, not a future place for them, not a present place for them. America is their present place. So you’ve this disconnection with the land, with nationalism. How has that changed since October 7th? Has it changed? Because now it used to be able to, they could simplify it and say, oh, Israel is doing bad things. But now all of that is creeped over here. And obviously we have antisemitism all over the place. People outside of the Jewish community aren’t making the distinction of, oh, you’re left leaning like me. It doesn’t matter. You’re a Jew, you’re an Israeli, same thing. You’re terrible. We hate you. Walk us through some of the changes.

So when October 7th hit, maybe a day or two after I spoke to a guy and I’m like, do we need to write the book all over again? He was like, no. Everything we said in the book is going to happen. And it did to a T. Wow. And again, the discussion we have in the book is about the identity crisis of American Jews. And there strong affiliation with the political left in the United States. Now, I want to really stress this point because this is the biggest discussion in the American Jewish world today. The progressive coalition of which American Jews have been a part of for decades, literally kicked the Jews out after October 7th. Wow. After the horrific rapes and murders of all these civilians. Instead of standing up all these people who always fought for minority rights, civil rights, and women’s rights, the woke coalition turned their back on Israel, on the American Jews and many American progressives who always said, we think Israel is an apartheid state, but we’re still Jewish. They couldn’t play that game anymore because there’s a new litmus test in the progressive left. And we see this on the campuses of Columbia, in Harvard, in Yale and University of Pennsylvania. Are you a Zionist? Yes or no? And what does it mean to be a Zionist, right? Do you support the state of Israel? Yes or no? Do you support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish democratic state? If the answer is yes, you’re no longer welcome on the progressive left. And that is a major problem for American Jews because they view themselves in all of their bone and body. They’re like, we are progressives. Many of them no longer welcome. And it’s not just they identify with the political causes of progressive politics. These are their friends. This is my girlfriend, this is my father-in-Law. These are the people that I think are right on everything from what are good movies and what are bad movies? What’s a good way to treat animals? All these things. It’s their close circle. This is my closest circle. And if I think that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, they think they’ll kick me out. I will lose my friends. On top of that, I’ll lose my belonging, but I will lose my closest friends and my marriage will break up, my family, my closest relatives. Or whatever success you built within that. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. It makes them make a political decision in politics in a way that shouldn’t matter. Your position on the arms race with Russia usually is not a factor in your personal relations. But all of a sudden your position on Israel on the two states solution is now going to determine whether your relationship with your girlfriend and with your own friends is going to survive.

So what are you seeing in that community right now?

So look, obviously many people are doing different things, but by and large, what guy said is right that October 7th, on October 7th, as the videos were coming from Israel, they were celebrations in the streets and on college campuses, which were shocking to American Jews. These are their friends, and you’re celebrating the murder and rape of our family or people. But it’s not new in the sense that there have been inklings of this over the past 10 years or so. The one that comes to mind is when Trump got elected, there was the Women’s March, if you remember the following week or so. And one of the groups that wanted to march was this gay pride Jewish group, and they marched with a gay pride flag with a star of David on it, and they were not allowed to march in the parade because the Jewish star is associated with an apartheid state, colonialism, whatever else. And then two of the organizers of the Women’s March movement were kicked out silently, but clarify that they cannot say because of, there were some Palestinian women in the leadership as well. Okay? So they’ve been getting the message before that the Jewish part of your identity is a problem socially in our progressive circles, but they could accommodate it because it was uncomfortable and you could adjust and work around it. But with those images that were so stark and so upsetting, they were forced to make a decision. And a lot of them comment on the fact that their Jewish identity, which was submerged or low in Guy’s totem pole of identities, moved up. So this Jewish community that, like I told you earlier, ranks very low in the strength of its Jewish identity, the non-Jewish world around them is making them reconnect to their Jewish heritage.

And I want to tie it back to Europe because the same thing happened in Europe. I mean, in Europe, Jews became Germans, they became French, they became Dutch, they became Englishmen, they forgot about their Jewish identity, they stopped going to synagogue. Their kids went to Christian schools and all that. And they were just as German as if it’s not apple pie, they were as German as strudel. And then in the 1930’s, Hitler reminded them, listen to you all. You’re reform. You’re not reform. You’re all a bunch of Jews. And this is what the opposition and now is telling here in the United States, look, we don’t care if you’re progressives or a mainline Democrats or a Zionist or anti-Zionist, you’re Jews. And that’s it.

Man. I know this is a whole other ball of worm wax, worms, can of worms, ball of wax. Even the same thing with Jews who put their faith in Jesus. I mean, the Nazis would go to these Catholic churches and say, give up your baptistry records. And they would take them out. The ones who said, no, I’m a Christian now. I put my faith in. It doesn’t really matter to us. You have Jewish parents. So we’re seeing the same thing here now. And so I think as we move towards landing this, I’d love to talk about the opportunity. What brought us together is you guys are two Israeli Jews and that we have such a shared value structure between evangelicals, and you write about this in the book, evangelical Christians and particularly Israeli, more nationalistic Jews. And what’s the potential now, I mean, even I’d say speaking to a Christian who lives in America, you guys are coming from a position as Israelis. There’s a much quicker connection point between evangelical Christians and Israeli Jews. That’s almost proven. But what’s the opportunity for American Christians now, evangelical Christians? How can we navigate this and actually reach out to the people who we have major political differences with in the Jewish community?

Well, first of all, I think most Jews don’t realize what evangelical Christians have done for Israel in the past couple of decades. Because it’s not just that evangelical Christians support Israel, maybe politically through the Republican party, enforcing pro-Israeli legislation or resolutions on Congress. When you look at fighting antisemitism in the United States, it’s not the American Jews who are following leading this effort, Nick, it’s evangelical Christians. If you look at who’s fighting BDS in every state, legislatures, evangelical Christians. If you look at who is flying their kids to visit Israel, who’s sending money to support social causes in Israel, I mean, American Jews are doing that in droves, no doubt. But so are evangelical Christians. Evangelical Christians are true friends of Israel. And their motivations, in my opinion, are good ones. And they are true allies for Israelis. Israelis understand that American Jews doubt what I just said and have a lot of question marks. Guy probably wants to talk about it.

So American Jews, non-Christians, understand Christian Zionism as a bait and switch that these Christians, they profess to support Jews in the state of Israel and everything else, but it’s not out of real interest and real affection. It’s so that they can orchestrate their second coming. That because of biblical prophecy when the Jews return to Israel, then the second coming, and then the Jews will go to Hell, and that’s what they really want. So there’s this conspiratorial thinking among American Jews and Americans who are not evangelicals, that this is not a sincere love or interest in Jews, but a self-interested, and in fact, anti-Semitic, motivation – non-support/support. And the reason we say this in the book, you will never hear that from any Christian about this second coming thing because a Christian knows that nothing that we can do can affect God’s schedule. Every Christian know this. And every non-Christian has never heard this. So I think when Christians interact with American Jews, there are two things that they need to keep in mind. First of all, that American Jews have a minority mentality, which Israeli Jews don’t. So Israeli Jews grew up as a majority group, and they don’t have these issues that minorities have about what does he really think of me? What does he plan for me? Because when you grow up, as you know, when you grow up as a majority group just walks through life not worrying, what would people think of me just walking plainly? And so I think that’s part of the comfort that you described between American Christians and Israeli Jews is that they’re both majority groups and they don’t have the hangups sociologically, psychologically of a minority group. So that’s one to be sensitive about the fear that American Jews have that you don’t sense with Israeli Jews. And the other is the fact that American Jews are not Christians, they’re not familiar with Christian theology. And so they really believe that. They believe two things. First of all, that you’re not really interested in me. You’re not really affectionate towards more respectful. You’re just trying to use me to get the second coming to come, number one. And number two, they think you’re trying to convert them because again, they think that you talking to me, you can convince me to convert, to accept Jesus. Whereas every Christian knows that you are not doing anything. You don’t have the power to reach into my soul. Only God, again, according to Christian theology, only God has that power to open your heart. So because the American Jew is not knowledgeable about Christian theology, they think you’re trying to convert him and they think you’re trying to use him.

And There’s been terrible historical precedent where the Christian Church has done that, and that lives in the psyche, I think, of many.

Well, and it links back historically, we started by talking about this in the 1800s. Many of the American Jewish community, their ancestors left Europe because Christians rode in with crosses on and attacked their villages, right?

That’s true. I agree with it. But if you look at American non-Jews, American Christians who are not active Christians, Americans who are nominally Christian, they also have the same fear. They also think they, you’re trying to convert them, and they don’t have that history of antisemitism. It’s really true. I think it’s just the irreligious of the non-Christian fear of what this Christian’s trying to do to me.

My own family is probably more scared of me than you guys are. You know what I mean? Seriously, some of my family members are like, you’ll be bringing your cross around to your neck, huh? Yeah, leave that in the car buddy.

But Nick, again, ultimately it goes back to identity. And that is how people view their multiple identities that we all carry with us at any time. How people view religion. Is religion a force for good in the world? Yes or no? I think this is a key question. If you look at the Israel-Palestinian issue on college campuses these days, right now, four questions real quick. Do Western values make the world better? Yes or no? Does Christianity make the world better? Yes or no? Does capitalism make the world better? Yes or no? Is the United States a great nation? Yes or no? Or a force for good in the world? Yes or no? If you answer yes to all those questions, then you’re probably on the pro-Israeli side. And if you answer no, you’re on the pro-Palestinian side. It’s as simple as that. This is a question about – Israel is a metaphor. This is something most people never get. It’s like, why do people care about this tiny nation of 10 million? It gets more media coverage than the entire continent of Africa that has a billion people. Why is this tiny nation getting so much attention? And the answer is, Israel is a metaphor. It’s a metaphor about the nation states. It’s a metaphor about the role of religion in the state. It’s a metaphor about a circle connection. And there are two forces in the world, and we see this happening in Europe right now with the European Parliament, elections. We’re having this debate. Do we want open borders or national borders? Do we want a land for the Fins, Swedes, Norwegians, or do we want to make it just Scandinavia? Israel is a metaphor for something that’s much bigger.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I’ve never been able to collapse it into just saying that. We tell people all the time, we did this whole teaching, we call it the Israel test – that if you can sort through the complexity that is Israel, it gives you, in a way, an intellectual framework to be able to sort through many other complicated things. Because from our perspective as Christians and as you guys, those who value religion, we look at it as a place where God is trying to do something unique on the earth to influence the rest of the nations around the world. And that’s what makes it so complicated. And that’s why people hate it, because it is a place that is trying to do something that is counter to most other places. So yeah, that’s really good.

And it always has been a metaphor. Some people think that Israel’s stature or popularity in the world has changed because Israel changed. It went from a tiny impoverished country to a large success, large by local terms, successful strong country or other changes it’s made. It went from being socialist to being more right wing. But mostly what we say in the book is that Israel’s popularity changed because the American and European left has changed. Because back in the mid 20th century, the American left was very comfortable with religion. With religion in the public square, and it was very comfortable and even supportive of nationalism because national movements were breaking up empires. The anti-colonial, the hammer of Thor, to break up empires was nationalism. And so nationalism was the darling of the left. And so Israel was therefore the darling of the left too. First of all, it was socialist and everything else, but the religion was not a problem, and the nationalism was not a problem. Fast forward, however many years we talk about as a feature of the end of the Cold War, but it doesn’t matter if you look today, the left is very uncomfortable with nationalism. Yeah, totally. It sees it as inherently racist, xenophobic, imperialist. Nationalism has become imperialist. And religion and the public square, I don’t need to tell you, is a big no-no. So it’s not that Israel has changed. Israel has always been a metaphor or something that you kind of use to explain yourself, your values. And when the left’s values were supportive of nationalism and religiosity, Israel was more than fine. And now that the left has changed, Israel is less than fine.

That’s why you need a historian. Yeah, exactly right. Absolutely. What happened here? I can tell you very simply, the definition changed in the 1800s. Got it. Well, listen, I think there’ll be another conversation. I feel like we’ve only opened ourselves up to talking about more things. So thankful for you guys and for your willingness to come and talk with us and get to know us and looking forward to working together. You got any parting thoughts?

No, no. You said it perfectly.

Yeah, so I want to encourage you to get the book, probably on Amazon, anywhere you can get a book, right? It’s on Amazon Kindle, My Brother’s Keeper.

Perfect product placement shot. You can point to it, give it the thumbnail. Yeah, right there. But no really, guys, amazing book. Obviously it’s not very thick, so you can read it quickly. I think if you’re a Christian, you love Israel, you love Jewish people, which you probably are, if you’re watching this, you will learn so much in this book. So I really want to encourage you to get it and just really, really appreciate you both and can’t wait to talk more.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you.