This is The Zone of Disruption! This is the I AM RAPAPORT: STEREO PODCAST! His name is Michael Rapaport aka The Gringo Mandingo aka The Monster of Mucous aka Captain Colitis aka The Disruptive Warrior aka Mr. NY aka The Inflamed Ashkenazi aka The Smiling Sultan of Sniff aka The Flat Footed Phenom aka The Jewish Don King is here with Aviva Klompas (Author) to discuss: Her newest book Stand Up Nation, how they met, what Kamala Harris winning the U.S. Presidency would mean for Israel, how her book changed after October 7th, how she gets her information, what The reality of The U.N., Anti-Zionism & Anti-Semetism, what's keeping her up the most about Israel, trips to Israel post 10/7, what she wants to do for the rest of her life & a whole lotta mo'. This episode is not to be missed!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Boom have no Fear of the Iron Rappaport Stereo podcast.
This year Biginni Boom have no Fear. The I Am
rap Record Stereo podcast is here on today's banging, hard hitting,
museum quality I Am Rapaport Stereo Podcast. We're going all Israel,
all Zionist everything. That's why anybody and everybody should listen
(00:34):
to this podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Special episode with the brilliant.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And I don't use that word a lot, the brilliant
Aviva Klumpus, who is an educator.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
She's a zoologist. She's become a friend.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I met her online and then we met in person
and had an incredible trip in Israel.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
She is the author of two books.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Her first book is called For Israel, it was her
debut memoir, and she just released her next book called
Stand Up Nation, which is a very very thoughtful, easy
informative read on all things Israel and the history of
Israel and how and where it is going. She is
(01:19):
also extremely active and an extremely important follow on Twitter
at Aviva Columpus at Aviva Columpus.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
A V I V A K l O M P
as my guest.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
For a very informative, very heartfelt, very smart, very inspiring,
super duper Jewish, super duper Zionist. I Am Rapport Stereo
podcast is the brilliant and also she's a zoologist. She
knows about animals. Welcome, Aviva Columpus to the im Rapaport
Stereo podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Aviva Klumpass, Welcome to the.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Im Rapoport Stereo Podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I appreciate you coming on. Aviva.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
You have your newest book, Stand Up Nation, which I
strongly strongly advise everybody, especially Jews, especially Zionists, especially anti Jewish.
If you're anti Jewish, you should read this book. I
might even say more than Jews and Zionists, but I
think everybody should read this book, stand Up Nation, which
(02:37):
of course is inspired by the title Startup Nation by
Dan Signor, who is also one of the three scholars,
the three Jewish scholars.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Who gave quotes in the back of Eva.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Thank you for coming on the I Am Rapaport Stereo podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
How are you?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I am great? This is an honor. Do you want
to tell people who the other two scholars.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Are on the back, Well, of course the two other
scholars on the back are dancing Or, who wrote the
book Startup Nation, and the genius of Israel and the
other scholar is doctor Enot Wilf or, author of We
Should All Be Zionists and probably my favorite book on
(03:21):
all things Israel, The.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
War of Return.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So it makes sense that it's dancing or doctory not
Wilf and me Michael Rappaport.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
That's always the way things you know should be.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
You know, when people think of the great minds of Israel,
Zionists and just the great thinkers of of now, those
are the three that come to mind, especially, and I
was kind of disappointed that I'm at the bottom.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
But enough about me. I want to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I love your book, I love your mind, I love
your tenacity as a Jewish woman, I love your tenacity
as a Zionist. My first question for you, and it's
crazy because I'm doing this podcast with you now and
so much can change, so much is happening so fast
(04:11):
with all things Israel, all things politics in the world.
But I want to throw this at you because I'm
curious to know what you think and mean. If people
can't tell me and Aviva are friendly, you want to
tell people first how we met, how we met, how
we connected. First, of course I ask you my first question.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, of course, I am just pounding away on Twitter
all day posting up my thoughts. I'm fueled by rage
and indignation, and over the last nine and a half months,
since October seventh, I've had a lot of rage and indignation.
And one day I get a DM on X from
some guy named Michael Rappleport that has these words who
(04:50):
are you? That's how we.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Met boom and the rest is history. That's right, all right?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
But my first question of EVA is, like I said,
the new cycle is changing so much, and it's looking
like Kamala Harris is going to be the Democratic nominee
after Joe Biden pulled out or got the plug pulled
on him. History will tell exactly what happened to Joe.
(05:20):
But what are your thoughts, your initial thoughts concerns likes
about Kamala Harris actually being president of the United States.
If she becomes president of the United States, where do
you think and where has this historically? Has she stood
on support of Israel? Because I know that's utmost importance
(05:41):
to me, and I'm assuming it's of utmost importance to you.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah. Absolutely so. First of all, if this podcast doesn't
come out in the next half an hour. Whatever I
say is probably out of date. Never mind waiting a
day for the new cycle. It's been pure insanity. Just
a couple hours ago, Nancy Pelosi endorsed Kamala Harris. So
it does look like looking more and more like she's
the presumptive nominee. So in general, her record on Israel
(06:05):
is very much in line with anybody that wants to
be president. She has many times said that she supports
Israel's right to defend itself, that she supports a strong
and secure state of Israel. I have to say that
in general, this administration when it comes to the hostages,
and let's take a moment to remember that there are
eight Americans health hostage, five of whom are presumed to
(06:26):
be alive. Their names are Keith, Heirsch, Segoui Ohmaier, and Eden.
They've been in Kamas captivity for two hundred and eighty
nine days today. And this administration has been quite amazing
actually in supporting the hostage families and meeting with them,
certainly more than the Israeli administration has met with the
hostage families. So in that sense, we can commend this administration. Now,
(06:50):
on the other hand, we saw Donald Trumps stand up
at the Republican National Convention and talk about how our hostages,
as words were, our hostages better come home before I'm
in office. And he was clear and unequivocal. And I
don't think that I've ever heard this administration or Kamala
Harris first of all, named the American hostages or talk
(07:11):
about them so directly as ours.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, that kind of answers my question. I mean we've
talked about this.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
You know, what's politics, you know, bringing the hostages to
the White House, you know, Trump saying our hostages and
all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
But you know, I asked you the question, you answered the.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Question, and like you said, you know, if I don't
put this podcast out in the next half hour, who.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
The hell knows? What is up everybody else's sleeve? Stand
up Nation?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Why did you write this book and how did when
you started writing this book, did it change after October seventh?
Like did you have to make changes to the book
and what were the changes? So it's a sort of
a two part, three part question.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, multi part. So the story of this book is
I used to be the speechwriter for Israel's delegations to
the United Nations and Israel doesn't have a huge staff.
There's one speech writer who's responsible for writing all the
English language communications for the delegation, So that's speeches and
op eds and social media posts and letters, and it's
quite an endless list. And within the United Nations there
(08:21):
are countless topics. You could be writing about global security
and terrorism, but also international development and economic issues and
legal issues and road safety in outer space and forestry,
and honestly, it's quite an endless list. And I didn't
have a ton of time to do in depth research
on all those topics. There's just too much. But whenever
it was a speech about international development, I would kind
(08:43):
of fall down a rabbit hole because I would end
up reading about things that I really find fascinating, Israel's
earliest years, which I want to tell you about, because
Israel in its first ten years looks nothing like Israel today.
I would be reading about Goldemeir, who's right here on
my wall, a woman who I admire enormously, and I
would just fall into this rabbit hole of amazing stories,
(09:05):
the story of audacity and pioneering and Israel lifting itself
up and lifting other people up. And I thought, this
is an incredible side at Israel that even people who
know a great deal about Israel just don't know. And
when I left the delegation, I actually started running trips
to developing countries. I would take groups to look specifically
what Israel was doing in countries like Kenya, Uganda, Nepal, Guatemala, India,
(09:29):
and the list went on. And when the pandemic struck
in twenty twenty, I was supposed to take a group
to Tanzaniana. Obviously I couldn't, so instead of being able
to go in real life, I thought, Okay, it's time
to start writing this story down. And that's when I
started writing it. So it's four years in the making.
And what is so astounding about the story about Israel
and international development, which is what stand Up Nation is about,
(09:52):
is that in its first ten years, Israel was desperately poor.
It was a developing country. It's very first years has
every imaginable problem. Of course, there's the security issues, it's
attacked by all the surrounding nations. It's isolated on the
global stage. It's gonna be a situation that sounds very
familiar to today. But added to that, it's a nation
(10:16):
where you have an overwhelming number of new immigrants and
refugees that are flooding in. So first you have the
refugees from Arab states. The surrounding Arab countries essentially expel
or they're starting to murder or perpetrate violence against the
Jewish populations, and so they start to flee, and hundreds
of thousands come to Israel. And then, of course you
have survivors of the Holocaust. And so Israel, which is
(10:40):
fairly new, doesn't have much in the way of an army.
It certainly doesn't have equipment, it's not fully esport, it's
not trained, and it's fighting this war survival. Plus it's
got all these incoming refugees who are penniless. They don't
have anything. They need housing, they need food, they need education,
they need language training, they need jobs. Israel's population douvils
(11:00):
in its first two years, and then it grows seven
times after that. Any country would be crippled by that
rate of population growth. And Israel has this rule that
any Jews is allowed to come, and so continues to
absorb and absorb and absorb, and as to provide for
the needs of them. And so you have these first
people coming in hundreds of thousands living ma Barut, which
(11:22):
are exactly their ten cities or shanty towns. It's tin
and wood little shacks. There's no running water, the hygiene
is very, very poor, and it's just a desperately poor situation.
It is in this context that Israel is a developing
country that it founds an international development agency. And what
(11:42):
happens is that goldmitt Air she becomes Israel's Foreign Minister.
She's appointed by David Bengurion, and she looks at the situation.
She sees Israel isolated and poor on the global stage,
and she understands that a nation cannot dwell alone. In
Israel's Declaration of independence, it speaks about reaching out a
hand in friendship and partnership to the other nations of
(12:04):
the world, to the surrounding Arab nations, and to the
Jewish people, that everybody should be a part of the
project of building this state. Now, the Arab nations, there's
no chance they've slept the hand away. And so what
she says is she looks out into the world and
she sees that in Africa there's newly born countries, and
she thinks maybe there's opportunity, and she goes on a
tour through some of the newly born African countries and
(12:26):
she's a sensation. They love her. And she comes back
and she goes to David Bengurian and she says to him,
there's a lot in common between us and these newly
born countries. We're the same age. We've both emerged from
under the thumb of colonialism. We're desperately poor, We're dealing
with dry and arid farming conditions. And the difference is
that I know we Israel will build ourselves up, that
(12:48):
we will use our knowledge and innovation, and while we
build ourselves up, I want to help them at the
same time. And she's a persuasive woman, one of the
reasons I admire her. And she convinces him in nineteen
fifty eight to for an international development agency. This is
before the US has one, before Canada, before England, before
the United Nations has its development program. Israel becomes one
(13:08):
of the first countries in the world to extend its
hand in French whip can support to other nations of
the world.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I love that. I love that, I love your answer,
and I just love that.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I really that's such a good answer, and It's such
a thorough answer and such an education, and this is
why I love talking to you.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I had to make up points because I didn't get
such an enthusiastic response on my Kamala Harris. I didn't
score so well there, so I was making up bonus.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Points here a.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Podcast.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
You started writing the book four years ago.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I'm a mad you were close to being done, if
not done, done with your you know you know your
final draft October seventh.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I submitted the book six weeks before October seventh.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Okay, so how did the book? You writing the book?
You putting out the book, adding to the book. Obviously
this book is so israel centric and so pro Israel.
How did October seventh specifically affect the book and changing
(14:34):
the book? Did it change your book? What did you
have to add or subtract from Stand Up Nation?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
So I submitted the manuscript for the book six weeks
before October seventh. The war hits. That would normally be
the time the book was supposed to come out in
the fall of twenty twenty three. I was supposed to
be doing with revisions with my publisher. I told my publisher,
I cannot talk to you. I cannot talk to anybody
for months, and then when things sort of never returned
(15:01):
to normal, but when it equally created just a little bit,
I went back to the manuscript and I looked at it,
and I wrote a new introduction, and I also went back.
In addition to detailing Israel's history and international development, the
vast majority of the book actually tells the stories of
these amazing Israeli entrepreneurs who have founded international development agencies,
(15:22):
and I've profiled about twenty of them in the book.
I went back to each of them and I gave
them the opportunity to write a PostScript in light of
October seventh about how their work was impacted or how
they're thinking of their feelings about doing this work with
other people has changed. The resounding message that I got
back from people was that the experience of October seventh
(15:43):
just reaffirmed this desire to grow partnerships and cross border friendships,
and that there was a doubling down on the work.
But of course there was also one component, which is
one of the people that I profiled in the book
is a woman by the name of Shoshan Haram and Shoshan,
along with members of her family was from Kibootz Berry.
(16:05):
Her parents were founders of kibootz Bery and kiboots that
most people would have never heard of until October seventh,
and she's one of the people. She's the founder of
a fantastic nonprofit called Fair Planet. Shoshan has an incredible
history working in the seed industry, and the idea behind
Fair Planet is she was working in the private sector
for our multinational seed company, and she's looking out at
(16:27):
the world and she con sees that the best seeds
in the world, the ones that are going to produce
the highest yield and the best quality fruits and vegetables,
are only affordable by the richest countries. And she's seeing
this abject poverty, particularly in African countries, and she wants
to figure out how she can get the best seeds
into the hands of the people who need it most
because of food in security being an enormous problem, and
(16:50):
she founds Fair Planet in order to be able to
do that, and the way that she does it, in
the story of how she does is quite incredible. It's
detailed in the book. Now. In October seventh, Shoshan is
taken hostage. Her husband was murdered her sister was murdered.
She was taken a lot with her daughter, her son
in law and their young children, other members of the
family as well. Now Shoshan, her daughter and the kids.
(17:13):
They came back in the deal in November, but her
son in law Tall is still there, still a hostage
in Gaza. So in light of that, I didn't I
reached out to Shoshan into partners at Fair Planet, and
their message was exactly the same, was that this is
the work that has to continue. This is her life's mission,
in her life's work, and it's gone on. I rewrote
(17:37):
the introduction to Stand Up Nation because in this moment
where the Jewish people feel so profoundly alone, and so
many feel so very scared and abandoned and hurt by
what's been going on, not just by the attack on
October seventh, but also in the ensuing anti Semitism that's
exploded around the world, to the absolute insanity of what
(18:00):
we see in the media and social media every day.
When you have a discussion, as we saw today on
CNN about whether an individual can be considered as the
running mate for Kamala Harris because he's Jewish, nobody would
ever say that if he was black or Muslim or
gay or anything like that. But the notion that this
can be mainstream conversation. We live in insane times, and
(18:20):
so I wanted to rewrite the introduction. And I think
the story of Israel in its earliest years gives us
hope of the idea that it's always been our story
to tell. Nobody else is going to be the author
of our story of Israel and the Jewish people, and
just as the same today, nobody's writing that story for us.
So that's what I rewrote in the introduction. And when
I sent out a message to everybody who contributed to
(18:43):
the book to let them know that it was finally
being published, Shoshan was actually the first person to write
back to me and congratulate me.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Wow, that's crazy that she was the first person to
to get back to you.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
All right, you.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Mentioned that I reached out to you on Twitter and said,
who are you?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
You have been a.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Tremendous source, not just to me, but I know to
you know, three hundred plus thousand people, sock puppets, fake accounts,
hate accounts, but primarily people that look to you to
give and share, you know, information, in real time, you know,
to remind us of where we are, to remind us
(19:31):
of where we are in context since October seventh. Explain
to me, Explain to the people on Twitter that I'm
going to share this with. How the fuck do you
get your information? How do you keep up? And do
you sleep? So that's a three or four part question
(19:51):
because you're doing it in real time?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
So how where? And sleep?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And do you cut what you like? If you do sleep?
What kind of sheets do you sleep on? Because I'm
feeling you might not have great sheets because you're always
you're always giving us the information.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
The thread count isn't amazing. There's no Egyptian cotton in
my life. That's true. I also spend a lot of
time at hotels, so you tell me what the Hilton
is using. That's true. I consume a lot of news.
I've always been someone who consumes a lot of news,
and I filter the news pretty fast, and it's sort
of it's I think survival actually from when I worked
(20:33):
for Israel at the UN. It's one person trying to
do far too much, and so you get pretty hyper efficient.
And that's constantly what I'm doing is absorbing the news
trying to make sense of it. And then I said
it earlier, which is the truth, is that whenever I
see something in the news or somebody says something that
I think is nonsense, I in the internal voice goes like, hell,
that'll be the last word on that. And that's what
(20:54):
issues a tweet. So you can go count how many
times in a day I think like, hell, that'll be
the last word on that. And it is day and
night to do all the unhealthy things. The phone is
in the room with me, it's not silenced. The rocket
alarms go off, and that's why there's a pretty constant
stream of tweets all the time.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
All right, fair enough the UN. You worked at the UN.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I had a come to Hashem moment when I learned
in the last nine months what the UN has done,
what the UN hasn't done, and what the UN means
to me as a New Yorker and a Jewish New Yorker,
And when it hit me and when I realized what
(21:40):
kind of a racket it is, it really it knocked
me on my ass. Because I grew up in Manhattan.
I grew up on York Avenue, coming up First Avenue,
driving past the UN being mad at the traffic, but
also as a kid specifically thinking well, if there's traffic
and it's at the UN, something important must be going on,
(22:02):
so just chill. You know, it's got to be a
big deal and important and a kosher, above board thing.
What is the reality of the UN's relationship and treatment
of Israel.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
It's absolutely garbage. It's an abomination that the United Nations
is able to do what it does. This is an
institution that is notorious for its bias against Israel. It
singles out Israel more than any other country many times
over in the General Assembly, in the Human Rights Council.
I mean, on and on and on and on. You
have one hundred and ninety three countries that belong to
(22:38):
the United Nations. You have twenty two Arab states, you
have fifty seven that belong to something called the Organization
of Islamic Cooperation. It describes itself as the voice of
the Muslim world. And then you have one hundred and
twenty countries that belong to something called the Non Aligned Movement,
which has a whole historic significance. About when you had
(22:58):
the Soviet Union on one side, the United States on
the other, you had lots of new born countries that
didn't want to pick sides for fear of backing the loser. Ultimately,
so they formed their own movements and grew and grew
as new countries were informed. And so today it's one
hundred and twenty members out of one hundred and ninety three.
When I was working for Israel at the UN, the
chair of the Non Aligned Movement, the country that was
(23:19):
sending the directives on how to vote to every other
member state was Iran, and after it was Iran, it
was Venezuela, which I'd call Iran's BFF, its best fundamentalist friend.
So the notion that these are the countries that can
take on leadership roles and give directives to the other
countries in the world about how they're going to vote
and how they're going to school democracies is simply outrageous.
(23:42):
There's one hundred and ninety three member states. How many
do you think are democracies at the UN?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
The answer is eighty seven, So it's forty five percent.
You have dictatorships and authoritarian states that are running rampant.
They are utilizing the democratic tools of the United Nations
in order to order the rest of us around the
notion that Iran can sit as chair of the Disarmament
Unit while it's sitting trying to build a nuclear bomb
to wipe out half of the Middle East. It's simply outrageous.
(24:11):
And I think the other question that I'm not sure
if you're going to ask me, so I'll ask it
of myself. People always say to me, well, why does
Israel participate? No country has to belong to the United Nations,
it's not obligatory. And more than that, you have to
pay dues to be a member in good standing to
be able to vote and participate in the UN. So
Israel pays to endure the absolutely abhorrent treatment that it
(24:33):
gets at the UN. And that was never a question
that we asked inside of the delegation, because there should
not be a moment of doubt in anybody's mind that
Israel has every right to participate in and contribute to
global affairs. It's the most important thing I'm going to
say all day, So I'm going to say it again.
Israel has the Jewish people have every right to participate
(24:57):
in and contribute to equally to global affairs, to their communities,
to their societies and their countries, and we're not going
to accept for one second anything less than that, as
you can see, full.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Of indignation when you were there, Obviously you were aware
of this. Obviously the people that were representing and working
on behalf of Israel were aware of this.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Correct, of course, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And did you feel like almost like an outcast working there?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Like did you feel like why are we here?
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Like we're climbing up a hill, everybody hates us, Like
what the fuck are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Kind of attitude.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
It's a certain temperament that's going to work there. It's
a temperament that says, I'm ready for fight club. I'm
not here to make friends. I'm not here to be beloved.
I'm here to fight for the notion that i have
every right to participate in and contribute to everything going
on in this institution. And I'm not going to settle
for anything less. So I'm going to fight you on
every biased resolution. I'm going to fight you in every
(25:56):
committee where you're trying to marginalize us. I'm going to
fight every single un and so called expert who's supposed
to be neutral but is incredibly biased against us. I'm
not gonna let a moment of it or any one
of them stand.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I love that podcast.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
We've talked about this in real life, and it's been
a conversation. It's been a discussion. It's been frustrating. I'm pivoting.
Talk to me about your feelings of anti Zionism and
anti Semitism and explain that in the most basic, slow terms,
(26:48):
how you you can't be anti Zionist and not be
basically a racist piece of shit, And how it's being used,
and the word and the term Zionism because it's an acceptable,
mainstream term which means good things and positive things. How
(27:08):
it's being thrown in our faces. Maybe start with saying
what does it mean to be a Zionist and then
go further into the anti Zionism and the anti Semitism.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Yeah, for sure. So Zionism is simply the notion that
the Jewish people have the right to live in their
historic homeland, full stop, period, nothing more. It says nothing
about whether you like or support Prime Minister Benjamin Eatannahu.
It says nothing whether you like or support the government
of Israel. It says nothing about whether you like or
support the idea of It says nothing about whether you
(27:38):
like this war, that war, this border or that border. Nothing.
It's about the Jewish people's right to live in their
historic homeland. It says nothing about whether you're also a feminist,
a humanist, climatist, whatever you can be. You can be
all these things and also be a Zionist. You can
support a Palestinian state and also be a Zionist. There's
nothing that contradicts about these two things. Anti Zionists are
(28:02):
essentially telling us that Israel that sorry, the Jewish people
have no right to a state of their own. We
are not having an academic conversation anymore. We haven't been
having an academic conversation for nine and a half months,
and really for longer than that. You just need to
look at what is happening in the world. Anti Zionists
are telling us that we should go back to a
time and a place where the Jewish people do not
(28:24):
have sovereignty and do not have the ability to defend themselves.
We got a first hand look of what that looks
like on October seventh. If this notion of from the
river to the sea, which again I'm going to assume
most people don't know what that means, they're just chanting it.
It's just rhetoric at this point. But they're talking about
from the river, the Jordan River, to the sea, the
Mediterranean Sea, that all of that should be Palestine. Well,
(28:47):
then where is Israel? That was the mission of Hamas
in October seventh. That is the whole reason that Hamas exists,
that the Palestinians should own all the land between the
river and the sea. Well, then what happens to the Jews.
What happens to the Jews is what happened on October seventh,
And that's a small, small glimpse into what would happen
right now. Half the world's Jewish population lives in Israel.
(29:09):
When Israel turns one hundred in twenty four years, two
thirds of the world's Jews are going to live in Israel.
That's the estimates. And what anti Zionists are telling us
is to go back to a time and place in
history where we live at the mercy of other peoples
and other nations. Well, a look at history and a
look at the dynamics of the Middle East. Fromas Kresbola
Huti's just managed to successfully launch a drone that struck
(29:33):
Tel Aviv and murdered a man Iran that openly vows
for Israel's death. The open reality there is nobody hiding
their intention in these terrorist organizations. They are telling us
very clearly about their intention to eliminate Israel and murder
all Jews and anti Zionists are telling us roll over
and accept your faith.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
What is keeping you up the most about Israel's future
right now currently, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
It is is that there's been so much heartbreak and
so much that's been horrific about the past nine and
a half months. But the other thing that we've gotten
to see. I'm somebody that spends a lot of time
doing research and analysis and understanding and what do people
think about this? And what do people think about that?
(30:22):
And we spend a lot of time trying to do
these analysis on paper. But in the last nine and
a half months, I've gotten to see and the world
has gotten to see the first hand character of Israelis
and the Jewish people. I'm talking about the people here,
I'm talking about people who on October seventh, the moment
they understood the magnitude of the attack and that Ramas
(30:43):
was preying on the weakest and most vulnerable members of
our society. They drove self, with or without an army uniform,
with or without a weapon, they drove into the fire,
into the line of fire to save as many lives.
And there's unbelievable stories of heroism, unbelievable stories of people
lost their lives. We haven't even begun to unearth what
happened on last day. And then we saw the Israeli
(31:06):
society rise to the moment. We saw that you had survivors,
You had hundreds of thousands of evacuees, both from the
South but from the North. People from the North haven't
been able to live in their home since October seventh.
And you saw that the government is struggling to manage,
and it's struggling because it needs to focus on the
army and the war. And Israeli civil society came and
(31:28):
rose up and they took care of every single need
of these survivors and evacuees and families who had to
send members to the army, young families where both parents
had to be deployed, taking care of kids and pick
up and grandparents, and all the various needs that people
have in their lives. Israeli people came to help one another,
and then you saw Jewish people around the world also
(31:49):
rise up. They sent a lot of donations, a lot
of money was raised, but also sending equipment and supplies
and love and support and solidarity visits and so forth.
And what we've seen in the last almost ten months
is this character of who we are and how we
stand together and look after one another. Israel and the
Jewish people deserve the very best leadership, the very best representation,
(32:15):
and the heartbreak for me is that they don't have
it in this moment. We need leaders who are going
to take responsibility for the failings. We need leaders who
are going to be honest about the changes that need
to be made. We need leaders who are committed to
the security of Israel, to the well being of our soldiers,
to returning home all of the hostages as quickly as possible.
(32:36):
And that's what I want to see happen.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Me and you spent.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Time in Israel, seeing talking, seeing things that you know,
just you know, when you give a second to contemplate
them as I am now, you know, they make my heart,
you know, race fast, or even sometimes it feels like
skip a beat. It's hard to answer specifically one thing,
But what are a couple of the things in your
(33:03):
trips to Israel post October seventh that you've seen that
you'd want to share that have been the most impactful,
most heartbreaking, and most inspiring. You just kind of said it,
but things that you've seen yourself and people that you've
spoken to yourself that have been the most demoralizing and
the most inspiring.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
So I've been to Israel seven times since October seventh.
It would be my eighth time in September, and a
lot of moments stand out in my mind. Actually one
was with you when we went to one of the
keep with Seam and we saw the home of the
Sieman Tav family, which is a young couple with three
young children, and there's the sister of the husband of
(33:45):
the family. Walked us into this house which was black
with stood, everything was burnt, and she showed us the
safe room door and showed us where terrorist had shot
at the door trying to get in, and behind that
door is cowering her brother, brother's wife and their three
really young children, and smoke is filling up the house
(34:05):
and the parents were shot and then ultimately they couldn't
get any security team to them or an emergency response
to them, and they ended up being burned alive, the
entire family. And this woman that's showing us what happened
and talking about it. And we went next door and
we saw very similar story from the neighbors, and this
(34:25):
family happened to survive, but they showed us this little
room where they were sitting there, almost suffocating to death,
choking on the smoke. And as we walked out, one
of the women was showing me a photograph. Her parents
had been murdered on October seventh, and she was showing
me a photograph graph of the grave, and I started,
I burst into tears and I was crying, and this
(34:46):
poor woman who's lost more than I can comprehend, is
trying to comfort me. And so it doesn't feel great,
but that moment stands out for me. I also remember
we went to the Nova site together, meeting with one
of the Zaco workers who has seen things in his
lifetime that no human should have to see, nevermind experience,
(35:09):
and it's so evident that his soul has really been
broken and that he'll never really be the same again.
And right there also we met Moran who had been
taken hostage on October seventh and was actually released in
one of the November deals as well. And just listening
to her story. But when you think about it, you
(35:29):
had twelve hundred people murdered on October seventh, you had
two hundred and fifty three people taken hostage. You have countless,
as I said, stories of heroism of the people who
went south. There are so many stories that need to
be told. And I think one of the things that
stands out in my mind is that what Hamas was
trying to do in October seventh was reduce us to ash.
(35:49):
They literally burnt people alive. They wanted to eliminate us
as a people, eliminate us as a human, eliminate us
as an individual. And what I think our story is
and why I'm so to know you and so proud
to see all that you're doing, is that you're shining
a spotlight to tell people's stories, to actually reverse what
from Us was trying to do. And you're lifting people
(36:11):
up and telling their stories and giving them an identity,
both the living and those that we lost.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Well, I appreciate that. And you know, like I said of.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Eva, you know, meeting you and seeing you on social
media and what you share and the diligence and the
hard work. It is hard work, and it is you know,
it's thinkless, you know, work sharing all that information that
you do on social media.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
You know, I can't tell you how much I.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Tell you this before, you know, all the time you know,
and even when I've reached out to you, just how
much it means to me and I know how much
it means to other people. And I can't urge and
implore everybody to get stand up nation and read Aviva's
book and continue to support our work. My final question
is what do you want to do with the rest
(36:58):
of your life? What do you want to do with
the rest of your time? And you know, what are
your hopes, goals and aspirations. You know, personally in regards
to you know you're writing your work. I know you're
a former zoologists. As I talked about in the opening,
Where do you plan on going with this this brain
that you have yours, and this fortitude and this grit
(37:19):
that you have because you're a tough, fucking tough broad.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
That's a big question. I think it's a hard question
to answer. In this war, this war when I worked
for Israel. The un I worked in a war. It
was fifty days, and we thought it was interminable. Part
of the ethos of Israel that David Ben Guri and
Israel's first Prime Minister said was that Israel's supposed to
fight short wars. It's a little country. It can sustain this.
It can't sustain it in terms of the army power,
(37:44):
in terms of the impact on the economy of not
having so many people working. It's an army that demands
the reserves, and so you're pulling people away from their families,
from their homes, and it's a very interconnected type society.
We thought fifty days of war was incredibly That's the
story actually in my first book, which is called Speaking
for Israel. And now we're at two hundred and eighty
(38:07):
nine days of war with no end in sight, literally,
and so in this moment, I can't answer what's next
because I'm so focused on the day to day of
waking up every day and saying I will not let
that stand. I will not let that be the last
word on this. I will not stand for less than
the equal rights and equal participation. So I'm in it
for the however long this is going to be and
(38:29):
then afterwards I can think about what the future looks like.
But I certainly hope that includes the Michael Rappaport Susan
Sarandon remix of the remix of the remix.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Right because we did the original that we did the remix,
do we do a remix of the remix or we
didn't do the remix of the remix.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
It trying to keep count, if I'm being honest, but
it deserves it.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
It's hard to keep count. But the people, the people
want to, you know, funny thing to leave out.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Aviva is as smart as she is and as well
read as she is, her pop culture knowledge is embarrassing.
But the other day, you know the movie Thelman Louise
of Eva.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Of course I know it. Have I seen it? No?
But yes, okay, but.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
It was on TV and I was watching it and
I was enjoying Susan Saranon and and Gena Davison. I
was enjoying the film and then I was like, oh shit,
we remixed the remix.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Of the Susan Saranon original song.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Anyway, Again, I can't urge people enough to get Stand
Up Nation, which is available wherever you get books, Amazon,
That and the Third Place, and to follow Aviva at
Aviva Columpass. It'll be in the show notes. It's at
the beginning, it's at the end. And I appreciate you
coming on the im Rappaport Stereo podcast. I appreciate your work,
(39:49):
and I appreciate your friendship, and I appreciate your fierce Jewish.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Zionism of Eva.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
It has inspired me and I know it has inspired
a lot of other people.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
I'm sure it is mutual. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I want to thank a Viva for joining me on
the Iron Rapport Stereo podcast again. Follow her at Aviva
Clumpass on Twitter. Trust me, trust me.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
She is a must.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Follow on Twitter and on Instagram. And you could get
her newest book, Stand Up Nation Israeli Resilience in the
Wake of Disaster. You could get that book on Amazon
or wherever you get your books.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Miles Jordan A.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Cavib Bleach Brothers aka The Dust Brothers and this Iron
wrap Port Stereo podcast. By taking me out of you
with something real nice, take me at it with something
real loud, but most importantly, take me out of here
with something real funky. This has been The Iron Rapport
stereo podcast, I'm Out
Boom have no Fear of the Iron Rappaport Stereo podcast.
This year Biginni Boom have no Fear. The I Am
rap Record Stereo podcast is here on today's banging, hard hitting,
museum quality I Am Rapaport Stereo Podcast. We're going all Israel,
all Zionist everything. That's why anybody and everybody should listen
(00:34):
to this podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Special episode with the brilliant.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And I don't use that word a lot, the brilliant
Aviva Klumpus, who is an educator.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
She's a zoologist. She's become a friend.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I met her online and then we met in person
and had an incredible trip in Israel.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
She is the author of two books.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Her first book is called For Israel, it was her
debut memoir, and she just released her next book called
Stand Up Nation, which is a very very thoughtful, easy
informative read on all things Israel and the history of
Israel and how and where it is going. She is
(01:19):
also extremely active and an extremely important follow on Twitter
at Aviva Columpus at Aviva Columpus.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
A V I V A K l O M P
as my guest.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
For a very informative, very heartfelt, very smart, very inspiring,
super duper Jewish, super duper Zionist. I Am Rapport Stereo
podcast is the brilliant and also she's a zoologist. She
knows about animals. Welcome, Aviva Columpus to the im Rapaport
Stereo podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Aviva Klumpass, Welcome to the.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Im Rapoport Stereo Podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I appreciate you coming on. Aviva.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
You have your newest book, Stand Up Nation, which I
strongly strongly advise everybody, especially Jews, especially Zionists, especially anti Jewish.
If you're anti Jewish, you should read this book. I
might even say more than Jews and Zionists, but I
think everybody should read this book, stand Up Nation, which
(02:37):
of course is inspired by the title Startup Nation by
Dan Signor, who is also one of the three scholars,
the three Jewish scholars.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Who gave quotes in the back of Eva.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Thank you for coming on the I Am Rapaport Stereo podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
How are you?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I am great? This is an honor. Do you want
to tell people who the other two scholars.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Are on the back, Well, of course the two other
scholars on the back are dancing Or, who wrote the
book Startup Nation, and the genius of Israel and the
other scholar is doctor Enot Wilf or, author of We
Should All Be Zionists and probably my favorite book on
(03:21):
all things Israel, The.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
War of Return.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So it makes sense that it's dancing or doctory not
Wilf and me Michael Rappaport.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
That's always the way things you know should be.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
You know, when people think of the great minds of Israel,
Zionists and just the great thinkers of of now, those
are the three that come to mind, especially, and I
was kind of disappointed that I'm at the bottom.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
But enough about me. I want to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I love your book, I love your mind, I love
your tenacity as a Jewish woman, I love your tenacity
as a Zionist. My first question for you, and it's
crazy because I'm doing this podcast with you now and
so much can change, so much is happening so fast
(04:11):
with all things Israel, all things politics in the world.
But I want to throw this at you because I'm
curious to know what you think and mean. If people
can't tell me and Aviva are friendly, you want to
tell people first how we met, how we met, how
we connected. First, of course I ask you my first question.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, of course, I am just pounding away on Twitter
all day posting up my thoughts. I'm fueled by rage
and indignation, and over the last nine and a half months,
since October seventh, I've had a lot of rage and indignation.
And one day I get a DM on X from
some guy named Michael Rappleport that has these words who
(04:50):
are you? That's how we.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Met boom and the rest is history. That's right, all right?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
But my first question of EVA is, like I said,
the new cycle is changing so much, and it's looking
like Kamala Harris is going to be the Democratic nominee
after Joe Biden pulled out or got the plug pulled
on him. History will tell exactly what happened to Joe.
(05:20):
But what are your thoughts, your initial thoughts concerns likes
about Kamala Harris actually being president of the United States.
If she becomes president of the United States, where do
you think and where has this historically? Has she stood
on support of Israel? Because I know that's utmost importance
(05:41):
to me, and I'm assuming it's of utmost importance to you.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah. Absolutely so. First of all, if this podcast doesn't
come out in the next half an hour. Whatever I
say is probably out of date. Never mind waiting a
day for the new cycle. It's been pure insanity. Just
a couple hours ago, Nancy Pelosi endorsed Kamala Harris. So
it does look like looking more and more like she's
the presumptive nominee. So in general, her record on Israel
(06:05):
is very much in line with anybody that wants to
be president. She has many times said that she supports
Israel's right to defend itself, that she supports a strong
and secure state of Israel. I have to say that
in general, this administration when it comes to the hostages,
and let's take a moment to remember that there are
eight Americans health hostage, five of whom are presumed to
(06:26):
be alive. Their names are Keith, Heirsch, Segoui Ohmaier, and Eden.
They've been in Kamas captivity for two hundred and eighty
nine days today. And this administration has been quite amazing
actually in supporting the hostage families and meeting with them,
certainly more than the Israeli administration has met with the
hostage families. So in that sense, we can commend this administration. Now,
(06:50):
on the other hand, we saw Donald Trumps stand up
at the Republican National Convention and talk about how our hostages,
as words were, our hostages better come home before I'm
in office. And he was clear and unequivocal. And I
don't think that I've ever heard this administration or Kamala
Harris first of all, named the American hostages or talk
(07:11):
about them so directly as ours.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, that kind of answers my question. I mean we've
talked about this.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
You know, what's politics, you know, bringing the hostages to
the White House, you know, Trump saying our hostages and
all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
But you know, I asked you the question, you answered the.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Question, and like you said, you know, if I don't
put this podcast out in the next half hour, who.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
The hell knows? What is up everybody else's sleeve? Stand
up Nation?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Why did you write this book and how did when
you started writing this book, did it change after October seventh?
Like did you have to make changes to the book
and what were the changes? So it's a sort of
a two part, three part question.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, multi part. So the story of this book is
I used to be the speechwriter for Israel's delegations to
the United Nations and Israel doesn't have a huge staff.
There's one speech writer who's responsible for writing all the
English language communications for the delegation, So that's speeches and
op eds and social media posts and letters, and it's
quite an endless list. And within the United Nations there
(08:21):
are countless topics. You could be writing about global security
and terrorism, but also international development and economic issues and
legal issues and road safety in outer space and forestry,
and honestly, it's quite an endless list. And I didn't
have a ton of time to do in depth research
on all those topics. There's just too much. But whenever
it was a speech about international development, I would kind
(08:43):
of fall down a rabbit hole because I would end
up reading about things that I really find fascinating, Israel's
earliest years, which I want to tell you about, because
Israel in its first ten years looks nothing like Israel today.
I would be reading about Goldemeir, who's right here on
my wall, a woman who I admire enormously, and I
would just fall into this rabbit hole of amazing stories,
(09:05):
the story of audacity and pioneering and Israel lifting itself
up and lifting other people up. And I thought, this
is an incredible side at Israel that even people who
know a great deal about Israel just don't know. And
when I left the delegation, I actually started running trips
to developing countries. I would take groups to look specifically
what Israel was doing in countries like Kenya, Uganda, Nepal, Guatemala, India,
(09:29):
and the list went on. And when the pandemic struck
in twenty twenty, I was supposed to take a group
to Tanzaniana. Obviously I couldn't, so instead of being able
to go in real life, I thought, Okay, it's time
to start writing this story down. And that's when I
started writing it. So it's four years in the making.
And what is so astounding about the story about Israel
and international development, which is what stand Up Nation is about,
(09:52):
is that in its first ten years, Israel was desperately poor.
It was a developing country. It's very first years has
every imaginable problem. Of course, there's the security issues, it's
attacked by all the surrounding nations. It's isolated on the
global stage. It's gonna be a situation that sounds very
familiar to today. But added to that, it's a nation
(10:16):
where you have an overwhelming number of new immigrants and
refugees that are flooding in. So first you have the
refugees from Arab states. The surrounding Arab countries essentially expel
or they're starting to murder or perpetrate violence against the
Jewish populations, and so they start to flee, and hundreds
of thousands come to Israel. And then, of course you
have survivors of the Holocaust. And so Israel, which is
(10:40):
fairly new, doesn't have much in the way of an army.
It certainly doesn't have equipment, it's not fully esport, it's
not trained, and it's fighting this war survival. Plus it's
got all these incoming refugees who are penniless. They don't
have anything. They need housing, they need food, they need education,
they need language training, they need jobs. Israel's population douvils
(11:00):
in its first two years, and then it grows seven
times after that. Any country would be crippled by that
rate of population growth. And Israel has this rule that
any Jews is allowed to come, and so continues to
absorb and absorb and absorb, and as to provide for
the needs of them. And so you have these first
people coming in hundreds of thousands living ma Barut, which
(11:22):
are exactly their ten cities or shanty towns. It's tin
and wood little shacks. There's no running water, the hygiene
is very, very poor, and it's just a desperately poor situation.
It is in this context that Israel is a developing
country that it founds an international development agency. And what
(11:42):
happens is that goldmitt Air she becomes Israel's Foreign Minister.
She's appointed by David Bengurion, and she looks at the situation.
She sees Israel isolated and poor on the global stage,
and she understands that a nation cannot dwell alone. In
Israel's Declaration of independence, it speaks about reaching out a
hand in friendship and partnership to the other nations of
(12:04):
the world, to the surrounding Arab nations, and to the
Jewish people, that everybody should be a part of the
project of building this state. Now, the Arab nations, there's
no chance they've slept the hand away. And so what
she says is she looks out into the world and
she sees that in Africa there's newly born countries, and
she thinks maybe there's opportunity, and she goes on a
tour through some of the newly born African countries and
(12:26):
she's a sensation. They love her. And she comes back
and she goes to David Bengurian and she says to him,
there's a lot in common between us and these newly
born countries. We're the same age. We've both emerged from
under the thumb of colonialism. We're desperately poor, We're dealing
with dry and arid farming conditions. And the difference is
that I know we Israel will build ourselves up, that
(12:48):
we will use our knowledge and innovation, and while we
build ourselves up, I want to help them at the
same time. And she's a persuasive woman, one of the
reasons I admire her. And she convinces him in nineteen
fifty eight to for an international development agency. This is
before the US has one, before Canada, before England, before
the United Nations has its development program. Israel becomes one
(13:08):
of the first countries in the world to extend its
hand in French whip can support to other nations of
the world.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I love that. I love that, I love your answer,
and I just love that.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I really that's such a good answer, and It's such
a thorough answer and such an education, and this is
why I love talking to you.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I had to make up points because I didn't get
such an enthusiastic response on my Kamala Harris. I didn't
score so well there, so I was making up bonus.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Points here a.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Podcast.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
You started writing the book four years ago.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
I'm a mad you were close to being done, if
not done, done with your you know you know your
final draft October seventh.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I submitted the book six weeks before October seventh.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Okay, so how did the book? You writing the book?
You putting out the book, adding to the book. Obviously
this book is so israel centric and so pro Israel.
How did October seventh specifically affect the book and changing
(14:34):
the book? Did it change your book? What did you
have to add or subtract from Stand Up Nation?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
So I submitted the manuscript for the book six weeks
before October seventh. The war hits. That would normally be
the time the book was supposed to come out in
the fall of twenty twenty three. I was supposed to
be doing with revisions with my publisher. I told my publisher,
I cannot talk to you. I cannot talk to anybody
for months, and then when things sort of never returned
(15:01):
to normal, but when it equally created just a little bit,
I went back to the manuscript and I looked at it,
and I wrote a new introduction, and I also went back.
In addition to detailing Israel's history and international development, the
vast majority of the book actually tells the stories of
these amazing Israeli entrepreneurs who have founded international development agencies,
(15:22):
and I've profiled about twenty of them in the book.
I went back to each of them and I gave
them the opportunity to write a PostScript in light of
October seventh about how their work was impacted or how
they're thinking of their feelings about doing this work with
other people has changed. The resounding message that I got
back from people was that the experience of October seventh
(15:43):
just reaffirmed this desire to grow partnerships and cross border friendships,
and that there was a doubling down on the work.
But of course there was also one component, which is
one of the people that I profiled in the book
is a woman by the name of Shoshan Haram and Shoshan,
along with members of her family was from Kibootz Berry.
(16:05):
Her parents were founders of kibootz Bery and kiboots that
most people would have never heard of until October seventh,
and she's one of the people. She's the founder of
a fantastic nonprofit called Fair Planet. Shoshan has an incredible
history working in the seed industry, and the idea behind
Fair Planet is she was working in the private sector
for our multinational seed company, and she's looking out at
(16:27):
the world and she con sees that the best seeds
in the world, the ones that are going to produce
the highest yield and the best quality fruits and vegetables,
are only affordable by the richest countries. And she's seeing
this abject poverty, particularly in African countries, and she wants
to figure out how she can get the best seeds
into the hands of the people who need it most
because of food in security being an enormous problem, and
(16:50):
she founds Fair Planet in order to be able to
do that, and the way that she does it, in
the story of how she does is quite incredible. It's
detailed in the book. Now. In October seventh, Shoshan is
taken hostage. Her husband was murdered her sister was murdered.
She was taken a lot with her daughter, her son
in law and their young children, other members of the
family as well. Now Shoshan, her daughter and the kids.
(17:13):
They came back in the deal in November, but her
son in law Tall is still there, still a hostage
in Gaza. So in light of that, I didn't I
reached out to Shoshan into partners at Fair Planet, and
their message was exactly the same, was that this is
the work that has to continue. This is her life's mission,
in her life's work, and it's gone on. I rewrote
(17:37):
the introduction to Stand Up Nation because in this moment
where the Jewish people feel so profoundly alone, and so
many feel so very scared and abandoned and hurt by
what's been going on, not just by the attack on
October seventh, but also in the ensuing anti Semitism that's
exploded around the world, to the absolute insanity of what
(18:00):
we see in the media and social media every day.
When you have a discussion, as we saw today on
CNN about whether an individual can be considered as the
running mate for Kamala Harris because he's Jewish, nobody would
ever say that if he was black or Muslim or
gay or anything like that. But the notion that this
can be mainstream conversation. We live in insane times, and
(18:20):
so I wanted to rewrite the introduction. And I think
the story of Israel in its earliest years gives us
hope of the idea that it's always been our story
to tell. Nobody else is going to be the author
of our story of Israel and the Jewish people, and
just as the same today, nobody's writing that story for us.
So that's what I rewrote in the introduction. And when
I sent out a message to everybody who contributed to
(18:43):
the book to let them know that it was finally
being published, Shoshan was actually the first person to write
back to me and congratulate me.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Wow, that's crazy that she was the first person to
to get back to you.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
All right, you.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Mentioned that I reached out to you on Twitter and said,
who are you?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
You have been a.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Tremendous source, not just to me, but I know to
you know, three hundred plus thousand people, sock puppets, fake accounts,
hate accounts, but primarily people that look to you to
give and share, you know, information, in real time, you know,
to remind us of where we are, to remind us
(19:31):
of where we are in context since October seventh. Explain
to me, Explain to the people on Twitter that I'm
going to share this with. How the fuck do you
get your information? How do you keep up? And do
you sleep? So that's a three or four part question
(19:51):
because you're doing it in real time?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
So how where? And sleep?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And do you cut what you like? If you do sleep?
What kind of sheets do you sleep on? Because I'm
feeling you might not have great sheets because you're always
you're always giving us the information.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
The thread count isn't amazing. There's no Egyptian cotton in
my life. That's true. I also spend a lot of
time at hotels, so you tell me what the Hilton
is using. That's true. I consume a lot of news.
I've always been someone who consumes a lot of news,
and I filter the news pretty fast, and it's sort
of it's I think survival actually from when I worked
(20:33):
for Israel at the UN. It's one person trying to
do far too much, and so you get pretty hyper efficient.
And that's constantly what I'm doing is absorbing the news
trying to make sense of it. And then I said
it earlier, which is the truth, is that whenever I
see something in the news or somebody says something that
I think is nonsense, I in the internal voice goes like, hell,
that'll be the last word on that. And that's what
(20:54):
issues a tweet. So you can go count how many
times in a day I think like, hell, that'll be
the last word on that. And it is day and
night to do all the unhealthy things. The phone is
in the room with me, it's not silenced. The rocket
alarms go off, and that's why there's a pretty constant
stream of tweets all the time.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
All right, fair enough the UN. You worked at the UN.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I had a come to Hashem moment when I learned
in the last nine months what the UN has done,
what the UN hasn't done, and what the UN means
to me as a New Yorker and a Jewish New Yorker,
And when it hit me and when I realized what
(21:40):
kind of a racket it is, it really it knocked
me on my ass. Because I grew up in Manhattan.
I grew up on York Avenue, coming up First Avenue,
driving past the UN being mad at the traffic, but
also as a kid specifically thinking well, if there's traffic
and it's at the UN, something important must be going on,
(22:02):
so just chill. You know, it's got to be a
big deal and important and a kosher, above board thing.
What is the reality of the UN's relationship and treatment
of Israel.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
It's absolutely garbage. It's an abomination that the United Nations
is able to do what it does. This is an
institution that is notorious for its bias against Israel. It
singles out Israel more than any other country many times
over in the General Assembly, in the Human Rights Council.
I mean, on and on and on and on. You
have one hundred and ninety three countries that belong to
(22:38):
the United Nations. You have twenty two Arab states, you
have fifty seven that belong to something called the Organization
of Islamic Cooperation. It describes itself as the voice of
the Muslim world. And then you have one hundred and
twenty countries that belong to something called the Non Aligned Movement,
which has a whole historic significance. About when you had
(22:58):
the Soviet Union on one side, the United States on
the other, you had lots of new born countries that
didn't want to pick sides for fear of backing the loser. Ultimately,
so they formed their own movements and grew and grew
as new countries were informed. And so today it's one
hundred and twenty members out of one hundred and ninety three.
When I was working for Israel at the UN, the
chair of the Non Aligned Movement, the country that was
(23:19):
sending the directives on how to vote to every other
member state was Iran, and after it was Iran, it
was Venezuela, which I'd call Iran's BFF, its best fundamentalist friend.
So the notion that these are the countries that can
take on leadership roles and give directives to the other
countries in the world about how they're going to vote
and how they're going to school democracies is simply outrageous.
(23:42):
There's one hundred and ninety three member states. How many
do you think are democracies at the UN?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
The answer is eighty seven, So it's forty five percent.
You have dictatorships and authoritarian states that are running rampant.
They are utilizing the democratic tools of the United Nations
in order to order the rest of us around the
notion that Iran can sit as chair of the Disarmament
Unit while it's sitting trying to build a nuclear bomb
to wipe out half of the Middle East. It's simply outrageous.
(24:11):
And I think the other question that I'm not sure
if you're going to ask me, so I'll ask it
of myself. People always say to me, well, why does
Israel participate? No country has to belong to the United Nations,
it's not obligatory. And more than that, you have to
pay dues to be a member in good standing to
be able to vote and participate in the UN. So
Israel pays to endure the absolutely abhorrent treatment that it
(24:33):
gets at the UN. And that was never a question
that we asked inside of the delegation, because there should
not be a moment of doubt in anybody's mind that
Israel has every right to participate in and contribute to
global affairs. It's the most important thing I'm going to
say all day, So I'm going to say it again.
Israel has the Jewish people have every right to participate
(24:57):
in and contribute to equally to global affairs, to their communities,
to their societies and their countries, and we're not going
to accept for one second anything less than that, as
you can see, full.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Of indignation when you were there, Obviously you were aware
of this. Obviously the people that were representing and working
on behalf of Israel were aware of this.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Correct, of course, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And did you feel like almost like an outcast working there?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Like did you feel like why are we here?
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Like we're climbing up a hill, everybody hates us, Like
what the fuck are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Kind of attitude.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
It's a certain temperament that's going to work there. It's
a temperament that says, I'm ready for fight club. I'm
not here to make friends. I'm not here to be beloved.
I'm here to fight for the notion that i have
every right to participate in and contribute to everything going
on in this institution. And I'm not going to settle
for anything less. So I'm going to fight you on
every biased resolution. I'm going to fight you in every
(25:56):
committee where you're trying to marginalize us. I'm going to
fight every single un and so called expert who's supposed
to be neutral but is incredibly biased against us. I'm
not gonna let a moment of it or any one
of them stand.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I love that podcast.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
We've talked about this in real life, and it's been
a conversation. It's been a discussion. It's been frustrating. I'm pivoting.
Talk to me about your feelings of anti Zionism and
anti Semitism and explain that in the most basic, slow terms,
(26:48):
how you you can't be anti Zionist and not be
basically a racist piece of shit, And how it's being used,
and the word and the term Zionism because it's an acceptable,
mainstream term which means good things and positive things. How
(27:08):
it's being thrown in our faces. Maybe start with saying
what does it mean to be a Zionist and then
go further into the anti Zionism and the anti Semitism.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Yeah, for sure. So Zionism is simply the notion that
the Jewish people have the right to live in their
historic homeland, full stop, period, nothing more. It says nothing
about whether you like or support Prime Minister Benjamin Eatannahu.
It says nothing whether you like or support the government
of Israel. It says nothing about whether you like or
support the idea of It says nothing about whether you
(27:38):
like this war, that war, this border or that border. Nothing.
It's about the Jewish people's right to live in their
historic homeland. It says nothing about whether you're also a feminist,
a humanist, climatist, whatever you can be. You can be
all these things and also be a Zionist. You can
support a Palestinian state and also be a Zionist. There's
nothing that contradicts about these two things. Anti Zionists are
(28:02):
essentially telling us that Israel that sorry, the Jewish people
have no right to a state of their own. We
are not having an academic conversation anymore. We haven't been
having an academic conversation for nine and a half months,
and really for longer than that. You just need to
look at what is happening in the world. Anti Zionists
are telling us that we should go back to a
time and a place where the Jewish people do not
(28:24):
have sovereignty and do not have the ability to defend themselves.
We got a first hand look of what that looks
like on October seventh. If this notion of from the
river to the sea, which again I'm going to assume
most people don't know what that means, they're just chanting it.
It's just rhetoric at this point. But they're talking about
from the river, the Jordan River, to the sea, the
Mediterranean Sea, that all of that should be Palestine. Well,
(28:47):
then where is Israel? That was the mission of Hamas
in October seventh. That is the whole reason that Hamas exists,
that the Palestinians should own all the land between the
river and the sea. Well, then what happens to the Jews.
What happens to the Jews is what happened on October seventh,
And that's a small, small glimpse into what would happen
right now. Half the world's Jewish population lives in Israel.
(29:09):
When Israel turns one hundred in twenty four years, two
thirds of the world's Jews are going to live in Israel.
That's the estimates. And what anti Zionists are telling us
is to go back to a time and place in
history where we live at the mercy of other peoples
and other nations. Well, a look at history and a
look at the dynamics of the Middle East. Fromas Kresbola
Huti's just managed to successfully launch a drone that struck
(29:33):
Tel Aviv and murdered a man Iran that openly vows
for Israel's death. The open reality there is nobody hiding
their intention in these terrorist organizations. They are telling us
very clearly about their intention to eliminate Israel and murder
all Jews and anti Zionists are telling us roll over
and accept your faith.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
What is keeping you up the most about Israel's future
right now currently, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
It is is that there's been so much heartbreak and
so much that's been horrific about the past nine and
a half months. But the other thing that we've gotten
to see. I'm somebody that spends a lot of time
doing research and analysis and understanding and what do people
think about this? And what do people think about that?
(30:22):
And we spend a lot of time trying to do
these analysis on paper. But in the last nine and
a half months, I've gotten to see and the world
has gotten to see the first hand character of Israelis
and the Jewish people. I'm talking about the people here,
I'm talking about people who on October seventh, the moment
they understood the magnitude of the attack and that Ramas
(30:43):
was preying on the weakest and most vulnerable members of
our society. They drove self, with or without an army uniform,
with or without a weapon, they drove into the fire,
into the line of fire to save as many lives.
And there's unbelievable stories of heroism, unbelievable stories of people
lost their lives. We haven't even begun to unearth what
happened on last day. And then we saw the Israeli
(31:06):
society rise to the moment. We saw that you had survivors,
You had hundreds of thousands of evacuees, both from the
South but from the North. People from the North haven't
been able to live in their home since October seventh.
And you saw that the government is struggling to manage,
and it's struggling because it needs to focus on the
army and the war. And Israeli civil society came and
(31:28):
rose up and they took care of every single need
of these survivors and evacuees and families who had to
send members to the army, young families where both parents
had to be deployed, taking care of kids and pick
up and grandparents, and all the various needs that people
have in their lives. Israeli people came to help one another,
and then you saw Jewish people around the world also
(31:49):
rise up. They sent a lot of donations, a lot
of money was raised, but also sending equipment and supplies
and love and support and solidarity visits and so forth.
And what we've seen in the last almost ten months
is this character of who we are and how we
stand together and look after one another. Israel and the
Jewish people deserve the very best leadership, the very best representation,
(32:15):
and the heartbreak for me is that they don't have
it in this moment. We need leaders who are going
to take responsibility for the failings. We need leaders who
are going to be honest about the changes that need
to be made. We need leaders who are committed to
the security of Israel, to the well being of our soldiers,
to returning home all of the hostages as quickly as possible.
(32:36):
And that's what I want to see happen.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Me and you spent.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Time in Israel, seeing talking, seeing things that you know,
just you know, when you give a second to contemplate
them as I am now, you know, they make my heart,
you know, race fast, or even sometimes it feels like
skip a beat. It's hard to answer specifically one thing,
But what are a couple of the things in your
(33:03):
trips to Israel post October seventh that you've seen that
you'd want to share that have been the most impactful,
most heartbreaking, and most inspiring. You just kind of said it,
but things that you've seen yourself and people that you've
spoken to yourself that have been the most demoralizing and
the most inspiring.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
So I've been to Israel seven times since October seventh.
It would be my eighth time in September, and a
lot of moments stand out in my mind. Actually one
was with you when we went to one of the
keep with Seam and we saw the home of the
Sieman Tav family, which is a young couple with three
young children, and there's the sister of the husband of
(33:45):
the family. Walked us into this house which was black
with stood, everything was burnt, and she showed us the
safe room door and showed us where terrorist had shot
at the door trying to get in, and behind that
door is cowering her brother, brother's wife and their three
really young children, and smoke is filling up the house
(34:05):
and the parents were shot and then ultimately they couldn't
get any security team to them or an emergency response
to them, and they ended up being burned alive, the
entire family. And this woman that's showing us what happened
and talking about it. And we went next door and
we saw very similar story from the neighbors, and this
(34:25):
family happened to survive, but they showed us this little
room where they were sitting there, almost suffocating to death,
choking on the smoke. And as we walked out, one
of the women was showing me a photograph. Her parents
had been murdered on October seventh, and she was showing
me a photograph graph of the grave, and I started,
I burst into tears and I was crying, and this
(34:46):
poor woman who's lost more than I can comprehend, is
trying to comfort me. And so it doesn't feel great,
but that moment stands out for me. I also remember
we went to the Nova site together, meeting with one
of the Zaco workers who has seen things in his
lifetime that no human should have to see, nevermind experience,
(35:09):
and it's so evident that his soul has really been
broken and that he'll never really be the same again.
And right there also we met Moran who had been
taken hostage on October seventh and was actually released in
one of the November deals as well. And just listening
to her story. But when you think about it, you
(35:29):
had twelve hundred people murdered on October seventh, you had
two hundred and fifty three people taken hostage. You have countless,
as I said, stories of heroism of the people who
went south. There are so many stories that need to
be told. And I think one of the things that
stands out in my mind is that what Hamas was
trying to do in October seventh was reduce us to ash.
(35:49):
They literally burnt people alive. They wanted to eliminate us
as a people, eliminate us as a human, eliminate us
as an individual. And what I think our story is
and why I'm so to know you and so proud
to see all that you're doing, is that you're shining
a spotlight to tell people's stories, to actually reverse what
from Us was trying to do. And you're lifting people
(36:11):
up and telling their stories and giving them an identity,
both the living and those that we lost.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Well, I appreciate that. And you know, like I said of.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Eva, you know, meeting you and seeing you on social
media and what you share and the diligence and the
hard work. It is hard work, and it is you know,
it's thinkless, you know, work sharing all that information that
you do on social media.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
You know, I can't tell you how much I.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Tell you this before, you know, all the time you know,
and even when I've reached out to you, just how
much it means to me and I know how much
it means to other people. And I can't urge and
implore everybody to get stand up nation and read Aviva's
book and continue to support our work. My final question
is what do you want to do with the rest
(36:58):
of your life? What do you want to do with
the rest of your time? And you know, what are
your hopes, goals and aspirations. You know, personally in regards
to you know you're writing your work. I know you're
a former zoologists. As I talked about in the opening,
Where do you plan on going with this this brain
that you have yours, and this fortitude and this grit
(37:19):
that you have because you're a tough, fucking tough broad.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
That's a big question. I think it's a hard question
to answer. In this war, this war when I worked
for Israel. The un I worked in a war. It
was fifty days, and we thought it was interminable. Part
of the ethos of Israel that David Ben Guri and
Israel's first Prime Minister said was that Israel's supposed to
fight short wars. It's a little country. It can sustain this.
It can't sustain it in terms of the army power,
(37:44):
in terms of the impact on the economy of not
having so many people working. It's an army that demands
the reserves, and so you're pulling people away from their families,
from their homes, and it's a very interconnected type society.
We thought fifty days of war was incredibly That's the
story actually in my first book, which is called Speaking
for Israel. And now we're at two hundred and eighty
(38:07):
nine days of war with no end in sight, literally,
and so in this moment, I can't answer what's next
because I'm so focused on the day to day of
waking up every day and saying I will not let
that stand. I will not let that be the last
word on this. I will not stand for less than
the equal rights and equal participation. So I'm in it
for the however long this is going to be and
(38:29):
then afterwards I can think about what the future looks like.
But I certainly hope that includes the Michael Rappaport Susan
Sarandon remix of the remix of the remix.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Right because we did the original that we did the remix,
do we do a remix of the remix or we
didn't do the remix of the remix.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
It trying to keep count, if I'm being honest, but
it deserves it.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
It's hard to keep count. But the people, the people
want to, you know, funny thing to leave out.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Aviva is as smart as she is and as well
read as she is, her pop culture knowledge is embarrassing.
But the other day, you know the movie Thelman Louise
of Eva.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Of course I know it. Have I seen it? No?
But yes, okay, but.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
It was on TV and I was watching it and
I was enjoying Susan Saranon and and Gena Davison. I
was enjoying the film and then I was like, oh shit,
we remixed the remix.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Of the Susan Saranon original song.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Anyway, Again, I can't urge people enough to get Stand
Up Nation, which is available wherever you get books, Amazon,
That and the Third Place, and to follow Aviva at
Aviva Columpass. It'll be in the show notes. It's at
the beginning, it's at the end. And I appreciate you
coming on the im Rappaport Stereo podcast. I appreciate your work,
(39:49):
and I appreciate your friendship, and I appreciate your fierce Jewish.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Zionism of Eva.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
It has inspired me and I know it has inspired
a lot of other people.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
I'm sure it is mutual. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I want to thank a Viva for joining me on
the Iron Rapport Stereo podcast again. Follow her at Aviva
Clumpass on Twitter. Trust me, trust me.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
She is a must.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Follow on Twitter and on Instagram. And you could get
her newest book, Stand Up Nation Israeli Resilience in the
Wake of Disaster. You could get that book on Amazon
or wherever you get your books.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Miles Jordan A.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Cavib Bleach Brothers aka The Dust Brothers and this Iron
wrap Port Stereo podcast. By taking me out of you
with something real nice, take me at it with something
real loud, but most importantly, take me out of here
with something real funky. This has been The Iron Rapport
stereo podcast, I'm Out
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