Rabbi Shlomo Litvin on Rep. Thomas Massie misguided policies

Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, Chairman of the Kentucky Jewish Council, takes issue with many policies championed by Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rabbi Shloma Levin joins us. He's chairman Kentucky Jewish Council
and welcome back. Good to have you back on, Rabbi.
Good to be here with you as always. Well, let's
start right away with a guy whose name was just
mentioned in the news, Thomas Massey. You have you've not
held back when Thomas Massey's name comes up. He's a

(00:22):
member of Congress representing northern Kentucky and a bit of
an irritant to you, as I recall, well, I try
to never let my voice not rise when it's faced
with hate.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I think it's important. I think that Congress and Massy
has shown himself on many occasions to be anti Semitica.
His very first tweet of the year this year was
going on about how Congress works for Benjamin A. Dan Yahoo,
how he has control of Congress and America's not sovereign,
echoing just a slew of anti Semitic stereotypes. And I

(01:02):
really wish that it was true what you said that
he represents northern Kentucky, but increasingly so, he does not
represent northern Kentucky. In fact, as you just mentioned with
the speaker vote, he is a single vote in the
other direction. Too often he's a single vote in any
direction in the other direction, which leads Northern Kentucky to
have zero representation, zero voice in the conversation, and no

(01:25):
one advocating for them.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
What do you suppose is behind that? Do you think
there's other power that pushes Massy or he just wants
to be the counter vote for the attention.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, I certainly think he absolutely adores being the counter vote.
He endures saying no when others say yes. He loves
that people dislike the fact that he nothing makes him
happier than someone else being unhappy because of how he voted.
But in addition, I think he also has a worldview
that is dominated by conspiracy theories. He went on on

(02:03):
Tucker Carlson last year and said every other member of
the Kentucky delegation of the Republican Party works for the
Jews and works for Israel, just insane conspiracy theories. There's
no one who'll work with, not the Republican delegation, not
the new Republican president who's already said he will oppose.
And really what it leaves is him isolated, which when

(02:24):
hateful voices are isolated, it's a good thing, but it's
sad for Kentucky that the only Republican member of the
Hamas squad is supposed to represent the fourth district.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Interesting. You and I have had this discussion over the
past year about the hostages, the Jewish hostage hostages from Israel,
and you know, we're stuck in the mud here. It
looks like nobody's going to move on this situation. So
what should happen next. I mean, you've said released the hostages,

(02:55):
but that's not the encouragement is not led to the action.
What now?

Speaker 2 (03:02):
So I think it's worth noting that out of one
hundred and one hostages who are currently being held by the Hamas,
Nazis and Gaza, two of them are Americans. I grew
up in an America where if you made the foolish
move of taking an American hostage, hell would rain down
upon you. I grew up with stories like Captain Phillips
who was taken by Somali pirates. The Navy seals showed
up a day later and there are no more Somali

(03:24):
pirates from that boat. So to me, it's shocking that
five Americans were taken hostage. One of them was murdered,
was executed shot in the back of the head as
his rescuers were approaching. And aside from Israel and Jewish people,
America has done nothing. I would like to see that

(03:45):
change and wall America does nothing. We are funding the
groups that are funding Hamas through our funding of UNRA,
the United Nations really Fork agency, which has been found
to both have be riddled with AMAS employees and be
giving money to AMAS other funds that we give internationally.
So we are not only abandoning the Americans that are
being held there, we are supporting their captors. So what

(04:08):
I call for free the hostage is what I'm calling
for is either President Biden in his last two weeks
or President Trump to take action to defend American values,
which includes not turning a blind eye to both Americans
and our allies being held prisoner, being held hostage by
terrorists for their faith and for their adherence to Western values.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Are you expecting a seismic shift in the way America
is dealing with the Israeli obviously, the Homeland and the
because it's not just Gaza, there all the other groups
that are surrounding Israel who want to exterminate the whole country.
Do you think Trump is going to handle this in
a broadly different fashion than the Biden administration.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
I don't know. I certainly hope that there will be
a page in this issue. Turning a blind eye, which
is what we've done since we gave Gaza to Hamas
fifteen years ago, hasn't worked. The idea of ignoring the
problem it will go away hasn't worked. The idea of
ignoring Iran and giving them hundreds of billions of dollars,

(05:18):
which they then gave to Syria to Hasbala, to Hamas
to the Hoofis hasn't worked. So I think we're trying
the same thing over and over and taking different results
is the definition of insanity. I think it's time to
try something new, and I certainly hope the new administration
will be open to that.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Indeed, did you find it ironic at all that on
a day that there were two very prominent terrorist attacks,
if you will, the one in Las Vegas in front
of the Trump Building, and of course the killing of
so many people in New Orleans that and simultaneously or
later hours later in New York City, we're getting protests
down their pro Palestine protests on Sixth Avenue, blocking traffic.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
I mean, I don't think it's ironic. It's cause and effect.
They called again and again, globalized the Intifada. They call
a University of Louisville's campus and hours later the only
good Jew was a dead Jew was spray painted in
Cherokee Park. They did in the UK's campus and Jewish
students were harassed on campus and threatened. When they say
globalize the Intifada, what they are saying is what Israel

(06:28):
has faced for the last thirty years. Constant terror attacks,
parents every time they hear a boom, wondering how their
children is, checking the news constantly to ensure their children
are safe. To globalize that, to bring that to America,
to bring it to Las Vegas, to bring it to
New Orleans, and they're just making good on their threats.
It's not ironic. It's just a warning that has been

(06:51):
made again and again. A threat has been made to
America again and again on Columbia's campus, on UK and
u of L's campus, and rations have durned a blind eye.
The police have durned a blind eye, the FBI has
turned a blind eye. And a certain point, if we
continue to ignore their promise we want to kill you,
we hate your values, we hate what brings you joy,

(07:14):
then violence will follow.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
It's so it's mind numbing to think that people who
are part of our US military, though in both of
these cases were involved in this anti American decision to
try and take out lives in Vegas, he wasn't successful,
but certainly was in New Orleans. I mean, do you
believe the reports that say these people are just working alone,

(07:40):
they're lone wolfs.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Whether they were working in concert, they were certainly at
least seemingly inspired by the same material. So this is
part of a larger epidemic we have in America of
a lack of morals, a lack of caring, where we
have this same emotions that cause a young person who
grew up in an incredibly privileged life, who grew up

(08:05):
with rich parents, to shoot someone in the shrieks, the
same emotional problems that have rich kids of Columbia beating
up a minimum wage janitor as they take over a
building for Gaza than demanding the administration send them pizza.
That same loneliness, lack of healthy relationships, lack of morals,
lack of meaning in their lives, is what drives a

(08:28):
veteran to go online looking for meeting and find this incitement,
find these hateful ideologies. Isis has realized that through the
Internet they can reach someone anyway. They don't have to
speak someone from Syria in the United States. They can
just reach someone looking for something in the United States.
And as a parent and as a spiritual leader, I

(08:48):
think America needs to wake up to the fact that
we need to not just give our kids an education.
If you want a great education, go to Harvard, go
to Yale, go to Columbia. But to give them moral education,
to have a basis for education. Rabe Manachamadels Skierson and
the Labavacar Ebba, the foremost Jeutler of the modern era,
said that in education without morals is useless. He went
to university in Berlin in the nineteen forties and saw

(09:10):
as Nazism rose in the most educated city on earth,
going to Harvard for twenty five years. If you don't
have morals, all of that education is worth nothing. I
spent the last week all around the Commonwealth of Kentucky
lighting Minora's in different cities, in Frankfort and Shelbyville and
Louisville and Lexington, Covington. Today I was in Richmond. In Somerset.

(09:30):
The minora is the oldest symbol of religious freedom, that
idea that the shamish candle, the leader candle, lights the
other candles. It's been fifty years now that we've had
these public lightings in America, since the REBU instituted them.
And the entire message is to not just educate people,
but for that education to have a fire behind it,
to have a passion behind it, to have a commitment
to our country, to our values, to our God behind it.

(09:53):
And I think as long as we keep closing the
door on those morals, keep closing the doors on those values,
closing the door on the belief that made America the
country it is that our founders truly believed in. Now
we hold these truths to both be self evident, that
all men are created equal and endowed by their creator.
When we close the door on that, we open the
door for all this kind of excitement to find a home.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I think twenty twenty five is a shifting year, though
I just feel it in all the way things have
been playing out over the last few months. These tragedies
aside it's horrific. We're all sick about it, but I
appreciate your insights as always, Rabbi.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Livin, I certainly hope this year will be a change,
and it takes every one of us to raise our
voices for morality and goodness in you, my friend, have
a good.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Year, yes, sir, indeed, thank you. Rabbi Shlomo Leppn, Chairman
of the Kentucky Jewish Council,