Sarah: Okay, so first of all, what is your experience with being a Jew in New York City? And how has that changed since October 7?

Rabbi Skydell: I actually am fourth generation and my children are fifth generation. My great grandparents actually lived on the Upper East Side, my great grandma, my grandmother and her parents… And, you know, for the most part, I never really thought about walking around with a yarmulke or walking around being visibly Jewish. I never. And I think I just took it for granted. It was just the natural environment, and natural way for me to live, you know. The first most visceral thing, and the thing that's most shocking when you see it as you are walking around the streets is the back and forth of the pictures of the hostages. It's not just the pictures of the hostages that are ripped out, but it's the rip down, then it's the putting them back up, then the rip down again, then all the attempts made to kind of put extra tape so that it can't be torn down, then people riding on top of that, and the competing signs. And, you know, at first, like part of me thinks it's just the regular street theater that you see in politics, which on the one hand, I guess makes it better because I try to convince myself that it's not about Jews, it's just about the way political conversations happen or don't happen. But it was never me before, and my people and people I knew in places I knew that were the kind of subject of this. So it first of all, kind of asked forced me to ask like, how have I really dealt with the world in the past. But also, like, there's just some real pain. I know, a lot of my congregants, it's very, very painful to walk around. Both to see all the people and I have one congregant that would walk around and try to just read a name and think about them. But he said it was taking him an hour or two to get to work every day because you just try to pass by every sign. And it's a there's an interesting dynamic there, right? Because on the one hand, you want the signs up, we forget that each one of those signs is this traumatic, horrific story. And sometimes you're so busy battling whether or not the signs should be there in the first place that we forget about the fact that like we're fighting one thing while these people are living in these hellish tunnels in Gaza. And so like, to me, that's been the kind of most immediate and visceral thing that's gone on. In the past, I wasn't a big yarmulke wearer in public, I would wear baseball caps a lot just because I'm bald. The yarmulke flies off whatever it is. I've actually and this is the first time I really insisted on wearing a yarmulke in public in ways that I hadn't in the past because I want to prove the point that this is okay. And that this belongs and that I am entitled to display my religiosity and that I also feel like the city of New York has responsibility to me to take care of me. A lot of the congregants are very nervous about security. They're very suspicious about you know, people coming and going. I think a lot of people are considering gun ownership, which was never, not never a thing. You know, we don't allow people bring guns to Shul. But I know other Shuls in other parts of the country that do. So I don't think that's going to happen in our time, but I do see that as something that a lot more people are talking about.

Sarah: And I know you mentioned that you were more inclined to wear a yarmulke after October 7 publicly. Did you notice any of your congregants being more afraid and apprehensive to outwardly express their Judaism?

Rabbi Skydell: Some of my younger congregants were like very insistent on moving to Israel, or having very public displays of their Judaism. Yeah, there were a minority who were asking, like, can I take the Mezuzah down outside my house because they don't feel safe. But it's a very, very, very small group. I would say one to three people asking I've told people not to do it. I don't think that they should do it. I think that more and more what you get is people have wanted to have public displays. We had a Hanukkah menorah lighting at Carl Schurz Park and I saw a lot of people who would never show up for these things. I'll tell you something else interesting. One of the things I think that's very powerful about Shul at this time is that it's a place where Jews can go and have the comfort of being around other Jews. And the thing that works well with a Shul is you know, that if there were services scheduled, that someone's going to be there. So if I just want a place where I'm in the comfort of other people who are going through what I'm going through it's good to go to Shul.

Sarag: I definitely find it interesting how a lot of people who wouldn't be going to shul and other like Jewish gatherings and Jewish events are there's more people doing those things since October 7.

Rabbi Skydell: Yeah, but I think part of it is because a lot of us feel like a lot of people feel like the world that we thought we knew, and the world that we felt we were comfortable with and was comfortable with is not there. You just need a place where there are people who are even if they're not exactly the same as you, they're going through a lot of the same things you're going. Right. The thing that's interesting about a Jewish cultural space, is that, you know, you can show up or not, but like, if you go this morning, the assumption is people will be there, right? We've had a lot of crowds. We've had people who came back, who hadn't been around for a really long time because they just need somewhere, you know, definitely.

Sarah: Have you been directly affected by anti-semitism, either since October 7, or any time in your life that you'd be willing to share a story of?

Rabbi Skydell: There was a guy who came at shul, a couple of years ago that said a couple of things we had to call the cops. In retrospect, it was an anti-Semite, or was it someone who was just deeply disturbed. I don't know the answer there. You know, we took the necessary precautions and security was taken care of. But directly, I would say, I'm not sure off the top my head. I can't say yes. I noticed something interesting, though, that in the beginning after the attacks, I had a lot of people who weren't Jewish expressing sympathy. That ended pretty quickly.

Sarah: Do you use any strategies to combat antisemitism? And what strategies do you equip your congregants with to combat anti semitism?

Rabbi Skydell: Um, I think for the most part the answer is always to, and again it's not an anti semitism strategy as much as the Jewish life strategy, which is to know as much about who you are, what you do, and where you come from, as you can to live that life unapologetically. On the one hand, you do represent something, and therefore, you have to be very conscious of that at all times. But at the same time to recognize that the expectation that you'll be more than, than anyone else is also its own form of anti-Semitism. I have to aspire to be the best person I can and that's part of my Jewish mission. But the fact that I can't necessarily accomplish it, and therefore, the world has the right to kind of hold it against me is its own form of anti-Semitism. I have to be judged on a curve, but I have to be 20% better to be acceptable, or 30% better to acceptable- that is its own kind of form of antisemitism. Similarly, Israel is obviously a nation state like any other, it's not beyond critique, no nation no government is ever beyond critique. But the idea that it has to be judged by a different standard than every other country in the world is its own form of anti-Semitism. Another thing I tell my congregants a lot also, and my friend, Professor Stern, who's at Yale told me a lot about this. Well, there's two things I would say that I've been speaking about a lot. One is that we have to stop the process of allowing other people to determine who we are, what we are, and what our lives are about, and whether or not our lives are worthwhile. And my friend, Professor Stern said that when the Torah describes Israel it's a nation that lives apart. This means that we have our own values, we have our own joy, we have our own measuring sticks and what our accomplishments in life and we're important, and that we could live a life apart, meaning that we don't allow other people to impose their definitions upon us. It's very hard for a lot of American Jews because for a really long time the measuring sticks were always what other people were imposing on us. And the other one, of course, has been the college question, which I'm sure you're dealing with. Where do I want to wind up? Where do I have to wind up? What am I willing to sacrifice to do so? Is it really worth it? Yeah. And so like, those are the real big questions that a lot of my congregants has been dealing with.

Sarah: Another thing I found interesting that someone actually pointed out to me is that this is not the only instance when people say cease fire or reposting pro-Palestinian things. This is not the only thing going on in the world where innocent civilians are dying. But it's when Israelis are involved. It’s when they can find a way to blame Jews that they care the most.

Rabbi Skydell: the other thing that is most appalling to me is when you people post videos saying from the river to the sea, and they don't know what the river or the sea is. Where's that impulse coming from? Why are you saying these things? And what are the consequences? Like the reality is that whatever political solution there is its going to be very, very complicated and is probably going to require all parties to be very upset. And like the kind of the the problem with the discourse now and the problem with the way it's conceived now is that everything is an all or nothing proposition. Right and then it's like suicidal in many ways. And like the idea is that if you're not suicidal then you're morally reprehensible is disgusting. You know what I mean?

Sarah: I think viewing things as either the oppressor or the oppressed is also problematic.

Rabbi Skydell: It's a big problem because in a world of discourse and discussion things are so binary, it's an either or. Obviously, it's very hard to educate 7 billion people at one time. I was a school teacher, I know how hard it is to educate seven people at a time. I taught in high school for 15 years, so I know that. We have an ability to call out good arguments and bad arguments in a way that's thoughtful and intelligent. But that really, really hard. I think it's very hard for people to think short term and long term strategies, but also to deal with their pain. Like, there's a lot of things that are really hard to coexist at one time. I have some congregants who just got off their service down in Gaza, and came back to New York, and one of them said to me that we'll be dealing with this the rest of my life. We sometimes forget the deep complexity of all of this, you know.

Sarah: 'm actually working on a workshop for school right now. It's called deconstructing misconceptions about Israel and the Jewish people, and we're finding misconceptions and different posts and articles, and we're trying to help people understand that. So one of the posts that we saw said “Zionism is Islamophobia, and Zionism is racism.” I really just think that by putting such terms into that same sentence is dangerous for everyone because you're saying can't be one thing without being another. So for any Muslims, or people of color that see that they're gonna think okay, well, I guess I have to be anti-Zionist now.

Rabbi Skydell: You would have a better handle on I guess, and it's really kind of like something I've been thinking about a lot, which is, how much of the real world matches what we see online? There's certain voices that become amplified and are really, really loud through social media, so the question become what's the actual effects of this on people your age. What is actually going on in people's minds? And what are they actually taking out of this?

Sarah: And how, like, the social media, especially with the really hot majority of people that are, like, reposting these things and like seeing these things online, they really don't even have like, the basic education on what is going on and the history of the conflict. And so people who have little to no prior knowledge of this, they're the first thing they're gonna see,. So for all we know people could like be posting different pictures and just making completely unsupported claims, and the people that see them online, who don't have background information believe it. And that's what fuels antisemitism.

Rabbi Skydell: The lack of moderation and policing of a lot of them is also an interesting conversation. If you have community norms, which are good, right, but how much stuff is getting through this filter? I don't know that's very scary to me to me honestly, like, to me, it's like actually scarier to think about it this way. Oddly enough, I'm more comfortable walking through the streets of New York City in a yarmulke than I am thinking about what it means that there's no content moderation on Twitter.

Sarah: It's more the images that are being moderated like the graphic images, but there's nothing stopping people from saying Israel is an apartheid state; Israel's committing genocide; Zionism is racism. There's nothing stopping that. And that's spreading like a plague, and it's catching others like it’s contagious.

Rabbi Skydell: LZionism is racism. Let's argue that, okay. I don't think so, but let's just say theoretically that's an argument you want to have. The fact that you can just say, you know, Israel murdered 5000 babies, and here are the pictures and the pictures are, you know, 25 years old.

Sarah: And they could be just random pictures off the internet for all we know.

Rabbi Skydell: Yeah, exactly. And unless someone picks it up, and makes it know, that's the kind of input that people are taking in, you know what I mean?

Sarah: They could also be showing like, pictures of like, children being shot at and be saying this is like the IDF shooting innocent Palestinian civilians with like, no context whatsoever, and just saying Israel's killing babies.

Rabbi Skydell: This is the bigger thing, which is that this visceral image that make that could be a complete fabrication, and oftentimes is a complete fabrication, and is presented as truth. And no one says, boo. That's the really terrifying thing. You know what I mean? And

Sarah: If I were completely uneducated and I kept on seeing online that Israel's killing babies. And they're showing me pictures of little kids crying, and saying that Israel's doing this, it’s hard not to believe even though it’s completely untrue.

Rabbi Skydell: Yeah. So that that's the thing. One of the things I struggle with tremendously is the real need or desire for free speech protections and understanding how essential they are to the way our society functions, but how easily exploited that is by bad faith actors that could wind up having tremendous damage, you know?

Sarah: Yeah. And we're also in an era where there's deep fakes and AI. Anything that people want to fabricate can be fabricated using AI, even if it wasn't like a picture that already existed, they could create an image completely of an IDF soldier, like shooting a little kid, and we wouldn't be able to know the difference. Yeah,

Rabbi Skydell: There's two things that I think we as a Jewish community are really falling down on. That's one of them. Because we're fighting the old battles. I hear from a lot of people that they think that our politicians are with us, the ones that are with us, and therefore we don't have to do anything. But the reality is that every single politician is getting 1000 calls from people who don't agree with us for every one call that we're sending in. And yet, I get the way the mechanisms by which we organize etc. are so behind, you know what I mean? If I were to say two things, those are the two things: what is the future of like standards and moderation and AI and deep fakes. What is that? And how are we kind of pushing certain agendas, especially with the government and with the FCC and with big tech? Because like, this is a war that I think we are losing, if we haven't already lost. And we have got to figure out what to do next time. Otherwise, it's gonna be 1000 times worse.

Sarah: Do you think there's more pressure on the government to call for a ceasefire than to not?

Rabbi Skydell: don't think so. But I do think that you're seeing, interestingly, from both the left and the right. The ceasefire calls from the left effect on the right, who really are anti interventionist, and Tucker Carlson's of the world, whatever it is, that is starting to gain a lot of traction.

Sarah: And I also think it was interesting is there's a lot of like radical leftists who aren't really interested in educating themselves on the matter, but they see this issue and they see this lens of the oppressor and the oppressed, and they automatically were like, Okay, I'm gonna go with this oppressed theme that the suppressed lens that I've seen, like, online and on social media, and I'm gonna outwardly like, support that, despite not knowing anything about it.

Rabbi Skydell: I agree with you, 100%. What's interesting, though, is the other version, right, which is creeping up, which is a far right, that's getting a lot of traction. That is very opposed to American soldiers and money and weapons being sent overseas. So when you have Tucker Carlson saying very, very loudly why are we spending time and money over there that might play a bigger role than we think right now.

Sarah: Definitely. I agree. What pressure do you think very public figures like celebrities and politicians are under to pick a side?

Rabbi Skydell: Um, I don't know. Look, I mean, like everything you have a group thing develop and it becomes very hard to go against it but the truth is, like, let's be honest, like they're most of them are ill-informed as everyone else in the populace is right. Yeah. So like the question I have, like, one of the big questions is why are we so concerned? And why do we care so much about what people who are almost definitely ill-informed in have to say? Yeah, I think that’s a bigger question I've been asking which is like, why would we even be concern ourselves with it? In general the appetite for Americans to have their celebrities politically involved, but I think we're at a point where people are tired of that right. And

Sarah: I think there is a lot of question about the actual influence celebrities pictures can have, especially I think with not like educated scholars but instead with singers and actors. Right.

Rabbi Skydell: there is an effect if you have enough artists and whatever, boycotting Israel and boycotting anything that kind of you know, has any association with Zionism it can have a chilling effect that definitely can but I do think that like it's I think a lot of the times it's adistraction from the real issue, you know what I mean? Yeah, like those hostages are stuck in Gaza and like this war is not ending anytime soon.