Daniel: Thank you so much for meeting with me. Could you start by talking about any recent instances of antisemitism that you have witnessed?

Rabbi Soloveichik: For me, personally, I haven't had any personal experiences with the terrible episodes I've seen and that we're describing. There was one pro-Hamas rally that went through the streets of New York and actually went straight down Columbus. That was straight past our synagogue. Our synagogue is on 70th Central Park West off Columbus. But it happened to be a Shabbat that I was away. Had I been there that Shabbat, then I probably would have been walking to the synagogue at that particular time. But it's just part of the larger phenomena that you've seen happen within the city, especially both in the city in general or other cities in America, but also in terms of what you've seen happening on certain college campuses. I haven't had experience with that specifically. I, of course, know people, not necessarily from the community, just from my larger work, of people who are engaging with this issue on college campuses. My own response has been, by and large, just using the forms that I have to write about this and to respond to it. I'll send you a bunch of different pieces that really reflect the different things that I do. On the one hand, immediately after October 7, I wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal. I'm grateful to be able to write in the journal from time to time, so I wrote about it there. But my writing on this has been focused on two separate aspects. One is in the larger interfaith world. It's a mostly Christian magazine called First Things, a lecture that I gave at an amazing conference to I wish I was invited, which was at a Catholic University in Steubenville, Francisco University, whose President, by the way, had announced pretty soon after all the events, that if any Jewish students wanted to come there, they felt unsafe in their own school, they'd be taken with no issues whatsoever and be welcomed. I don't know that anyone took up on it, but it's an amazing thing for that to have happened. There was a conference that was held, and I gave a long talk on, religiously, how are we to understand the phenomenon of antisemitism and how that motivated our response. That was a lecture that was given to Christians, in other words, Catholics, evangelicals, mostly Catholics. I'll send you the link to that essay because it was just published, that lecture that I gave.

Daniel: Great. Thanks. I'd love to read that.

Rabbi Soloveichik: I highlighted what this means and how we are to understand it and why it's vital for Christians and Jews to work together to fight antisemitism. Separately, I write a monthly column in Commentary magazine, which is a Jewish magazine. I'll send you this link as well. The case I made there was that, and this was a reflection on the rally in Washington after I had gone to the rally in Washington. What I said there was that it is both important to speak out against antisemitism not only as Jews, but also as Americans. They argue that American Jews should be making a larger point as well. The point that I think we should be making is, and I reflected in the article on the fact that at the Jewish rally in Washington, there were so many American flags to be seen, not just Israeli flags.

Daniel: My family and I were there as well.

Rabbi Soloveichik: I spoke about why America has stood by Israel in this moment and in the past. The reason for that is because America has seen an affinity to its own story, to the story of the Jewish people in ancient history and in modern times. And that what I argued in the piece is that those that hate Israel actually understand this. And that there's a reason why in the pro-Hamas rally, you don't see a single American flag. Because they're not only motivated by hatred of Israel or of Jews, though, of course, that's bad as it is, but they also hate America. And we need to be saying that. We, as Jews, need to make the case that this is not just a danger to Jews. This is a danger to the United States itself, to its identity as a country, to what it understands itself to be. That's one element that I think we need to be saying more and more. Those are my own responses. Thank goodness, I haven't had any personal encounters, and I haven't had, with the exception of students that I know who are in colleges, I haven't had anybody coming to me specifically. Obviously, living on the West Side, I see what everybody else sees. I see the hostage posters that are constantly scratched off, that are torn down.

Daniel: Basically destroyed.

Rabbi Soloveichik: Destroyed, so much so that in a very strange and eerie way, one of your first reactions when you get to Israel, is, oh, no one's torn down that sign. There's no sign of it being torn. Someone else has said that to me, too, but it's an instinctive, strange, instinctive reaction. But what I've done in my own capacity as a Rabbi and a writer and a speaker is to both engage allies in the larger religious world, the interfaith world, while at the same time making the case through my writing about what's at stake, not just for the Jews, but for America. I'm going to continue to do that in more articles that are forthcoming. That's really my own experience. I'll send you the different pieces that I wrote in the Wall Street Journal in this Christian magazine, in this Jewish magazine. You can quote anything you want from there, and I'd be happy to follow up at any time or answer any questions you have now. But that's really been my experience.

Daniel: Thank you. Just a few more general questions. How have you felt like being visibly Jewish in New York City over the last three months? I know you mentioned not being there the week that a pro-Hamas rally was on Columbus. But has there been any other time that you felt uncomfortable?

Rabbi Soloveichik: I will tell you, interestingly, this is like to mention. I've had people ask me about it. They see that I walk around with my children looking very visibly Jewish. I don't tell people what to do, but they've marked that I've continued to do that. I thought, Personally, it was important for me to continue to do that. I want to add to that that if you come to the synagogue, you'll see we have massive, massive American and Israeli flags hanging from the synagogue. I know one other prominent synagogue where they had a discussion about it. I think in the end, they put out a flag, but not a large one or something. But for us, it's important. Look, we're a historic synagogue. If people know who we are one way or the other. It's particularly important for us to take a stand. We put the American flag and the Israeli flag, huge flags, massive. You can't miss them. For us, it's been very important to mark us as a visibly Jewish synagogue because everyone knows we are one already. We're the oldest Jewish congregation in America and the most historic congregation in America. We have to take a stand for what's right, and we do so not just as pro-Israel Jews, but we do so as Americans.

Daniel: I've seen a similar shift in my synagogue. Israeli flags are being put up even more frequently.

Rabbi Soloveichik: We're putting it outside. If you go online to our website and look at our new bulletin, we have a bulletin every couple of months, you'll see on the front cover is a picture of it.

Daniel: Along those lines, have you seen any changes in your community since the war? Is attendance of services higher than it used to be or lower or just the same?

Rabbi Soloveichik: I don't know about attendance. What I do know is people are incredibly mindful about what's happening, and it's impacting their prayer. We add additional prayers at the end. One of the most meaningful things that we do is that we say a prayer for the soldiers. We've always said prayers for American soldiers and for Israeli soldiers. But now one of the things we started is that we also, as we pray, we specifically give names of any soldiers that are linked in any way to members of the congregation. So it takes like an extra 10 minutes, you know, for me to read these names, and they keep pouring in. And people are very touched when we do it. So there's been a real self-conscious focus on additional prayer and personal prayer. Prayer for those near and dear to people. I think that's been a big impact.

Daniel: And one last question. I know you've mentioned a lot of writing that you've done to help do whatever you can to help spread your message, but are there any strategies that you'd recommend for people who have, say, a smaller platform or can't write in such big journals? 

Rabbi Soloveichik: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's an important question. My answer is... Every single person is different. In other words, just the way you act as a Jew, as a public Jew, impacts the impressions of anyone around you. And so if you're in a situation where you're able to voice your views, then you don't have to be running for the Wall Street Journal to voice your views. But I've had people, because I'm publicly Jewish, walk up to me and just say, I want to tell you, we're thinking about the Jewish people now, we're praying for the Jewish people. The people in the airport walk up to me and say, anyone who identifies as a Jew will get positive reactions too because remember, the protests you see as disturbing as it is, that doesn't represent America. If you look at the polls, America is standing with Israel. And so, you need to, in the way that you conduct yourself, you need to conduct yourself as an American Jew, and to know that that will impact the impressions of others. Each person within his or her own, with his or her gifts or talents and situation, can either act on behalf of the Jewish people or at least impact people's impressions of who we are as American Jews. And I think that every single person is a representative of the Jewish people, every single person who's among the American Jewish community. And each one has the power or the influence to create a positive impact for the better.