Habits and Hustle - Episode 288: Rudy Rochman: An Interview on Anti-Semitism from the Frontlines in Israel

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

My guest in this episode, Rudy Rochman, is an Israeli soldier currently on the frontlines in Israel and witnessing the atrocities of Hamas firsthand.  In this episode, we not only get a direct account of what’s happening, but we also dive into the complexities of anti-Semitism, why the world has always hated jewish people, its historical patterns, and its impacts on the Jewish community. We also discuss all the media bias and misinformation being spread in hopes to educate and inform from a factual perspective, and we dive into the rise in popularity of being pro-Palestine + what’s contributing to it.  Rudy is a Jewish activist dedicated to combating anti-Semitism, empowering younger generations to put Judaism into practice, and fostering dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians for a more peaceful world. He is a noted speaker and writer on jewish rights. He frequently speaks at college campuses and to organizations that are pro-Israel and is known for his work as a Jewish and Israel rights activist on social media..  What we discuss: 00:02:30 - The complexities of anti-Semitism, its historical patterns, and its impacts on the Jewish community 00:06:45 - The rising trend of anti-Semitism, especially among younger generations 00:12:00 - Discussion on the silence of influential figures and the need for Jewish people to assert themselves 00:20:15 - The role of Jewish people and their collective responsibility, challenging narratives that blame Jewish people for things beyond their control 00:28:50 - Comparing Jewish people to the world's immune system, offering a fresh take on the world's blame game 00:38:40 - Candid discussion on media bias, the trauma of war, and the potency of overcoming fear 00:45:00 - First-hand accounts from Israeli soldiers 00:53:30 - Rudy's personal journey of triumph over fear. Find more from Jen:  Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen  Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Rudy:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rudy_israel/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RudyRochman  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I guys is Tony Robbins, you're listening to Habits in Hustle, Crescent. So I really appreciate you doing this, I've really thank you. I know this is like a hard time and everything and the fact that you're taking your time out to do this podcast is so gracious, so I really appreciate it. Of course, thank you for using your platform to bring lights to these issues where most people try to ignore it or to the opposite, try to bring darkness. My gosh, in fact, actually

I have this conversation a lot because what I've noticed so much is that people who have big platforms and have the influence they're not speaking up which is really, really problematic because it's such intense propaganda on the other side that we actually need all the help we can get.

And I don't even know at this point how to convey that. You know, do shame people into doing it? I don't even know. I think it's a shifting pop culture. I mean, I think we can look at historically how the civil rights movement happens that were, you know, as crazy as it may seem six years ago, black people in America didn't have people rights. Today, to say such a thing would be preposterous, especially for millennials and Gen Z. But that was the reality. And so how did society shift from that being a norm

to today, someone were to mention something that black people should not rights, and they'd be automatically ostracized from any intellectual space, or there was a cultural shift from the ground up and off from the top down that changed the mentality of how society responded to racism, conditioned people to being against it, and slowly the younger generation replaced the older generation, and things were changed. But those were rights that were earned, and I think the Jewish people need to realize that no one's going to respect us

if we don't earn that respect. And if we want people to wake up and to respect us, we need to stand up for ourselves. I know and so how do you recommend that because what I feel like what I've been using my platform recently what I want to talk to you about is exactly what you just actually hit upon which is the younger generation and the shift towards more anti-semitism than ever before. And, hey, I want you to talk about, but why do you think that is? Has it become trendy or cool to be more propalistine? Is it because of social media and people are just seeing these snippets? And it's kind of, people are not educated. What is it?

So, first of all, we have to break down that they're not propalistine. Because when Palestinians die by the thousands and the Syrians of a war, nobody's talking about them. When Palestinians are by the hundreds of thousands of refugee camps, Lebanon or in Jordan or suffering in the border of Gaza and Egypt or suffering under Hamas and the Palestinian authority not having the freedom of speech and if they say anything against the regimes that are dictatorships, then they get their heads trapped off and they disappear. Nobody's talking about those Palestinians that are suffering.

They're only willing to talk about Palestinians that are suffering, which should be talked about when it comes to Israel. And of course, even in this situation, they take the context out of it without understanding why there's a situation, just taking a part of the what and using and manipulating that to create a political weapon against the idea that Jews should have a right to exist and be in the slam. So, these individuals that are claiming to be pro-Pylistine, I don't buy it, the vast majority of them are not because they only care about Palestinians when they could use them against

Jews. And why is the world so obsessed with us and constantly this trendy thing of being against Israel? It's not new. There's an obsession. I mean, the far right looks at the Jews and says the Jews are the left. The far left looks at the Jews and says the Jews are the right. The Communists blame the Jews for capitalism, the capitalist blame the Jews for communism. You know, the white supremacists, neo-Nazis, enemy number one is the Jew, the black supremacists, the fairy cons,

enemy number one is the Jew, and you look at all different groups. I mean, Christianity, the death of Jesus is what hurts them the most. They blame the Jews for that. You look at the economic situation close to the war one in Germany, blame the Jews for that leading to the Holocaust. You look at the economic situation close for the world or one in Germany, blame the Jews for that leading to the Holocaust. You look at the economic situation in Spain after the colonization of Queen Isabella and King

Fernandes, blame the Jews living in this position. Black plague, blame the Jews, Covid, blame the Jews, war in Ukraine compared to Palestine. Literally anything and everything that goes wrong with this world, somehow some extreme group that is experiencing something in society is going to come to the conclusion that the Jews are the problem. It's like all extreme groups disagree on everything except one issue and that the Jews are the problem. And this is not trendy, this is not new, but historically there are rises and lows of how it grows and how it goes down. And the equation is what the Jewish people do about it. And we have 4,000 years of history. 4,000 years of history that one Jews are empowered, united, filling our purpose, we overcome all the greatest chapters, all the greatest struggles, all the greatest nations that come to distress. Whenever the Jews are

divided, fighting each other, assimilating, going away from what they're supposed to be, those are the times that anti-Semitism starts to rise. And what we look at today is, although we have a country, we have a vehicle that's meant to do something with it, we're not united with a purpose. The only thing that United States is a war, is a massacre, is a horrible experience. So why do we have to wait for a plan B to unite us? We need to find a plan A that United States is a positive thing, not a negative thing. Yeah, I mean, that's really well said. I just feel like, you know, I think the number is now, it's up, I think over now, 1,300% since October 7th, in terms of the anti-Semitism. And I guess I'm perplexed and there's such a disconnect

because I feel like we have to, as Jewish people, defend the fact that we have to defend ourselves after that massacre that happened. And there's such, I think it's such a disconnect. I don't think it's even a black or white issue. It's very, to me, it's very, it's very concrete. There's one side, not two sides. And I think I'm just, I think I know everybody I know is having a really hard time to wrap

their heads around why this is such an issue. Like hummus is such an issue. Like, Hamas is a terrorist organization, and I'm now hearing all the time, it's a resistance group. That's the new thing that you're, I'm hearing kind of like on replay, on a loop. Right, I mean, to me, it's not shocking because I've been dealing with the anti-Semitism

of my entire life, and I expected to be this way because there's no logic behind anti-Semitism. I mean, in New York City the Jews are 13% of the population, right? One of the mostly dense places of Jews in the world because Jews are 15 million in the world, 0.2% of the world's population, 2% of America's population, but in New York City we're 13% of the population. If you look at the total hate crimes in New York City, I mean not just violent attacks, I mean crimes for hate 56% plus of the hate crimes are targeted against Jews. How does that make sense?

You know, you go to every every civilization and every society that had Jews at some point in nation rises up and ends up Persecuting or exterminating its Jewish population now some people try to justify or find logical reasons as to why Anti-Semitism exists and they try to say, well, Jews tend to be successful, so because of our success there's jealousy and that's what causes anti-Semitism. Well, if you look in America, the three ethnic groups that are the recent migrants most successful ethnic groups in the US, it's Nigerians, Koreans, and Indians. And although there is, of course, Asian, as well, it's not anywhere near the amount of xenophobia

that the Jewish people face. When you look again at New York City, when we're 13% of the population of minority group, and we come up with over 56% of total hate crimes, there's a clear disproportionate reality that Jews face plus. Minorities usually have one side that opposes them. Who hates black people, white supremacists?

Who hates women, misogynists but the Jews everyone hates us all extremists hate us we have a very unique type of xenophobia so you know I don't think the jealousy argument makes sense because there are other people that are successful and they don't have the same levels of xenophobia now another excuse or justification that some people give is that well we other ourselves we have our own community have our own community centers, our own synagogues, our own cemeteries, our own hospitals, and because you the Jews other yourselves, that's why people reject. And to that, I would say, well, many Muslims have their own cemeteries and their own communities and their own mosques, and the Amish also pretty much other themselves, and many other communities do, and I don't see the amount of xenophobia against their population for the fact that they have their own communities. Then the last argument that I usually hear is, well, you know, the Jews are, you know, really loyal to Israel and to the other Jewish people, and there's this dual loyalty that

exists. I mean, I grew up in Miami, and everyone's identifying as Argentinian Venezuelan, Colombian, Haitian, Dominican, and Cuban, and during the Olympics, or during the soccer games and FIFA, everyone's supporting another country And no one is going say ah you see you're actually loyal to Cuba or you're actually loyal to Venezuela or you're loyal to Argentina or you're loyal to Haiti and so now we're going to Pursuit you so these answers don't really make sense and I think there's a more Metaphysical explanation as to why anti-Semitism happens. And I can explain that if you want.

Yeah, absolutely. It's very deep and I don't know if everyone can grasp it, but I'll try my best. So for me, first of all, growing up, I was born in France. I moved to Israel when I was three, then to Miami when I was five. All of my grandparents had been born in different countries. My mom's side of the family, they were born in Morocco and in Algeria and persecuted and kicked out of the land That they were born and grew up in in 1948 as a response to the creation of Israel There was a massacre in the village of Ujda my father's side of the family was born in Poland and Belgium And they survived the Holocaust by hiding in addicts throughout the war So growing up was very strange to me for Jews to identify as as Russian or Polish or Ethiopian or Yemenite or Iraqi or Moroccan.

When we weren't Moroccan and Morocco, we weren't Russian and Russia, we weren't Ethiopian and Ethiopia, we weren't Yemenite and Yemen, we were Jews that were temporarily and forcefully displaced and living on a land that we were never seen as a part of that land. And then we moved on to the next chapter of our history wherever we moved on to. So I kind of rejected the notion that people tried to label me as French or as Moroccan or as Polish because those are not places, that's not my people, that's not my history, that's not my future. And so the reality is that the Jewish people will always be seen by the world as, you know, the source of the problem. And I really felt that for the first time when I was a seven year old, I took a trip to

London for the first time with my mom and my younger brother and we got onto the red tour bus of London that does the tour and as we got onto the bus my mom had a shirt and Hebrew that said Emmett which in Hebrew means truth. It was just a cool shirt that she bought in Israel and we got onto the bus and my mom gives the bus driver the tickets and the bus driver who ended up being neo-Nazi. She sees my mom shirt and says, excuse me, is that written in Jewish? And my mom, you know, looks a little bit surprised. It's a little bit of an ignorant question. No, and she says, no, it's written in Hebrew, but it's the language of the Jewish people

if that's what you're asking. And he says, oh, so you guys are Jews. She says, yes, we're Jews, what's the problem? She says, I don't want any Jews on my bus, you have to get off. And my mom being a very strong woman said, I don't know who you think you are, we're not getting off this bus. And the man got up right, my mom threw her off the bus. And at that age, I didn't really know what to do. I wanted to do something, but I was not giving the tools

to deal with that moment. Thankfully, there was a woman, a black woman from the South of the United States, actually, who was like, friendly with my mom in the line. They were talking and her two boys were the same ages of me and my younger brothers. So we were playing in the line. She got up and made a big noise and called the police, the guy got arrested. But that moment changed my life forever. It activated me to doing what I do. But for many years, I thought about it and I'm like, why did this person hate us so much? If he knew me and my mom and my brother, he'd realized that we're actually really good people and he would like us. So why does he hate us? It's not

from him knowing who we are, him seeing the problems of his life and his experience and externalizing that on the Jewish people and thinking the Jewish people are the cause of the problem. It's not because that that's the truth. We know we didn't kill Jesus, we know we didn't create the economic problems in a Germany post-World War I, we know we didn't create COVID, we know we didn't do all the things that the world is blaming us. So from an insider perspective, we know what they're reacting to is not what we did. So the problem is not our action. So why are they reacting that way? And so I started asking myself another question.

I was like, well, if it's not what we did, maybe it's what we didn't do. And then the question becomes, okay, well, if we were supposed to do something that we didn't do, what were we supposed to do? And if you look at the mission statement of the nation of Israel, that it has been our mission statement for thousands of years, it's to do Tikkunonam and Ola Gueyme, which to translate in English means to heal the world, wherever there are problems, hatred, jealousy, you know, racism, pollution, idolatry, materialism, wherever there's problems we need to go and fix. And Ola Gueyme means to be a light upon

the nations. Now, what is a light? I Man, you have to have darkness for the lights. So you're turning on the light for people who cannot see. You're really empowering other people for them to fulfill their aspirations. And so just to give an analogy of understanding how every nation has its own function within this world, we're all a part of one ecosystem. If you look at Yellowstone National Park, there was a time where the wolves were extinct and there were no more wolves and because there were no more wolves The bison started overeating and overgrazing on the grass They weren't running away anymore so they stayed on the same fields and they ate so much of the grass that there was no more grass left And there were no more bugs and no more no more birds and all of a sudden it destroyed the ecosystem

Then they decided to reintroduce wolves and because they reintroduced those wolves, then the bison started migrating, the grass started growing back, the bugs started coming back, the birds, and it shows that every single piece of the way this world is created has a function, and that's the same thing with every nation. Every nation in this world has a function. And the function that the Jewish people chose, when we say we're the chosen people, it's not that a higher power chose us, it's we chose to fulfill the role of doing the healing of the world and to empower the other nations to fulfill their greatness and their potential. So if let's say the world was a body, and every nation has its own function within the body, and it's not binary, one nation can function as three organs and two nations can share

the role of one, it could be many different variations, but every nation chooses. We chose to do something within the body that heals the body and empowers the other organs and functions to work. What in the human body does that? It's the immune system. So the role of the Jewish people is to be the world's immune system. That's what we chose. Now what happens to a body when the immune system doesn't work? When the immune system doesn't work, the body becomes sick. Now it's not the immune system that created the sickness, but it was the immune system doesn't work. When the immune system doesn't work, the body becomes sick. Now, it's not the immune system that created the sickness, but it was the immune system's responsibility to prevent it or to fight it off and to deal with it. And the reason we're being experienced by the world

as the cause of the problems is not because we created the problem, but because deep down in their soul, they know that the Jewish people chose the responsibility to fix this problem. It's just like someone who chooses to be a doctor, right? No one forced the person to be a doctor. They went through 10, 15 years of medical school, you know, day in and day out of studying, you know, removing their social life in order to be a doctor to have the skills and once you have the ability to have the responsibility. So let's say for an analogy, you have a flight from New York to Israel and it's a 12-hour flight goes over that Atlantic. And in the middle of the flight

You have someone in economy class having a heart attack right flight attendants. Wow. What am I gonna do? The guys about to die. There's nowhere we can land the plane the next place we can land is in another three hours Then sure remember is hold up. There's Dr. Cohen in First class and business class and he's the chief cardiologist in the world, and she's like, wow, how big of a miracle is this? Right when the guy's having a heart attack, the best cardiologist is here. She rushes over to business class where Dr. Kwon is sitting. She tells Dr. Kwon, listen, and there's a guy having a heart attack, you're the only person who could save his life. And Dr. Kwon's like, wow, another miracle, I was supposed to put my tools that I need to save the guy's life in my luggage. And it just so happens that

you know, my bag was heavy, so happens that you know my bag was heavy so I carried it in my carat and now I have everything I need I have the ability and now I have the responsibility to go and save the guy's life and Dr. Cohen rushes over with the flight attendant back to economy class he opens up his box with his tools and he can save the guy's life and then he stops and then the guy dies. Now the moral question is did Dr. Cohen kill this person? Now he didn't kill the person but how is everyone on that plane going to experience that reality? They're going to experience a trauma of seeing a guy die from a heart attack, and all they can think about is how Dr. Cohen failed. All their emotions, all their negative feelings that they're going to have

is Dr. Cohen, and the narrative in the news is Dr. Cohen could have saved his life and didn't save his life. And the family of the person that that is oh my god This person is such an evil person They're not gonna talk about how this person had a horrible diet wasn't exercising and that's the reason why he actually died They're only going to try to find a reason to pin it on Dr. Cohen because they all know and they all witnessed a person who had the ability and didn't use his ability and thus failed in his responsibility and This is the metaphysical real reason behind antisemitism that the Jewish people chose the responsibility to heal this world and to empower all nations.

And we do that nicely as individuals, but we don't do that as a collective. We don't use Israel as a vehicle to achieve this purpose. And until we do, we will always be rejected and blamed for all problems that exist in the world, even though we didn't create. I want to tell you about Masterclass because I am such a fan of all the various classes that they offer from entrepreneurship, to business strategy, and so much more. Whether you're watching Masterclass on TV, listening in audio mode, in the app, or on their site, the quality speaks for itself.

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Lock this special offer by going to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code hustle. That's airdoctorpro, A-I-R-D-O-c-t-o-r-p-r-o.com, promo code, hustle. First of all, you're so well spoken, Rudy. I want to get into your whole background, but I have one more question before I get into that because you spoke about this, the narrative, the media. The whole thing is the Jews control the media, the Jews control this. Well, if that is the case, then why is there such a slant in the media of what is what and, you know, the reality of the situation over time, like

the New York Times, BBC, I mean, I can go on, right, where they very cleverly, you know, blame or insinuate blame on Israel, the Jewish people. Again, another big disconnect. Can you just speak upon that for a minute or two, and then I wanna get really into your stuff because you're such a hero, and I think everyone wants to know about you. Thank you, thank you. Clearly media is biased, and media is profiting

from pumping out negative information that isn't always correct, and uses pushes an agenda of making one person a good guy the other person the bad guy and the inverse on the other side and so I think society is Recognizing that we're being fed misinformation and we're being tricked and we're being manipulated and unfortunately again Whenever there's a problem being experienced by the world somehow They're going to come to the conclusion that it's the fault of the Jews because again We are the world's immune system and another to come to the conclusion that it's the fault of the Jews. Because again, we are the world's immune system. And another nation can choose to do that as well.

But in the meantime, we chose, other people can choose to be doctors as well. In the meantime, we chose to be doctors, and we're not doing that. And so I think that's why there's this constant double standard that we see happening in every single problem that exists. Okay, but in all transparency, right? There are a lot of Jewish people in very high-profile, high positions. Mark Zuckerberg is the head of Facebook, you know, Mehta, you know, and he's allowing a lot of these things to be on, like a lot of these Sean King and all of these big cancers

who are really, really spreading hate. And he's still on there, you know, kind of getting bigger and bigger and just kind of expanding his whole profile even with the lies. And I can name lots of other people in entertainment and in media who are Jews. And it's actually I think in a way I feel it can be working against us not for us. What's your take on that? I think if you look at the majority of these Jewish individuals in these spaces, whether it's in big tech companies from social media to Hollywood, to wherever it is, they're usually not Jews who care about their Judaism.

They're usually not people who take any actions on behalf of the collective of the Jewish people. So the fact that they're born Jewish, they will forever be Jewish, but they're not really taking any actions to change the reality of anti-Semitism, and they're not really doing anything on behalf or on the name of the Jewish people if they're doing something negative that someone's calling out media or Hollywood or any bias that exists and is criticizing that and then saying, oh, look at this list of Jews that exists in the media, they must be the reason for why the Jews are responsible world. Those are individuals who really don't care about the Judaism for the most part and are definitely not doing something in the

Navy or in the collective of the Jewish people. So I think it really goes back to, again, the sense that a lot of extreme groups have and extreme groups are formed from real pain that they feel and because they can't process or deal with that trauma, they tend to then react and respond in an extreme way and they somehow, all of them, come to the conclusion that the Jew is the problem. And if you look at it, I mean, the facts are clear. How does someone get manipulated so easily to get to the conclusion that the Jew is here

and the Jew is there and the Jew is this problem? I mean, even on college campuses, you know, where I went to Columbia and the Black Student Association and the anti-Israel group did an event in trying to claim that the reason for why police brutality exists in America is because the police were trained by the IDF to kill Black people. It's like so ridiculous because one, are you saying that there was no police brutality before 1948?

And two, if you really look into where they even come up with this claim, I look into these things. It's because they found out that there was a precinct in New York City for the New York State Police Department that hired a Kavmagai instructor one time who happened to have been Israeli, who had served in the Army 20 years before it was a 40-year-old, and gave a private lesson as a hired private individual to one precinct on how to use self defense for one hour. And because this individual person who happens to be Israeli, who happens to have served in the army 20 years before like ever is rally, gave a self defense class to a New York City

precinct for one hour. That somehow how we're going to connect that the idea of trains the New York State Police Department to go black people. And this is the same thing that they're doing to every minority group. We're going to Native Americans that saying, oh, white colonialists, throw your land, or the Jews are a bunch of fake white people from your post-war land. Women, you don't have equal pay, we don't have equal pay, LGBTQ plus you don't have equal rights, we don't have equal rights, and they're convincing all groups that their source of pain is the Jewish people, and that's historically how anti-Semitism

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That's hellof fresh.com slash 50 hustle and use the code 50 hustle for 50% off plus free shipping. Okay I want to talk about you because I mean you've become like the face or the spokesperson so to speak for what's happening boots on the ground and I want to understand why. I mean, obviously you're exceptionally well-spoken and you are like, literally, it's great. You are pleasurable to speak to and listen to

because you articulate, concisely, what's going on. But I want to know first of all, what is happening on the ground? Where were you before October 7th? Like, give me some backstory. I was going to ask you at the beginning, but I went right for the Jaguar with the other stuff. So please. Sure. So in my day to day, I'm an activist for the Jewish people. There are five core issues

that I focus on. Number one is anti-Semitism. Number two is empowering the younger generations of the Jewish people and the allies of the Jewish people, giving us the ability to not only be able to practice Judaism but for Judaism. It's practice. Number three, I would say it's the fact that our generation of the Jewish people don't have a mission statement, don't have a direction that we like focus on. We come from a long line of ancestors who fought to get us to move forward and always had a vision of where we needed to go next.

And our generation has never had that conversation of what's the next step. Number four is I try to bring Israel's and Palestinians together for us to build relations. If the young activists on the ground and for us to realize that first of all, we're both human beings or cousins, there's no future without Israelis or Palestinians.

So we must try to invest in a reality where we fulfill our aspirations, but also in the injustices we both experience. And number five, I would say it's bringing back the tribes of Israel or the displaced communities of Jews back to our consciousness in order to reunite with our larger family. Because us 15 million Jews are the descendants

of two and a half tribes, but there's nine and a half other tribes out there that we have yet to reunite. So that's what I do day to day. And right before this happened, it was during Shabbat and was also the holiday of Sukot and that week was going to be my cousin's wedding and so a lot of my family from France and US had come to Israel to prepare for the wedding it was the Shabbat's right before and I find myself

in my family house with my mom with my brothers with my grandparents that had flown in through France and we did Shabbat dinner the night before under the Suka and we wake up in the morning planning to go to synagogue and my mom tells me and she's like you have to turn on the news you have to look at your phone. There are massacres that are happening and she was with tears in her face and you know terrorism unfortunately it's not something new for the Jewish people in Israel so I kind of expected it would be what we normally unfortunately see, but I started noticing videos of people being kidnapped and people being burned and cut and all sorts of atrocities that I'm sure many people have seen the videos by now. And immediately I knew that something was going to happen and my unit might get called up.

I finished the army in 2013 as a paratrooper and as a reservist, basically in Israel when you're a combat soldier, you have to be on reserves to age 40. So every year we do training to prepare ourselves for reserves in case something happens. And I think around 9, 9, 30 pm, our unit gets a text message saying, you guys are being called up, come to this base, come to this location. Quickly, I drove to Jerusalem where my apartment has got my bag full of gear, took my bag, went to that base, arrived there, and I didn't expect to be put into the front lines. You would think usually the current soldiers are the ones who go in first, but they said, get on your vest, take a gun, go into this hummer,

and they just started driving us. Now, we had no idea what we were going into, but as we start driving, we start seeing that there's more and more checkpoints of police preventing people from going to that area and it's getting more and more and you see the police officers like cheering us like go get them save lives of the Jews and we're still not really grasping what we're about to go into and we continue driving and all of a sudden it's a war zone cars flipped over blown up still burning bodies that are burned to a, terrorist bodies that you can see with guns killed on the side, civilians killed guns just all like like it's just a war zone. And we keep driving and eventually we get to this village called Pseuhaza, which we later found out was one of the worst villages where the entire community was massacred. And we get there and right at that time there was I remember a few soldiers walking a family of civilians out and two of the soldiers were holding onto two babies that I don't even know you know probably their parents had been killed and you can just see on their faces that just the

the blankness of they had just witnessed the massacred and we still at that point didn't really understand and I remember looking to my left and I saw like eight different bodies just piled up next to each other and I realized whoa those are idea soldiers I can recognize their boots and they walked us into this village and you know for four days we were there fighting off the Hamas terrorists that had stayed there to kill more Jews there were a few civilians that were still hiding that we managed to rescue and to survive with other units and I mean it's the worst thing you can imagine. The bodies everywhere. I remember when Zaka came which is the units that there's the bodies after the fourth day

when all the Hamas terrorists were neutralized. I remember there was a small bag because there was a bag for a baby and you can see there was a nice sticking out of the bag Towards where the head was you know We went into a house and they told us don't go in there and then when the soldiers came out They were like you don't understand what we just saw we saw a scene where a woman was Rafe's death penetrated with items in the house to a point that she bled out and died in that manner. And they burned her baby in front of her as they were doing that.

And just the most horrendous things that you could even imagine, even if you were to try to think of what would be the worst thing to happen, you wouldn't even be able to come up with these things. And unfortunately, that was the reality that we saw for four days, just all these bodies and still terrorists out there trying to kill more Jews, and we did what we had to do to make sure that this books and into this.

And since then we've been moving from base to base, training and preparing ourselves for the next step, which I don't know what that next step is going to be. But obviously we don't want to see more death definitely not on the juror's side and neither on the Palestinian side And there are many Palestinians that are innocent that are dying in this conflict But if someone really cares about Palestinians death then they won't only focus on what is happening But why it is happening? And I think that's being missed by a lot of people who claim to be pro-Palestinian, which I think exposes them because if something was happening Wrong to my family or even let's say if someone had a had a problem or they're having symptoms health symptoms they would go to a doctor and then they tell the doctor okay I'm having these symptoms where is it coming from and the doctor said oh

well you actually have a cancer here you would want to know what's causing these symptoms in order to heal your cancer for you to survive so if you care about polystyrene's dying then you should care where this is coming from that's causing this in order to stop it and unfortunately a lot of people don't really care about the why they only care about using some of the what some things that are happening to manipulate the situation the storyline and depending against this or on the Jewish people, but this has been the reality that we've been facing us since we were drafted back as reserves on October 7th and you know, I think most of the soldiers here are kind of putting it to the side not really trying to think about all the things that we saw because we need to stay strong, but those are images that are burnt into our memory, is that we'll never be able to see what we saw. Wow, it's so horrifying. I don't even, I mean, mental, you're just your mental health alone. How is it, how are you able to, your spirit, how is your spirit, how are you able to function? I mean, it's just so atrocious.

I don't even know what to say to this. I don't know if there's much to say to that. And I think in terms of our spirit, the Jewish people have been through wars and we still overcome, we still dance, we still sing, we still celebrate life, we still overcome, and we unite in those dark times. And I hope that we unite in times of light as well, because that's the key of not having the dark times. And, you know, we realize that our job right now is to prevent that from happening.

Our job is to use our time here to make sure that not more people will die. And we see the consequences of what happens if we don't do our job. So right now, we're only focused on making sure that we're prepared to take out the threats that face Israel which is from us not the Palestinians which is Hasbullah not the Lebanese people and we're here to do that and I think afterwards there's gonna be a lot of different people who are processing differently. I'm sure there's gonna be some soldiers that will have trauma but you know you take what you see and you can use it for the good you can use it for the bad you can let it break your you

collect it let it make you and I look at it look at it as obviously I never wanted to see such images, I hope I never see such images again, but that shows me more of a responsibility to what I have to make sure to protect my people and the people who live in this land and make sure that that never happens again. What about the hostages? I know they obviously they've let go Three four where the rest why did this you know, I mean does not it why are people so stupid Rudy this lady comes out And she's like oh, they treated me well. I mean obviously they're gonna say that they're not gonna say they were Torturing me they were you know, they were treating us horribly because you know

They if they're gonna let them out They're gonna say if you say a word that's negative, we can kill all the rest of the hostages, we'll kill your family. But you know what I mean? Like the PR machine on that side is clever and we are so stupid as a whole on this side. It just, I'm just mind boggled by it, honestly. Please talk about the hostages. I don't even know how, I mean, I'm so enraged right now even speaking with you because it's just what we're seeing here in the US is I mean all over the social media and everywhere else and the world and the U.S. I wish it was just the U.S. So talk about

the hostages, talk about the ones that have been freed. Yeah, I mean it's hard because it's not just hostages, it's our family. When another Jew is killed or dies, it's our family member. We as a nation, we's not just hostages, it's our family. Like when another Jew is killed or dies, you know, it's our family member. We as a nation, we're not just like a wandering ideology, as like a religion, like Christianity and Islam and Buddhism, or one is a part of this religion, if they believe in this ideology or not. We're an ancient, indigenous people, civilization and family. And so those 200 plus individuals are our family members,

and it's very hard to sit here and to try to enjoy life when we know you know the horrors that they must be facing and I think I can relate to their situation a little bit more than the average person because two years ago when we were in Nigeria filming the first episode of our documentary series on the tribes of Israel Africa. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the story, but our team was kidnapped as well. And we were three weeks in a Nigerian prison cage starved for a week and with Boko Haramteris was our ISIS.

When we had to fight for survival and we both Hashem made it out of there. But I know what it feels like to be in a cage and not knowing when you're gonna get out and having everything taken away from you. We didn't see fun lights, we didn't have food, we didn't have any sort of stimulation and it could really hurt a lot of people if they're not strong. So I just hope that they stay strong in these moments and I hope that Israel will do what it needs to do to take them out of there as soon as possible. You know, in the history of Israel, we had the Enteb-e-Mission where you had a hostages taken in Uganda

and Israel had sent a plane and saved those individuals and you know we're proud of Israel, we had the Intempimission, where you had a hostages taken in Uganda, and Israel had sent a plane and saved those individuals, and we're proud of Israel for doing that. We don't leave anyone behind, and we save our family members, and I think Israel needs to save their family members that are in Gaza as soon as possible. For me, it's already two weeks, it's two weeks too late. We need to save them as soon as possible,

and I only hope that those that are running the show will take that into consideration, and we'll do what they need to do to save them as soon as possible, and I only hope that those that are running the show will take that into consideration, and we'll do what they need to do to get them out of here. What's the US involvement there? I mean, are they gonna bring, I know you don't maybe not know, but are they gonna bring in like Steel Team 6? I mean, all of their,

like what to, and also isn't Hamas like all the leaders. Like, are they even in Gaza? Aren't they in Qatar and all these other places? Like, are they actually they even in Gaza? Aren't they in Qatar and all these other places? Like, are they actually even still in Gaza? I don't think that Ismail Hania and Khaled Mashal and leaders like that are in Gaza. No. And they're all billionaires, by the way. Of course.

But it's not because they invested in Bitcoin at the right time. It's because all the aid that's poured in to help Palestinians, that people try to give as aid, is being used either to put in their pockets or to reinvest in terrorism which is their business model to have an increased amount of casualties both on the Jewish and Palestinian side in order to sell false narratives and to keep this cycle and loop going. So I don't think that the leaders of Hamas were there. I do think that Israel is going to have to find them and to take them out or to capture them for them to stop because you need to cut the head of the snake.

But there are still many Hamas militants and leaders in Gaza that are obviously controlling their operations on the ground. And it's time for Israel to free the Palestinians from Hamas, to free the region from Hamas, to free the region from these groups that oppress their peoples and kill civilians on both sides. So I only hope that we do that as soon as possible. And again, I wish, I knew when we were planning to go in, how we plan to go in, what we're planning to do.

Unfortunately, I don't, I don't make those decisions. I don't have that call, but I hope we do what we need to do as soon as possible. At Salesforce, we're all about asking more of AI. Questions like, where's the data going? Is it secure? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure?

Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at AskMoreVai.com. Oh my gosh, well, okay, I'm so like I said, I'm grateful and I'm so thankful that you are not only taking, doing, have time to block out time to do this podcast, but for all your efforts, what you're doing, you are extraordinarily, you are a hero, literally. I mean, you and everybody else out there, how many are there right there anyway? Like how many are in your quarter? Like how many guys? So our units are, I mean, there's different levels of units. Like, there's the team, there's the squadron, there's the POTU, and there's the brigade, but the day-to-day people that we're

with, like, close by, is about 150 people. My team is a group of 10, and we're together. We're strong. We're not strangers. We see each other several times a year for years that we've been training and knowing each other. We're a brotherhood, and we're here, and we're staying strong. And every day there's a different training or a different operation. And I don't really like, you know, a lot of people are using the word hero, but it's really the responsibility of anyone who has the ability to stand up and defend their people. You know, when I grew up in America, I didn't have to technically do the army in Israel,

but the way I looked at it is like every Israeli has to protect their home. What makes me any different? If this is my home and my people, why should I not have to defend my home like everyone else? I mean, do I just get to not have to defend my home like everyone else? I mean, do I just get to come back to Israel when Jews are being persecuted? And now I want to benefit from Israel as a safe refuge? Do I just get to benefit from Israel when I lived in America and became a super successful person? And now I can come back and buy a few homes and now now I can benefit from Israel or do I have to give the time like everyone else to stand up for what's

right and to defend our population? And so I look at it as completely normal what me and everyone else here is doing. And I appreciate the like warm messages we're getting from a lot of people because it does you know, give us that warmth as well because the reason we're on the front lines is because there's so many Jews that are behind us supporting us and pushing us up. And again, we're staying strong. You don't have to worry about us. No, we're going to be able to overcome this. And I hope that when the smoke settles,

that we're able to rebuild a better region that we don't allow things like this to happen anymore, not for any population in this region. OK, one last question. When you say you're in the front lines, what does that mean compared to the other quadrants? What are you doing? Well, front lines means what does that mean compared to the other quadrants? What are you doing? Front lines means that we are combat soldiers that get sent directly into the combat. That's what happened on the seventh. Our unit was called up and they sent us into the

hardest-hit community where Hamas terrorists were all over. If there's a war into Gaza or into Hasbola, I don't know where they're going to put us, but it's the most dangerous in my point. It's the most dangerous, but I'm saying. Yes, of course. And so, yeah, that, I mean, I know that. And so I was wondering, do you guys switch off or you guys are just the front line? You guys are chosen to be the front lines and that's what your training for and everyone has.

You're not scared. My pie, I guess, you must aren't you scared. There isn't there's some fiber of your being that's scared? The army is very big and there are many combat units and it's not just one unit that goes in. There's many places that an army would have to go through and our unit is one of them, let's just say it that way. In terms of being scared, I can't speak for all the soldiers,

I'm sure some soldiers might be afraid. And it's not like we're not human and we don't feel the emotion of there's a dangerous situation we're going into, but personally I got rid of fear when I was seven years old and I've never had fear since then and I know every situation that I'm in is a test from a shem and that I need to overcome the test and I have all the tools to overcome that test, and I also look at it as if let's say I am in a dangerous situation, fear would only get in my way of making sure that I come out of that situation. Right? What is one fear? If you think about it, like just a little bit deeper than just emotion,

you fear the loss of your life, right? So if you want to prevent your life from being taken, wouldn't acting or feeling about a situation, the best way to get out of the situation is not to submit to that and to realize that you are going to come and not to allow for your to hold you back. So I personally got rid of fear when I was a seven year old. I can't speak for everyone else. Doesn't mean I don't understand when there's a dangerous situation in front of me and or doesn't mean that I don't want to because I don't want to be in that situation. But I'm not going to let that emotion prevent me from being the best version of myself. I can be in every way. Wow Rudy

again, you're incredible and I just wish you safety, health, everything and you everyone else out there. Hopefully we can we can do another part too because I have a lot of other questions and I know we're running a lot of time but again, thank you. Thank, Rudy. You're just amazing. Thank you for being here. Thank you for using your platform to bring light to the world. Thank you so much. And we're going to do this again, hopefully, very soon. We've got to keep on doing this.

We've got to keep on informing. We've got to keep on educating. We've got to keep on telling people. Right? It's not a one in done situation. So yeah, that's it. So thank you. Be safe. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Holla Taha, CEO of the award-winning Digital Media Empire YAP Media, and host of YAP

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