The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – JewBelong Co-Founder, Archie Gottesman Interview

Episode Date: July 4, 2021

Jewbelong.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, we're coming to you with another great podcast.

We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be sure to subscribe to the show. Those of you who are seeing us live for the first time, we just picked up our LinkedIn Live this Saturday. And guess what? You can subscribe to the show. It's free for an unlimited time, so you want to race over there and take advantage of that deal while it's still available.

Go over to YouTube.com forward slash Chris Voss or iTunes or the Chris Voss Show. There's a million places you can subscribe, and we're syndicated everywhere, including Amazon and Audible. So how about them apples? Go to Goodreads.com forward slash chris voss you can also go see us at all the different groups we have linkedin facebook twitter there's just so many different places and groups that we have uh they're just gonna blow your mind at all the different content so just search for chris voss the chris voss show today we have an amazing co-founder she's on with us today for her company jew belong and we're going to be talking about it.

Her name is Archie Gottesman, and she is the authoritative voice on anti-Semitism. For more than 20 years, Archie and Stacey, her other co-founder, were the voice behind Manhattan's mini-storage New York City. Using politics, sex, pop culture, and plain old snark, they made Manhattan Mini Storage one of the New York City's most iconic brands. In addition to branding, Archie's business experience includes HR, business operations, and real estate. She has sat on the board of many Jewish organizations, including Foundation for Jewish Camp, Israeli Campus Coalition, and is the current chair of Zionist.org. Aside from saving the Jewish people from themselves or apathy, Archie cares deeply about ending the problem of overpopulation of homeless dogs.

And she was the chair of the Animal Haven Shelter in New York City. Archie and her husband, Gary, live in New Jersey and are the proud parents of three daughters and three plus shelter dogs. Welcome to the show, Archie. How are you? I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really thrilled to be here. Awesome sauce. And what's funny is I love dogs too. So this touches my heart. I've had four Huskies and they're just, dogs are good people. They're the best people, I think. I don't know. Dogs, absolutely. They're definitely the best people. Give us your plugs. Tell us where people can find out more about you and your company on the interwebs. Jubelong.com. J-E-W-B-E-L-O-N-G.com. Go on Jubelong, sign up for our emails. We don't email you all the time. We are super sensitive about that. Lots of times Jews who are interested in Jubilon stuff, which we'll get into, they're like,

I want to know about Judaism like four, five times a year. Don't tell me. Don't tell me every time it's Shabbat or something. Really, our emails are great. Also, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok most recently. But sign up for the emails and for Instagram for sure. Yeah. This is one of the things

I love about my Jewish people. They don't show up and bang on your door at Saturday when you're hungover and hit you up like the Mormons in the Seventh-day Adventist. They just, we don't care for you. If you want to join us,

have fun with that. I love it. Yeah, they don't bang on your door. Tell me about your background and what kind of, your kind of upbringing or what raised you or brought you to this moment of creating this company. Okay, so I was brought up Jewish.

I live in New Jersey. I had a conservative Jewish upbringing, which basically is the middle. I always think of it as there's reform, who's the, oh my God, if Jews are hearing this, they're probably going to be like, that's not the way I would explain it. But it doesn't matter. I'm explaining it. I'm your guest today. So if reform is the least,

and orthodox is the most, conservative is in the middle, I was brought up conservative. And there's like many other details, but that doesn't really matter to now. And I, so I'm like going about my life. Judaism meant a lot to me, but I'm not like terribly observant. It's not about, oh, belief in God or this or that. I find Judaism to be like really solid guideposts in life. And like, the way I think about it is life is so complicated sometimes that when we belong to things, like you're an American, you're a man, you're like, when you belong to communities, it helps give like helpful guideposts sometimes. Otherwise, you're like a leaf blowing in the wind. judaism was really helpful for that for community for family things like that so i'm living my life and then i fall

in love with this guy who ends up i married him i fell in love with you all right so i met gary and gary is united methodist and, we were starting to get serious. I was like, wow, this guy went to the Naval Academy. He was this like fabulous guy. And I was like, I'm Jewish. And if we're going to get serious, you're going to need to be Jewish too. Because I'm going to have Jewish children. That was like my thing.

And Gary's like, that's okay, I'll be Jewish. So, and it was a very, not completely, but uneventful. He converted to Judaism. And his folks were fabulous about it. And so here I am bringing this amazing guy into Judaism. And Jews are often really worried about their numbers because the Holocaust and there are so many of us killed that like our numbers are shrinking all the time. And I'm like, guys, I got a live one. I had this fabulous guy and now he's in these like a new team member. And honestly, it wasn't like people were unwelcoming,

but I felt like all of a sudden I'm looking at Judaism through Gary's eyes because he's like a rookie to this whole thing. I was like, this is not that. It's so much better than the way it advertises itself is basically like the branding is just the worst, but the product is great. That's how I decided about Judaism. And by the way, it happens with so many things. Any other organized religion, I have a friend who's an Episcopal priest. She's like, oh, you Jews, you think you're the only ones with that problem? We're the worst. I'm like,

anyway, so I, I basically decided to have, I just collected really resources like readings and things like that to make our Jewish home and just made decisions about how we wanted to live our life. We also joined a synagogue and things like that. We did the traditional stuff too. But anyway, so years later, after I left Manhattan Mini Storage, I did that for 20 years. I learned a lot about branding and business and all of that. I wasn't sure what I was doing. And I decided to make Jubilong because it turns out that the problem that I was having and that Gary, you know, had is so common. Everybody's got that problem in Judaism. And so that was, that's how we got to here. And yeah, it's been a wild ride. It's crazy. Just in that one of the things that Jew belong made up was this word called Jew bearist. And Jew bearism is when you

feel like you don't know, like you're not being a really good jew because like you don't know the rule and and i cannot tell you so many people have said to me after that word that we coined it people were like oh my god i've been jubarist my whole life i just didn't know there was a word for it i know isn't it amazing that there's a rabbi who said to me i think there's a lot of people in my congregation who are Jew-bearers. I'm like, oh, dude, you have no idea. They're all Jew-bearers. Just assume that everyone doesn't quite get it and help them out and just explain, make the love come first and make the rules come second in Judaism and, I don't know, in life if you can. So, yeah. So that's how we started. So that inspired you to start this company. What is Jubilong? Tell us what it is, what it does.

Jubilong is an online resource platform. So there is no building. There's no dinners. It is resources. So it is jubilong.com. You go on. Let's just say you're like, okay, I heard this woman talk on the Christmas show. And I've always thought about having Passover.

I once did it when I was a kid, but I don't really know. I want to do Passover. So you go on Jubilong, you go over to the Passover section, you click on Passover, and then we tell you all about Passover, but not too much because you don't want 100 chapters. You want to know the basics. If you want to know a deep dive, there's plenty of other places. And we tell it all in this, we've been there too. We're never going to embarrass you. And then there's a Haggadah, which is the guide for Passover. It's like the story that you tell on Passover. And you print it out. And it's all free. And so it's guides. And so some of them are guides. And sometimes it's just, oh, this is really popular. Sometimes

in the Jewish tradition, if someone dies, people sit Shiva. That's when you can go visit your friend's house if his dad died or something like that. And people are like, I want, I'm going to do Shiva, but I want to make it more,

I just want to make it more important, more touching. I want to add some meaning to it. So you go to the Shiva section, you click on Shiva and we have beautiful readings. So it's really resources. That's interesting.

That's interesting. So I can use Jubilong to find out all the terms my friends use that I don't understand? 100%. We have a little pop-up of all the words that, trust me, you think that your friends all understand those words. They don't. It's no one understands. But, yeah, we come from it. And it's all done with a little bit of humor, a lot of heart.

And so it's resources. It's education. And we also like to use the website for sharing other voices that we just think are really good out there. That's what you belong is. And our social is a very similar, same idea. It's a lot of interesting, just additional additional just stuff to make god life is just it's so serious already it's how good to have some like meaning and yeah add some spirituality to it so is it mostly for people who are uh new or coming to the jewish faith and they want to they

want to understand it more is it for is it also for people who are currently Jewish and community for them? It's both. That's a great question. So often people are like, okay, my boyfriend's Jewish and I'm going to, I don't know, a Shabbat dinner. I'm going to go to their house for Rosh Hashanah, which is New Year. I don't know what to expect. What, you know, this was really great. I read your resources. I love it. And they, so we get a lot of people who, a lot of people are in interfaith relationships in this world right now. And as, and you can either look at that and say, oh, that's terrible. Or you can look at it and say, uh-uh, that's, that's great. I'm going to enlarge the tent and I want this person to feel really welcome in the, with Judaism. So we get a lot of, so a lot of people who similar to the Gary story before

there was Jubilum. And then there's also a lot of people who grew up in Judaism and I feel like there's like a secret handshake and there is no secret handshake. And they're like, I'm a bad Jew. I never went to Hebrew school. My parents didn't do anything Jewish, but I know I'm Jewish. But, and that's, we've got a lot of people like that too, who are in, and then there's people who are living really pretty active Jewish lives, but because Judea is, because Jubilong adds like, it's fun. We have like skits to do and we have song parodies and we have like readings that are so touching so they may have done they may have done every all the holidays but jubilon adds a little bit of fun for them so those are kind of the three for those are the main people who are using it and anybody else

sometimes people are just oh that's actually i'm sorry there's more there's people who just get drawn to things like they're just like i'm not jewish i'm but i'm really interested in religions and i found you belong and i love it and a lot of people like that too so it's a really broad audience yeah i'd use it to check all the terms from my jewish friends say stuff and i'm like what's going on over there like i i try and be supportive and i'm like yeah happy whatever you're doing over there oh my god i know you're kidding I think you're kidding. But honestly, like if I, if you said this is really interesting to me and I looked it up and then I said to you, I actually read about that. And I was like, that's, I learned that thing. People love that stuff. Like it's, it just, it's such a good friend thing to do

because as you're taking it, you're spending time learning about something that means something to them. That's like very touching. Yeah. I've learned all the stuff that they do and it's always fun. My Jewish friends are some of my nicest people. Like I said, I think I like them the most because they don't bang on my door on Saturday mornings, but there's still time. You guys could do that if you want to do the whole missionary thing, but yeah, I wouldn't recommend it.

My Mormon jokes. I grew up Mormon. So that's why that's where those come from. I think Mormonism is fascinating. I really do. I'll leave that. Okay. come from. I think Mormonism is fascinating. I really do. I'll leave that. Okay, we don't have to go to that one. I know.

I think it's really, I'm interested in this kind of stuff. I'm glad you are. Beliefs and stuff are interesting. Okay, okay. No more. No more of my talk. No, that's fine. That was just beautiful.

It looks like a really interesting website. I've looked on it, and you can see all the different terminologies and stuff like that. Now, you also do some things. There's a link on your website that highlights about real anti-Semitism in the community. Tell us about that and what are you trying to accomplish there? Okay. So here's what happened. So Jubilong's just doing our Jubilong thing, as I just explained to you. And then recently the uptick in anti-Semitism in the world, but I'm focusing mostly on the U.S., has just grown. And it's awful. And people should be, like, screaming about it.

And Stacey, who's my Jubilon co-founder, and I were like, wait a second. We've got this platform. We're speaking about it. Everyone should be talking about antisemitism all the time because it's awful and you have to not ignore it. And it's interesting. So we decided to do that. What's interesting to me is that not all Jewish groups are doing that, which is it's their prerogative, but we really could not ignore it. When things are important, good or bad, I think shoving them under just let's just pretend that's not happening and let's just ignore it. I think it's a really bad way to go. I think it allows hate to grow and

makes people emboldened in terrible stuff. So we decided to go full on and talk about anti-Semitism. And it's great because it's important it's really difficult because there's a ton of hate out there and i i don't know i don't know why i'm surprised but i'm a little surprised at how much anti-semitism there is out there i think i was surprised too i remember i the last five years i've watched the southern poverty law center's hate watch evolve and track. And I fell off my chair when those Charleston racists showed up and where the Jews will not replace us. I just was like, what? What's going on? I thought we were in the evolve world now. What the hell is going on? And yeah, I think a lot of us were really shocked at the hate that started to really evolve the last

few years and is still going along going along and i think wasn't it i think one of the gals said some stuff that she's had to retract to anti-semitism hate is a real big problem and we see with the rise of fascism every time it comes around we've had a lot of authors on the show that talked about it so i think it's great that you guys are highlighting it calling it out and people are focusing on it so that it can be put back to bed or put to rest. I wish we'd get over all this hate so we just didn't have any more. It's just so unproductive and such a horrible way to run humanity. But it seems like we never learn our lessons too much. So it's good to always keep bringing us back. Yeah. And I would love to not. That's also a little surprising to me what you're saying about it being entrusted and

everything like i did think that that it was i think there was a certain time that up to relatively recently where it was there was definitely anti-semitism and hate of all groups but it just wasn't quite there and now it's just it's just really popular and it's awful. And it is surprising to people. And I totally agree with you. I don't get that like basic, like, I haven't even met you, but I hate you. And then you got to like, how do you get over that with people? Like, how can you just, how do you move ahead? If I already hate you, we haven't really started yet. You never even met me, but it's really common we ask people for stories and oh my god the story like we just said send us anti-semitic stories that have happened to you and um oh my god we have there's it's on the website it's called you killed jesus horns and

pennies because we literally broke it up into themes. And the people who emailed, oh, yeah, I was, I'm not email. This is mostly on Instagram. The people who we haven't documented, like, there's pages and pages of this stuff. It's crazy reading. But, yeah, there's so many stories. Like, oh, yeah, I was in third grade, and someone told me I killed Jesus, and I didn't know who Jesus was, and, like, how did I kill, like. But there's not one of those stories.

There's, like, a hundred of those stories and like I was walking along and people threw pennies at me and I didn't know why and they said because Jews are the only people who pick up pennies and like that like someone oh yeah but it's I never even heard that yeah because it's like you cheap Jew

and like you Jew people down and what is and people are like I didn't even know what that meant and that means you're trying to get a better price because you're Jew and like you do people down and what is any people like I didn't even know that meant and that means you're trying to get a better price because you're doing and like it's just gross and then there's apparently Jews are supposed to have horns and there's so many stories where people are like I was like a kid and like a teacher like looked in my hair to see if I had horns because she wanted to see where the horns was like oh my god, oh my God, this is so freaking stupid. But this is what's interesting about these stories. And again, you can go on Jubilong.com.

It's actually under the anti-Semitism section. And what's really interesting and I think a little helpful is that when there's a space to say, like a lot of people who wrote them said, I haven't told anyone this story. I haven't thought about this story in years, or I never told anybody. And thanks for asking. And just in that one, I don't know if I'm, I get, I want to believe in world peace. I really do, but boy, we have a long way to go. But if we can just make the world a little better. And even in that one moment of asking someone to tell us something that made them vulnerable, it just helps a little bit. Like I know you talk

about know what people's, know where people stand. And it's just, I don't know, just like asking them, tell me about a story that was really hurtful for you. And it doesn't dissipate it forever, but it does help. So there was a lot of pain that came out in those stories and a lot of interesting things and mostly a lot of motivation to know that this is really important work and that even though Jubilong it's a little, it's a bit of a pivot for us, it's important that we talk about it and that we ask people questions and that we got ideas to go for these things. And I want to know about hate from other groups. And maybe if I know a Catholic priest and I was talking to him about this and he said,

that a rabbi had once told him, he said, one guy said to the other, I love you. And he said, no, you can't love me until you know my suffering. Sorry, this is like one man not telling the story that well, but one guy said to another guy, oh, two Jewish guys, Moshe, I love you. And Moshe said back to Shlomo, you cannot know me unless my suffering. And now again, this was a Catholic priest who was telling me this story, but there's really something in that where we all really need

to understand like what hurts us, like what are we made of, like where can we be vulnerable? And then we can mend and just really love each other. Yeah. And having that community where you can heal each other, share experiences. One thing I've always loved about social media or sharing experiences when it's honest and when people are authentic is you realize you're not alone in some of the insults or some of the attacks that you've taken. You realize that other people have felt the same way and thereby you build a community and supporting each other. And people don't feel so alone anymore and can get empowered. Tell us about the billboard out of home and digital campaign you guys are doing.

And how does that work? Okay, so we have billboards. Okay, so I said I wanted to talk about antisemitism and what Stacey and I did before Jubilance. We were also worked together before I started Jubilance is we worked as a search company and we became known for our billboards and the way we are near our language and catchy lines. So we bought billboards that are they went up in Times Square two days ago.

They just started. And I'm going to tell you a couple of what a few of them. Is that OK? Yeah, please. Great. One of them says, I promise to love being Jewish 10 times more than anyone hates me for it. One of them says we're just 75 years since the gas chambers so no, a billboard calling out antisemitism isn't an overreaction. One of them says chocolate hummus on a onion bagel isn't the hate crime we're currently worried about. One of them says being, there's a couple more, being woke and anti-Semitic is like

being a vegan who eats veal. And another one says you didn't like it when we didn't defend ourselves and you don't like it when we do. That doesn't give us much wiggle room and the last one says here's an idea let's ask everyone who's wondering if anti-semitism is real to wear a yarmulke for a week and then report back and yarmulke is the skull covering oh yeah one more sorry that says 35 years of anti-semitism doesn't make it right so those are like freaky like in your face kind of things. Like we're 75 years from the gas chamber. No, it's not an overreaction. Call this out.

This is inexcusable behavior that is going on in the country. And we want to talk about it. And that's why we put up the billboards. And it's not just billboards, but then they're being, because they're provocative people. And because, because it's not really being shouted from the rooftops, people are taking their re they're reposting them and talking about it and just getting it part of the conversation like this, like the fact I'm talking to you. I'm so happy to be here because someone might be listening and be like, Oh my God, this

is interesting. I thought there was a lot of antisemitism. I thought it was going up. I hadn't really heard the news talk about it. It doesn't get much coverage, but yeah, it was like, let's talk about this. It's there. Yeah. I just had the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate watch up looking at the map and you can see the map of all the hate groups and hopefully they're on the run at least a little bit now than they used to be. For a while, they felt really emboldened. I think people still feel emboldened. It just shocks me that people are still fooled by millions or hundreds of thousands of years that humankind

has been in business of being humankind. Is that how you say it? But anyway, there's always been politicians that go ago the immigrant over there that person over there they're the bad person the straw man thing that they do and they're the ones stealing from you meanwhile the politicians stealing from everyone as they turn to look at whoever they're pointing at and it's really sad to me that people still don't get this but it's like the saying i always say on the show. The one thing man can learn from his history is that man never learns from his history. Oh, my God. That's so.

Thereby, we just keep going around circles. It's. Yeah, it's awful. And I think, yeah, no, that's I totally agree with you. It is shocking. You should see the hate that Jubilon gets. Wow. Oh, my God.

We get Hitler should have finished you off that's not even like wow that's not even cool not even cool but it's that's nothing like we get that all the time and it's yeah that's funny because sometimes i love doing this because i really believe i really believe in it but it's also there's got to be this almost way where you i i divorce myself but i have to compartmentalize because I don't know. I don't know you. Why would you want Hitler to kill me? That's the trouble. People don't...

What you said before is it's just there. It's hard to figure out why it's there, but it is. And yeah, it'll... We all try to fight against it. I think what you guys are doing is good because it's educating. A lot of hate comes from ignorance and probably some loss of empathy or some teaching of loss of empathy where we don't look at people as this is another human being in front of me.

We put labels on people because it's the lazy thing to do or the cheap way or we don't have to spend time, like you mentioned earlier, educating ourselves as to getting to know people in that rabbi situation or the analogy that you gave and what you guys are doing is helping educate people get people out there let people know my jewish friends have educated me on judaism and and how they do and i always see them on facebook whether whatever holidays or stuff they're cooking and of course i'm always interested in food but so when i see stuff maybe i'll become Jewish. That looks really good right now. Except for that gevelta fish we talked about. It's the one thing that's keeping me away at this point.

I've seen that in the jar. Anyway, I'm just joking. Why do you not think your movement is covered more in mainstream media and other places? Oh my God, that's such a good question. Because I don't thinks like talking about antisemitism and i i have a friend and she's oh there's jewish journalists and i don't know if the jewish the jewish journalists have not been jumping at this i don't want to say nobody but it's not like there's a big

outfall why haven't they been covering it? Maybe they're scared. I think fear is a huge motivator. I think that speaking out about antisemitism gets you a ton of hate, as I just said. And if someone, if it's not, if no one's doing it and you don't do it too,

then you're just like, you're scared. And so I think they're scared i think they i don't know i think there's some people who are like demeaning like i'm trying to like make it smaller than it really is and which is really a big mistake so there's a lot of there's a lot of it going on college campuses and stuff and i don't know i i get really scared honestly i'm like as soon as someone's killed because of antisemitism and it it's going to happen. I hate to say that, but I feel like it is. There's been close things. Oh, there have been a couple killed. What am I talking about? At the synagogue. I was

just talking about like a fight or something like that. Like Philadelphia. Yeah. Yeah. No, there have been. But I was talking more like on a college campus, like there's all these fights sometimes. And sooner or later, one of those fights is going to turn into, but why? I i don't know they talk about it for five minutes and then as soon as and then they go on to the next thing it's a little bit but they are just jews are funny i remember i told you about that the jews horns and pennies one of my favorite not favorite but like really is real was a story i'm gonna just read it still two sentences it's basically here's the story when i was a kid there's a boy who was writing this when i was in elementary school a kid pushed me down into the urinal during a bathroom break my friend turned to the kid and said why'd you do that and the kid

who pushed me down into the urinal responded because jews don't fight back and out of all the stories like it says they said we got hundreds that one like sticks with me a lot because Jews God I can just imagine the hate I'm gonna get from saying this but they're not real like we I am Jewish I am a proud Jew like we're not necessarily speaking up for ourselves in this one way Jews are really good at speaking up for other people oh let me talk about that impoverished group and let me talk about like you name a cause and the jews i know they're like all about those causes and they're just there's something called tikkun olam which is repairing the world and jews are like yeah we're gonna repair the world which is great it's like a nice value and it's but there is something about standing up and saying, no, like you can't treat me like that.

And which is not, it's not necessarily in, it's not like the first reaction. So I'm like, our muscles are atrophied for that. So I think that there's that. I don't think Jews are necessarily fighters in terms of, no, you can't like that's hate and cut it out. And yeah, I hope it does get covered. Obviously, I hope it gets covered more. And what Jubilong's doing, Jubilong's like,

listen, we're going to get covered by the right, like good people like yourself. And we're going to keep doing this because it's the right thing to do. And sometimes it's not easy. And sometimes it's harder to, those billboards are expensive and we have to raise the money to put the billboards up.

And that's a pain in the ass. But like, sometimes you just do the right thing because that's I don't know I'd hate to I really hate to see if this is so dark but I think about the holocaust sometimes I don't know what people were doing when the holocaust happened but I don't want to you know ever look back one day and say wow that was like in 2030 or whatever it is like in 10 years from now, it was even worse and not have done everything I could to stop it. And like, that's, and this is what I know how to do. And this is what Stacey and I do together. And that's it. We're just going to keep doing this and we hope we get more help. And if we don't, we're not going to stop. I think that's important social in any sort of justice or movements like important things. Yeah. And I think everybody doesn't want to have to sit and live their lives defending themselves

all the time. Everybody wants to go, you know, do their thing. You don't want to always constantly have to be on defense and stuff. But still, though, education is really important. It helps fix ignorance. A lot of people watch my show and they write me afterwards and they go, this happened with a lot of things with Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd stuff. A lot of people wrote me and they go, I really like the way you listen and approach different subjects on the show. And it taught me that instead of going to

the tropes or assumptions that I have to maybe open up and listen more and learn more and go, maybe I can learn more about what this means and what that means and who a certain group of people are and how we're all just human when it comes down to it. Yeah. I'm sorry. No, no, I totally agree with you. Like it's interesting because Black Lives Matter, like I think Black Lives Matter is really a fascinating, fascinating group. I know that sometimes they've been tagged at being anti-Semitic, but I'm not talking about that right now. I'm talking about the idea of a group standing up and saying like Black Lives Matter and the good and like wanting to speak their pain and educate in a pot. And I think that's pretty amazing that they changed the way that changed the discussion of race in America. I think the same way about stop Asian hate. I think that was also really interesting. It's yeah,

I would be like, I want to be the person who's proud to stand up first of all, against hate and also for my people. And that's basically what Jubalong is doing. It's a similar thing. It's like standing up and saying no more hate. Like those are, I think I do think the internet and I think the way that our world is now allows for discussions like that. And I want it to be positive. It's not a zero-sum game. You know what I mean? I don't need to hate you. No one has to win. Everyone can just be like, yeah, we can just... God, it sounds so corny, but just get along. It's just so freaking... It's crazy that it's just so hard. It really is so true. And with the dissolving of the middle class, people are just trying to get by and they don't have enough money. And they try and blame the other person, the straw man, whoever is being put up.

And yeah, over the last five years, you've seen Jewish tombstones being knocked over in Jewish cemeteries across America. The hate just exploded on the market and was really given a license by politicians to let it all out. And we're not, with the rise of fascism, that's usually what it predicates is going after people of minority communities and they've got too much power. And so the hierarchy kind of comes in and goes, or the, I'm trying to think of the word, comes in and goes, no, we're taking the power back. And we're not, we're not that far from hateful and ugly things being done. When you've seen the synagogue shootings, the Uyghurs are currently going through a camps.

It's 2022. We don't seem to have learned anything in 70 years. And so it's really important that the cyclical nature of us not learning and moving back into hate and in and out of hate over since 1940 in the 1940s it's something we have to be active on and constantly defend and be proactive against yeah no it's it is 100 that and it's it is funny with antisemitism jewish hate because sometimes i think there's so few jews the world, like we're 0.02% of the world and 2% of America. And we're not even around in here in the numbers of us. We get so much hate and so much attention.

It's crazy. There's hardly any. It's really small. And that's another thing about any hate, but anti-Semitism specifically, it's, man, you don't even know any Jewish people and you hate us. How is that? It's funny. But that's hate. Like, it's not, it doesn't have to go based on anything logical. Yeah. That's usually the biggest problem. Like you say, the ignorance, you don't know somebody, you don't know whatever, you see them as the other, quote unquote, the other, then you hate them. And a rising tide lifts all boats. And that's one thing we need to get as

a humanity, as a community, as a country. The rising tide lifts all boats. That's one thing we need to get as a humanity, as a community, as a country. A rising tide lifts all boats. If we raise all voices, if we celebrate everyone, if we love everybody, and I sound like John Lennon's song, Imagine, which is my favorite song, but we love everybody, then we all rise. And it's sad that we have politicians and other people in the world that use these messages to manipulate people and control people and go,

hey, that other person is stealing from you. Well, some of these politicians pick our pockets and they get power from separating and dividing us. So what's next for Jubilon? What are you guys up to for the site? What's the future hold and what you guys are trying to accomplish? So if we finish killing antisemitism, that'll be, it's tricky because we're going to keep going. We are, this is not a one and done because it can't, because the stakes are too high. Because when I was thinking about when we were talking about shifting from as explained earlier joy you know judaism and rebranding judaism and we're not we didn't change that but we pivoted a little into anti-semitism it was like it was the thing to do and now obviously we're doing both because they're

both really important but one of the other the reason that it's it's extra important is because this is going to sound like this is my business person coming reason that it's it's extra important is because this is going to sound like this is my business person coming out but it's market share because let's just say you're a jewish person and you're a jubilant person so you you know you don't care that much about being jewish like you had hardly any jewish education but your grandparents are jewish but they didn't really do much but your grandparents did a little more that's like a typical american story my grandparents were very jewish my parents were hardly jewish I'm not really, I'm like, I'm Jewish-ish. And then, but all I get is hate. And I don't like, if I don't even barely care about it,

and now you're going to hate me for it. I don't need this crap. Like I barely wanted to come in the first place. So we're going to lose Jewish population simply because of this weird antisemitism, this hate that's sort of arising. So it's almost like trying to, it's like saving the organization of Jubilon by helping to really come down hard on the antisemitism and speak. So yeah, it's not going to end it, but it will help to dissipate some of it. And we're going to keep going there's probably going to be another campaign and all the campaign that i read is on the website and yeah and ask people and we take a lot of our cues from our audience too so we we take all of our feedback really seriously people tell us what they need and and we we we talk about that we we really talk about people have a lot of they sometimes say i like israel

and i'm jewish and we're like we that's a lot on the site too we have of course you can like israel and be jewish and not be a hater and that's craziness so don't get eaten up by the hate and you can disagree with the you disagree with israel's government that's okay too guess what no one's perfect but it is fine for that so So people, so we do, as I say, take our cues from, from our audience and it's great. We love there's they're interesting. That's for sure. From the positive, we're not going to go into the hate stuff, but with the, but we want to give people. It's good that you guys create community. I love community. I build lots of communities across different platforms and it's interesting how much it helps other people because the worst thing in life is feeling you're alone and that your experience of humanity,

being human is unique and you're going through trials and tribulations. And you think that you're the only one, just someone's put a, one of those mirrors on you for the, or the glasses for the ant farm and they're just frying. And you're just like, why is everything coming down on me? And so community is really good because people can combine together. They can learn, they can educate. And I think this is great too, because there's a lot of times where my friends will say, yeah, we're celebrating this. And I'll be like, what's going on over there? And I support them and all that good. And so it just, if you understand what your friends are doing and what they're up to, then you can understand that better too. And I think the outreach is

awesome. Yeah. And tell them to invite you. I tell my friends when they're having, I'm like, okay, I keep inviting you. I've invited you to Passover. Invite me to Easter. Invite me to any, invite me to Ramadan. Invite me to anything you're doing because how am I going to, first of all, I'm interested. Second of all, I like learning about different cultures and religions. Third of all, you're my friend. You shouldn't invite me anyway. I don't know. Fourth of all, uninterested. Second of all, I like learning about different cultures and religions. Third of all, you're my friend. You shouldn't invite me anyway. I don't know. Fourth of all, there's probably good food and like glass of wine. I love the idea of people inviting each other into their cultures and then not worrying about

and not get weirded out if they don't know what's going on say this is how we this is what we do and yeah you take off your shoes before you come in or whatever there's so many fabulous beautiful cultures out there and i think the more people share them they don't have to give a class every time they invite someone to a different kind of dinner but just say just enjoy it and see how, come and see how my great grandparents lived. Come and see what was transferred down in my family. Come and eat the kind of food that we have. I think that is, oh God, that builds bridges more than, as you said, more than the politicians, more than so much as just come to my house and see how we do it. And

then I want you to invite me to yours. That's what Jubilong is all about. That we are constantly telling people to invite, invite people. It's like, that's, it's more fun anyway to live that way. So yeah. You give me a good idea. I need to go guilt my Jewish friends that they haven't invited me to. Yeah, that's really, I'm a little mad at them for you. I don't know.

Maybe that was the reason they didn't invite me. They're like, he's fat. He'll eat it all. No, it's like, no, I know why they didn't. Cause sometimes people are funny. They're like, this is our thing. And maybe he will feel uncomfortable. And then we'd have to explain it.

No, that's crazy. You invite people. And I have done, this is not from like me not trying. I have done this so many times. And at the beginning when I would invite people to Shabbat, I often have Shabbat dinners. And I used to feel like, oh, no, are they going to like it? Is it too Jewish? Is it too, oh, no, you're going to do a prayer in Hebrew.

That's going to be awkward. And then I got over myself. That was my hang up. Like people weren't, they're in my, they just wanted to come. Like it was just. It was fine. There was rarely, I don't think ever, a time where people... What I was nervous about,

that, oh, is this going to be okay, turned into... The fear was always... It was always just in my head, and it's always nice. I think with the heart, in most people's hearts, people are good. They just want to... So to all my Jewish friends out there, if you ever want to invite me over for dinner, as long as it's not Jafelta fish night, I'm coming.

But other than that. You can come to my house, Chris. I have to do the Jafelta fish jokes. I always tease my Jewish friends about them. I'm like, serious. Have you seen what's in there? They're like, Chris, it's just, hey, hey. Okay.

I don't want to embarrass you, but it's Gafelta fish. Gafelta? Yeah. Gafelta. I'm sorry. I should have said it earlier. And then I was like, it's his show. I don't know to embarrass you, but it's Gafilta Fish. Gafilta? Yeah, Gafilta. I'm sorry. I should have said it earlier, and then I was like, it's his show. I don't know. I should have corrected him. I'm a stupid Gentile.

No, my God. No. Gafilta Fish. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe he didn't say Gafilta Fish, and that's when they've been confused. That's right. I don't know. It seems like something I shouldn't even bother saying.

I don't know. I just look at – every now and then, I one of those people that i i love different cultures and everything to me i i'm a lot like who was the gentleman used to go around and eat food and break bread with people yeah anthony bourdain and so i'm a lot like that you get to know people through in the culture through food and it might be just because i'm really fat and i like eating but that's how i feel about it but i so i'll go down the aisles and I'll like, my Jewish friends, they'll post stuff like matzo ball soup and stuff like that. And I'm like, that looks really interesting. And so, you know, a lot of times I'll go down the Jewish section of the store and I'll be like, what do they got over here?

It's an interesting season. And then I'll see that Jeff, whatever it is. Go filter fish. It's G-R-G. Go filter fish. Yeah. And I want to throw it all on the ground because I'm just like. Oh my God, you are obsessed. Go filter fish. It's G-R-M-G. Go filter fish. Yeah, and I want to throw it all on the ground because I'm just like...

Oh my God, you are obsessed. I do this... I looked at it really closely one day and I was like, I don't know what that is. Some of my Jewish friends told me about it, but clearly I'm losing the audience that loves the fish, so...

I don't know if that's such a big market share. That's what I've heard. Some of my Jewish friends have told me. Yeah yeah actually gave you know what it's funny i used to i i loved anthony bourdain too he gave that you're exactly you're exactly right what he did is he broke barriers by eating food and talking about it and learning about culture and i think in a way gave me an idea like that's what you know jubilong is about. And that's like what everybody should be doing. It doesn't have to be on TV.

It just has to, you know, be shared. You know what I'd have fun doing is if you guys put on a big come break bread with us thing. Because somebody explained this to me one time a long time ago. There used to be this thing where people, they had their own yeast for their bread and they would make bread. And that was a staple of the early times of humanity. And the way that you would get to know people, meet them or stay with them, visit with them, learn about them is you would break bread together. And so people would take their yeast, make bread and share it. And you would exchange food and that's how you learn people's culture. And so I've always really liked that breaking bread concept.

And as you can tell, I've broken quite a bit of bread. They literally would break the bread? You cook the bread and then you break it and share it. Cool. It's like slicing the bread, basically. And so I love the concept of it. My friend, he's like, yeah, I have my own yeast now. My yeast culture.

And he grows it. And he goes, I make bread. And then I give it to people and this is my way of breaking bread with them. But that's the way we used to, in the olden days of old oil, I guess, we'd break bread with people. So I love to go to some Jewish dinners and stuff and get hungry talking about it. Check it out. Except for that. Except for the gefilte fish. The gefilte fish. Not going down that aisle. Not even going to try it. I'm sorry.

There's some things you just look at. No, that doesn't need to go on the bucket list. I'll try matzo ball soup. I've never had matzo ball soup. You've never had matzo ball soup? I like to try it. It looks good. Dude, you're coming.

Okay, you're coming to Passover. There's a lot of matzo ball soup. Yeah, it's good. I think that all the idea of breaking bread is beautiful it gives uh and it just gives an added just just an added um dimension to the culture and then it's also really nice we have the best sorry well i just throw this in there because you make now you're making me hungry about shabbat dinners but at jubilant shabbat dinners, but I jubile on Shabbat dinners. It's interesting because what we try to do is we're like, it's great to have the food and it's delicious and all that. But we also

try to, we add these questions that we go around with on Shabbat dinner and like, they're really, you would love them. They're like these questions. Like one of them is what, is there any value that I would be willing to die for? Which is a little dark, but it brings really interesting conversation. And the way it is, it's literally part of the Jubilong Shabbats. And we do the same thing on Rosh Hashanah, which is the new year. And people talk about what kind of person do I want to be this year? And if there's a task that I've left undone, like what task this coming year, because we're talking about the new year, if left undone, would I be most disappointed if I don't do it? And there's 12 different questions. They're all on the Jubilong website and both the Shabbat and the other for the holidays. I think the only

thing better than sharing a meal with friends is sharing a meal with friends and having great conversation and conversation where people show their hearts. And that's what the Jubilee Shabbat and all the meals are like that because we give you literally give you instructions on how to have a more meaningful meal. It's not just serve the food and everybody eat, it's serve the food and now prompt for, it's not a lot of work. It's, I know this, it's super easy. It's like just a couple prompts for conversation. And then, oh my God, the best conversations I've ever had have been around Shabbat dinners. Because people just like, whoever asks you that, nobody asks you that like on a day-to-day basis.

Are there any values you'd be willing to die for? But like, it's not a bad thing to think about. It's cool. And like all those things. What do you want written on your tombstone? That's another one. It sure beats what I see people now when they're at a restaurant. So the whole family,

each one of them is just looking at their phone, not even talking to each other. It's really bad community. And it's literally, these little give you, you would people put there. I don't even make people. It's not like I'm like a hard ass about it,

but I, people put their phones away and they really take it, they take it to heart. And they, and it's not that it's all serious. Some of it's really fun, but people really, they take the time to answer the questions and to, to really learn a little bit more. And that's why I do love, that's why I like ritual. That's what you belongs about as ritual because day to day, we can go through our lives and we forget to ask ourselves the big question you may i feel like you you do that as a you'll sort of live a purposeful life but like i think not everybody does and it's jubilance like reminds people like live with

purpose live with meaning find the meaning and things make it here make the meaning if you want to all right and yeah so it helps with that too and there you go archie it's been wonderful to have you on the show anything you want to plug about the. And yeah, so it helps with that too. And there you go. Archie, it's been wonderful to have you on the show. Anything you want to plug about the site and stuff and what you guys are doing before we go out? Just really, I'm just going to tell again, in case people didn't write it down or sign up for those emails,

Jubilong.com. And our Instagram is at Jubilong and same with Facebook. and what's really, we, it's a small organization. There's four of us. And if people want to just... When I say that we really do take seriously what people say, I mean it. And if people have... They want to say something, it's hello at Jubilong. You can find it by going there. It's also, we're a nonprofit. We are 5011c3 we raise money for the billboards and for everything

and if people are so moved by saying this is really fabulous and i used it and i love it's that's we're non-profit we do this because we love it and people care and and that support is fantastic but they yeah thank you for letting me say that's also really important about it and yeah and just use it and tell you oh tell their friends tell your friends who's jews and non-jews just yeah pass it around the more we can cancel hate and stop hate and get everybody to learn about each other that's half the fun of life is collecting stories and learning about other people cultures how they do that's one thing that i've i always enjoyed and probably why i love my show is I'm curious about it, other people.

I'm innately curious. I'm like, what motivates people? Why did you do this? We all walk through this giant forest of life, and there's all these paths that split into different ways. And you go down them, and the road that you go down if you turn left is different than when you turn right. And that's how the adventure is is finding out all these different things. And the beauty of life is the different, it's the different seasons, it's the different colors, it's the different, everything's different. And when people walk through life with this thing that everybody must be like me, it's just ignorant.

So, it's stupid. yeah stupid yeah yeah you really i hope this doesn't sound too corny you are living this very sort of jubilant way of asking questions and finding out what makes people tick and not everyone can do what you do all the time but it gives them the chance to do it a little bit and it gives them the guideposts to do that and yeah and you're and it does make things a little bit better and you're coming to shabbat dinner and you're eating a Shabbat dish. All right. I might taste a little bit. But I may have to put some wine in me first. Totally fine.

We always like wine. I'll hold my nose like this. But I don't know. My Jewish friends have told me. They're like, yeah, it's not that great either. So they've been pretty honest with me about the whole thing. Anyway, thank you very much, Archie, for coming on the show. We certainly appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Give us your plugs, too, before we go out. Okay. First of all, thank you for having me. Jubelong.com at Jubelong. And those are them. Please visit the site, sign up for our emails, sign up for our Instagram, and tell your friends all about it. Jubelong, J-E-W-B-E-L-O-N-G.com. There you go, guys. And stomp out hate everywhere you see it. Get people to quit being hateful to each other. If you find yourself struggling with it, learn more about other people.

It's simple about just getting to know people and why they do things. And realize the world is a giant smorgasbord, a giant buffet of just so many different flavors and tastes and just everything. And that's the beauty of life, collecting all that information and it expands your mind, expands your life. So embrace that. Don't be some hateful guy in his little hole somewhere underneath the bridge being a troll. Tomatoes? Stop hating. Stop anti-semitism. Stop all hate. Everyone's a human being. We build the same sort of DNA. So quit-Semitism. Stop all hate. Everyone's a human being. We, you know, we're built with the same sort of DNA. So, quit hating each other.

Go to YouTube.com, Forge House Chris Voss. See the video version. Let's go to all of our groups on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the different places that the Chris Voss and Chris Voss Show brands are. You can also go to Goodreads.com, Forge House Chris Voss, and see what we're reading and reviewing over there. Thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Be sure to be good to each other, and we'll see you guys next time.