The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - David Christopher Kaufman - "Jews Defending Jews is a Revolutionary Act"

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

New York Post columnist David Christopher Kaufman has a unique biography and a unique take on the world as a result. Here are a few of his latest: https://www.commentary.org/articles/david-christopher-kaufman/jews-americas-new-blacks/ https://nypost.com/2025/03/15/opinion/when-will-sideline-jews-finally-speak-up-against-their-haters/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2025/03/14/democrats-leadership-vacuum-michelle-obama-gavin-newsom/ https://airmail.news/issues/2025-1-25/the-view-from-here Video: https://youtu.be/6MZCO_YNWRI

Yes. Introduce him. That was David Kaufman. He joins us, editor and columnist at the New York Post and a regular writer for The Telegraph, a spectator, airmail, and the forward, and an adjunct fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute. That's me.

Welcome, David. By the way, you mentioned, I think the most, the best, I guess the best, description of just how horrifying it was to be a slave that I've read was 12 Years a Slave, the book, I guess the best description of just how horrifying it was to be a slave that I've read was 12 Years a Slave, the book not the movie, I don't know if you read the book

I didn't read the book, I saw the movie of course but the book I would recommend to anybody that is interested in that and by the way, it just made me think I didn't know that you were half African American until I just met you full of surprises imagine if you and I had an argument about something American until I just met you. Full of surprises.

Imagine if you and I had an argument about something. Yeah. And let's say it was, what are you talking about, Norm? Show your sources. Yeah. And then the people on my side of the argument started calling you the N-word, started, you know, what did you expect from my house? And then Uncle Tom, like just like, and I just sat back and allowed this army of vile racists to do my bidding because we disagreed about something.

People, we live in a culture where people don't want to be challenged for their beliefs. There are this sort of, this idea that, you know, if they feel something or emote something, or if it's a vibe, then it's legit. It's legit to them. That's their lived experience.

But I mean, what would it say about me as a human being? I mean, there are— It would say you're lame. It would be the worst indictment of me that just because these monsters agreed—they don't even agree with me. They don't even know. They're just taking my side. It's like, okay, get them. It's like you have these

dogs. In one of the Hannibal Lecter movies, they have those wild boars that eat. It's like, get them. They're like, sick the wild boars on them. It's true in the past when you guys were, when we were being nice with each other, I did tell from time to time

don't say that about Noam don't say that about Noam but now that the gloves are off it's disgusting to me but what if you're somebody with million followers and you know somewhere within that mix there's some people that make these comments

it's possible you don't see everything or you don't I mean you, you know. Oh, come on. He knows. He sees it. He knows. He doesn't care. I mean. I'm just saying, I think it's, I think there's a larger discussion to be had at what point would one or should one

or should we expect one to intervene? Immediately. No one is going to defend me by calling somebody the N-word. I'm not going to allow that for two seconds. It's insane. You didn't even have to consult all those experts, though. You could have just asked me.

I would have told you. All right. David. Yes. Very nice to meet you. Let me shake your hand. Thank you. I've arrived late.

I'm so sorry. It's very unlike me. Well, no, because there was a mistake made. Believe me, we'll blame Perry on the matter. Yeah, it might have been Perry on the matter. Perfect. That sounds like a plan. And I can't wait for the Blamefest to begin. All right, let's go through it.

So you had a recent, I don't have the headline in front of me because I actually thought you weren't coming. She didn't tell us that. The recent New York Post column, the most recent one, what was the headline? It was, when will sidelined Jews finally begin to stand up against their haters? Okay. And it was sort of like, my thinking was like, we have Trump now in the Oval. He's like, you know, he's flexing his muscles in support of the Jews finally in a way that, you know, the previous administration obviously couldn't be bothered. And he's taking all this stuff very seriously.

And I was saying to myself, you know, wow, like this, one of the challenges we've seen so much in this period since October 7th is that, you know, I think a lot of Jews are obviously very scared, very, very timid. They're afraid to speak up. And part of the reason why is because we have a system that, you know, if they did speak up, they didn't feel like they'd be protected or defended and now we have real institutional and and policy changes from the top down really from the top saying you know if you're going to chase jewish students and do bad thing towards jews we're going to like we're going to deport your ass so my thinking

how do you feel about that by the way i think it's great you know i think i i mean i don't i you know there, there's obviously limits. We have to exist within the Constitution, and we have to exist within sort of the basic civil rights of the society. We can't rewrite the government to take

care of Jews. But I think, actually, if you look at it from the flip side, like, the period that we've experienced since October 7th, if those people had been black or gay or transgender, none of this would have been allowed to happen. I mean, the way Jews have been neglected by the system. And what's, to me, been the most horrific thing is that not only have we been demonized, chased through the streets, had our kids not able to go to school, our businesses burned, people actually die, but we've been actually blamed for it. We've been told that this is

our fault because we're Zionists or because we're aligned with, because we're Jewish. It's the only instance of widespread ethnic discrimination I've ever seen in America in recent time where the actual victims have been blamed and have been tasked with solving these problems. So, so I think that I'm, I'm happy.

I mean, I'm not happy with a lot of the things Trump is doing, but I think it's very important that he's sending these messages that, you know, that, you know, America cannot exist in, in this sort of orgy of, of antisemitism. I'll let you finish. I don't just, people might be wondering, I don't support the deportations. I'm not an expert on all the considerations, but I don't think it's legal.

And even if it is legal, I don't think it's good policy because it's the kind of thing which is going to be used on a very ad hoc basis based on the predilections of whoever's in charge. I don't think this is wise. Now, having said that, and I'll let you continue,

I think a good look should be taken on what it means to be letting people in. Right. How'd they get here in the first place? Yeah, that I think is totally valid. I mean, this guy clearly has, you know, Mahmoud Khalil, he clearly has a paper trail of Hamas, you know, alliances. And, you know, at the end of the day, as much as Hamas wants to take down Israel and kill all the Jews, they kind of want to take down America and kill the Americans too. So it's not good that these people are in this country. And my piece was basically saying, will this give the confidence or will it embolden what I called sideline Jews?

All of these Jews that we know who we see on Instagram and we see at parties and we see here and there who basically have said nothing. Give me a better picture of who is sidelined. Who sidelined you that I might know? But when you tap on the table

because we have a crappy thing. Sorry about that. Well, I mean, there's so many. We could talk, we could start, Steven Spielberg could be in some ways considered a sidelined Jew. As much as he's done so much amazing, I mean, I'm a graduate of Brandeis University.

We have the Shoah Institute. It's because of him. So he's clearly had a very strong commitment towards memorializing the stories of Holocaust survivors, which is extremely important. Yeah, but the last scene in Munich showed the trade center, remember? And Munich was a sketchy...

But we have multiple examples of people like Spielberg who are astoundingly wealthy and insulated from any sort of repercussions from taking bold statements and they say nothing. I mean, there's, I, I, I lay out in the piece a perfect example, like during the height of the Ta-Nehisi Coates scandal a couple of months ago from his horrific evil book, the message, which I basically wrote is a mind comp for the 21st century.

You know, I don't miss words. It is a mind conference for century. It's a primer for Jew for Jew 21st century. You don't miss words. I don't miss words. It is a Mein Kampf for the 21st century. It's a primer for Jew killing, basically. He's basically very cleverly laid out how we can kill Jews and get away with it. I don't know about that. Go ahead. I read that book many times. Mein Kampf?

No, The Message. I have not read Mein Kampf many times. But my point, and then after that piece came out, and I was one of the first people to write about it. very critical and obviously i can get away with writing about things like this because i'm also half african-american and in a way that people cannot but what was really and i write this in the piece what was really disturbing and disappointing to me was afterwards i received multiple multiple multiple messages from people in florida were horrified that Coates was coming to Miami to give a speech, to give a reading at the Adrian Arsht Center,

which is, you know, named after one of the most important Jewish families. And they were horrified that he was coming on October 8th, you know, to talk, to give a reading in conjunction with a bookstore, a Jewish-owned bookstore.

So all the players, all the people that were bringing him there were basically in the Jewish world. And I said to them, wow, this is really disappointing that he's coming, so what are you guys going to do about it? And they were like, well, we can't speak out. We're afraid to speak out. We're afraid of being called racist. We'll be afraid of being called white supremacists. We're afraid. And I said, have you connected with

the local ADL, the local Jewish federations? And all of these institutions basically were afraid to speak up against him coming to Florida. And they were somehow looking to me to sort of like figure out what to do and how to save them. And these were very, very, very wealthy people. We're talking to people with like, you know, eight to nine,

not eight to nine zeros after their net worth, you know? And like, you know, I'm just like a, I'm just like a simple guy, like trying to make the mortgage. Okay.

It's like hundreds of millions or billions of dollars per year. Listen, you are really, um, dangerous territory. Why? No are really dancing in dangerous territory. Why? No, I'm joking. Oh, okay.

Not you. Okay, no. So these are people who have nothing to lose, you know, and they were like afraid. They've reached escape velocity. Yeah, and they were afraid

to speak up because they were going to be called racist. And I was like, I'm trying to understand here, like this man who later on that week. Well, just to be fair

to what you're saying i i you know i agree a thousand percent but i would say they do have a lot to be to lose but because money is not everything being being called racist if that if that impression sticks that is a tremendous damage to somebody it's not just about the fact that you still have enough money to do whatever you want. That's not all there is in life. Of course. That's a very good point, and I don't disagree with you.

But there's nothing racist about calling Ta-Nehisi Coates an anti-Semite. There's nothing racist about calling his book a stain on the publishing industry. There's nothing racist about questioning why was this man allowed to even write this book? I mean, can you imagine if like a white person parachuted into Africa, a place they'd never been before and wrote a takedown of the entire culture after only spending 10 days there?

I mean, the irony of Ta-Nehisi Coates using the word apartheid against Israel for the 10 million times they used it in that book, that he's never even been to South Africa. That's the irony. I use the term apartheid very, very sparingly because I have been to South Africa and I know exactly what that looked like.

You were there during the apartheid? No, not during apartheid, but I've seen what the results of it. But the point is, it's like not only had he never been to Israel before, but he'd never even been to South Africa. So how does he even know what apartheid looks like? But my point is, it's like, not only had he never been to Israel before, but he'd never even been to South Africa. So how does he even know what apartheid looks like? But my point is, like, there's nothing racist about calling his book anti-Semitic, anti-Zionistic, a call for violence. I mean,

he went on one of the podcasts a few days ago. There is an interesting parallel, is there not, between the fact that many of us, and you're actually making the argument, say, you know, you can't criticize anything that has to do with anybody, has anything to do with being black. They'll call you a racist. And if you listen to Daryl Cooper's followers, they'll say, you can't criticize anything about being Jewish. They'll call you an anti-Semite. And I'm not completely comfortable dismissing or agreeing to either of them because there is some truth on both sides of those arguments. Yes, but the difference is that his book was extremely anti-Zionistic.

It was extremely anti-Zionistic. I don't view a difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. So in my opinion, it was extremely anti-Zionistic. It was extremely anti... I don't view a difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. So in my opinion, it was extremely anti-Semitic. I mean, the chapter, the portion about Israel, the third part that was basically like the money shot of the book,

it literally opens up. The first sentence of the portion of Israel says, I am not quoting it verbatim, but I will say it says, I was in... He visits Yad Vashem. And he says something to the extent- The Holocaust Memorial Museum. The Holocaust Memorial in Israel. And he says, on my first day, I believe he said, on my first day in Palestine, I went to Yad Vashem.

Like, that's his opening line. That is probably one of the most anti-Semitic, anti-Zionistic statements that has ever been published by Random House. I mean, you're basically saying that, one, Israel doesn't exist, Jerusalem as its capital doesn't exist, and Yad Hashem exists in Palestine. All of that is factually, let alone morally, let alone from an editor perspective. Who let this, how did this get past an editor?

How did this make it into the final print? Well, it's not as he calls, he writes whatever he wants, as he should, you know. No, he shouldn't. I don't think he should write whatever he wants. Why should he write whatever he wants? Well, he can write what he wants,

they're not obligated to publish it. Because he's a free human. But, you know, you can write what he wants. They're not obligated to publish it. Because he's a free human. But, you know, you can write what you want. You can write what you want. But the problem with, and this is what I'm talking about with this idea of timidity, is that there's been this bamboozlement of some American Jews who either have bought into this system of racial oppression hierarchy where Jews are not allowed to sort of advocate for their own needs or security or safety.

I mean, let's be really frank here. Like we're living in a moment of examples of extreme Jewish insecurity and a lack of safety to the extent which we really haven't seen amongst other minorities. I mean, we had the instance that sort of the period of Asian hate a couple years ago. But if you look at the statistics, they were nothing compared to this. I don't think that was real.

And I don't know that there's been a lot of actual violence against Jews, but there's certainly feelings. Of course there has. All you have to do is look at the stats. Like violence against Jews and anti-Semitic acts. There were more anti-Semitic incidents against Jews in New York City last year than any in all of the other ethnic groups combined.

By the way, that's been the status quo for a long time. No, but that number has like tripled since October 7th. I don't know that a lot of Jews are being, whatever it is it is, but I just don't ever want to exaggerate anything. There is a, I think the, my opinion, listen, it kind of reminds me about, again, a race parallel. I always used to feel that it was obviously untrue that many innocent black people, unknown black people, were being shot by the cops. The numbers around that didn't support those.

It was a minuscule number, actually statistically based on the number of arrests. And there would be an eruption when these happened. I would say, you know, that's not true. But why is it erupting? It's erupting because of all the kind of humiliations, the day-to-day humiliations that wholesome, innocent black people were suffering with the cops. Even not wholesome people. I mean, it goes, as someone who's black, as a black man, I will say, like, it speaks to the idea that as a black person in this country, you constantly live with a fear that you're going to be messed with by the authorities simply because of the color of your skin. And what I will say

is that, and this is another piece of... Wait, wait, wait. Let me make my point. And I knew, especially because of all my time playing in bands and stuff, I knew these stories firsthand. I'd seen these things happen firsthand. And I said, well, actually, when you

see this eruption about the people being, innocent people being killed, what you're really seeing is a manifestation of this righteous resentment. When I say righteous, meaning it was real. There was another, you could say, well, you could ask the really unrealistic ask of people and say, well, yeah,

but you have to understand it's inevitable because of all the crime rates. So get into that morass. But I knew that this resentment was real and that this was just finding its... The escape hatch was this. Similarly, I think

with us Jews, what we are really feeling, our righteous resentment, is that in so many atmospheric ways, just in our reluctance to tell somebody that we're Jewish, God forbid, we're any kind of ethnic symbol, this kind of gathering storm, the dark cloud that we are now feeling as Jews, any flyer you might put up on a lamppost, that anything you know is going to get ripped down, right? It's hard to express that. So we say,

it's dangerous for Jews on the streets now. That's in some way similar to the thing, black guys can't walk without getting shot. It's not really true, but what's causing that, there is something actually underneath which is real. So go ahead. But I think it's, in the case of Jews right now, it's even worse, because I think we live in a culture

right now that would say, if I were to come and say, as an AfricanAmerican male, I feel peril. I feel I always feel a sense of it's very subtle and it doesn't dominate me, but it's always there. This feeling like because you are African-American also because I'm a man, like the cops could come and start effing with me, you know? And it's very likely that, it has historically been very likely that they could do so with a sense of impunity, which would mean that nobody would face a consequence. So that's what it means to be sort of a black man in America and bear this sort of stain of, or stain or bad, whatever you want to call it, or a mark of, you know, you're marked, you know, by the authorities. I think what's even worse or what's even harder right now for Jews

is that A, people don't believe them. B, they're being told time and time again, well, whatever you're feeling is lower on the totem pole because of everybody else because you're white, because you're wealthy, or because whatever. And most importantly, and this was something that would never happen with black people,

is that, or gay people or transgender people, Jews are being told, this is your fault. This is the key thing. You are the architect of your own oppression. You are the architect of your own discrimination, of the own peril that you face. Because of Israel, for instance, even though you could be a Jew who has no real because of Israel, for instance. Even though you could

be a Jew who has no real connection to Israel, you just happen to be Jewish, and maybe because you're Jewish, you were a Jewish star, but you maybe had never even been to Israel, you have no real connection, but because you are Jewish, this is your fault, because you are Zionistic, whatever, whatever litany of phrases they want to use this and this notion that that we are the architects of our own oppression our own our own our own um peril right now um is in some ways being supported by the institutions that are supposed to be protecting us and and those same institutions that worked so hard to defend other people, to defend other minority groups. I mean, when I was, I worked at Condé Nast for a while during the height of like the BLM period.

I can't tell you the ungodly amount of resources that we had to devote in order to like elevate and tell and highlight Black stories and ensure fairness and hiring and blah, blah, blah, all this DEI stuff, endless, endless, endless. And you look at these publications and where are they now for Jews? Where are they now for us? In fact, these are the same publications that are putting out hit piece after hit piece after hit piece, literally manufacturing them from their inner colons, to say it politely,

and yet when it came to any other minority group, they were at the front lines. I mean, you know, Vogue put Breonna Taylor on the cover, you know, many years ago. It's like, you know, what about the women of October 7th? Like, why is there this double standard? And this is sort of like, goes to talking about, you know, the timidity that I've seen amongst Jews or the silent, sideline Jews who, you know, the timidity that I've seen amongst Jews, or the silent,

sideline Jews, who, you know, are just not standing up for their own community at a time which the U.S. has something to do with. Yeah, well, you know, regarding the sideline Jews, some number of them, of course, agree with the narrative that Israel's committing a genocide, and that if you're a Zionist, then you're enabling that. I don't know what that number is. You know, I've read 5% of Jews are anti-Zionist. committing a genocide, and that if you're a Zionist, then you're enabling that. I don't know what that number is. You know, I've read 5% of Jews are anti-Zionist.

It just seems like more than that, just in my own personal experience, just the comics I know, the Jewish comics I know, several of them are of that mind. So I don't know how big a number. Deborah Winger, I recently saw her her on YouTube speaking out against Israel. Not just against Israel. She was speaking out against her own upbringing, against her own family. I mean, that's the maniacal nature of this whole pathology. It's like, could you, have we ever seen a black, a famous black actor going on tv speaking against their own black upbringing yet here we have deborah ringer basically deriding you know conventional american jewish culture

because she feels it supports israel i mean and and and of course you know what does hamas and and and all the jihadis love more than a jew who's willing to like, you know, pimp their cause for them. I mean, let's talk about, talk about like ungod, billions of dollars in free marketing. And these folks are basically legitimizing what everybody else is doing. I mean,

these are the worst kinds of people, but you know, this is America and they're allowed their free speech and that's that. But you know, why do we, why do we, why do we hear so loudly from the anti-Zionistic Jews? It's because the chorus of people around them who want to kill us, which is really what it is.

These people want to kill us. They're not fucking around here. They want us dead. They've done it. They broadcast it. They say they're going to do it again. And I think what someone like Deborah Winger doesn't really understand is they want her dead too.

She's not an exception. Just because she's- Who is they? Hamas, the jihadis, their surrogates and sycophants. But you don't mean the run-of-the-mill anti-Semitic- I think that the Linda Sarsour people, I think the Ta-Nehisi Coates people. I mean, Coates himself said on a podcast,

a week after or two weeks after my article came out during the whole brouhaha with Tony West's name at CBS. He said, I'm not so sure if I had been there on October 7th that I wouldn't have, you know, broken down the fence. You know, he said that. Can you imagine a white person saying, I can't be sure during a lynching I wouldn't have been there. I can imagine saying that. Would they survive? Would they still have a career? Would they still have an agent? Would they still have a publisher? Far be it for me to defend Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Did you read Benny Morris' takedown of Ta-Nehisi Coates? I read part of it. I'm actually the guy who sent Benny Morris the book and asked him to review it, and it's very thorough. But I thought what Ta-Nehisi Coates was saying in that passage was that, and I don't agree with it at all, is that the life there is so psychologically damaging, and, you know, so that I can't, I think that if I had been through that, I might have even lost myself and done something horrible.

I don't think, I don't want to, I just, I don't think, I will guarantee you, if you gave Ta-Nehisi Coates sodium pentothal, he doesn't want to see American Jews dead. He doesn't, I don't, that's too far. It's not that he doesn't want to see American Jews dead. He doesn't, I don't, that's too far. It's not that he doesn't want to see American Jews dead. I don't think that he, what I'm saying is that, is that this ideology that he is speaking into,

that he is echoing, that he is supporting through his reckless statements, they want to see us dead. Yes, yes, yes. And the fact- Oh, they've been killing us. Right, and the fact that he felt

that he could say something like that, it just proves the egregiousness of a system that, you know, somehow allows—he's allowed to say that because he is black. And he's allowed to say that against us because we are Jews. That paradigm, that racialized hierarchical paradigm does not exist in America in any other circumstance. If it did, the people who participated in would lose any sense of cultural respect. So let me ask you this, you know, Brett Stevens said something like this, he talked about, you know, his name is not particularly Jewish and he would find himself very often and they wouldn't know that he was Jewish and he'd hear what people were saying about the Jews. Imagine me.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm getting to. So tell us about that. What is it like to be a fly on the wall when people don't know that you're Jewish, especially in the black community? What can you tell us about that? It's not so much in the blow the whistle. No, I mean, there is no whistle to blow.

I mean, my father's family was, I actually have a very interesting story about, I kind of say, how I became Jewish because my mom was raised, my mom is the daughter of Eastern European immigrants, was raised in a fairly observant, if not Orthodox, kosher home speaking Yiddish. And somehow, my father

grew up in suburban Houston near Galveston. Very middle class. American black? Yeah, from Texas. Center of the slaves. I am as American as you can get. My mom's from New York, a New York Jew. My dad's a Texan black guy. I'm from

California. You can't get more American. And my father grew up in a very middle-class African black family. My great grandmother was college educated. We're back in the shtetl. I can't imagine my great grandmother knew how to read on my mom's side. And they somehow wound up in San Francisco in the 70s, 60s, 70s, and you can take it from there. And so, um, and what's interesting is that when we were, my father was not around, my mother raised us by herself and she had sort of, you know, she's very Jewish. I mean, she is like, you know, the Jewish mom. She is like the archetypical Jewish mom, except for the fact that she has these two Brown kids. Um, but what's interesting and you know, that she was not being, we're not being raised particularly Jewish until we were like five

or six. In fact, we even one year had a Christmas tree, which today is like, you know, anathema to me. And then we put Legos as ornaments because, you know, Mama Kaufman had no idea how to trim a Christmas tree. So when we were like six or seven, we went to go spend, even though we were not close to my father, we were very close to his family, our black family. Part of the reason was because my mother's Jewish family didn't want to talk to us. And my mom

was like, these kids need a family. Because you're black, obviously. Because we're black. So she sent us to Texas to visit our father's family for like a month. We were like six or seven. How did they meet your parents? Summer of love, man.

Exactly. To make it the paraphrase, they met through like, you know, happenings. I mean, if You know Happenings And they were I mean If you really want to know They were introduced by At At

At By Reverend Cecil Williams Who ran One of the most important Progressive churches In San Francisco Which name Whose name I forget

At this moment And it's terrible to say that But he's a very important... And they were married? They were not married. They were together for a period of time, and then they were not. So anyway, my mom sent us to Texas to visit our father's family for like a month. I always wondered what she did during this time,

because she was still relatively young, but that's a different story. And my grandmother, who was Methodist, and her husband was Baptist, but she was Methodist. So they were a very typical black family, very church-going, blah, blah, blah. And she was horrified that we were not being raised like something. We were not

being raised something. And she called my mother and she said, I don't care what those children are. I don't care if those children are Hare Krishnas. I just don't want them being no heathens. You've got to do something. And we had been going to JCC swim lessons in San Francisco.

And there was one other mixed family that we knew, a black Jewish family. And my mom was really friendly with that mom. And so she took us to their synagogue. And hence, my black grandmother made me Jewish. The uber-Jew Zionist that I am today. Maybe I spoke too flippantly about a lot of anti-Semitism in the black community.

That's not been my experience. I kind of feel bad about saying it, because it's so widely... You see data like that from time to time, and we as Jews experience it through, you know, it's so widely, well, there's, you see data like that from time to time and we as Jews experience it. It exists in some ways.

We experience it through Farrakhan and, you know, but you would know, right? So tell us about that. I mean, my father, you know, when we would go visit

my grandparents for Christmas, we'd bring along a menorah. Like, that's always been, like, we've always, I've always felt much, in many ways, much more welcomed as a Jewish person amongst my father's family than I ever would have. That's your family, but, we've always, I've always felt much, in many ways, much more welcomed as a

Jewish person amongst my father's family. That's your family, but you're hanging out with just people who don't, black people who don't know that you're Jewish. I mean, it's not just black people. It's, I mean, my common experience is that I have- Or white people who don't know. Yeah. I mean, we have, I have my mom's last name. I have an extremely Jewish name, David Kaufman. Like, you know, you can't, in New York City, there must be 10 million of me. And so my, you know, my experience is just showing up places and people walking around saying, you name, David Kaufman. Like, you know, you can't, in New York City there must be 10 million of me. And so my, you know, my experience is just showing up places and people walk around saying, you know, David Kaufman, David Kaufman.

I'm like, I'm right here. I'm sorry, there must be some mistake. Yeah, that's been my experience. I just want to say, if I may for a moment, that that has not been my experience ever. What's that been? That there is a lot of anti-Semitism amongst black people i we've

just but they know you're jewish so they're they're not going to no but i mean i live in a world i just spent a weekend with my best girlfriend from growing up and her five best girlfriends everybody was black i was the only white person and certainly the only jew there we spent three days together and i just that has just really never been my like i don't hear that it's not we did live through crown heights in this okay but that's like a pretty extreme but yes but but but i will say i will say i've said this before as much as the crown heights was absolutely an anti-Semitic incident, I do understand that having a black community living right up against an Orthodox Jewish or Hasidic community, a lot of the friction that will occur and then in anger look like racial hatred is maybe

not actually that. I think it's really, we like to have this narrative of this. Hasidic are not easy to live. We like to have, yeah. And also like, you know, I think Hasidic are not the best example because Hasidic are not really into anybody who's not Hasidic,

let alone black people. It's like, they don't want to talk to anybody. There are equal opportunity haters of everybody except, I mean, Hasidic don't even really like Jews who are not Hasidic. I haven't, I haven't. The Lubavitch are more open, I think, because Satmar is...

I live next to a Chabad, so they're nice to me. The Chabads are nice. Chabads are really good for Yom Kippur when you're traveling. You need a pop-in shul. They're like, you know, welcome. They'll take anyone. But I think what it is, is like, you know, welcome. They'll take anyone. Anyone. But I think what it is

is like, you know, the media loves a narrative of Jewish black schism. It does really well. And I wrote a piece a couple,

like, you know, last year, I wrote it for Air Mail saying that like, you know, the New York Times, for instance,

had like four or five, four or five pieces in the period of like a month detailing this grand, like grand destabilization between Jews and blacks in the post-October 7th. But when you really, you know, the New York Times is really, as an editor, I'm very attentive to headlines, subheads, captions, and then, of course, what's actually in the article. And if you read a lot of these articles about the New York Times,

they have these headlines saying blacks and Jews now hate each other. But if you, you know, the data says, or notable pastors say, and when you really read it, like it doesn't bear out. Like some data says, or the pastors who are saying this are basically the black version

of Jewish Voices for Peace. Like they're the most extreme black pastors out there. I actually think that most American blacks are just not really thinking a lot about Jews, which is fine for me. What about this? What about within certain communities certain types of views that

we would all consider over the line, even if they're not agreed with, they will not be a deal breaker. So Al Sharpton was guilty of saying very, very anti-Semitic things. And then somebody died in the Freddie fashion mart, whatever it was. And we as Jews at the time said,

why are they allowing this guy? Like we would never allow that. Well, that's what I'm talking about. The double standard. Yeah. So, so,

so we, we would take that as like, they must hate Jews because if they didn't, and what you're saying is no, it's not that they don't hate you it's just that you know they just ignore that in some way i i listen i don't think i don't i don't think that like your average black person's walking around thinking hating of jews i think what you would say is that you know how could they follow this guy if they didn't well i think that what you would say well you could say what could the key word here is could i don don't speak for anybody, but myself, is that, you know, black people still exist in a state of great economic deprivation in this country. And it's gotten worse. It's not gotten better. And so, and then we have

this perception that's been put out by a lot by the DEI industry, a lot by the racial preferences movements that sort of makes, that hierarchizes or hierarchies race and by sort of access, privilege, whatever they want to call it. And at the top of these hierarchies is always Jews. So you have a community that exists in a real state of economic deprivation, which is very real. I mean, the hallmark of being

a black person in this country is, you know, I don't want to say being poor. There are plenty of black people who are not poor, but struggling. You know, and that's generally not the case for most Jewish people, although I'm not saying... Almost never the case. There are plenty of Jews who are not

wealthy, of course. But I think... So you have this economic reality between the status of blacks today and the perceived status of Jews. And then you have this messaging that says, this perceived status of Jews is because of all of these isms, whether they're white supremacy or racism or privilege. And so people absorb those messages and they turn them into

not just individualized experiences, whereas some Jews might have more money than other people and some Jews don't. It becomes the trope of the community and it exists at our expense. That's the key thing. They are profiting at our expense. That's the perception. That could be. That is the takeaway. And this idea, this I think is really important. There's this idea with Jews, unlike any other minority group, that Jews are profiting, doing well, succeeding at somebody else's expense, and hence they're expected to atone for it. And what's interesting about it is that, and just that thought makes me want to vomit. It makes me so angry.

Why must Jews atone for their success? You know what I mean? Indians are extremely successful in America. Nobody's asking them to atone. Certain African immigrant groups are successful in ways that others are not successful but they're not being asked to atone and I actually

was reading the DEI statement I stumbled upon I'm not going to say who it is because I don't like to take people down not yet but I'm getting there there's an organization a Jewish organization that deals with a lot of social justice issues. And I stumbled upon their website. I decided to look at it. I was curious,

what are these groups doing right now in terms of October 7th, anti-Semitism? Not only did their website say nothing about October 7th, nothing about Israel, nothing about anti-Semitism, but they had the most elaborate dei statement i'd ever seen and in that deist i statement they had language like we acknowledge that jews have benefited from white supremacy from white privilege and we acknowledge that they must that they must do the work to correct that and i was like are you basically handing c noir a a gun? Like, are we allowed to swear here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, what the fuck?

You know what I mean? This is the exact language that our enemies are using to annihilate us. Language of privilege. Language of perceived white supremacy. Language that Jews have to do the work to fix this. It's all about blaming. And you guys are a Jewish organization doing it yourself. It's like, how does this happen?

Now, your biography must be fascinating here. You should write a memoir. What? How? So you were a young, like Steve Martin, I was born a poor black child. You were born a brown kid in San Francisco. A brown kid to a

observant? Well, she wasn't so observant at the time. A Jewish woman who had a child out of wedlock. Two kids. That was two kids. That's bad enough even without them being black. I'm a twin. I have a twin sister. No way. I have twin boys too.

No way. And my ex-husband's a twin. And now, that's amazing. And now, somehow you find yourself writing for New York Post,ork post writing for commentary magazine i work there yeah um how what was your childhood like how did you become successful how did you overcome as it were the the the headwinds of being not only black but single mother and all that stuff i mean i didn't really just gifted at a young age i mean besides the fact that i'm exceptionally exceptional no i mean

number one like i didn't have a choice you know like i think that's also part of like that's the you know you people look at me now and sort of i went to a good college and i went to a good grad school and you know i i live in a fancy zip code. But I knew very early on, this is one of the hallmarks of I think being black is that and not having, like the majority of black people in America, I grew up in a home that there were not two parents, did not have a father. My mom worked very hard.

So what I think I will say is that she instilled in both of us an incredible work ethic. My mother's taken nothing from anybody ever. In fact, during the whole like welfare mother's, you know, rhetoric period, she was like, I should get some retroactive welfare. I never took anything from anybody. You know, my mother has never taken anything from anybody. She's worked her entire life. So I think I've always had a very strong work ethic and I've had a very strong model of what it takes, but also like, you know, nobody was coming to rescue me. I i mean this is what they talk about i think i do talk about privilege is that you know there is no family wealth there is no plan b there is no like nobody's coming to save me if i don't go if i didn't go to work after college and start

earning money you know i was going to like know, my mom had some money, but basically like there was nobody coming. There's no, there was no, there was no dad who's going to show up and like write a check for me. So I didn't really have any of that. But this is not a reason because there's a thousand other people who were in your situation that didn't. I mean, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. He said he's exceptionally exceptional.

No, I think also you're asking like how have I become, I mean, I feel like, it's not to sound like Michelle Obama, but I still feel like I'm becoming, like I don't feel like I've really gotten anywhere that I should be yet. I feel like there should be a lot more, and I'm really still hungry for that more.

But I also think that- Well, what did... If you see... Go ahead, sorry, sorry. One thing I think is really interesting in my... I speak for myself, is that... And I see this in Obama as well. Like, he was raised very similar to me, you know, raised on the fringes of the Pacific,

mostly around white people, by a white mother with no black father. And one of the things that i saw identified in obama why he was so successful is because i think people like him and me exist in this extreme state of um racial dysphoria because we have been raised mostly around white people we don't walk into a room of white people and feel fundamentally different. And this is our innate spidey skill. Like so many, so many, understandably, the key word here is understandably, so many black people go into all white spaces. And if you're a

successful black person, you're often amongst white people all the time because, you know, they control everything. And they feel different. They are different. And I'll give you a perfect example. I was at the ADL conference a couple of weeks ago where I spoke. And only after like three hours did I look around and I was like, wow, everybody here is white but me.

That wasn't my first impression of being somewhere like this. Well, I think for a lot of people who are not white, that would be the first impression. They walk in because I was raised around all white people. I have a white mother. I went to a white synagogue. I went to mostly white schools, or actually the schools I went to were mostly Asian and Latin because I grew up in San Francisco. But when I go into a predominantly white environment, which is every day at the New York Post, I don't feel particularly different from the other people there because that is my default visual experience. And I think that's also something like with Obama. I'm sure he would never probably say it because the optics and the branding wouldn't be good for him.

But I'm sure he feels exactly the same way, which was the reason why he resonated so strongly. Well, he knew how to speak to white people because he didn't see them as white. He just saw them as people. When I see people, and not that I'm racially, post-racial or racially blind, I'm very acutely aware of race, but I'm aware of it in a way that it doesn't define every element of my everyday experience that I think in ways that other people, it would for other people because of the way in which I was raised. So this is interesting stuff.

So even though you're here to talk about Jewish, I hope you don't mind talking about this because I find that because on Israel and stuff like that, there's a lot of people we could talk about, but you actually have a very, very unique perspective here that I didn't- Well, it's also one of the reasons why I think I'm very Zionistic.

It goes, everything ties because I grew up my whole life feeling extremely different. Everywhere I go, I'm very different than people. Like I'm not so into, like I don't belong to a synagogue here because when I go to Jewish spaces, people always sort of look at me quizzically, like what the fuck are you doing here?

You know, and they'll say to me, like, are you, as I'm speaking, as I'm praying in Hebrew, they'll say to me like are you as i'm speaking as i'm you know praying in hebrew they'll say to me are you jewish and it's like yeah whereas one of the things i like one reason why i'm so i believe i'm so zionistic is that israel is the only place in the whole world where i literally feel like everybody else i get there and like for me for me someone like me who spends who spent their entire life and still feels very much completely on the sidelines of most context, when I go to Israel, it's like the relief I feel. It's the only place where I truly feel like I can actually be myself. Because all the things that people are constantly probing about me here all the time, relentlessly. And I'm not saying they're doing it maliciously or bad. It's just the way the culture is here. We

live in a highly racialized culture. You cannot escape it. And for someone like me, it is oppressive. When I go to Israel, the moment I get there, I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm not like the lightest Jew in the room there, but I'm certainly not the darkest Jew in the room there. Oh no, you see black Jews all over. And not just black Jews. You see you know you know jews from you know and every shade in between exactly like there's plenty of jews like i'm not the only i'm not the darkest you in the room there at all but you see full-on african ethiopian jews regularly regularly so my point is like for me like i have this very strong like you know you know, when I saw October 7th,

when I watched what was happening on October 7th, the horror of seeing that and not to make it all about me, but there was this moment where I, cause it went on and on and, I was receiving like notifications and I received them in, in, in Hebrew as a way to like practice my Hebrew to be like nifty and cool. And I was like,

you know, am I understanding this right? Like this can't be real, you know? And then when this, when October 7th went on, it went on to October 8th. I mean, it took a long time to clear those motherfuckers out. Okay. Like I had this moment where I was like, is Israel going to survive? There was a moment where I was like, you know, are they going to get to Tel Aviv? And, and, and not to make it all about me, but my initial response was, if there is no Israel, I will never know what it feels like ever again in the rest of my life to truly feel like myself. And that was an incredibly overwhelming experience. I will say that in defense of my children,

I feel very much myself when I'm with my children. But besides that, when I go to Israel... Now, you adopted your children? Or you have a surrogate? We have a surrogate, yeah. And the surrogate was Jewish? No, she was not Jewish. But it's interesting because according to Halakha,

for the children of surrogates to be Jewish, the surrogate must be Jewish, not the egg donor. Oh, really? Because you must... It's all about visual verification

of who is the mother. Really? So that's insane. It's all about visual verification of who is the mother. Really? Yeah. So that's insane. It's insane. I was going to ask you, and you'll forgive me if I'm being presumptuous, but I was going to say that I'm assuming that one of the things that probably enrages you more than anything is when people call Israel a white colonizer, a country of white colonizers. But actually it should be black colonizers too.

Well, I like to put, whenever I'm in Israel, I like to put on my Instagram phrase, like here with a fellow white colonizer. So yeah, I mean, obviously, I mean, I don't like conversations in general where we use like racialized terms for Jews. I don't like the idea of like white Jews or black Jews or Jews of color. I think we're all Jews. No, but it's so crazy that these people who seem to know so much about something that 18 months ago they knew nothing about. Right, Jews are white colonizers.

Yeah, and then that, you know, all of the people from all over North Africa and right. But I would even, I would even go further than that. I would even say like, when I hear people using that kind of language, I don't, I don't engage with it. My response to you is why are you, what is your motivation here? Like, what is your motivation for racializing Jews, Israelis, people who have nothing have nothing necessarily really in connection to our notion of race in america like why are you asking this what is your goal here because if you really ultimately when you like peel back the layers of their goal it's it's to it's to justify the actions of hamas on october 7th this is where all this is oh any talk of jews and race is always

basically a pathway to legitimizing our extermination, which is why I don't like these conversations. For me, and this is something I felt, again, having spent so much time in Israel, when I see Jews, it's like, yes, my mother's white. I mean, I'm not living in some fantasy where my mom is of color. She is a white woman. And Jewy. And very Jewy, you know? I mean, she's like- I feel for you.

She's like prepping those matzo balls already. She's like full on, you know? What's her name? Her name is, or her name is Lily, but her Yiddish name would be Leah. But, you know, so I'm not living in, and I'm not living in some fantasy world where like, you know, white people don't experience

or enjoy more quote unquote privilege than people who are not white. That exists all over the world. The problem is that this paradigm is uniquely weaponized against Jews in a way that it's not weaponized against other people. All of these conversations that we would have where we would have intellectual debate, intellectual discourse, you know, the presumption of both sides, all of that suddenly is erased and it's only foisted upon Jews. And then when you really peel back the onion, you peel back the layers, it's like, well, then, you know, that's why Hamas hates you and wants to kill you. Right, right, right, right, right.

Everything is a tool for Hamas apologists to justify October 7th and to elevate people like Ta-Nehisi Coates who can go on podcasts and say things like, I can understand why, I can't be sure I wouldn't have like Marauder on October 7th as well. This is where it's all going. So when I hear those conversations, I end them.

We need to wrap it up. I'm very happy to meet you. Where do you live? You live around here? I live on Upper East Side. Oh, I would just say that, you know, in some way, we spent so much time in the last year and five months reacting to the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel explosion, we really still to this day have done a very bad job of making the case for Israel, such that even the average Jewish person I know is no better informed on the, you know, five or six bullet points that you need to be equipped with to combat this myth of

Israel being the bad guy and Israel being the colonist and all of it. And this is the real problem. I don't know how we do that. I was complaining about this before October 7th, as Perry all knows, that I was saying that Jewish kids don't even know how it is that the territories became occupied.

They think that Israel went into the territories to occupy. They don't know that Israel was attacked. They don't know that Israel tried to make peace. They don't know that Israel was attacked. They don't know that Israel tried to make peace. They don't know that Arafat walked out. They don't know that Abbas walked out. And if you know those things... It's a lot to know.

No, it's not a lot. Well, it's a lot in the sense that you need to know all this stuff to have any sort of reasonable conversation. And again, it's not demanded of any other conversation. You speak to any nitwit, they know, yes, the UN partitioned and gave Israel most of it. They will recite 20 facts about, revisionist facts about Israel.

They'll cite to you that the anti-Semites know all about the Talmud and the arcane. They have a whole factual base that they've downloaded. And we Jews, we just want to, oh, you're anti-Semites, you want all us dead, and this needs to be said. But what we haven't done is educated ourselves and the general public on our very simple case.

Well, what I will say, my simple sort of statement is that, you know, I had this awakening this summer when I was in Tel Aviv, is that history is very, very, with very few instances, examples of Jews being able to defend other Jews. This is an ahistorical condition in the world today.

Herzl talked about it. And this, if you want to ask me why so much they can't stand this, they can't stand that we as Jews are able to defend ourselves. And the way I look at it, that we have an army, we have a nation, we have soldiers. I mean, when I'm in Israel, I have to remember that I exist in that country as a privilege because 18-year-old boys are willing to die, to die. And they do die every single day. That there are mothers at home and fathers at home who have multiple sons in Gaza at this time. And somehow I can barely

deal when my kid has like a 100 degree fever. I can barely contain myself. So what I'm saying is that Jews defending Jews is a historical, unprecedented condition, experience, moment in this history. Jews defending Jews is a revolutionary act. And we as Jews need to be revolutionaries today. That's what I said. All right, sir.

Well, I'm very happy to meet you and maybe you'll come on the show again. Love to. I'll be on time next time. Forgive me. Have you ever, well, you know what they say about Jews. They're always late.

Have you been to the comedy cellar? A long time ago. You need to start coming down again. I need some levity in my life because it's a tough time out there. Now, my kids, my wife's Puerto Rican and Indian. Okay. Indian from like India or Indian from like? India from India, but via Trinidad.

But Puerto Rican via Brooklyn. Puerto Rican via Brooklyn, but definitely Indian from the subcontinent. Yeah, yeah. 100%. I mean, 100% of her, 50%. Yeah. But my kids are not...

They're not very dark, right? One of my kids looks like he could be from Guatemala, but the other ones I think present as you know like I mean as swarthy as an Italian or something but yeah I mean they're all pretty ambiguous like yeah but so but but always in the back of my mind as I'm hearing your experience I'm imagining you know what's going on in in my kids mind but they're not ever gonna quite face um the fish out of water type reaction that you have gotten at certain times. But I also feel like very lucky to be me. You know,

I feel like there's like power in being brown. You know, like I'm lucky that wherever I go in most of the world, I kind of like, it's only in the West, I don't look like other people. In most of the world, I kind of look like the rest of the people. And I love that. I love going to all these places. The irony is that in much of the world, because of the color of my skin, I'm immediately treated like everybody else. I'm perceived, even though they're like, oh, he's kind of American.

He's not like us. But there's this, I can tell, they kind of view me as one of them. And I love that feeling. You have this immediate in, like you're an insider around the whole world. It's a tremendous biography to be commenting on world events, both

on domestic racial situations, on Jewish stuff. You have credibility of being able to see each of these issues from an organic point of view.

You're very kind. Thank you. And nobody can say, who are you to comment on black people? Who are you to comment on Jews? Who are you to comment on white people? And that's why I write so much about what I write is because nobody else will. I kind of don't give a fuck.

People are afraid, and I feel like if I don't write this stuff, who will? Who are you to comment on gay, half black Jews? Well, you know there's a very famous interview with James Baldwin and Dick Cavett.

He's smoking the whole time. Yeah, and I mean, I grew up adoring James Baldwin. Although I was recently a little bit disappointed to find out that he was um not quite a zionist not quite but uh cavett asked baldwin you know god you know must be so hard to be like gay and black and baldwin like takes a cigarette he goes are you kidding i hit the jackpot did he say gay at that time yeah

yeah i didn't know that or maybe he said homosexual but it was he was out of it was out i mean you know yeah yeah yeah sure um we can maybe cut that clip and it's it's a really powerful moment but yeah you are um you're a unicorn it's i'm a unicorn but i mean it's it's unicorns can yeah fly absolutely it's it's one of our uh jewish miracles maybe um neskodol neskodol ayapo all right david uh it worked out that you're a little late because um it allowed me time to rant okay good about other stuff which so so don't feel bad my real my real... You weren't late. You didn't know you were coming today. My real challenge in life is I'm clearly mildly brain dead, but

luckily I pulled together quickly. You pulled it together quickly. I'm just looking forward to next episode showing you the text chain of saying that this was actually not my fault. It's no... We don't need to live in a space of fault. We need to live in a space of moving forward and correction and doing better.

No, I feel better about myself when I can put down the people who love me. Okay. All right, sir. Thank you very much. Email to podcast at comedyseller.com. Podcast at comedyseller.com. And by the way, seller is not with an S. It's a seller like a basement with a C.

Okay. Good night, everybody. Good night.