An Analysis ~ American v Israeli Jews ~ Dr. Guy Golan with Gene Valentino

With breaking news and political commentary from a public servant, serial entrepreneur, community leader, philanthropist, and American patriot, and a darn nice guy, it’s time for the GrassRoots TruthCast, and your host, Gene Valentino.

Gene Valentino: Hi friends. Gene Valentino. And welcome to another episode of Gene Valentino’s

Until next time. GrassRoots TruthCast. The guest I have this week is a very interesting gentleman, Professor Guy Golan. He’s a PhD originally from the University of Florida, but today he’s working with Texas Christian University. This is going to be an interesting discussion for me. I have a Jewish faith in our Christian family and a guy comes to us with a perspective with his partner Guy Chet, also a doctor originally from Yale University.

The, the [00:01:00] two guys, the two guys have come together to write a great book. And this book is entitled My Brother’s Keeper. It’s the complicated relationship between American Jews, Israeli Jews, Israeli American relationship in general, right after this.

 

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Gene Valentino: Welcome back. We’re with Guy Golan, the doctor who is a author of my brother’s keeper.

Guy, thank you for joining us here today. This is very interesting.

Dr. Guy Golan: Thank you, Gene.

Gene Valentino: Great to be here. Before we get started on your book, which I find very interesting, folks, this is the relationship between America and Israel, the two most populated areas of Judaism in the world, frankly. And it’s a great per capita prorata.

But it’s truly an area. It’s truly a discussion that opens up a deeper conversation on the many other relationships in the east, [00:03:00] but it starts with a good American Israeli relationship guy. Your book is fascinating. I want to get right into it before we do, though. You came, tell me your history. Are you an American?

Are you Israeli? What’s, what’s your history?

Dr. Guy Golan: I am both and uniquely qualified to write a book about this topic. I grew up in Tel Aviv, Israel. I grew, I moved to the United States two weeks after my bar mitzvah when I was 13. Grew up in Hollywood, Florida, attended the University of Florida, and then I moved back to Israel where I worked in politics for a couple of years.

Gene Valentino: You worked in politics , on that specific point, how do you compare Israeli politics to American politics?

Dr. Guy Golan: Ah, so it’s fascinating. You know, Israel has a different political system. We don’t have the checks and balances. that the United States has.

So Israel has a lot more elections. No government has held the full four years in the past, I don’t know, 30 [00:04:00] years. It’s very it’s very complex. It’s a country that most people talk about, but know very little about.

Gene Valentino: Yeah, you know, that brings up a very interesting point about someone who I’m very fond of, and that’s B.

1. Netanyahu, how he has sustained himself. I go back in my history to Golda Meir Sharon Perez Ariane Sharon, and I could name a whole bunch of others that that succeeded. But my concern has been how Israel has sustained itself amid so much strife. One of the things I find most interesting is that your Supreme Court system over there more recently just ruled that the the his the Hasidic Jews there are required to serve in the military like every other Israeli.

You want to comment on that?

Dr. Guy Golan: Sure. Israel is, while it’s known as the land of the Jews and it’s a predominantly Jewish country, majority Jewish country there are many types of Jews who [00:05:00] live there. Don’t forget, Israel is a true melting pot. It was officially created in 1948, but when Israel was created, it absorbed a humongous number of refugees from Europe and from the Middle East.

So within a period of five to ten years, the population of Israel doubled and you had people who spoke various different languages, had different cultures, had very little in common with the exception of their Jewish faith.

Gene Valentino: Okay, continue again with your history now. You came from, you were born in Israel, you ended up in the United States.

Dr. Guy Golan: Yes, sir. Went back to the to Israel, worked in Israeli politics, in the world of political campaigning, worked with Ehud Barak’s campaign in 1999. I was in the pleasure of working with Shimon Peres for a little while and worked on various other campaigns. Then I wanted to open my own lobbying firm.

I moved to the US again, got my PhD from [00:06:00] Florida, fell in love with academia and decided to stay in the United States and become a university professor. My first stop was Baton Rouge, Louisiana at LSU in the Manship School. I was there for a little bit and I left just two months before Katrina.

Gene Valentino: Two months before Katrina, then what?

Where’d you go?

Dr. Guy Golan: The hurricane, the hurricane started then I moved back to Tel Aviv and then I went, I met my wife, who’s a medical doctor, and I went on a long journey. But my longest stops in academia, I was a tenured associate professor in the Newhouse School, Syracuse University. I taught in their graduate program in public diplomacy, which really looks at the kind of stuff we talk about in the book, which is international public opinion and how governments and individuals try to shape the reputation of nations.

Gene Valentino: You know, right around the time I became county commissioner here in Escambia County, Florida 2006, it looks like you were beginning to get published about that time. And [00:07:00] I see a sequence of about 50 publications either on your own or with someone else since then. You want to talk about what the crux of those publications are, were before we talk about your book today?

Dr. Guy Golan: Sure. My academic research focuses on how governments and corporations try to gain attention from audiences who are not really interested in giving them their attention. So I look at public opinion, I look at strategic communication, and I look at the role that technology plays in this interplay.

Gene Valentino: It’s very interesting to me to see how you have inspired so many people, including Ambassador Alberto Fernandez. You want to describe why he came out with such a compliment over your book before we get into it?

Dr. Guy Golan: He’s Alberto is an amazing individual. He was the head of the Middle East Broadcasting Network, which pretty much oversees all of the United States communications in the Middle East.

So radio, [00:08:00] the television networks and social media. Yeah, he I’ve known him. He was a Yes. On my podcast a couple of times and I shared my book with him and he was nice enough to write me a nice review.

Gene Valentino: Oh, that’s great to hear. I’m going to throw a statement out there and then I’d like your comment.

It says most Americans assume that American and Israeli Jews are similar. This is not the case in 2019. President Donald Trump said that the. American Jews who do not support Israel are disloyal not to America, but to the Jewish people. His remarks sparked a media firestorm in America, but not in Israel.

Why?

Dr. Guy Golan: Yes, sir. I think that that case study you’re highlighting here of, of Trump, President Trump’s he’s wondering, he’s like, Hey, I have done more for Israel than any other president in history. I moved the embassy to Jerusalem. I [00:09:00] I recognize Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights. I’m the one who brought peace in the Middle East.

I’m the only one right, I the Abraham Accords under Donald Trump. And yet American Jews are not fans of Donald Trump and they seem as a rival instead of as a friend of the Jewish people. This paradox really highlights. The differences in the political sociology between Israelis who live in a majority Jewish nation and American Jews who live as a minority in a Christian nation.

Gene Valentino: Is Judaism a religion or is it a nation?

Dr. Guy Golan: That’s one of the key questions of our book, right? Is it an ethnicity? Is it a religion? Is it a nation? And the answer to that question. It’s a really important because for many American Jews, Judaism is just religion, right? They are Americans who, how did John F.

Kennedy say when he ran [00:10:00] that he’s a, he’s an American who also happens to be Catholic, right? So for many American Jews, their Jewish identity. Is a secondary to other identities, right? Primarily their identity as a progressive liberals or as people who belong to the political left. And their membership in the Jewish nation is secondary, right?

So they, they view themselves entirely as Americans, as progressive Americans, and they don’t necessarily feel a feeling of Responsibility to their Jewish brethren outside of the United States, where in Israel, you grow up learning that Judaism is a religion, and it is a nation, a people, and as a people, no matter where Jews are persecuted, the state of Israel, and everybody’s in there.

Is responsible for their safety

Gene Valentino: here in the states. You know, we pride ourselves in our constitutional documents of a division between church and state. And we believe our four founders got [00:11:00] it right in doing that because sometimes it was the passion of the religion itself that created the conflict that otherwise need not exist in the case of the United States.

I, I, I, I’m going to ask it as a question, although I have an opinion about it, because we have the Jewish faith in my family as well, but the question is, why is it a generation or two later, the descendants of the Holocaust have not been reminding others that Of the trauma of that event, the way our parents and grandparents did said differently, what’s happening with the American Jew, not understanding that it might be a Jew that gets tortured, killed, maimed [00:12:00] in Israel today.

Ergo Hasbullah, Hezbollah and the Houthis and Shiites and everyone else. It’s them today, but it could be the United States tomorrow. What is it with the American Jews, not to mention America in general, that doesn’t pick up on that, on that sense of concern?

Dr. Guy Golan: It’s a good question. You know, ultimately time does.

What it does, right? I mean, people don’t remember the civil war in the United States, which is an absolute tragedy for the nation, right? The Holocaust was many years ago. I mean, it was my grandparents generation, but think one generation ahead of us. They’re going to think about the Holocaust. Like most Americans think about the civil war.

Something that was very bad, but it was very far away. Now, as for Israel, you’re asking about, you know, why Americans, American Jews, Americans in general are not really cognizant of what’s happening in the Middle East. And the answer is because Americans don’t really care about international affairs. The Middle [00:13:00] East is complicated.

And it’s, it’s very intricate. It involves a lot of details and we don’t teach this kind of stuff in school. So, most people have a very strong opinion about Israel, but when you, you know, if you go to the campus protesters and you ask them any substantive question about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, they pretty much know absolutely nothing.

No sense of history, no context. and no understanding of how Israel plays into the larger Middle East conflict.

Gene Valentino: Folks, we’re talking with Guy Golan. He’s an associate professor of strategic communication at Texas Christian University. He’s published over 50 peer reviewed articles focused on, and this is the key, it’s focused on the intersection between government communications social media and public opinion.

And Guy, to that point, what is ambivalence with the American Jew toward Israel? Might it not be [00:14:00] the ambivalence of the Jewish, of the Israeli Jew towards America?

Dr. Guy Golan: Well, let’s say in a different way American Jews don’t know very much about Israel and Israelis don’t know much about American Jews. So for most Israelis, when we think about American Jews, we think about Seinfeld and you know, bagel and cream cheese, right?

Israelis don’t know much about American Jews and American Jews. When you talk to them about Israel, they don’t, most of them have never been there. Most of them don’t know much about it and most of them are not familiar with the complex nature of Israel’s society.

Gene Valentino: The real key to your book, which I don’t want to give it away, because I skimmed some of it, I haven’t read all of it, but might it be you want to telegraph to us why we should get the book in terms of the future of American Jewry versus our relationship with Israel?

Dr. Guy Golan: I think there is a an even bigger story in my book than [00:15:00] American Jews and Israel.

Israel, think of Israel as a metaphor for the West. And the book really touches upon a conflict between the globalization movement and liberalism, you know, the concept that we are all the same people in the world. We don’t need borders. Everybody can move anywhere and become a part of any nation. So that’s one part.

And then the other part you see is the return to religion, the return to national nationality and where this book highlights the differences between Israel, which is a more religious nation, much more nationalistic nation, a very strong sense. Of identity and United States where, you know, in the U S yeah, everybody can be an American.

It doesn’t take much. You know, you, you move here, you get your citizenship, you crack open a Bud light, you watch a football game and you’re an American, right? This tension between the two global movements right now is manifesting not only in Israel, it’s manifesting in Europe [00:16:00] as we speak, you see it in Holland in the last elections, you see it in Italy in the last elections.

You see in France. Right with Maria and the pen. So the story of Israel, the metaphor of Israel, the tension between the old and the new between globalization and nationality, those tensions play out, not only in the context of Israel, but in the context of where the West is.

Gene Valentino: You know, you’re hitting something that kind of drives to what I’d call a deep state conspiracy of or a vision as to where the world order is going.

I’m concerned that It’s not about Jews or Judaism in particular, but rather this massive global overtake that’s intended. And like Donald Trump, the Jews are just standing in their [00:17:00] way. You’ve heard that analogy before. I find that that a religion, Like Christianity and Judea and Judaism that’s based on love and faith in God and goodness is contrary to a Muslim faith that in its own doctrines promotes the murder, annihilation, desecration.

And it’s okay to lie as well, especially if you’re an elected official to achieve those ends which is what I believe is happening in europe right now you the countries you’ve mentioned I fear greatly These were nato allies. These are nato allies of ours. You mentioned france italy in particular Well, look what’s happened with macron in france Italy has always been sort of a little confusing to me in terms of its governance today and versus tomorrow, [00:18:00] but I don’t understand what the hostility is and the, and the necessity to take down any one faith in particular.

I, I, I My conflict arises, and we often get into a very prejudicial conversation about one faith or another. When we see the anger from one faith now revealing itself to protect itself, to defend itself, and violence now needed to do so. Is Israel wrong recently for the Yemen missiles that were launched for the first time?

And when in fact, less than a year ago, 1200 Jews and some Americans, by the way, were massacred and killed in the Gaza region. I, I, I don’t understand about, we call in America with Trump, it’s selective prosecution, but in the world [00:19:00] scene, it’s it’s selective. Insight or oversight or of the issues, which what’s your take on that?

Dr. Guy Golan: Well, the Middle East is complicated, complex. The tension between the Muslim world and the Christian world is one thing, but there is a lot of tension within the Muslim world. So when you look at the Middle East right now, the big story is the conflict between three main branches of Islam. The first one, actually three or four, the first one is the Shiites who have been fighting the Sunnis for the last.

You know, thousand years. It’s an old war. Most people don’t know about it. It’s the Sunni Shiite proxy wars have been going on in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen. Now it’s happening in parts of Northern Africa. So that’s one thing. Then you have the Muslim Brotherhood which, which is sponsored primarily by the Qataris and the Turks.

And they’re trying to export their brand of Islam all across the the Middle East and parts of Europe. [00:20:00] And then, of course, you have the traditional so called moderate Sunni nations who are trying to stand against both of the forces I just mentioned. So take Yemen, for example the war in Yemen didn’t begin with the Gaza war.

It began over 10 years ago when the Houthis took over the city of Sana’a and they started a Yemenite civil war. It was pretty much the Houthis versus Saudi Arabia for over a decade. So you had between 150 to 200, 000 people who died. During that war more than four hundred four million people were displaced during that war now The Houthis are the proxy army of the Iranians in Yemen Just like Hezbollah is a proxy of the Iranians in Lebanon So multiple fronts Iran versus the Sunni nations the Sunni ally nations, right?

This is Egypt And the Saudi Arabia and the United Arab [00:21:00] Emirates who are allies with Israel very complex place lots of moving parts It’s like the game of risk. It’s a complicated board to explain on television

Gene Valentino: Yeah, that’s true. But it was only a few weeks before the October 7th attack on Israel that Saudi Arabia had engaged with Israel in a, an alliance that was historic and about to go into effect.

That must have pissed off the Houthis and Hezbollah. It must have really disrupted the, the East and the Far East in terms of the future of their plans. in in the Israeli region of the Mediterranean. I, I think that that’s an example, for example, of now here, Saudi is backing off, you know, Saudi Arabia won’t even won’t even participate in any of the alliance needs for Israel during this terrible attack.

Jordan as well, for that matter, which surprises me with the current King. [00:22:00] But I’m amazed at Israel’s resilience to hang in there with all those dynamic parts moving with fellow nations around you and still trying to manage the relationship with the United States. And I’ll assume some blame here with our incompetent president.

That that I, I, I don’t know what he’s gonna do when Netanyahu comes, but it’s I, I don’t know what he has to offer at this point, either Biden, that is but it’s, to me, one of the most valuable relationships we have in Europe is Israel is in the Middle East. Is is the, is the is the Israeli relationship with the United States, are we talking about a religion problem, or are we talking about a nation policy problem?

Dr. Guy Golan: You’re talking about the tension between Israel and its Arab neighbors? Yeah, it’s very simple in the Middle East. The concept of [00:23:00] nationalism is a new concept brought forward by the Westerners, right? So until World War one if you met somebody from Egypt, they wouldn’t refer to themselves as an Egyptian They would say I am a Sunni Right, from Alexandria, or if you met somebody from Iraq, or if you met somebody from, you know, any part of the Middle East, they would say, I’m a Shiite from this place, I’m a Christian from you know, Iraq, and I’m a, you know, I’m a, so, a Druze from Lebanon, right?

The, the idea of nations and nationhood, you know, the Palestinian national movements, all of that. Arab national movements are recent inventions. They’re not a part of the DNA of the Middle East. In the Middle East, the DNA is religion and that has been the way it’s been for the last thousand years.

Gene Valentino: But it distinguishes itself in terms of its relationships with others, doesn’t it? It’s it’s more than, it’s more than trade. It seems to be Something with a pent [00:24:00] up Christian Zionist. It’s like there’s a distraction in Israel with where they want to end up in terms of their own governance with the, with the, with the movement of elected officials, unlike the United States, yet at the same time, they managed to keep together in a sense of solidarity.

A recent happening, for example, is the Supreme Court, your version of a Supreme Court in Israel being coming to an adjudication that the Hasidic Jews, the the very the very reformed Jews are, are very much involved in not wanting to participate in the military, yet The courts ruled that they will participate in the military.

Many of them take offense to that. Do you want to explain that religious thinking, culture thinking, and government decision?

Dr. Guy Golan: So it’s a [00:25:00] complicated one to explain quickly, but I’ll do my best. Israel has a small minority of highly religious people, Orthodox Jews. And again, there are many versions of Orthodox Judaism, but this small number of Israeli citizens, they do not serve in the military in the Israeli military.

Their belief is that they, them studying. the Hebrew Bible and, and dedicating their life to religion will provide the state of Israel with more security than them carrying a gun. You know, this goes into the many cultural cleavages of Israel where you have many, many types of Jews, many types of streams within Judaism, right?

And there is still a negotiation going on from the beginning of 1948 until now about the careful balance between religion and state. And identity in the land of Israel.

Gene Valentino: We’re talking with Guy Golan, Dr. Guy Golan, author of My Brother’s Keeper, very [00:26:00] interesting book, talking about the complicated relationship, which we are finding complicated as well.

And that’s the relationship between American Jews and Israel. I think America’s a little bit more resilient though we’re, I think we’re looking to see Israel succeed. Do you ever walk away feeling that Israel kind of gets in its own way from of success? Once in a while?

Dr. Guy Golan: You know, every nation does, but Israel is a true miracle if you look at the history of it.

Tiny nation built on a tiny piece of land with no resources whatsoever. You know, you look at 1948, Israel has, you know, far, far less than a million people. Today, it’s a large nation, powerful nation, not only militarily, But if you look at technology, if you look at the fact that there are more Israeli companies listed on the NASDAQ [00:27:00] than any other nation besides the United States and China, right, how is Israel?

How is this miracle happened? How is this nation that’s continuously being challenged, not in terms of the world? It’s standing, but I mean literally people are trying to decimate it. People are trying to blow it up and kill everyone, right? At the same time where you have a war every few years, you have so much success.

Israel has a robust democracy. It’s got its limitations, but it’s got a robust democracy. It’s got a lot of culture. It’s got a lot of food. It’s got a lot of innovation. It’s an amazing place. A great place that most people don’t understand.

Gene Valentino: Dr. Guy Golan, we’re going to continue this discussion of My Brother’s Keeper, his book he’s just come out with, with Guy Chet, his co author, and we’re going to discuss this book and some of the chapters in it right after this.

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Gene Valentino: Hi folks, welcome back. We’re talking with Dr. Guy Golan, author of the book, My Brother’s [00:29:00] Keeper. Very interesting analysis of the complicated relationship between American Jews and Israel.

Welcome aboard, doctor. It’s good to have you with us on this episode of Gene Valentino’s GrassRoots TruthCast.

Dr. Guy Golan: Yes, sir. Thank you very much.

Gene Valentino: You know, the book itself we’re talking about a nation with about 9 million people and maybe a little bit more, but this nation is the same size as many of our states in the United States.

Yet it’s a very well protected nation, a very technologically advanced nation. The Iron Dome in particular is a perfect example, with America’s help, of how many lives were saved from this shield that protects Israel. One that America ought to upgrade not only for Israel, but for the world. put in for ourselves here in the states at this point.

But let’s shift our conversation now to the book, [00:30:00] My Brother’s Keeper. Why’d you write it?

Dr. Guy Golan: It’s a great question. Well, I wrote it with my author my co author Guy Chet, because we learned that most Americans know absolutely nothing about the book. State of Israel, including American Jews. And we learned that most Israelis know nothing about American Jews.

The topic is very complicated. And what we wanted to write is a easy to read, easy to understand book for those people who are not experts in the field. So my target audience for this book was my wife, who’s a medical doctor. She doesn’t know much about the history and the complexities of Israel and its relationship to American Jews.

But she does, she can’t get it from the news, you know, in the, you cannot get quality information from the news media. So we wrote this easy to understand book and that was the motivation behind it.

Gene Valentino: Chapter two caught my attention. It’s entitled as American as apple pie Jews in America. You want to describe what that’s about?[00:31:00]

Dr. Guy Golan: Absolutely. The story of the United States and American Jews is a story of success. And it shows the welcoming nature of the United States. Why the United States is by far the greatest nation on earth. Jews came to the United States with the same deal that there were offered in Europe. So we write, this is a really important concept in our book, the emancipation.

The idea is very simple. Jews historically lived separately from non Jews all across Europe and the Middle East, and they maintain their separate traditional Jewish lives. in their own communities. Then in the late 1800s, the Jews in Europe were offered a deal. Take off those funny hats you wear, stop dressing differently than everybody else, stop worshipping differently, and you can become an equal citizen.

In Germany, in Holland, and in France, and many Jews took this deal, and they left their traditions [00:32:00] behind, and they conformed Judaism to match that of the Gentiles who lived next to them, their neighbors, and they started acting much more like Frenchmen than they did like Jews. And that worked really well until it didn’t work well in the 1930s and 40s in the Holocaust.

In the United States, however, the emancipation worked beautifully. Jews came to the United States and took advantage of the American Dream from day one. You know, the American Dream is the best. Come to the United States, respect the laws, work hard. You’ll succeed. This is what America is all about. This is a dream of America, the American dream that everybody’s coming to this nation for.

So Jews came here they came from Germany and they imported their brand of Judaism to the United States. So the majority denomination in the United States is reformed Judaism, which allows Jews to conform to American life. [00:33:00]

Gene Valentino: One of the things I found so interesting. I think it’s chapters six and seven.

What you made, it’s entitled American Jews. Why are they so liberal yet? The Israeli Jews are so conservative. It sits against a backdrop of such vile hatred against the Jews recently in our streets by the Palestinians and the Hamas, the Israelis. Types that really despise Israel and Judaism and American Jews Why is that not an awakening to say to the liberal jews in america?

You’ve you’re totally off base what made them so liberal in the first place is probably the question

Dr. Guy Golan: It’s a great question and the answer is simple They moved to the large cities of the northeast when they came here from europe They moved to new york and baltimore You and Philly, right? And Boston. And that was where [00:34:00] the Roosevelt coalition was built.

So Jews were always a part of the democratic coalition. It was a coalition of immigrants, of ethnic whites, and they had one thing in common. They all believe that if they build a coalition of the weak together, they can all be empowered collectively. So American Jews have Always been an important part of the left.

They were active in the labor movement. They were active in civil rights movements They were active in the lgbtq movement. So jews have always been a part of the american left And vote more consistently for the democratic party than any other group in the united states With the exception of african americans,

Gene Valentino: so it doesn’t it doesn’t seem to follow In Israel that a con that a, a Jew would be more conservative.

You would think they would espouse the same sort of tendency as liberals. No.

Dr. Guy Golan: No, because in Israel, Jews don’t have the same [00:35:00] challenges, right? So, Jews who came to America are a minority group in a Christian majority. In Israel, we are the majority, so in Israel, we don’t need to build coalitions with other groups in order to be accepted as who we are, because we are the majority.

In Israel, there’s a strong, much stronger relationship to both nationalism and to religion. Two things that are widely embraced by conservatives and are despised by the left.

Gene Valentino: But to me, I think the conservative movement in the United States is by its very nature something the Jew would want to be more a part of.

Wasn’t that, wasn’t there a triggering event like a Donald Trump that came in, helped you guys move your capital of Jerusalem, to Jerusalem? And, and do things that were rather not the capital, excuse me, the our, our embassy, yeah, to to Jerusalem and to do other things to send a [00:36:00] message to Israel that the things we espouse with Judaism aren’t too far to the left that have to, that have to require liberal tendencies.

Dr. Guy Golan: Jim, the answer is simple. American Jews don’t vote based on Israel. It’s not, it’s not even their top five. American Jews are first and foremost. Democrats. And what’s important to them It leads

Gene Valentino: to my first comment earlier then that they don’t put their religion in the forefront here in the states as they do in Israel.

Dr. Guy Golan: Yes, and it also has to do with religiosity. So, American Jews are by far the group with the lowest level of religiosity in the United States. You’re going to see a lot of Jewish atheists Jewish agnostics Jewish Buddhists you know, the, when you look at Pew research, and we have a lot of this data in my book, right?

We talk about how important is religion to you in your everyday life, right? The answer is not very important. We see a lot of [00:37:00] intermarriage within American Jews. I think the numbers are between 60 to 70 percent of American Jews marry somebody outside their faith. It’s something that would never happen in Israel, right?

So again, it goes back to the concept of religiosity. And we offer a very simple equation in our book, the higher your religiosity, the stronger your support is. It’s

Gene Valentino: kind of why you have reform Jews in the states marrying Christians and you’ve got Orthodox Judaism over in Israel. I mean, there’s a distinction there.

Dr. Guy Golan: Well, American Jew, the, the American Jewish religion in the United States, when I talk about the reform, I mean, every, there are many streams. under the non Orthodox Judaism after conservatives and constructionists and all that. But under this large umbrella of Reform Judaism, the, the books are updated every so often to mirror the [00:38:00] values of the left.

So I’ll give you an example. Okay. In traditional Judaism, the prayers that have been sung for thousands of years, every morning, about wanting to return to Israel, about being a part of the Jewish nation, about the fact that we are separate people from all the other people on earth. Those prayers, if you look at reform books, prayer books, and they welcome anybody, the American Jews or anybody, When you go to a Reformed Jewish synagogue, you’re going to see the language change.

And it’s not about Israel as a separate nation, but it’s about inclusivity. So for American Jews the top values of Judaism is inclusivity, right? And the promotion of the other. Where in Israel and in traditional Judaism, it’s not just in Israel, in France and South America and wherever there are Jews, they’re using the traditional prayers that have been consistent for thousands of years.

Gene Valentino: I [00:39:00] find it interesting that you know, we even in in Christian schools, we say we were Jews before we were Christians and it kind of, it kind of tells me that maybe we forgot that we were Christians. From we were Jews Jesus was a Jew, if we’re following a Christian line. But why do, why do American Jews fear Christian Zionists?

Dr. Guy Golan: Let’s talk about who Christian Zionists are first, because most people have never heard that term before, right? So, there is a strong and powerful movement within the evangelical world of Christians who believe that it’s God’s wish for Christians to support The state of Israel, the Jewish state of Israel.

And if you look at the political support that evangelical Christians gave to Israel, and I’m not just talking about political support, I’m not just talking about what they do on Capitol Hill. If you look at who’s fighting the [00:40:00] BDS movement, right? The anti Israel movement in the United States. The people who are fighting against the BDS movement are Evangelical Christians.

Evangelical Christians send money to Israel every year. They support charities in Israel. They send their children to Israel. So they are really big supporters of Israel. So you would ask yourself, and we ask in our book, we have a chapter called Why do Christians love Israel? And then the next chapter is Why do American Jews love Israel?

distrust or dislike Christian Zionists? And the answer is simple. American Jews dislike Christian Zionists because there are Democrats and liberals and liberals and Democrats don’t like evangelical Christians because they are on the opposite spectrum of politics. On every single major issue that’s important to Americans, Democrats are on the polar opposite of evangelical Christians.

Gene Valentino: But it is true that Democrat liberal. And a Jew was likely to have been a [00:41:00] Democrat liberal before he was considered a Republican conservative. Now you’ve got Jews with all of the anti Semitic commentary in the streets, all the hate, all the vitriol. You even have political officials in their campaigns coming out lining up against Israel right now.

There must be a paradigm shift going on with the Jew in the United States who sees that the liberal tendencies they espoused having left Israel are now conflicted with by the people in their own Democrat liberal organization that are trying to kill him.

Dr. Guy Golan: Gene, I’m going to disappoint you. It’s not going to happen.

Yes, the left has betrayed American Jews and every single American Jewish professor I speak to. Point to this, they’re like, Oh my God, we’ve been the most solid members of this coalition for a hundred years. And now they’re telling us we have [00:42:00] to choose between being a part of the progressive movement and being pro Israel.

And that choice is devastating to them.

Gene Valentino: It’s devastating.

Dr. Guy Golan: Yeah. And yet, and yet when it comes to the election, they’re going to tell you, we’re going to vote for the Democrats. And you ask them why? And they say, because of anti Semitism. It’s devastating. And then you’re gonna, you’re gonna ask him, wait a second, wasn’t all the anti Semitism that we saw on the campus of Columbia?

Harvard and UPenn and every major university in major cities, all the, the coalition between the, the Islamists and the, and the woke progressives. Isn’t that scaring you? And the answer is, yeah, but Donald Trump and abortion and all that. So again, they’ll go back to the, to the fundamental voting issues of Democrats because that is their primary political identity.

Gene Valentino: I submit that a conservative Republican. Is Israel’s best friend right [00:43:00] now, both here in the United States and abroad. I submit that the relationship has gone through some bumps and bruises admittedly, but I submit it’s going to be stronger than ever. And I think sometimes we need to get our, sometimes we have to dig a deeper hole.

before we are able to climb out of it, if that metaphor makes sense. We sometimes have to experience things where things have to get worse before they get better. And I really believe that the American Israeli relationship to without regard to the religious intensity either in Israel or in the United States will survive.

It will sustain itself. The Israeli culture is beautiful. I’ve had the privilege of coming to learn about it. I think it’s, it’s marvelous not to mention the people, but, but I do think that the, that I think you’ve been taken advantage of. And I think even [00:44:00] in the United States, you’ve been taken advantage of, and I think it’s now time that I think you will see Dr.

The door’s swinging back the other way. Unlike Israel, where it has direct control over its political agenda where the, the problem in our nation is that we allow too much dissent and contrary thinking as sometimes it takes hold. The benefit of America is that we allow contrary thinking and dissent.

So the door swings both ways and sometimes catches us in the butt, but we learned, but hopefully our next generation, your children and mine will learn. The beauty of the relationship and and and I must say in the same sentence I met some wonderful muslims who don’t want anything to do with what they’ve seen as the desecration of humanity within their own faith.

And I, I think this is what I [00:45:00] meant when I said things have to get worse before they get better. We sometimes have to learn a lesson. I’d like to believe that and the, the Jews had it correctly. I’ll never forget it when I went to the, to the Dachau prison camp in Germany and saw firsthand what happened during the the gassing of the Jews in world war two under Hitler.

I walked out of there. I was on vacation with two other folks and I needed a day just to cool off and come to my senses because I didn’t believe humanity could be so bad. We, we have I, I, and the Jews have it right. Keep sharing and keep letting others learn from those mistakes. Otherwise you’re going to be bound to repeat them.

And I regret that’s what’s going on. Is there no small coincidence? That the liberal Democrats who have messed up our school systems and are not teaching American history the way you and I learned it are now [00:46:00] finding that the Jews are now finding an assault and attack against them because of the lack of history and preexisting information being taught to them.

About what happened just what, 80 years ago. So,

Dr. Guy Golan: you know, Gene, my, my coauthor is a history professor and he would agree that understanding history, learning history is the most important thing to understand current events. And again, this is what our book aims to do.

Gene Valentino: Well, good. We’re down to our last few minutes.

Doctor folks, we’re talking to Dr. Guy Golan. He’s co authored the book with with his co author guy, Chet and it’s it’s a wonderful book. Give us the title of the book and where we can find a doctor.

Dr. Guy Golan: Absolutely. So I just happened to have. This book right next to me, My Brother’s Keeper, The Complicated Relationship Between American Jews and Israel by Guy Golan and Guy Chet, and everybody can find it on Amazon.

com. Order one [00:47:00] for your friends and family.

Gene Valentino: And Doctor, what’s your, how can people reach you if they’d like to add some thought and commentary? Do you have a website?

Dr. Guy Golan: My website is actually going to be built this week, but you can find me on on Twitter at Guy Golan or on TikTok and Instagram for the younger folks out there, GuyGOTV.

Gene Valentino: GuyGOTV. That’s pretty good. Thank you for joining me here today.

Dr. Guy Golan: Okay. Thank you, Gene.

Gene Valentino: Any final comments you’d like to make to our folks?

Dr. Guy Golan: God bless America. Stay optimistic.

Gene Valentino: Amen on that. God bless America and Israel. Thank you for joining us here today, sir. It’s been a pleasure. And thank all of you for joining us on another episode of of Gene Valentino’s GrassRoots TruthCast.

We’ll find you real soon. Don’t forget to subscribe. Hit that subscribe button. Go to www. genevalentino. com. Hit subscribe, and we’ll push out great episodes like this to you each and every week. Thank you again on another [00:48:00] episode of GrassRoots TruthCast.

Thanks for joining us for Gene Valentino’s GrassRoots TruthCast. Be sure to like and subscribe and God bless America.