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Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Interviews Robert Kennedy, Jr. on Israel and Anti-Semitism

(The following is a complete transcript of the interview that Rabbi Shmuley Boteach conducted with 2024 Democratic party presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, in the immediate aftermath of the latter’s mendacious comments on the Covid-19 virus and how Jews of Ashkenazic descent were not affected by it in relation to the general population)        

Rabbi Boteach: Hi, everyone. I’m in Zagreb, Croatia, where I addressed the Jewish community here in Zagreb over the Sabbath. I was very honored to do so, and especially at the Chabad House of Croatia. The community here was decimated during the Holocaust. 80% of Croatian Jews were murdered. And therefore it was such an honor to see the rebirth of Jewishness.

I don’t answer the phone on the Sabbath. I saw that my phone was exploding with messages; ding, ding, ding, over the Sabbath. I could not answer it.  When Shabbat ended about an hour ago I saw them. Obviously, I’m in the European time zone, six hours ahead of the United States of Eastern Seaboard time.

Um, I saw that the reason I was getting these messages is that my good friend Robert Kennedy Jr was quoted by various publications as allegedly saying that the Covid 19 vaccine was a bio weapon that was engineered to specifically to move away, not target Ashkenazi Jews and African-Americans. I’m sorry, Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese. And I saw that Jewish groups started condemning him as an anti-Semite yet again. The ADLm the American Jewish Congress, etc.

Now, I know Bobby Kennedy. I know he’s not an anti-Semite. I called him up immediately. I reached him. He’s on the line with me now. Bobby, let’s first and foremost, before we address this controversy, I want to talk about you and the Jewish community. I want to frame this conversation. You and I had a long conversation about Israel. The next day you came with me and you marched at the Celebrate Israel Parade in front of 50,000 people. You carried n Israeli flag that was twice your size. I’m a short guy. It was triple my size. Are you a friend of the Jewish community?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr : Yeah. I don’t think I can tell you. There’s nobody who’s running. Our president right now in either party who will be a better friend to Israel than me as president and nobody who will articulate the moral case for Israel with the same erudition or the same persuasive power as me, because I believe it in my heart. It’s them it’s core to the values that I was raised with. Israel was a key commitment of my father during his lifetime, during the lifetime of President Kennedy, to my Uncle Teddy, who played such a key role in assisting the Soviet Jewry to  leave the Soviet Union during the 1980s, to get to the United States and safe harbors and Israel, and that friendship with Israel and making the moral case for Israel.

It will be a key part of my presidency. I want to say this. I’ve watched something very disturbing in the Democratic Party. Rabbi, and in my in the generation of my children, my children are very well educated. And they went to, you know, good universities. And I see now this narrative taking place that portrays Israel as an oppressive nation and the Palestinians as the oppressed indigenous group. And  the narrative flows from that, that this is an apartheid state, etcetera.

There’s very, very little truth in the in that depiction because there’s no contact with history. There’s no context. There’s no understanding about the huge efforts that Israel has made to settle a peace and  the unprecedented efforts that Israel makes to avoid civilian casualties when its adversaries actually target civilians. You know what happened in the Jenin camp last week was truly extraordinary, where Israel, once again, with the lives of IDF forces at risk to go into dangerous areas and to bomb factories to make when they could instead do what the Russians did.

This is what the US would do under the same circumstances, which is to drop explosives so that troops would not be at risk. But the IDF does something no army in the world does, which is to go into those areas and put Israeli soldiers at risk in order to avoid civilian casualties. And this is a message that’s not getting out to the world. It’s a message that I intend as president and as a candidate during the next 18 months to try to bring the Democratic Party. Back to its traditional support of Israel and to explain to my children’s generation the historical context and the moral case for Israel.

Rabbi Boteach:  Okay. That was unbelievable what you just said. And you’re right, the world did not focus on it. Israel went in to Jenin. They didn’t use drones as well as one of the most technologically sophisticated military in the world. And they neutralized, at least temporarily, a terrorist threat. And they only killed 12 militants, which is aka terrorists and no civilians.

So, thank you for saying that, Bobby. So you’re a defender of Israel. You’re a champion of Israel. You wrote an incredible article in the Jewish Journal about why you support Israel. You marched at the Israel Day parade, but most importantly for American Jewry, with Iran threatening a genocide of the Jewish people you actually came out publicly recently against President Biden’s new plan for an Iran deal where he’s already had Iraq release $2.5 billion to Iran. It’ll be used to murder people. They are terrorists. They slaughter their own women for not wearing hijab, for not covering their head. They hang LGBTQ Iranians from cranes in public squares. You came out against that Iran deal and Iran threatens Israel and the Jewish people with a second Holocaust with destruction and annihilation.

RFK, Jr: And let me say one other thing. You mentioned LGBTQ. Two weeks ago there was a parade, a pride parade in Israel with 150,000 people in it. And at the same time, you know, this year we see the Iranian government right next door hanging gays from cherry pickers in public squares. If you’re a woman, if you’re a gay and if you’re a Palestinian, you have much more rights in Israel than you do in any of the neighboring countries. If you’re a Palestinian and you are a dissident, you want to criticize your government, the best place to do that, the safest place to do that in the Mideast is in Israel. So Israel is not a perfect democracy any more than America is a perfect democracy. Israel has to cope with something that no other democracy has to cope with, which is being surrounded by hostile territories, by hostile people who have pledged themselves to the genocide of the Jewish people. The huge difference between the way Israel conducts itself as civilized and the moral case for Israel is the way it conducts itself in wartime; always targeting military targets when it’s surrounded by enemies who have pledged themselves to consistently target civilians, just people who are happen to be Jewish, as legitimate military targets. And in fact, Hamas compensates people for killing Jewish civilians. That’s something. And yet, despite all of these terrible, terrible security threats, which would turn any other nation into a totalitarian regime, Israel has steadfastly preserved itself as this oasis of democracy, of compassion in the midst of a sea of totalitarianism and tyranny.

So, you know, that’s something that is a portrait that is true, that is accurate and that the world needs to know about.

Rabbi Boteach:  Well, those powerful words that you’re saying, of course, echo the incredible legacy of your father, who was one of Israel’s greatest champions. He was murdered by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian, because of his support for Israel. Sirhan Sirhan had a list of leading American personalities from Bobby Kennedy. Arthur Goldberg, the American ambassador to the UN under Lyndon Johnson, was next on that list. He was a former Supreme Court justice as well. So, we know the price that your family has paid for support for Israel. Let me just move on for a moment.

So, here you are articulating incredible support for Israel. You’re polling at about 20% or higher, 23% in some polls in the Democratic primary. This is a party that has been seen of late. It was once the greatest champions of Israel, like your uncle who moved away from the Republican policies of President Eisenhower, who kind of was. Dwight David Eisenhower, was kind of shocking in that he had witnessed the decimation of Jews in the Second World War. He led so ably. And he actually went to the concentration camps and he ordered American photographers from the military to take pictures. And yet when it came to Israel, he was barely a supporter.

He put phenomenal pressure on Israel in 1956 to withdraw from the Sinai campaign. Your uncle reversed all that. Your uncle began to establish the American relationship with Israel following President Truman. Then you, of course, had your father running in 1968, cut down by an assassin’s bullet of Palestinian gunmen and the Democratic Party. Scoop Jackson, your  uncle, Teddy Kennedy, are kind of moving away from that, at least as seen by the American Jewish community. And we have people like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Ilhan Omar just announced that she won’t even go to the speech by the president of the United States, by the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, this coming Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. Isaac Herzog was the leader of a left of center party for many years. He’s seen as  left of center. Of course, he’s not partisan as president, but he was always was a left of center politician. I know him. He’s a very decent man.

Ilhan Omar has already announced that she’s not going. And these are leading lights of the Democratic Party today, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, who are openly anti-Semitic. I mean, do you want to address that for a moment, please?

RFK Jr: And by the way, I know you don’t believe and I don’t believe that criticizing Israel makes somebody anti-Semitic. But I’ll tell you what does make you anti- Semitic. If you’re criticizing Israel and using a different standard to judge other governments and other people. And that is revealing of,  you know, of something insidious. And  unfortunately, the individuals that you talk about do that. They use a different standard for Israel than they do to judge the neighboring countries and to judge almost any country in the world. So that is not an unbiased view. That is a biased view. And that bias is called bigotry.

Rabbi Boteach:   Bigotry and anti-Semitism. That’s an anti-Semitic standard where you judge as well, not just by a different standard, but by an impossible standard, almost as if Israel should never even protect its citizens from 10,000 rockets from Hamas, etc.

Okay. Thank you, Bobby. Now let’s go. So I want you to frame your words, because when I listen, every presidential candidate is going to say something that’s misunderstood or that they’re going to regret or there is no microscope like a presidential candidacy. Your uncle knew that. Your father knew that. Your father paid the biggest price for a presidential candidacy. So every candidate has things that they’ve said in the past that they say. Now, what bothers me about the attacks, including from my own community on you, is that they’re not framed in the context of the phenomenal support you’ve shown for our people, especially of late, because you’re the only major Democratic candidate, only major Democratic political figure, by the way, who has come out against the new Iran deal, which represents, again, an attempt at genocide of the Jewish people.

Iran is a genocidal regime against the state of Israel. So now let’s go to this most recent comment. So you’re having dinner in New York and it was supposed to be Chatham House rules, which we know is never obeyed in a presidential campaign.

Okay. So be it. Everyone knows your anti -vaccine skepticism. It’s not one that I share. One of the things I so like and respect about you is that we can disagree without being disagreeable. You are the only major presidential candidate I know that doesn’t ask someone to join a team. You’re not asking people to join your team. Kennedy, agree with everything that I say or we can’t be friends. We can’t. To the contrary, I’ve never seen you being anything but a gentleman. I’ve never seen you strike back at your opponents in any low way that is not factual or that is ad hominem. You maintain standards of decorum and dignity that elevates presidential politics, even if people disagree with you. And if even people say Bobby Kennedy is engaging in conspiratorial politics, the point is you never personalize it. So here you are speaking at a dinner and you say that I watched the video that there was a manufacturing of bio-weapons going on and Covid 19, according to a study I think in the Cleveland Clinic, affected Ashkenazi Jews less and the Chinese less.

RFK Jr:  You know, let me just put it in context. We were talking in the context of the threat of these billions of dollars in bio weapons development that is now going on in the largest countries in the world, particularly the United States, China and Russia, and the need to regulate that, the need to resuscitate the bio weapons charter, which we signed in 1973 and the Geneva Convention that forbade a lot of that research earlier on. And for a variety of historical reasons, are no longer complied with by these nations. And that’s because of synthetic biology and genetic manipulation. There’s a whole new retinue and generation of bio weapons. Among the worst of those are bio weapons that target ethnicities. And we all know that that is horrifically dangerous because throughout history, certain powerful people have tried to destroy races of certain ethnicities, and these bio weapons will actually give them the power to do that.

So, they have to be controlled. No other presidential candidate is talking about that. During that discussion, I pointed to the fact that these scientists from the Cleveland Clinic writing in one of the highest gravitas journals in the world, published a study that showed that certain ethnicities were more susceptible to to Covid-19 and certain ethnicities were less susceptible to it. Among the least susceptible were Chinese, ethnic Chinese. There were also Finns, are the least of all people, people from Finland. And on that list are also Ashkenazi Jews. The most susceptible include African people of African descent and Caucasians. This is not a controversial study.

Nobody has suggested that these were deliberately engineered changes. And I certainly don’t  believe that they were deliberately engineered. But what they are is kind of a proof of the concept that you can develop bio weapons that will attack certain ethnicities. And this should be terrifying to all of us. And we really need this to be an object of discussion. What was done to me, you know, during this and I’m not complaining because, you know, I don’t complain, but it’s an interesting phenomenon that I was targeted in a way that we call targeted propaganda for many, many years. I’ve been censored on the issues that I want to talk about. This is a new. Height of censorship. Now everybody has to let me talk because I’m running for president. There’s a new kind of censorship called targeted propaganda that is  designed to make me look unpalatable, unhinged, crazy, a crank, a conspiracy theorist. And it’s something that all of us really need to combat because we need, as you say, as you always say, Rabbi Shmuley. We need an open, congenial, respectful discussion in this country. We need to be able to talk about issues without being targeted, without being subject to marginalization, vilification, gas lighting and ad hominem attacks.

We need actually to have a conversation. And that conversation has to begin with an agreed upon reality. And usually that means when it comes to the scientific realm, peer reviewed science. So that study is important. It’s important to talk about and we should not be targeted for talking about it.

Rabbi Boteach:  Well, let’s just unpack this and take a step back for a moment. First of all, in our first conversation, we met at my home in New York City for Shabbat. We had a very in-depth conversation. I was very impressed. I didn’t know what to expect. You’re someone who backs his statements up with a lot of factual knowledge. I started reading your books. I’m amazed that you can write these books without researchers. Your book, American Values, is probably the best. I’ve read countless histories of the Kennedy family. Who hasn’t? It’s the best history of the Kennedy family and your command of events and facts. I mean, your father died when you were 14 years old and your memories of him are so vivid. It really left, a lot of it left me in tears. Okay, I told you, I’m quintuple vaxxed with the Covid-19 vaccine. And Bobby, I like you very much. I’ve really come to respect you. And, like, I wouldn’t be up at 1:00 in the morning in Zagreb if that wasn’t the case. I think you’re a phenomenal friend of my people. I think you’re a phenomenal friend of the state of Israel, America’s foremost ally. Um, but, you know, no matter how much I respect you and like you, if they announce there’s another vaccine available for Covid 19, the next installment, I’m going to take it.

I believe in the vaccines. I respect your right to totally disagree with them. But there’s so much about what you’re saying about America that is even more important to me, which is why I’ve really been interested in what you have to say about empowering the individual America no longer being corrupted by corporate interests, government control. I mean, the lockdowns. You were completely right about, I mean, the idea that the government I mean, I watched countries like my wife’s country, my wife’s now American, of course, but Australia just went off the rails.

You’re just talking about insanity that gripped the many nations. So a lot of what you were saying was extremely important, even from my perspective, where we disagree on the vaccines. But now, let’s go to this particular comment about about bio weapons. Of course, it’s important that you bring this up because there’s so much that governments are doing that needs to be held accountable for.

Listen, if there weren’t a lot of skepticism about the integrity of governments, your candidacy would not be polling at a quarter of the Democratic Party If there wasn’t a lot of skepticism about the actions of governments. Then we wouldn’t see every other series on Netflix and Amazon Prime basically saying that the CIA is corrupt and the FBI is corrupt.

And most Americans today would kind of be on both sides of the aisle, would kind of question, you know, the FBI in particular. And, okay, so we know that that’s going on. Your father spoke a lot about the corruption and in oral histories that were only published after his death. Your father spoke a lot about the corruption of J. Edgar Hoover at the time. The African-American community especially knows about the corruption of of the FBI at the time and perhaps since. But the Ashkenazi Jewish community was decimated by Covid.  Bobby, I know it was decimated. I’m half Ashkenazi. I’m half Sephardi. I’m Ash Cafardi. My father is an Iranian Jew. My mother is a Lithuanian, Polish Jew. And so I guess I can have it by the Covid vaccine? Half, not it. But  in all seriousness, the Hasidic communities of New York City were pulverized by Covid. So, it doesn’t even seem that this is true, that Ashkenazi Jews were more immune. I know so many Ashkenazi Jews who died during Covid. My brother almost died during Covid. He was in the ICU at Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami. So this just doesn’t seem to be borne out by fact, certainly by empirical fact.

RFK, Jr:  Well, you may be right. And, you know, I know I have a lot of friends who are Ashkenazi Jews who had were devastated personally by Covid. So you may be right. All I’m doing, I’m not, you know, vouching for whether that science bears up one way or another. And there may be many, many other factors what this study shows. Is that the port, the docking port, which is called the Furin cleavage site, is more compatible with docking with the ace2 receptors in the lungs of black people and Caucasians than it is other races.

And it is least compatible among the two with ethnic Chinese. And that’s all. But you know, whether there’s other factors that may make those populations more vulnerable, I don’t know. And I can’t explain all. I know this is a peer reviewed study by prominent scientists, the most prominent scientists in America in one of the top ten high gravitas journals in the country. And it’s worth referring to. You can argue about it. That’s the whole point.

Rabbi Boteach:  You said and you said it was published where?

RFK, Jr : It’s published in BMC Medical, which is ranked as one of the top ten most important journals in America, along with BMJ, the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet. Etc and Jama. Okay.

Rabbi Boteach:   But I know for a fact that in New York City, there were actual reports from the Departments of Health that life expectancy among Ashkenazi Jews during Covid actually went down for the first time in American history because of how decimated they were being by Covid 19. Okay. So maybe there’s several, but so what. So let me explain. Why did the Jewish community take such umbrage? Remember, I’m just finding about this right now. I’m Sabbath observant. Shabbat just ended in Zagreb. Even as you and I record this, most of the Jews in the United States are the ones who are Sabbath observing and can’t watch this or listen to it yet. So why was the Jewish community so. flabbergasted by what was reported that you had said. Because. Because let me just explain this for a moment, please, because we’ve been, of course, falsely accused throughout history of poisoning the wells of Europe and creating the black death. Here. I am in Europe talking about this. The Black Death took at least one third of all of Europe’s population. The Jews died at the same rate as everybody else.

But Christian anti-Semites, other anti-Semites came along and said the Jews are poisoning the wells. We were drinking the same water. And by the way, how many Jews were there in Europe to poison all the wells of Europe? The Black Death was the greatest plague, probably, you know, known to humankind.

So when we hear about this and Bobby, in light of the growth of anti- Semitism throughout the world in general and the United States in particular, where we Jews faced a lot of anti-Semitism in American history, we faced it, you know, from legacy universities where there were quotas from, I don’t know, all these clubs that didn’t let us in, but we never really experienced the kind of overt attacks that our African-American brothers and sisters experienced.

We were never enslaved, which was the great American abomination of American history, the enslavement of our black brothers and sisters. Jim Crow, which your uncle and your father, your father especially fought against as the attorney general. But what we were accused of throughout European history is trying to kill other people, using diseases. And this is very insidious. So when you said this, I think you may not be fully aware of how this strikes such a terrifying chord among us Jews that we would be falsely accused of helping, or that your words could be misconstrued as the Jews participated in some effort to create a bio weapon that would affect blacks and not Jews. That’s how this was being seen by people. So you should address that, please.

RFK, Jr : Well, yeah, and I understand that. I understand the history of blood libel. I also understand that that there were Jews lynched in this country. Leo Frank is one of them, I think in Alabama. And Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were.

Rabbi Boteach:  Of course, well said. Well said. And so Schwerner is buried in New York City. We actually did a prayer vigil at his at his grave once. Yes. They were murdered by the Klan for promoting black voting rights, 1964, Mississippi.

RFK, Jr : Mississippi. And so they did bear the ultimate price in this country. And I understand the history of the blood libel. And I understand, you know, that history. So I can see why this could be twisted and perverted by people who want to silence me in order to make people of Jewish descent or Jews concerned about my sanity and my, you know, and my thinking. So,  I think that’s what we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with, you know, what I said.

Anybody who and you can go listen to the tape of what I said, I don’t think anybody would find it offensive or the least bit threatening. But the way it was twisted initially by The New York Post and then picked up by the rest of the legacy media, completely changed the context and distorted my words and distorted the meaning and applied meaning of what I said that I never intended and that, you know, I never I would have never said it in my life. I would have never said anything like that.

Rabbi Boteach:  Um, we’re going to start wrapping this up. Look, Bobby. Um, I wanted to do this video. I called you right when Shabbat ended here in Zagreb. As usual. You took my call. Thank you very much. And you’re fighting to be president? It’s busy. Um, I told you that. What? I told you that two things bothered me about the reports I had read about what you had said at that dinner on the Upper East Side. I said, number one again, this perception that you’re anti-Semitic. I know you’re not. In fact, I know precisely the opposite is true.

I know that you are that in your heart, you feel a great closeness to the Jewish people, to the Jewish community and to Israel. And the second thing that bothered me is that you’re being portrayed as as, as you said before, a crank as a loony tune. I’ve read your books, people who don’t like your policies. And I want to be clear, I disagree with you on many things. I disagree with you on Ukraine. I disagree with you on the vaccines. I took my young children to be vaccinated as soon as people under whatever it was, 16 were allowed to be vaccinated. We disagree on many things, but you’re brilliant. You know your facts. You write brilliant books. You’re a compelling writer. I love that you’re devoted to your friends and your family. You and I disagreed sharply on the legacy of your grandfather, Joseph Kennedy, Senior, who many in the Jewish community, including myself. Do and did perceive to be anti-Semitic. You explained to me the case for Joseph Kennedy, your grandfather.

 

I liked that you were standing up for your grandfather, even if we disagreed on the facts. But then you said something to me that was very compelling.

You basically said, you know, Shmuley, you can dislike Joseph Kennedy. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy. But when a man has nine children and virtually all of them live lives that are dedicated to the public good. Your Aunt Eunice, who started the the the the Special Olympics, which is why one of the most moving things. Your uncle who was murdered as president of the United States, your father, who was one of the greatest Americans that ever lived. A truly I’ve always loved the memory of Bobby Kennedy. Well, before you and I met devoured every speech he’s given, read everything about him. Bobby Kennedy was one of the great Americans who ever lived. You said to me, when a man has children who devote themselves to the public good, not just to making money, not then there must have been good in him and how he raised him. That’s a very compelling argument. You know how to do that. You know how to take even controversial things about your family. The most famous political dynasty in American history and present it in a way where you get people to think twice. I really believe that it’s time that you did that with yourself as well. Because when I because I know you, I know your daughter kick didn’t really know you. You and I had met at a dinner, but then you wrote this thing praising Roger Waters.

Roger Waters is a dyed in the wool anti-Semite. And it upset me. And I attacked you for it online. To your credit, friends of yours got in touch and said you and I should meet, and maybe you wouldn’t want to meet me after how hard I came after you. Because I’m kind of fed up with people, you know, praising those like Roger Waters. And you flew all the way to New York. You and I met, and you explained to me I never. I know Roger Waters is a guy who opposed the Covid 19 lockdowns and Pink Floyd. I had no idea about what he said about Israel. I believe you. Most people don’t, because we in the community don’t do enough to kind of expose how these people leverage their celebrity in order to promote a hate agenda. Roger Waters doesn’t hate Israel. He hates Jews. He flies pigs with ovens on it.

At his concerts, he dressed up as an SS officer. He’s being investigated by the German police, not by the state of Israel or by the by by the Jews. Anyway, we had an amazing conversation. I found you to be humble, informed, open minded. I stated to you exactly how much we disagree, and yet you were so incredibly agreeable. So I guess there’s two things about that bother me about this story.

Number one, the false impression that you are anything but a friend of the Jewish people. And number two, that you’re a stupid man. That really bothers me because your biggest critics, if they were to read your books and I don’t agree with a lot of the conspiracy things, I don’t.

But to say that the sum total of who you are is absurd. You have fought for a clean environment your entire life. We live near the Hudson River. I can’t. I love rivers. I can’t believe that in the summer when it’s super hot, I can’t go out on a kayak on the Hudson. You got it cleaned up. You. You fought for a world and you’ve transcended climate as a as a as a political football. You just cared that the world that we live in should not be exploited by these greedy special interests. And those who don’t know. You don’t realize that that’s why you have such a strong following. I don’t know if the vaccines cause autism. The scientists majority, I think, say it doesn’t. And I kind of follow their lead. But I will tell you, I’ve met a lot of your supporters who have autistic children who explain to me the reason we support Bobby is that he at least is presented a different perspective which has been heard. And what I want to see most in the United States right now is, is candidacies that allow people to come together amidst serious disagreement. I don’t want to have to choose between the conservative position and the liberal position. You are building bridges that allow people who disagree with you to come under that umbrella. I respect that. And that’s why we’re having this conversation. And I want to state that emphatically. I am sick and tired of being told, Shmuley, if you’re not fully on board on Trump train, get the hell off.

If you’re not fully on board with Biden train, get the hell off. I have a brain and I don’t think that a brain is a political liability. I believe that I can listen to Bobby Kennedy and make my own decisions. People can watch this interview and see if Bobby Kennedy said something anti-Semitic the other night or if he said something that was cited from a journal and he explained it, and you’ll make that decision. But that’s why I respect our friendship and that’s why I respect you that you would jump on a Zoom call like this 15 minutes after this story broke, right after Shabbat is over to have this conversation with me. There was no planning in this conversation.

I didn’t tell you what I was going to ask you, and I respect your right to address it. And I thank you very much for being a friend of the community and for standing up strong Israel. And I hope that you’ll continue that, Bobby, because we cannot watch the Democratic Party abandon Israel. Israel is not, as I said to you, the just the eternal home of the Jewish people. Israel is the great Arab hope. We want our Arab brothers. This is our Palestinian brothers and sisters to have Israeli style freedoms right to congregate. Freedom of conscience. Freedom of worship, freedom of complete sexual orientation, expression, etcetera, etcetera. So if you want to just comment on that, then we can close up. But I’m very grateful.

RFK, Jr : I have not I have nothing to say but agree with you. Like I say, you know, I say anybody who sees the history of Israel knows who understands what really happened, that Israel has done everything that it possibly can to bring peace to that region, to bring peace and justice to the Palestinian people who live in Israel and along its borders. And this is an absolute oasis of freedom, as you say, religious freedom. There’s no other there’s no place else in the Mideast that has religious freedom. Which would do you Palestinians serve in government. They serve on the Supreme Court in Israel. What other country in the Middle East can you say that a Jew would serve on the Supreme Court? It doesn’t exist. And, you know, and we need to start telling the truth about Israel. We need to tell it to our children and we need to bring the Democratic Party back to its tradition of being the supporter of Israel, the supporter of freedom, the supporter of democracy. And that’s what I intend to do as president. And I’m so grateful for your friendship, Rabbi Shmuley. And I will see you when you get back to the United States.

 

 

 

Rabbi Boteach:   Well, we have an event, God willing, on  July 25th in New York City, where people will be able to hear from you directly about your positions on Israel and the Jewish community. And I’m grateful for your doing that as well. You’re going to be doing a Fox News town hall with thousands of people. And from there, you’re going to leave that event with Sean Hannity and you’re going to be coming to our event about Israel. And you’ll be meeting Jewish communal leaders and the national Jewish leadership. But thank you, Bobby. And God bless you. And look, you know, all I can say is you’re very, very smart. You’re very well read. You know they’re going to come after you. I guess we all have to. Be cognizant that this culture of cancellation is out there. But I think the more you say openly that people can disagree with you and still buy into your core message of empowering the American individual, there are there are out of control corporate interests, there are out of control. And  even those people who disagree with you on the vaccines and there are many that agree with you on the lockdowns because the idea that we have any rights that can be taken away summarily, unilaterally and we there’s nothing we can do about it was kind of shocking. I think people are still shocked till this very day. So, Bobby, good luck and God bless you and look forward to seeing you when I get back as well. Thank you.