Why are the People of the Book Struggling to Tell a Story?
More than anything else, the Jewish people have given the world its stories of heroes and nations, prophets, and even God. So why are we doing so poorly in the narrative war today? How does a culture known for its words fail to tell its story to the world? Watch now as our panelists explore what hinders Jewish messaging and what new approaches might help ensure our narratives are heard, understood, and valued.
About Our Moderator & Panelists:
Amy Albertson is a Jewish advocate, educator, and influencer from California who is proudly and loudly uplifting Jewish diversity, reclaiming Zionism and fighting antisemitism through social media content, public speaking, consulting, and more. She has been an active voice in the Jewish community for over a decade, since her days as the President of Hillel and Co-Founder of the Israel group on campus at Portland State University. In 2015 she made Aliyah, where she created "The Asian Israeli," where she cataloged her experiences as a Chinese-American Jewish woman. Amy is the recipient of the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO) Warrior for Israel Award and was named as one of Hadassah Magazine's "18 American Zionist Women You Should Know" in 2023. She has been published in The Times of Israel, Hey Alma, and the Jewish Journal, as well as being featured in the Jerusalem Post, the Algemeiner, JTA and on numerous podcasts.
Emma Goss is a Staff Reporter, at J. The Jewish News of Northern California. In the wake of Oct. 7, her reporting has focused on the most challenging issues facing Northern California's Jewish communities in the wake of Oct. 7. In January 2024, Emma broke the news that dozens of Jewish Oakland families were applying to leave their school district over safety concerns. The story went viral on X, and widely covered across local media. It was also cited in a federal investigation. Emma became a staff writer for J. in Oct. 2021 and won a Simon Rockower award in 2023 for her cover story about the lack of accessible residential housing for Jewish adults with special needs.
Eylon Levy is a co-founder of the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office and host of the State of a Nation podcast. He served as an Israeli Government Spokesman in the October 7 War with Hamas, becoming one of the leading voices for Israel. He previously served as the international media advisor President Isaac Herzog after a career as a TV news anchor. Born and raised in the UK, he studied at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge before making Aliyah and serving in the IDF.
Marnie Black spent 30+ years developing and implementing innovative, strategic, brand-building and business-impacting public relations and marketing communications plans for media and consumer lifestyle companies and was the mastermind behind countless high-profile and award-winning campaigns for groundbreaking and iconic shows including “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “The Walking Dead,” “Total Request Live” (TRL), “Real World,” “Jackass,” and “The Osbournes.” 10/7 was a wakeup call for Marnie. In mid-2024, Marnie made a choice to leave the media & entertainment business and use her expertise building narratives and protecting reputations in service to the Jewish people. She partnered with well-known, former advertising guru, Gary Wexler, and the two formed GJCA (Global Jewish Communications Alliance). Marnie and Gary assembled 50 world class marketers who have shifted attitudes and behaviors for hundreds of global brands and who are all passionate Jews & Zionists. GJCA has been working quietly, behind-the-scenes to build a long-term strategic plan to change the narrative for Jews and decrease antisemitism over time.
Video Transcript
Emma Goss: I'm Emma Goss. I am a reporter. Both I write for the J, the Jewish News of Northern California, as well as you'll see me sometimes on TV. I'm a freelancer at NBC Bay Area, but I've been covering the most important and horrifying issues facing our Jewish community locally for years. But really since October 7th, I've been drilling down into college campuses on the site of different protests.
And I've really We've seen a lot in terms of the K 12 schools, and more broadly, across the Bay Area, different acts of antisemitism and anti Zionism. And joining me on this amazing panel, it's a media panel, we're going to be talking about not only the Israel Hamas war, but the disinformation war we're facing here at home.
Here we have Amy Albertson, a phenomenal Jewish educator and advocate. She's also incredible on social media as an influencer, you should follow her on Instagram. We have Eylon Levy, who you heard from in the morning plenary. He is, yes, big round of applause for Eylon. He's the co- founder of the Israeli citizens spokesperson's office.
You're also the podcast host of State of a Nation, and we're going to go deeper into everyone's backgrounds of what we've done since October 7th, a little bit later. And next to him, we have Marnie Black, who has decades of experience in PR and crisis communications, 13 years at AMC, and she is now the founder and CEO of the Global Jewish Communications Alliance.
So we've brought everyone here today to talk about How we tell the story of the Jewish people, the story of American diaspora Jewry, of Israeli Jewry, of Israel, of Zionism, and what has gone so terribly wrong in telling our story, and how we can make a change, how we can get it back on track, how we can not be defined by how others are defining us, but really own our story and tell it well.
And so the first question I want to pose for everyone here is, Have we historically, in context, have we been good at telling our story in the past? Have we had high points? Have there been good things that we've done to articulate to our children, to younger generations, to allies, to people outside of the Jewish community, who we are, what it means to be a Zionist or a proud Jew?
Have we done a good job of that? And when did it start to unravel? Because I have a hunch that it wasn't October 7th. It might have been before then. Who wants to start?
Marnie Black: With an easy question. So I think as a people, we're really great storytellers. We've had long histories of telling some of the greatest stories from The Torah through the through Hollywood.
We were, great storytellers in Hollywood. I don't think that it's so much about our ability to tell stories. I think it's we've lost how to tell our stories in the best ways and the best processes and letting ourselves be data led and using technology. We've just forgotten to do all of these things over the last couple of years last couple of years.
Oh, I would say no the last couple of decades Okay
Eylon Levy: First of all, I'm glad to be your token man on the panel Providing a little bit of gender diversity here.
Emma Goss: Yeah. Thank you
Eylon Levy: Marnie's right. The Jews are great storytellers, but the emphasis is on stories. We have never been a people with a single defining story.
It's not like it's only in the last few years that suddenly it's become difficult to get Jews on one page about what the story is. Because even when the rabbis all those thousands of years ago managed to canonize the Bible and say, Okay, this is our story. Then we started canonizing all the fan fiction as well in the form of all the midrashim.
And we have competing interpretations and stories upon stories. We've never had a single overriding narrative. The narrative that we have now of Zionism, of the Jewish people returning to their ancient homeland and claiming their independence. Zionism was not a majority opinion within the Jewish world until the Second World War.
And then something happened that showed us the importance of having our own independent state and that we should have had it before. But there were always competing narratives. competing narratives between Zionism and other Jewish self survival strategies, and within the Zionist movement as well. It's not like Israelis all have a single story about what the country is.
For some people, Israel is the formation of a model society of workers and class solidarity, the kibbutz movement, which is completely different from the story that the older Orthodox tell about creating a society of scholars. Every community has its different stories. And part of the difficulty of then telling our story to the world is to say, Okay, let's put a pause on the internal competition of stories that we have and to project outwards a story that we can all agree on.
I think that October 7th is a watershed moment that gives us an opportunity to get on the same page and tell a story out of the collective experience that we've had. I Filmed an episode of my podcast recently with Brianna Wu Who is one of the most vocal advocates for israel online. She's not Jewish.
She's transgender And she gets a lot of flack within the progressive community. And she told me, we haven't aired the episode yet. She said, I think that Zionism is the perfect antidote to toxic identity politics. It was a good line. She said, in a world in which minorities are being told that there is a competition of victimhood.
And the more you show that you are suffering and you've been the hardest done by the more virtue you have To take a movement that says we're about taking responsibility for our fate and putting that in our own hands and not Wallowing in the past but taking responsibility for our fate and climbing out of those problems That is the most powerful story that you can tell and inspire others as well.
So we mustn't allow ourselves this was a point that Adela who gave the amazing keynote speech earlier we were talking about yesterday she said part of our problem is that we end up slipping into the stories that other people are telling about us. They're telling a story about oppression and colonization.
So we start telling a story, how we were oppressed and, colonization. But instead of slipping into those stories that other people are writing for us and trying to recast the characters we're playing, it's about claiming that narrative. Reclaiming the narrative. A people who climb out of the rubble.
And take their fate in their own hands and don't take no for an answer and I think after October 7th We have an opportunity to make that our defining narrative
Amy Albertson: so glad I get to follow alon Yeah But I think to just add on to that. I agree with everything that Both of them said, I think it's this aspect of proactivity versus reactivity. As Eylon just pointed out, October 7th was a watershed moment for a lot of the Jewish community. And I know so many Jews who now want to tell their Jewish story, want to learn their Jewish story that they didn't even learn before.
But it shouldn't have taken October 7th, one of the most horrific events to our people, to happen. And I think that's a pattern that I've seen, I haven't been around for that many decades, so I can't speak to so many decades. But in the decades that I have been around, in the time that I've been in this work, whether it was on campus, or it's on social media, or it's working in Jewish organizations, we tend to be very reactive.
And then we're already behind. And that goes from the grassroots of, You as a, just a regular lay Jewish person owning your identity, being proactive about it, I get messages from people that say because of you, I felt empowered to go to work and tell them, I want to talk to my company about a Jewish holiday.
Why didn't you want to talk to your company about that Jewish holiday before? Why didn't you want anyone to know that you celebrate Passover and not Easter or Hanukkah and not Christmas? And so I think this is also something that we really need to work on is through this moment getting through this post October 7th moment with sadly we're still in, but we need to keep pushing forward and not just stop when it's over.
We have to keep going and be that proactive These proactive storytellers and putting our stories out there, not in reaction to what people are saying about us, but what do we want to say about ourselves? Thank you
Emma Goss: all so much.
Amy Albertson: Round
Emma Goss: of applause. Since October 7th, all of us professionally have stepped into new roles, really confronting The war on the front lines, especially when it comes to disinformation and how we get the story out accurately, fairly, and strongly.
And I wanted to start with Eylon, how, what role changed for you professionally? It was a big one. Tell us about what happened at October 7th.
Eylon Levy: If we're on the subject of stories, who wants to hear a funny story? When October 7th happened, I was not a government spokesman. I was not involved with the Israeli government.
The closest I came to the Israeli government was to protest against it every Saturday night with half of the country on the streets in Tel Aviv. If you had told me that in a few months I would find myself going on TV as a government spokesman, I would have asked you, When are the elections? It would have been completely unthinkable.
Completely unthinkable. But then the unthinkable happened. We were invaded. A terrorist army invaded by air, land, and sea. Slaughtered 1200 people. Abducted over 250. Including children in their pajamas. And everyone had to drop everything. And ask, what can I do to contribute to the war effort now? And we saw that mobilization in the diaspora as well.
Day three of the war, I said, I can do interviews. I have a background in television. I was the president's foreign media advisor. So I took a stack of books, put them on the living room table, put my laptop on top, took the bottle of protein powder. Haven't been to the gym since the war started, as you can see.
Put it behind the laptop, put a lamp on top, took a picture, tweeted saying, hello, I'm a former advisor to the president and I'm available to give interviews about what's happening in Israel. That was day three, four, and five of the war. Day six, I get a phone call from the publisher of Netanyahu's autobiography.
He says, Otemsela. He says, Eylon, the prime minister's office doesn't have a foreign media department.
So I'm setting one up. I'm building a team of civilians. We're going to build A civilian volunteer operation that will give back up to the Prime Minister doing foreign media. Are you in? I said, Rotim, you know I was protesting against the government last week. He said, I know, but I don't care. We're under attack.
I said, good, I know. I don't care either. Let's do it. So on the Friday after the war started, I went to the Kiryat, the defense headquarters in Tel Aviv, and there was Ambassador Mark Kragev, one of my idols. Former spokesman to the Prime Minister, ambassador to London. He said, Eylon, I'm so glad to see you.
We're drowning in requests for interviews. I want you to watch a few of my interviews and from tomorrow you're on your own. I said, what do you mean? He said, giving interviews on TV. I said, in what capacity? He paused and said, an Israeli government spokesman. Let's go with that. And so it was. That a week into the war, I put on a suit and tie, went on TV, and with a straight face, called myself a government spokesman, making the case for Israel on international television.
And it is an only in Israel moment.
Emma Goss: Wow, that's incredible. And it doesn't end there.
Eylon Levy: It's an only in Israel moment that tells you the worst of how the country works, because sometimes it's completely unprepared. But also the best. That in times of crisis Israelis know how to be flexible, to be creative, to give responsibility to young people and say I trust you, just go do your thing.
Obviously we have lessons to learn how to avoid the next, going into the next crisis unprepared. But that was the very surreal story of how an anti government protester became a government spokesman in the space of a week.
Emma Goss: All right, Amy I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but you have an incredible story, too. You lived in Israel for six years. It was 2019, no, it goes way before that. Go tell your story. How did you live in Israel and then how did you become such an important force on social media for telling our story?
Amy Albertson: That's a very long story, so I'll try to give a short version. I actually started as an activist on my college campus. Longer ago than you think, because although I'm young, I am older than I look. And I went to Portland State University, and there was no Israel group. There was only a Jewish group, right?
We had Hillel, and at the time, Hillel didn't want to touch Israel. And even though I had yet to know the severity of the polarization the sort of, Problems with this conflict, especially on a college campus. I didn't think that was good enough. And I started an Israel group. It still exists today.
I'm very proud of that. Fast forward and I made Aliya. Yeah, so I ended up making Aliyah in 2015 after I did a Masa program and I. Yeah, I lived in Israel for six years, three years in Jerusalem and three years in Tel Aviv and I always was just, I'm a millennial. I grew up with social media so I would talk about my life on social media and people told me, Amy, you have such an important voice, your experience is so interesting, you're so good at talking about it.
So one day, literally on Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv, my best friend who's a photographer and I decided to go do my first social media photo shoot. At the time, there were no videos on Instagram and I created the Asian Israeli, which was my first. And it was very much more fun, I guess you could say, than what we do now, which was a lot of lifestyle.
This is what life is like in Israel. This is the food we eat. These are the people. This is the beach. Look at all the beautiful men on the beach.
And Eventually, long story short, during COVID, I ended up moving back to the United States. And in May of 2021, we saw our last, in the last war, I saw this very palpable shift on social media, in particular of such huge waves of disinformation, of antisemitism, the plot. It was just a very different, it always had existed, but it was.
It's just a huge wave, and that's when I switched to the advocacy that I do now. Oddly enough, I was going to retire a month before October 7th. I had just gotten married. I was, thank you I hadn't posted in a month, and October 7th happened, and I hopped on my phone. I hopped on a briefing with someone from the government about what was happening, and it's been full speed ahead ever since.
Emma Goss: Real quick, before we go to Marnie, is it hard to be on social media? Are you getting a lot of backlash? Do people enter your DMs and your comments spewing hate? Or what's that
Amy Albertson: so I'm, I don't know, I mean I'm not in other people's inboxes. I think I don't get as much as other people. But yeah, I definitely do get a lot of things.
But I am very lucky that I mostly get Positive messages from other Jewish people or allies who are saying thank you or asking me questions for help and these kinds of things. But I will say, and this is a hard truth for people to swallow, that before October 7th, I actually got a lot more negative messages from fellow Jews delegitimizing my Judaism than I got from anti Semites.
Post October 7th, that changed. I think people, saw that none of that really mattered anymore, and I'm Jewish enough for them. And now I get more messages from anti Semites. Wow.
Emma Goss: Wow. Wow. Marnie, you had a real career pivot. You had 13 years at AMC, I was reading your bio, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, like the grou some shows that I just love, we all love.
And then, what do you do now?
Marnie Black: Yeah, sure. So I spent 32 years heading communications for various global media companies. A lot of crisis communications, but also creating some of the best moments in entertainment history. And my dad was born in a displaced persons camp after World War II. Both of his parents were survivors.
Both lost their entire families and started anew and had him and his brother. for your time. Sure. And something, post October 7th just totally hit me like a truck and I was not finding meaning and purpose and fulfillment going and promoting the latest film and television shows of the week.
And I met a phenomenal guy named Gary Wexler who has been writing a lot of articles over the last year and his first article called Why We're Losing the Communications War really, Touched me. He and I met. We decided to partner and we've assembled some of the greatest advertising, marketing and communications people I've ever worked with in my entire career to buckle down and do what we do for global brands really change reputations, change narratives increase market share, things like that.
Emma Goss: Marnie, thank you all.
Can you talk about Israel in the PR sense versus anti Israel rhetoric that we're seeing blow up on our feeds, in mainstream media, on social media? How did you digest what happened after October 7th in the media landscape?
Marnie Black: So I'll break it into two sort of categories. In terms of the legacy media, the traditional media I think there's no question that the media has been infiltrated, just like the educational system's been infiltrated, the government's been infiltrated K through 12's been infiltrated.
So I think that there are really bad actors who are Part of the propaganda machine, including in our legacy media. So I think that's a problem that we need to fix but in terms of Sort of you know our telling of our story on In what that's within our control. I think that we are not treating Jews in Israel like we would a brand if this were a brand that were to come to us and say You know, our reputation is really being impacted.
Our market share is really, you know down We wouldn't jump straight to oh, okay Burger King, or coca cola like here's what you should do and yet That's what we're doing as a Jewish people and we're trying to slow down the process and really dig in and treat this like it were, if this were a paying client.
And there's a lot of, we're acting
Emma Goss: almost like defense, we're playing defense, not offense. Yeah, we're playing defense, yeah. What are we up against?
Marnie Black: We're up against a propaganda machine. We're up against a PSYOPS operation there's no question. We don't have the technology, we don't have the tools, we don't have the data, we don't have the scale and we need to build all of that infrastructure back up.
Eylon, you want to add something?
Eylon Levy: Yes. Part of making the case for Israel is not about finding answers, it's about demanding answers as well. What do I mean by that? After October 7th, it was immediately obvious to everyone in Israel why we were fighting. To bring Hamas down and to bring the hostages home.
And everyone understood that this was the most noble moral fight imaginable. By the way, President Barack Obama also said we have to stand by our allies Israel as they dismantle Hamas. It was obvious to him that was what israel had to do the european parliament voted in january for a ceasefire Conditional on hamas being removed from power and the hostages brought home and we have seen malicious international actors who have played a very destructive role in this conflict.
For example, the World Health Organization, which keeps condemning Israel for the damage to Gaza's healthcare system without mentioning that Hamas is fighting out of the hospitals. I'm talking about the Red Cross that said at the beginning of the war that there is no point even trying to pressure Hamas to give access to see the hostages.
I'm speaking about UNRWA, a Hamas front. It is a UN agency that launders money and information for Hamas, that allows Hamas to fight out of its facilities, that employs Hamas terrorists on a massive scale, including those who took part in the October 7th massacre, and indoctrinates generations of Palestinian children.
Most of the terrorists on October 7th We're not UNRWA staff, okay? But almost all of the terrorists were UNRWA graduates. Because UNRWA teaches most of the children in Gaza. Therefore, most of the terrorists went through UNRWA schools. The U.S. Recently cut off funding for UNRWA, but that means that most of the October 7th terrorists went to U.S. Taxpayer funded schools. That is a shocking indictment. Of foreign policy. Of that agency. I'm talking about malicious organizations like the ICJ. A kangaroo court headed by a former lebanese diplomat i'm talking about the outrageous proceedings taking place at the icc And all the various un officials who cannot even mention the word hamas and keep blaming israel for everything as if It wasn't attacked on October 7th and there weren't hostages there.
And we need to demand answers from them, and put them on the back foot. It's not just about saying, Oh, I can explain, it's really not as bad as it looks, I can find an answer. It's about going to other actors and saying you have fueled this conflict, you have provided cover or even material support for a terrorist organization, and you owe us answers because we know why we're fighting, and you owe the world answers for your corruption and your complicity with terror.
Emma Goss: Thank you for that explanation.
Just digesting all of that was really good context in terms of what we're up against and what's fueling so much of this disinformation. And I want to dissect a little further before we start talking about actual ways that we can. We can seek answers that you mentioned and seek some sort of realignment with our story.
In terms of going back to what played out in social media on October 7th and everyday since, what what's the, what are the consequences here in the U.S.? to American Jews, to Israelis, to people who support Israel. What are the consequences long term that we're already starting to see? I'll name one, antisemitism, right?
We didn't see the rise that we're seeing today out of nowhere, right? It comes from the targeted campaigns. Can we talk more about what's at stake for us here?
Amy Albertson: I can start if you want. One thing about social media is You know maybe you don't know, but this is where millennials, but more importantly, Gen Z, right?
We see this 18 to 24 demographic. If you look at a lot of the, whether it's the political polls about the elections, whether it's, all of the polls that ask people, Do you support Israel? Do you support Palestinians? Most people in America actually do support Israel. They support Israel as our ally.
They, they understand that Hamas is in the wrong, that October 7th was bad, all of these things. And the place where we see the difference is with the 18 to 24 gap. Why is that? Because they get their news and information from social media. So this is the impact we're seeing. We're seeing an entire generation who now is of voting age and are out in the professional world are maybe becoming members of the government themselves and leaders.
They're teaching our kids in school and we are losing that gap. Do I have the solution for that? I'm not sure. In my opinion, I think we maybe need to go on to the next generation and prevent that generation from being lost. But yeah, that's definitely one of the biggest places where we're.
Marnie Black: We just finished the largest and most comprehensive causal research study that's ever been done about Jews.
We tested over 400 narratives to see what, over time, over a eight month period, could change someone's perspective from being anti Israel and and really anti Semitic and we saw real swings. We saw real narratives that work to change the narrative. We actually saw narratives, some of which we may be relying on as a community, that actually create a backlash.
I do think that we can change the narrative. I do think that we can change the narrative over time. I think that, we have to Stop relying on facts. Facts are not resonating. They are not working in all of our research. They, we are arguing with a rational mind, and most people don't make decisions or form beliefs based on the rational mind.
They form beliefs based on the subconscious mind. We now have a pretty good sense of what the subconscious thinks about Jews and Israel. So I think
Eylon Levy: It's not pretty, is it?
Marnie Black: It's not pretty, but you know what? It's very movable. It really is. I have a huge amount of hope much more hope than I've had in eight months, so we just completed it a
week ago. We'll have the the real findings compiled, I would say, by early December, and we plan to share it, start sharing it with the community and early next year.
Emma Goss: What are some lessons learned, right? We're talking a lot about what went wrong, what we're up against, what's at stake. But now we can start to, to do the tikkun olam, to do the repairing. What are lessons we can learn from this last year that's gonna carry us through to the next year and the years beyond?
Because we know that when there is a ceasefire, when this war eventually does come to an end the social fracturing of the war will last longer than that.
Eylon Levy: Things are not going to snap back to normal when this war is over. Please God soon with all the hostages back home. We have a movement that has been energized and exhilarated by the violence of October 7th and by the radicalization they have experienced.
I think that traditionally Israel has failed to take the public diplomacy seriously. Arena seriously because there is a belief that they all hate us. It doesn't matter what we say They're all going to gang up against us Anyway, and I think that's a terrible mistake the lesson that I learned from my six months as a government spokesman
What's so funny? Is that when you speak people listen when you are a regular presence on their tv screens in their social media They listen we have friends We have allies. We spoke of the polling data here that shows most Americans still support Israel. But we can't expect them to be more pro Israel than the information they are getting.
And so we have to It's not all about facts. But we have to be there making our voices heard and not put our heads down and say, it doesn't matter because people are going to hate us anyway. I've traveled meeting politicians all around the world. I was in Australia recently. I met with the the pro Israel caucus in parliament.
And they said, why don't we hear from Israel? We're trying to help you. How are we supposed to defend you if we don't know what the arguments are? Part of what I'm trying to do in Israel, and the reason that I go on TV in Hebrew so often, is to try to shake the country by the shoulders and say, You need to take this seriously.
Maybe you're not going to convert the whole world to be pro Israel in the middle of a war, but we can buy time. Because if we don't buy time, and it becomes politically expedient for leaders to throw us under the bus, We will pay for it literally in the depletion of munitions that is putting soldiers lives at risk so I set up the Israeli citizen spokesperson's office to try to build a team that would one Try to get on media as much as possible and make sure wherever they want to hear a pro israel voice We'll get someone to fill the airtime and to create content that will empower the diaspora with Narratives that they can use in order to push back.
Just today while I'm away here in Palo Alto I've got the team working in Tel Aviv and we produced a content about how UNRWA keeps complaining About how many of its staff have been killed in the war, but they won't name them. Why won't they name them? Because they know that many of them are Hamas terrorists and Israel will cross reference them against the list and work out who are the Hamas terrorists.
That's a narrative for how you can push back and go on the offensive when people say, Why are so many aid workers being killed? You can say, We know that many of them were Hamas terrorists and UNRWA refuses to release their names because then we can prove that. So it's going on the offensive, demanding answers from others and making sure that we have a presence and do not allow others to monopolize the public space.
Some people think there's no point, why do we bother on Twitter or on Instagram, whatever. If the anti Israel narrative is the only narrative that's being heard, obviously good people are going to go with the anti Israel narrative. But if you're the one voice. The one trusted friend who holds up a mirror and pushes back against it, then people will say Israel at least has the benefit of the doubt.
And that's something worth fighting for.
Emma Goss: One,
I was reporting a story not that long ago in a town called Bolinas, California. And and in my reporting there was a lot of graffiti around the town. And and it was extremely anti Israel. It was saying things like stop the genocide Zionists equals terrorists. All along the beach wall.
And there's also a newspaper, like a town crier, called the Hearsay News, where people write in their little thoughts and feelings. It's been around for decades. It's really meaningful to the town. And someone was complaining in the Hearsay about why someone would take it upon themselves to cross out, stop the genocide.
Because They're like, what, do you want me to be for genocide? And that was where the logic was lost, right? Because obviously, that's not the answer, but I think that there's a lot of times where we would like to, I'm sure people in the audience would like to say, no we want to tell you the different story.
We want to reclaim the narrative. We want to say, why saying the word genocide hurts us, is offensive to us, and why other terms That really hurt us. And yet, when we do, there's so you support genocide? How do we arm people in this audience with the right tools, the right language, to really get across what we're advocating for as Jews and people who believe that Israel should exist?
Marnie Black: I think it's really hard until we have a proactive narrative that we can tell. I think right now our narrative is we are not a genocidal people. We are not colonizers. We are not oppressors. I think When we can have a data driven research led framework on what will potentially, what our proactive narrative can be to change people's perspectives I think that'll really help.
I also think we We're not really we don't have a, we don't have a strategy. We don't have a business plan. We have a lot of tactics, a lot of tactics probably too many. But we don't really have a strategy tying it all together. We need probably a collaborative ecosystem to, a collaboration of the willing.
Who are willing to work together and partner and, move in the same direction. We're not going to get everybody, like Ilan said, we have a million stories. We're not going to get everybody swimming in the same direction. But I think if we can get a collaboration of the willing and, we've already seen evidence that there are a lot who are willing to collaborate together more that are willing to collaborate than not willing to collaborate, I think we'll make some progress.
Eylon Levy: It's always a mistake to reject the Accusation against you because then you're just repeating it Okay, we're not committing genocide. Why are you saying that? Maybe you are okay You have to push back on october 7th Hamas committed an act of genocide Hamas sent in a terrorist army to slaughter as many people as it could as brutally as it could and it was stopped only by the idf and in response israel is Waging a campaign to bring down the terrorist regime, threatening to do it again and again because we are committed to never again.
And anyone who is making this outrageous accusation against Israel is trying to provide political cover for the terrorist organization that is openly sworn to a genocide in the eradication of the Jewish people. But the other side has managed very successfully to throw out all the trump cards because there is no shame and no commitment to the truth and all means are kosher in their war for the destruction of the Jewish state.
But Marnie, I do want to talk to you later because I'm really fascinated in this research that you've been doing. And this is part of the value of conferences like these. Because they bring together people from around the world who've been working on the same project and the same problem. And weren't talking.
And suddenly realize that, that we're trying to solve the same problem and need to pull the same resources in order To scale up and have that effect.
Amy Albertson: To follow Eylon again
Eylon Levy: You can go first next time.
Amy Albertson: No, it's fine. No, I think just to add on to that, it's part, it ties into this proactivity, it ties into not responding to the accusations. I come from a mixed family, and I'm in a mixed marriage, and I interact with a lot of non Jews, and I think that's something that Jewish people sometimes don't realize is that Most non Jewish people either don't know a Jewish person or don't know that they know a Jewish person and therefore anything they know about the Jewish people is probably antisemitic And once they are confronted with a real Jewish person, they are like, oh, you're not a genocidal war maniac.
Eylon Levy: Where are your horns?
Amy Albertson: Yes.
Eylon Levy: How do you hide them so well?
Amy Albertson: And I think one thing is humanizing ourselves and part of that is being unapologetic and not coming into conversations where someone comes to you.
You're not an, you're not a government spokesperson. If someone comes to you as a Jewish person and they want to have the argument about the war, you can say to them I'm happy to talk to you. We need to come to them as Jewish people which not based in war That is not our main narrative. That's not the crux of who we are. We are people who love life. We love joy. We have so many simchas and amazing and beautiful traditions, food. music, history, diversity, all of these things, and those are the things that we really need to bring to the forefront instead of constantly just responding to every antisemitic incident, every, claim of genocide, of colonization, of all these things.
Obviously, fighting those narratives is very important, but as Marnie just said, facts don't really seem to sway people. And I think everyone wants to dehumanize the Jews. That's a huge piece of the propaganda war against us. So we need to humanize ourselves for people. And the best way to do that is to be a Jewish human everywhere you go, whether that's on your social media, in your workplace, in your school, wherever it is, and continue to be like that and let everyone know, hi, I'm so and I'm in this room, I'm a Jewish person, if that's a problem for you, let's talk about why that's a problem for you and don't let people make you feel ashamed of who you are, that you need to answer for the accusations because you know that they're not true and that's not your personality, that's not who you are as a Jewish person.
Let them know who you are as a Jewish person.
Eylon Levy: Can I add something?
Emma Goss: No. Yeah, go for it.
Eylon Levy: An excellent point, but do not fall into the trap of saying, Okay, we're going to be proud about our Jewishness, but our Jewishness has nothing to do with Israel, okay? There's the Jews, and there's Israel, and we do bagel and lox and Woody Allen and Seinfeld and whatever.
We have nothing to do with the shakshuka and the sabich and Idan Reichel and any of that stuff happening there, okay? Because there is a movement now of people who think they are being the good people by saying, oh, there's Israel and there are the Jews and you mustn't conflate them. They're giving you an out.
But what they're asking you to say is, you can only legitimately be Jewish if it has nothing to do with all that Israel stuff. With the Israeli culture and cuisine and music that have come to define what the modern Jewish experience is, if you cut off connections to the youth movements and the experiences in Israel with the rabbinical institutions in Israel and the institutions of higher learning.
If you agree to hold a conference, you can forget about holding a conference about Zionism and to bring Idan Reichel or some other Israeli artists, they're offering you an out of conditional acceptance and saying, it's okay to be proud about your Jewishness as long as it has nothing to do with the Jewish homeland or, half of the Jewish world. So part of being proud about our Jewish culture and putting it out there is to emphasize that connection to Israel and to be unapologetic about it and not to let the haters dictate The terms of your acceptance in American society.
Amy Albertson: I just want to add a caveat to that. I think, on this point and Zack this morning said, there is no separation between we say Jewish or we say Israeli or we say Jewish and we say Israel. To me, there's no separation. That's the caveat here. But and if you want to find out how to show up in a room Jewishly, go to Israel and learn from Israelis.
I went on a birthright trip. It was my first time to Israel and we had this activity where we had to tell each other our first Jewish memory and I was paired with one of the Israeli soldiers and he said
Eylon Levy: His bris?
Amy Albertson: No. He said, I don't understand the question. I'm a Jewish man, I live in Israel, every moment of my life is Jewish, all of my memories are Jewish. If you're talking about it in what I think the context you're talking about it, which would be this diaspora mindset, where you're only Jewish when you're doing a Jewish thing, going to a synagogue at a Shabbat dinner.
He's I guess my first Jewish memory would be when my dad forced me to go to synagogue on Yom Kippur and I hated it. But that's inaccurate because I love being Jewish. And in that moment I had this And that's switch in my mind that he reminded me that we are not only Jewish when we are doing Jewish, you are a Jewish human being every single second of your life.
And so on that.
Thank you, Amy. Yeah, that's how Israelis taught me to be Jewish.
Emma Goss: We've given the audience some homework in terms of what it means to walk out of this room and be proudly unapologetically Jewish and to tell our story and to confront things that make us uncomfortable. What about like higher level institutions or people?
What is the call to action in terms of ways to reset, to regain control over how we tell our story?
Marnie Black: I would say don't assume that you know how a non Jew thinks about us. Be curious try to be in as many places and spaces with non Jews to really have those uncomfortable conversations and really understand that the narratives that might be working in our community are likely not working outside of our community.
Emma Goss: And just thinking about the we talked about what we're up against, we're talking about huge campaigns, we're talking about high level institutions, foreign institutions, as well as like our own peoplehood.
Eylon Levy: It really begins with the children at a young age. I don't know what to tell the parents who are suddenly shocked that their children have fallen off some woke anti Israel cliff edge, and they say, we didn't bring them up to be like this. Okay, but what was the focus on their Jewish identity? Not just their religious identity, that sense of peoplehood.
I think part of the problem we have with the anti Zionist Jews, for example, is not that they don't think the Jewish people have a right to self determination. They don't think there is a Jewish people. They don't identify, they don't look at their Israeli brothers and sisters and say we are part of the same tribe.
I have a responsibility for you, as you have a responsibility for me. They say I just want to have nothing to do with this, because this is an embarrassment. This is making it difficult for me to integrate in American society. So in terms of institutions, a focus on Jewish education, I know it is often prohibitively expensive.
In the United States. Anything that can be done philanthropically, organizationally, to make it accessible and affordable.
So that it's something that they just feel in their gut. I, there was a poll actually, a while ago. I can't remember from which organization. Looked into this phenomenon of October 7th Jews, or October 8th Jews. Who were the people who suddenly felt that October 7th made them feel closer to Israel and the Jewish people?
And the defining variable was whether they had a Jewish education. Because it was dormant, it was something in their subconscious from their childhood, and then it was activated when suddenly they felt we are under attack. And if you're not fostering that sense of we, and that includes visits to Israel, not waiting till birthright.
Eventually there'll be flights again. This is a long term plan. Foster that sense of we, of togetherness, of responsibility, and the human to human connections. Don't allow Israel to be a cause. What is our relationship with this theory? As if we're in a seminar workshop. It's a real place. Help them have Jewish friends.
around the diaspora. Israeli friends help them build those formative experiences as well. And then when one part of the Jewish world is under attack, they'll feel as if it's happening to them too.
Emma Goss: Yeah, I also find it really helps To consume media and information from people I don't necessarily agree with or I have polar disagreements with. It's because I usually am able to listen deeply and actually come out with one thing that we can agree on and from there if it's a kernel of something that we both have in common, we can both see that this is the truth, then we can actually get to a closer place of understanding.
I don't know if that's ever been an experience anyone else has had but in terms of is there hope of changing? Anyone's mind who's been pulled in especially on a platform like Tick tock isn't even worth getting out on a platform like that, or has it become too toxic? Have people entered their information silos and they're not willing to look?
Are we only looking for people whose minds haven't yet been formed or can we actually hope to change anyone's mind in the future?
Marnie Black: I think we can change people's perspective. I don't necessarily know that social media will be the only place to do that. I do think that we've moved into a sort of confirmation bias world where you go to social media to have your perspectives validated.
But I do think that there are many other places and forums where we can change perspectives. And I do think repetition will be key.
Amy Albertson: I think that social media, as much as, that's my job, that's where my whole life is, that's where most of my activism happens. But I think we need to remember the human to human interactions. A lot of times, we know that most people are in an echo chamber, and this is something I think about every day when I post, am I just speaking to an echo chamber?
But I know that when I speak to my echo chamber of 30, 000 people. They are then going out into their real world lives and having one on one conversations, and that's where the most powerful change happens, I think. And so I want everyone to remember that's What you can do. So you don't have to be the social media person and maybe on TikTok.
TikTok. I don't know. I think they should get rid of it. But you said you think
Emma Goss: they
Amy Albertson: should
Emma Goss: get rid of
Amy Albertson: it. I think TikTok is too far gone. Personally, I wouldn't be mad if they did ban it. But I think we have to remember that As much as people do exist in these worlds of digital media, we are still humans that do interact with each other, and that's where you're going to make the most difference.
It's that ripple effect of getting back out there to talk one on one with someone, to invite them out of that echo chamber. I think that's something that's really important to remember.
Eylon Levy: Yeah, you have to take it offline. It is not a question of Seeing a post you like and hitting share on the story to your 300 Jewish friends and saying, I've done my work.
It's about taking it offline and having those difficult conversations. And I hope you're right when you say that you speak to your echo chamber of 30, 000 people, which is a nice echo chamber. But that you take, you speak to the echo chamber and they're all going out there and speaking with their neighbors.
I'm not sure they are. I think that's part of what we need to encourage. Go have the difficult conversations where you are taking a risk that person will not want to be your friend anymore. You have to stick your neck out. Because if you keep your neck down, things are only going to get worse.
Sometimes there will be pushback. Sometimes someone is just waiting for someone to speak up and be the first person to say it. And that person is going to be you. And no one else is going to reach your colleagues to provide this counter narrative other than you. So I really would encourage people to take the information that they get from trusted sources online.
It's what we're trying to do with the Citizen Spokesperson's Office and creating this content in order to empower you to speak up. But then also to give you the motivation to take that information. Go to your neighbors, your colleagues, your friends, and have those difficult, awkward, uncomfortable conversations because no one else is going to do it.
And otherwise you're just going to leave them at the mercy of whatever propaganda machine is pumping poison in their brains now.
Marnie Black: I would also say that as much as possible to not have Sort of facts driven, arguments with people but really talk about how this is impacting you emotionally how it's impacting your family how your family history is Contributing to how this is impacting you today as much as we can make it emotionally resonant it just helps so
much
Eylon Levy: It's such an important point I was just last week in israel speaking at a conference of business leaders and they said what can we do as people who are?
Going around the world and meeting people, what can we do to make the case for Israel? And I said, it's not just about the facts. Tell them how your workforce has been disrupted by people who are in reserves for the last year and the impact it's having on their families. Tell them, we just had a missile siren and I had to run for a shelter and don't say it like it's something ordinary that happens and should be normalized because it shouldn't be.
We allow ourselves sometimes to think that what the experiences we're having are normal or should be tolerated, but they're not. And people need to understand that human context of how it's affecting you, and your cousins and friends in Israel as well, and not simply to say, here is a fact sheet.
Amy Albertson: I just want to add to that.
I think also something that was, that is taking it out of the context of The war for people and not only showing what impact it has on us as Jewish people But that everyone in the world really can have a connection to israel. There was a student at the opening plenary I'm, sorry, I forgot his name. He goes to harvard.
He's one of the
Eylon Levy: Charlie Covit
Amy Albertson: charlie Yes, Charlie mentioned how at harvard they brought in Israeli business people and entrepreneurs and they got 400 students Half of whom weren't Jewish to come why because they saw something that was in it for them and now they have this positive connection with Israel that has nothing to do with the war and, if you're in the medical field, if you're in psychology, if you're in literally any field, because we know Israel has touched every single thing in amazing ways, you can find that connection.
Of course, you're going to have those people who are just so staunchly against it, they don't want to touch it. Good for them. I don't know what kind of medicine they're gonna get for themselves when they get sick, but or what phone they're using, but I think it's also really important. Or
Eylon Levy: beepers. Oh wait, those were Israeli made as well.
Amy Albertson: He said it, I didn't. But I think that's another really important thing is to not only You know, the humanization of ourselves, but also Israel is not just important for the Jewish people. We say this corny line that Israel is the beacon of light, the light amongst the nations, but it truly is. It has made a huge impact on this world, and people don't know that, and when you tell them, a lot of them are really amazed to hear it, and thankful for their iPhone.
Emma Goss: We don't have too much time left in this, we've had a great conversation, but I wanted to go back to like the topic of today's discussion, which is, we're the people of the book. How are we struggling to tell our story? And going back to the Jewishness of ourselves, and especially in American Judaism, what are your closing thoughts each on just We talk about let's be proud Jews.
Let's be humanizing. Let's go out and spread our message. It's not that easy right now It's really hard to be proudly Jewish. It's really hard to be probably Jewish in the K through 12 systems to see different curricula that are coming out that are Not friendly to Jewish history or completely erase it and then going on to college campuses.
It's a whole other story. So I want to leave people with a sense of action, but also realism. We want to be proudly Jewish. How do we do that?
Marnie Black: I think it's, I think it's two things. One is, I would say I went through my career, 32 years in my career, and and was with Shomer Shabbat for most of it became Shomer Shabbat later in, in my, or mid in my career. And I think that being proudly and openly Jewish To Amy's point before, it humanized me.
It made me, I live in New York, so most people have met a Jew. But I think it's still good for people to for us to be able to put, and it doesn't mean that you have to be Shomer Shabbat, but I think to be able to put yourself proudly forward in a work environment, in a professional environment, and be proud of that.
And then the second I would say is, and again, I think we've touched on this here, is investing in that next generation and making sure that we give them a space to be proudly Jewish. I have two teenage kids who make me so unbelievably proud at how they are proud Jews who are out there, who are fighting, who are active, who are very comfortable that they're going to lose friends and have lost friends, and I think I think they are that way because I put them in Jewish day schools, I put them in Jewish camps, and I gave them that foundation to be proud Jews.
Thank you.
Eylon Levy: I'll say two things. Part of the reason that it is difficult for us to tell stories about ourselves is that it is so easy for the rest of society. to cast us as characters in the stories they're already telling about themselves. What do the debate about Israel is often simply a form of projection of one culture's own neuroses onto Israel.
The Irish view this through the lens of their own Catholic Protestant struggle. Americans will see it through the lens of racial oppression, in Australia they frame it in terms of indigenous rights and in Britain they'll think of it in terms of imperialism and colonialism. In none of these cases are they actually having a debate about Israel.
They're having a debate about themselves and they're using us as props. Now that's nothing new. The historian David Nirenberg writes in his outstanding book, Anti Judaism, that This process of taking Jews and defining them as whatever we are not is not a blip in Western thought. It is a central pillar of the Western mind.
And that throughout history, Western cultures have always used the Jews as characters in the stories they're telling about themselves. Part of why it's hard for us to tell our stories is that we're competing with stories that already make sense in other people's heads, and they cast us as characters within them.
And I think part of the answer Is to lean into our difference and not try to be the same We're a counterculture. We don't have to say. Oh, look, we're just like you Hanukkah is just our christmas It's about leaning into what we as the world's eternal dissidents Have to say to the world by speaking truth to power when I went to visit Harvard recently and filmed an episode of the podcast with Rabbi Zarchi the head of Harvard Chabad, he said they have, study sessions in the Chabad House of Harvard that bring in non Jews as well.
And the sort of debate that they have there where they pore over texts and have an open debate is so alien from the kind of academic Activity that happens in the university that is increasingly doctrinaire, based on groupthink. And he said, part of the Jewish mission in the 21st century is to help the West think for itself again.
And foster open, difficult debate. Leshem shamayim, for the sake of the heavens. So I would say Part of what it means for us to reclaim that Jewish pride and go out in the world is not to try to say look We're exactly the same just with a Yiddish twang It's about saying we as a people have something special a special perspective to offer you That is going to improve our collective experience and our broader society
Emma Goss: The question was, how do we make the challenge of being proudly Jewish less uncomfortable when we're confronted with so much antisemitism right now?
Amy Albertson: Sure, I think obviously, your literal physical safety is something to think about, especially in the Bay Area. It's a pretty hostile place.
But I think ultimately, the way that I felt. Most empowered and it's something that I always tell to my followers and seems to work for a lot of them as they give me that feedback is, and I think a lot of different speakers throughout this whole conference have said this, is learning your own story, learning our people's story, but really get in touch with what does it mean to you to be Jewish?
There's so many ways and it's not only oh, I go to synagogue every Friday or Saturday or whatever. It's. It's, think about all of those things for you personally. What are your personal experiences with Israel? Why do you love Israel? I know everyone in this room loves Israel, but could you articulate that to someone?
Really think about those things and take that out there with you. When you know who you are and where you come from, you will feel stronger. You will feel empowered and you have nothing to be scared of. And I think that's the first. The first step that you can take is get in touch with your Jewish self and figure out what it is that when you're going out to teach people what kind of Jewish human you are, that you actually know what kind of Jewish human you are.
Thank you.
Emma Goss: And I'll just add that being informed is also a huge confidence boost when you're able to talk about current events because you are well read, because you're up to date, because you're reading factual information, because you've cross referenced it with other things so that you're not just taking what you're seeing at face value is really empowering on its own too.
Thank you all for being such an amazing panel.
Thank you everyone here.
