edJEWcation

If history has always been written by the victors, and anyone with AI can now rewrite it, how do we figure out what actually happened? And does anybody really go looking for the truth, or do we mostly go looking for proof of what we already believe?In this episode, we get into:The great man theory vs. Tolstoy, and why the Rabbi thinks timing is the real reason we remember the Baal Shem TovWhy memorizing dates kills history, and the Harkness classroom that skips itPost-truth: an Elizabeth Holmes documentary built to steer you, and the ChatGPT pumpkin that only knew what ChayaLeah had told itThe Rabbi’s honest admission about reading the other side of history (spoiler: he isn’t interested)Torah as a baseline for truth, Rambam’s thirteen principles, and the Talmud’s test of character: your cup, your pocket, and your angerThe period of history each of us would visit, from Jesus to the Alter Rebbe’s court to the Montreal Canadiens of the 1960sWe started with truth and history and ended with the Pocket Rocket. That’s how this show goes.

This is our fourth and final episode of our series on the life of Ze’ev Jabotinsky In this episode, we get into:The 1936 evacuation plan to move a million and a half Jews out of Eastern Europe, and why Jewish leaders called it “outrageous and criminal”Jabotinsky’s uneasy deal with Poland’s Foreign Minister, Józef Beck: Jabotinsky wanted Jews saved, Beck wanted them goneThe 1939 White Paper, illegal immigration, and the Sakarya, the rescue ship led by Jabotinsky’s son EriA 25-year-old Menachem Begin publicly challenging his teacher, and Avraham Stern walking out to form what became LehiJabotinsky’s final campaign in America, his death, and why David Ben-Gurion refused to bring his bones homeThe story of Shlomo Ben-Yosef, and the legacy that outlived all of Jabotinsky’s lost battles

Three years ago, if you’d told us we’d spend October 7 interviewing Lucas Gage, we’d have laughed. So would he. Lucas is a former Marine who did two tours in Iraq, then spent 14 years in the antisemitic “JQ” movement, building an audience of 336,000 on X, going viral with “Boom Boom Tel Aviv,” and calling Jews demons. This year he walked away, wrote about why, and started showing up at kosher restaurants in Lakewood. We wanted to know how a smart guy gets that deep, and more importantly, how he got out.In this episode, we get into:How a 9/11 “truther” video after Iraq became a gateway to every conspiracy on the menu, with the Jews as the “final boss”Why conspiracy thinking is a web, not a single belief, and why you have to take it down one strand at a timeWhat Lucas actually believed about the Holocaust, and how “revisionism” sells itself as a free speech fightThe crypto scam, the Charlie Kirk assassination theories, and the moment he watched a conspiracy get built in real timeWhy a calm “so what makes you believe that?” from Jake Turx worked where name-and-shame never didRussian and Iranian influence operations, bot farms, and why antisemitism treats Jews like all-powerful godsIt’s one of the most important discussions should should be having right now, but it’s also funny and hopeful. People can go to very dark places and still come back.This is a good place to start with Lucas's writings - What Pulled Me Out of Antisemitism

This episode starts off with a murder on a Tel Aviv beach, how that murder would fundamentally change the future of the Zionist movement, Jabotinsky’s role within it.In this episode, we get into:Why Jabotinsky wrote “The Iron Wall” and how it set him at odds with the Zionist establishmentDevelopment of various aspects of his philosophy from Betar to Hadar to Monism The “fascist” smear and the problems Abba Ahimeir made for the RevisionistsHis banning from ever returning to Eretz IsraelThe Revisionists storming out of the 1931 Zionist conference at Basel Why are so many of the movements willing to accept the claim that Jabotinsky’s people are responsible for the murder of Chaim Arlosoroff.The London Agreement and the creation of a the Zionist organization Pull up a chair, and bring your thickest skin. The fourth and final episode is coming.

Hashem offers a 12-year-old king anything he wants. Wealth, power, conquest, all on the table. Solomon asks for wisdom, and nearly three thousand years later we’re still reading what he did with it. This week we discuss the Book of Proverbs, Solomon’s advice to his kids, and find that a lot of it reads like a group text to modern America. But first, a mazel tov: ChayaLeah’s other show, Ask a Jew, got picked up by Ark Media and is now Chosen People Problems. Yes, CCCP. We had jokes.In this episode, we get into:Solomon’s three wisdom books and the old argument over which came first: Song of Songs, Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes“The beginning of wisdom is to acquire wisdom,” and why the Rabbi says a real scholar needs a good tuchisDiscipline, corporal punishment, and why kids don’t need their parents to be their friendsAristotle in the classroom vs. Aristotle outside it, and how Jabotinsky’s Hadar connectsWhy God made mosquitoes and sloths: “Go to the ant, you sluggard”Why Jay’s favorite proverb is Proverbs 15Thirty-one chapters, one a day, and you’ve finished the book in a month. Start with this episode.