Transforming the World with Rav Leo Dee

Today we're speaking with Leo Dee.

After losing his wife and two daughters in a terror attack this past April, he has remained steadfast in his commitment to creating peace in the region.

Leo is an ordained Rabbi, educator, public speaker, author, and currently serveing as a special envoy os social initiatives for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

In this episode, you'll get to know Leo, and his philosophies on transforming the world.

He'll also get into how the terrorists who murdered his family were trained by UNWRA, and how money from the United States and other Western governments are paying the families of these terrorists, among many others.

In spite of the tragedy that he's endured, Leo's message is one of hope for the region, and hope for all of humanity.

How is it possible for Leo Dee to say that he "loves Palestinians" after his wife and daughter were murdered by a Palestinian terrorist?

Leo sees an urgent need to reform the UNWRA "schools" and systems that are training young people to carry out violence and murder against civilians.

How is it possible that Leo believes in peace, and chooses love over hate? His outlook is deeply rooted in Torah based, Jewish philosophy.

Leo Dee's recently published a revised edition of his book, "Transforming the World," outlining the Torah values which guide him in his work as an advocate for peace.

You can order Leo's book on Amazon here and find his facebook group "Rav Leo Dee" where he posts regularly, here.

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Transcript

Shure MV7-12: 0:05

Welcome to the humanity POV podcast. You're going to hear from a diverse array of morally courageous voices who understand that true humanitarianism is not selective. Together, we can amplify these voices for progress and shed light. On solutions to the issues. That affect all of us. Thank you so much for being here now, let's get started.

0:37

My name is Dr. Ozzie Jankovic. I'm an educator. And I'll be hosting the first series of episodes.

Shure MV7-16: 0:45

Today, you're going to meet Leo de. Leo D his life was tragically altered when his wife. And two teenage daughters were murdered in horrific terror attack in Israel. Last April, 2023. This was six months to the day. Before the worst terror attack on Israel's history.

Shure MV7: 1:05

Leo D is based in Israel and he's recently become a special Envoy in the government for social initiatives. We are going to speak about the tragedy. And how, in spite of the tragedy, Leo D is working toward not only peace. But cooperation and coexistence in the region. You're going to hear his ideas on politics. On combating terrorism. On building peace and on what to do the day after this war ends. This is going to be such an important conversation.

Shure MV7-2: 1:43

When I asked Leo about his story and how he transitioned from the space of private equity. To working as a rabbi and now working in the space of peace activism, he starts out with a story of his wife. Lucy.

LEO DEE: 2:02

It was Lucy's birthday three months after the the tragedy. And we invited a bunch of her friends to come round to the house. And we asked them the question, what did Lucy mean to you? And they went round one by one. And they each said that she shone a light. And her name actually, Lucy, means light in Latin. She shone a light on the characteristic that they had, which was special to them. And she encouraged them to bring it out. And I thought about it, and I thought actually, I think that's what she did for me and for the kids. And I think she must have seen in me potential beyond making money as a private equity investor. And she worked on me for a number of years, and eventually I must have listened to her. And I quit one day, and the next day we were off on a plane to Israel. For me to study to become a rabbi. So I think that was really what went on. And it was more down to her than to me. And I think, logically, actually, when I think about it, most wives who are living in comfortably, and your husband's got a good income don't necessarily want to give up on that. But she apparently was prepared to. So that was, that's what happened.

AZI JANKOVIC: 3:16

What an incredible foresight and commitment. Was Lucy like?

LEO DEE: 3:22

She was an inspiration, I think, to us. She, was inspiration to a lot of people. She for example, she decided about five, maybe six, seven years ago, when we were back in Israel, that she wanted, kids in the neighborhood in the summer to have something productive to do. She had a table about 25, 30 of them around in our lounge for about three weeks during the summer. And she was just one of these people who could take an idea. And turn it into reality. And her ideas generally were about helping other people and educating other people. She was an amazing teacher. She was an English teacher. And after the tragedy one of her students stood up in the school. They made a presentation. And he said that she was unique because she would track every She had many students. And she would Care for them individually. She would WhatsApp them if they didn't turn up for class. She'd ask them how they were. If they hadn't turned in enough work she would ask them if there's anything she could do to help them. And he said it for a bunch of teenage boys who generally didn't care that much about their studies they, they completely noticed that she cared. And it made a big impact on their, studies, not just their English, but actually the whole studies.

Shure MV7-3: 4:47

So tell us about how your wife of blessed memory influenced your own spiritual journey. Journey.

LEO DEE: 4:53

Working in private equity. I quit, as I said, one next day we were on a plane to Israel to study for four years. I was 32, so I was 36 when I finished. The plan was to go to England and become a rabbi in Rebertson. In fact, I think it's fair to say that we would be, that Lucy was the first Rebertson to have a separate contract for her. In England, in the United Synagogue, that generally speaking, the rabbi gets the contract and the wife is expected to do so many hours and that's sort of part of his contract. When it came to Lucy, they spotted that actually she was the brains of the relationship and she needed to have a separate contract because she was really what they wanted. Wow. More than me, or at least as much as me. So they introduced this new contract for her. And I think now many women in, in, in England Robinson's have their own contract, which I think is of course catching up with the 20th century. But, we turned up in, in England after about a year, Lucy woke up on a Sunday morning and she said, we have to go back to Israel at some point and bring up our kids. in Israel, in Efrat, where we'd studied. And I said, okay. And she said, they had a dream. And my dream was that house prices in Israel went up faster than England and the shekel got stronger than the pound against the pound. And what was interesting was that she was not an expert in finance. She knew nothing about house prices and nothing about currency fluctuations. And she had this dream. And and then literally five years after that dream we picked up and we left and we came to Israel and when it came to Israel I realized that there are plenty of rabbis here and there's no shortage of rabbis. And I didn't really want to go back into finance in the way that I've been doing before, because I felt that was a bit of a retrograde step. I was wondering what to do and as often happens in my life anyway something came up and a lady approached me and she said, look, I have a business, which is ethical investing. She said, you've been a rabbi and an investor. How about you join me? So I said, okay. So that was, that's how I got into ethical investing. that was basically rating companies, major global companies on their environmental, social and governance scores. So You know, a company would have a score how well it performed from an environmental perspective, how well it performed from a social perspective, how it treated its staff, how well it performed from a governance perspective, how many women it would have on its board and so forth, and people different races, et cetera. And there was a pretty complex methodology to score these companies. And that's what I did really for two years.

Shure MV7-4: 7:45

Leo. What was your life like leading up to the tragedy on April 7th, 2023.

LEO DEE: 7:51

The tragedy occurred, I was actually training to be a maths teacher. I'd spent, I was in my second year of teacher training in Israel in a local school. And I was teaching in two separate schools in Jerusalem. And, tragedy took place, and it was April, after the Pesach holidays, there was about two months more left of school, so I quit and we can talk more about that afterwards, but I think that was actually a tremendously important part of my therapy, was quitting. I don't know if that applies to other people to say that for me that was very important to go off and do something else. And in terms of the peace aspect, it's very interesting. I always Lucy and I, we live in the West Bank West Bank in EFRAT so on paper we are settlers. On the other hand, a frat is full of people from across the spectrum in terms of political positions. I don't really believe in labels of left wing and right wing, and I think Israel is heading in that direction, that we should be abandoning these labels. Again, I don't believe in labels of religious and non religious.

Shure MV7-6: 9:03

What is it like for you on a daily basis? Living emit so much diversity. City.

LEO DEE: 9:08

Anyone who's been to a frat knows that a local supermarket, Rami Levy is in area C. I don't even know the categories, but basically it means that I'm shopping. Shoulder to shoulder next to people from Beth, Bethlehem, from Hebron from the local Arab towns and, and my, and the local shops that we have as well that I tend to frequent, which are outside of Efrat itself are all manned by Palestinians, and I end up chatting with them and workers we have in the house are all Palestinian my choice, actually, I find them more honest, and easier to work with than many of the Israeli workers that I've had. So, I've had a lot of interaction with with these people. In fact, at the shiva I got calls from my Palestinian friends after the tragedy, which were the most emotional calls that I had. They were in tears and tremendously sad about what happened and emotional. I think they felt twice as upset as, everyone else, because on the one hand, they felt my personal tragedy and they also felt a little bit guilty for this as well. And I had, when I went to the supermarket, I had the person who works in the supermarket. gathered around me the first time I turned up a few weeks later and they said in Hebrew they said, they were not, they were not human beings they don't believe in Allah. And to a man, they were saying that they were absolutely just devastated. a Local charity made some car magnets with Lucy's three questions, which were what did you do for someone this week? What did someone do for you this week? And what did God do for you this week? A local charity Making these magnets. We have them in English and Hebrew. And when I drove to my local garage Jamal said to me he said, could I have it in Arabic? And this, bear in mind, was a picture of the three girls and an Israeli flag, and the three questions. So a friend of mine locally has his son is in special forces and actually speaks fluent Arabic. So they translated it for me, and his wife is a, graphic artist. So we made up the design, and I had. A few hundred of them made up, and now there are literally Palestinian Arabs around us, driving around, not with the three martyrs, who were the three people who killed them, but actually pictured the three girls and an Israeli flag on their cars, which is slightly unusual.

AZI JANKOVIC: 11:36

That is such a beautiful story. Here we are in the end of December, and we just recently went through the most violent attack on Jews since the Holocaust. In terms of your work in the space of coexistence and shared space and peace, have your thoughts and feelings and your activism, has that changed? Has that evolved?

LEO DEE: 12:02

Interesting. As it hasn't really changed. My response was very, I think, let's say measured when this happened. I said, look, I love the Palestinians. I hate the terrorists. And they understood that I think as well they got in Arab media. And a lot of people agreed with me at the time. I think it's more difficult people now after what happened, because when it was my tragedy, it's one thing when it's the the army Israel's tragedy, it's something else, But I do stand by it. And in fact, in my role as special envoy for the foreign office, I was sent to Vienna a few weeks ago. And in Vienna, I saw in the shul where I governed, a plaque to, I think, 66, 000 Jews who were murdered by basically Viennese and Nazis during the Second World War. And And yet I'm there in this community, which is a thriving, growing Jewish community, supported by the government that is very pro Jewish, very pro Israel at the moment. So I'm thinking to myself, there is hope and I think we have models of where they killed us and slaughtered us in huge numbers with tremendous violence and hatred and yet things change. So it's obvious that it is possible.

AZI JANKOVIC: 13:21

It's such a hopeful message. In terms of making a distinction, You said that you love Palestinians and you hate terrorists. We know that from the age of preschool in Gaza, in the Palestinian Authority, and in East Jerusalem, the UN funded curriculum is explicitly teaching young, innocent Palestinians to worship martyrs and to see the ideal life as someone who becomes a violent terrorist, if not a suicide bomber with the sole intention of wiping Israel off the map because they don't see Israel on the map. killing Jews everywhere and waging violent jihad. how do we distinguish who's

LEO DEE: 14:14

innocent? Great question. And in fact, I wasn't aware of any of this really, but after what happened to me I was approached by a number of people who are experts in the, in these. things. And I've been campaigning, against UNRWA, the United Nations group that's that's promoting terror. I've been campaigning, meeting with foreign leaders around the world. Telling them to stop funding UNRWA to stop funding this education system that trains terrorists to stop giving the money to them because they're also it's worse than you say, because actually they're giving 350 million a year as an incentive pay for slay to the families of terrorists who are killed so that the terrorists that killed my wife and daughters, their families will get about a million dollars each. as a family over the next 40 years funded by America, Britain, Europe through UNRWA.

AZI JANKOVIC: 15:10

Let me understand if I heard you correctly, because this is absolutely mind boggling. What you just said is that the terrorists who violently murdered, your wife and two daughters, their families are now going to receive up to a million dollars each from the United States

LEO DEE: 15:30

of America. Correct. I wrote an open letter to President Biden begging him to to stop funding these terrorists and so forth. And I was trying to shine a light on it. By the way, there was no interest whatsoever, not from the Americans, not from the British, not from the Europeans. And sadly, as you have to say, not from the Israelis, I was campaigning also against the Israeli government to stop protecting the Palestinian Authority because it's a known fact that the the IDF protects the Palestinian Authority from the other Palestinians in the West Bank, at least. protection that they're able to thrive as they are. And at the same time, these are the same people who are training all the kids to be terrorists, and paying them, and incentivizing them to be terrorists. And by the way I pointed shone the light on this as well a month or two before the Before the attack on the 7th of October the price of an M 16 rifle in the West Bank of Judah Judah and Samaria halved because so many were stolen from Israeli army bases, in the, region. Either that was a policy or it was negligence. Nothing seemed to be done about it. And there was a complete lack of interest from the politicians here, on the left or the right. And so going back to the question about are all Arabs terrorists here and is there any hope? I think the first thing one does is what we're doing now. I think you clear out the terrorists. You change the regime in such a way that there is no education for terror. You stop them paying money as incentive terrorists and you destroy all the terror tunnels and then you might be in a situation where we could rebuild along the lines of Vienna and Berlin which are now very happy Jewish communities, because you're not actually allowing them. And I think this was the missing ingredient in Israel for the last 20 years, that we didn't have a stick we didn't have a stick. Against terror. Not to mention the carrot. plan that's going to be successful has to have both a stick and a carrot. The stick has to be to to break up all the terror and all the mechanisms by which they've been using under our noses, by the way, where did the millions of tons of cement come to Gaza to build the terror tunnels? I'll tell you from Israeli cement companies that made a lot of money out of it. than anyone could possibly believe. It was negligence. It came from Israel and and so probably many of the weapons and other, ingredients that they're using against us today. And I think there was just a level of complacency amongst not just politicians, also the media, and also the whole of society, that led to led up to this particular day of 7th of October. And when I discovered how it happened, I was shocked to discover that it wasn't just a a random thing that happened. It was actually a process that had been happening for 20 years that these people were given had weapons, they were given the freedom to train their kids to be terrorists. In fact. These terrorists that killed my wife and daughters were trained in UNRWA camps to be terrorists. They were that generation that started 20 years ago, and they came up through it, and that's how they learned all the techniques.

AZI JANKOVIC: 19:02

If you could explain to those of us who might be bewildered by this idea, how exactly did this happen?

LEO DEE: 19:09

UNRWA was set up it's the only refugee organization in the world that allows Palestinians to be called refugees after three generations any other refugee in the world, if you think about it Jewish refugees coming from Arab countries who, you know, about a million of whom were kicked out in the 1940s and 50s from the surrounding countries, very quickly got absorbed into Israel and just became Israelis. And they were not refugees for more than a year, two, three, maybe five. And there are millions of African refugees, Asian refugees and Muslim refugees all over the world for different conflicts far more than the number of Palestinians 10 times, maybe a hundred times. They're all expected to be absorbed into local countries during or after a war except the Palestinians. So you have to ask the question, why is that? And then you have to ask the question, if you look at the United Nations as a body, why Israel is criticized an average 50 times a year and other countries which actually have. No human rights are often not criticized at all. And that actually the United Nations has become a body who feels its task is to demonize Israel, which is remarkable because being someone who's a body So studied and worked with human rights. As part of my job in ethical investing I was aware there's a, an organization called Freedom House that ranks every country in the world with a score out of a hundred of its free human rights. And it's not a right wing organization. It's actually used by Greenpeace and Amnesty International. And it's the accepted standard for measuring human rights and Israel score 77. Which means that Israel is a free country, and there's freedom of religion, and Muslims can be free here, and Christians can be free here. There's freedom of expression, which means that CNN can come here and can basically tell the world that we are the most evil country in the world, even though it's not true, and they can still get away with that and so forth. And the countries around us have No human rights. There's not one Arab country that has human rights including the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, obviously. It's remarkable that the United Nations condemns Israel, which is the only free country in, the region, and never mentions the other countries which perpetrate human rights abuses against their own citizens, left and center. All the time. So basically we live in this upside down world where, the one good country is demonized and the other's not. And then you have to ask the question why is that? And I think that the Muslim countries have conspired to basically demonize Israel because they have an agenda, which is to deflect the light away from themselves and their own human rights, Disasters. And of course, they've got a lot of partners in the United Nations from China and Russia, who run the Security Council, who also want to deflect any, view against themselves. So we're in a strange, world. So if I had to point the finger, I think United Nations gets a lot of credit for the terrible situation. But that doesn't take the blame away from America, Europe and Britain, who have fallen into their trap and ended up heavily funding them to promote their anti Semitic views.

Shure MV7-7: 22:23

Tell us rabbi. how did your life change after. The tragedy.

LEO DEE: 22:28

I'll tell you something that, after the shiver I was approached by a lot of people to get involved in different projects. I have been so busy with so many different projects. That it's helped me in two ways. Number one, I come home at night, often it's 11 o'clock at night and I crash. I don't have any time where I'm thinking what might I be doing with this time because I'm so busy. I said, number two, everything I do is in memory of one of the girls of Lucy Maya or Rina, and they all had different personality traits, which I try and bring out in these projects. And so when I think about them now, I don't always feel sad, don't always cry, but sometimes I actually feel proud or even happy about the things that I'm doing in order to remember them. Rina was my 15 year old daughter. Again, you discover things about your kids after these terrible tragedies no one should ever know. We invited some of her friends around for a Shabbat lunch a few weeks afterwards, and I went around the table and I said to them what did Rina mean to you, and what was different about her than any of the other girls in the school, which was Kirit Aba. Which is as quite deep into Hebron. And a lot of the founders there have lost people to terror attacks, and therefore they're not particularly friendly towards the the Arabs in the area. And they said to me, Reena was the one girl in Kiryat Arba who always stood up for peace with the Palestinians. And I was shocked because every Shabbat dinner when we would end up talking about politics I would talk about my views, and she would take a complete right wing extremist view, and we'd have a whole argument, and that was that. And it turns out that she was doing that because she wanted to hear all the arguments so she could go back to school and she could argue with her friends. So I was really, surprised and shocked really. That is

AZI JANKOVIC: 24:19

Such a testament to your faith and your optimism and belief in

LEO DEE: 24:25

humanity. I think also to attest me to her, character that, she realized this was a very interesting way to to learn. And, build bridges.

Shure MV7-9: 24:37

Speaking of building bridges, Leo. We're now over a hundred days into this war, and you've been speaking to a lot of people about the day after plan. Tell us about your conversations and what you think the day after plan. should. It look like.

LEO DEE: 24:52

Effectively I was working on something similar for the last few months. So when this all broke out, I've already discussed different ideas, let's say with different politicians here in, in Israel, also in America and Britain and Europe. If you look at the way Israel has dealt with the Palestinians over the past 75 years, and I don't criticize Israel because I think we can see we do live in existential threat and therefore we have every right to do whatever we want to do. But I think that sometimes we don't do ourselves favors and some of the decisions that were made, for example, Oslo in 1993. Have not benefited us and how we got there it's hard to understand. But what it means is that we've never actually had a situation with the Palestinians where we've had a stick and a carrot. We've had a a carrot in, Yehuda B'shamron. So in the West Bank here, 200, 000 plus people have been working every day in Israel. And that's a carrot, right? Because that means that actually, up until the 7th of October when they basically. closed the border to all these Palestinian workers, 80 percent of the income for the Palestinian authority was coming from us. That's a huge carrot and contributed a lot to let's say peace. That we had and in fact everybody if you'd have asked them before the 7th of October if such an attack were to happen would you expect it to happen from Gaza or from Yehuda Bashamran from the West Bank everybody would have said definitely the West Bank because as we've said I'm shopping shoulder to shoulder next to Arabs it wouldn't be rocket science, literally for them to blow up God forbid a supermarket or my car or whatever. And unfortunately, my wife and daughters were an example of that in, in the West Bank and going up to Galilee. It's not difficult for them to attack us, but they don't actually in, in, a huge numbers. And okay, you could say that's because we have more army presence here, but actually there was a pretty good security fence across Gaza as well. The current it. The fact that 80 percent of them derive their income, the main income from us means that, there's an internal pressure not to have too much terror there. In Gaza, there's no carrot at all. Everyone says, ah, but we were giving them work, and we were giving them opportunity. 18, 000 Gazans were working every day in Israel. Now, anyone can work it out, but that's less than 1%. So that's not really a carrot. That was that was really a threat. And as we saw, that was a threat. Because if you let a small number of them in, they become spies, and basically you end up with the 7th of October. So it was neither here nor there. Either, it's a carrot, in which case you let you want them to be dependent on you economically, or you don't let them in at all, but to let in 1 percent is a really not a very smart concept. Maybe the plan was to let more and more in over time, but in any case. We didn't have a sticking in the West Bank here in in the person authority as we talked about. We've allowed them to pay the terrorists. We've allowed them to train their kids. There's no stick. There's no rules about how they can opEFRATe. And in Gaza, there was no stick. Because they were paying the terrorists and they were training the kids and they had terror tunnels and we were giving them cement to build the territory, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And there was no carrot. So what would the world look like if we gave them a stick and a carrot? What would happen if we actually restricted their ability to perpetrate terror with a big stick in both of these places? And we gave them this big economic incentive. That if you get rid of terror and if you train your kids according to the Israeli Arab curriculum for Bagrut, for example, and if you get rid of the terror tunnels, and if you get rid of your weapons and then you can get a working permit to come and work anywhere you want in Israel which is where we were two months ago, anyway, with most of the Palestinian Arabs in in our region. Yeah. And nobody's tried that, but at the moment, unfortunately, a lot of the Israeli mentality is, How can we create a situation that was really punitive for them and and stop them working in Israel ever again. And unfortunately, if that was the day after plan, then I guarantee I'm sadly in five years time, 10 years time, there won't be Hamas. There won't be Fatah. There won't be Palestinian Authority. There'll be the worst possible, they'll create a new name, ISIS. You know on steroids because you basically a lot of people there, you know who used to work in construction in israel now not allowed to work there now, people who were middle class now becoming really poor and you've now got rid of this massive carrot, and guess what? You created the biggest possible terror situation you could possibly have. Now, we have a choice. We can do that in order to to punish them. Or we could take a longer term view and say, how about we create a situation where actually they might want to work friend, in a friendly way with us in the future. But I think that one can't take away the fact that we've never actually tried the logical solution over 75 years of both a stick and a carrot. We've had a carrot without the stick. We've had no stick and no carrot. We've never had the two together. And it seems to me that is a piece let's say Shalom 101.

Shure MV7-11: 30:20

So speaking of Shalom or peace completion. Let's transition into speaking a little bit about your book, transforming the world. Rabbi sacks of blessed memory said. That this book is an engaging, accessible, enjoyable account of Judaism. And it's continuing relevance to the world. What I loved so much about the book is that there's a surprise element. There's an unfolding where you share an idea. And with every page, every chapter, there's a deeper layer and there's more.

Shure MV7-12: 30:52

Can you share with us about the spiritual significance of the land of Israel? According to. The Torah.

LEO DEE: 30:58

I talk about, Why God put us in Israel. He gave us the promised land. The promised land is Israel. And he told us that our purpose, according to Rambam and according to King Solomon, is to create peace. Why didn't he give us Switzerland? Switzerland is surrounded by mountains. They never had an attack. They're peaceful. We could have lived there quite happily. And there would have been a logical place to put people who are engaged in peace or meant to live in peace. I think the answer is that Israel is the country that's been taken over by more other countries, empires in the history of the world. And it's right between the east and the west, the north and the south. It literally is the middle of the world, and it's a critical part of any empire. So you can only say, I think, that God put us in this place with our enemies around us in order that we could work out a way to have shalom. I don't like the word peace. As Rabbi Sacks said, peace actually comes from the Latin pact, which means absence of fighting. Where as Shalom comes from the Hebrew Shlemut, which means completeness, which means the solution, a complete solution to the problem. So I think what we're looking for is Shalom, not peace. But, Hashem has given us this challenge, which is to try and find a formula for shalom. And I think the reason is because if we had a formula for shalom with our neighbors, that would be the formula for shalom in the whole world. Because if we can solve it here. We can solve it anywhere. And from that concept the book is really about how does Jewish practice make us into these people who are capable of creating Shalom. And what I've tried to do is go through different laws keeping kosher and Shabbat. And all the different things which are Jewish mitzvot, commandments, and explain how they actually trickle down to a situation where we actually change the world. Because often we think of Jews as people who do these funny rituals. And then we see we're meant to be light unto the nations. At the same time, we are meant to influence the Muslims to to create states which have human rights. Now, how does that happen? If you look at the Christian world, for example, America, Europe, and Britain, for example, they are civilized and they have human rights because of us. And I talk a lot about how how we influence them. I think that our next level as he is to influence the Muslim world. There, as we say, there are 50 countries without human rights. And God is saying to us on the 7th of October stop being introspective, stop worrying and marching about legal reform, left and right, all this stuff, which is completely passé. The role of the Jewish people now has transformed. You have to be like to the spread. what you did with the Christian nations, spread it out to the Muslim nations, and then pretty much we've got most of the globe and everything else will fall like dominoes. And I think that he kicked it off on the 7th of October.

Shure MV7-13: 34:05

Rabbi D and I went on to speak about his work, not just in writing and in these spiritual ideologies and thoughts. But the work he's been doing around the world, advocating for Israel. Advocating for peace and advocating against radical. Terror.

Leo: 34:22

I spoke in the Austrian parliament, actually in a side room committee with a number of The MPs from the coalition and I talked about how what was happening in Israel was really a microcosm of what's happening in the world and that if they don't support us, then it's coming to a screen near you. And what surprised me was one of the lady MPs who's in the coalition said to me, I've got a question, she said, don't you think it's too late for Europe, which I thought, that's rather alarming. I said to her, look. I said, if you're prepared to stand up and say there is good and there is evil in this world, and we are standing for good, and we will not allow this evil to continue I said, then you have a chance. But if you continue to say that actually everything is equal, everyone has equal validity and will allow everything then you probably don't survive this. So really, you're the leader, and you have the opportunity now to lead. I don't think she disagreed, but I think it's probably the first time anyone had responded to her in that way. Austria seems to be very pro Jewish and pro Israel at the moment. They were the first people to ban Hamas marches and they, were really very keen to protect the Jewish community there. The new parliament building, which had just been opened about two weeks before I got there. The first flag they've actually shone on it was the Israeli flag. They've had a minute's silence for Israel for what had happened on October the 7th. And they have a very prominent Exhibition about their role in the Holocaust in the building itself in this new building. It really feels like they've gone a complete 180 degrees. And what people say to me, is there any hope? Yes, you can go from a Nazi, environment that is killing Jews left and center to completely the opposite to, to one of the most friendly. Environments with one of the fastest growing Jewish communities outside of Israel.

Shure MV7-14: 36:32

Rabbi D how would you compare the ideology that led to the Holocaust? In the 1930s and forties in Europe. Versus the radical Islamic terror ideologies that Israel is dealing with and that we're dealing with around the world.

Leo: 36:50

What I'm saying are my opinions and not that of the foreign office and not in my envoy position anyway. But in some ways we have a little bit more control of the situation because of course their religion is based on. Our religion 70 percent of the Koran is our teachings from the Tanakh. The Koran actually contains Mishnayot and parts of the Gemara. There is a connection there, and we actually have some interesting links. For example in the Jewish tradition the Messiah, the Moshiach, can come in two ways, either peacefully or through a war, Gog and Magog, right? That's two paths to Moshiach. The Christians have reflected that in their ideology, that there are two possibilities. They talk about Armageddon and Messiah Islam, which is built on Christianity and original Judaism, has the same idea. They also have a Moshiach. And they have jihad, which is, destroying the world through war. I So they have two paths as well. I think what's interesting is that. If the Muslims are in control of the Dome of the Rock, which is our temple site, then effectively they are automatically in jihad mode, because they know, according to their theology, according to Christian theology, and according to our theology, that they can't be a messiah. So effectively, they are in jihad mode. There's no option because there's no other way that Messiah can come while they're controlling the Dome of the Rock, the Temple Mount. If we were to take back our portion of it, which is the Dome of the Rock, not the Al Aqsa Mosque, which is their holy place, which is on the side, we could actually stop the jihad, we could turn the Muslims into the peaceful, messianic people like the Christians and like ourselves. And I know there's this ideology that, if we were to take back the Dome of the Rock, it would be World War III. But firstly, I would say we are heading for World War III at the moment. It's quite clear that that Hezbollah and Iran are on the way. And secondly there are a lot of lies that were perpetrated by our enemies of the past. For example, If we don't give funding to the Palestinians heavily fund them through the United Nations and the world then they will become radicalized. Because poor Palestinians obviously will become radicalized. Now, we know that is the opposite of the truth, because what happens is you give them billions of dollars, they build lots of terror tunnels, buy lots of weapons, they're terribly radicalized, right? And their leaders go off to Qatar and run the whole business from a five star hotel. Had they not had the billions of dollars, they wouldn't have been radicalized. They probably would have been good, honest human beings going to work and living a decent life. lot of the lies that were perpetrated by the Arabs and, believed by the West are are now coming to light. And one of them is that if we were to take back the Temple Mount, it would be World War III. Actually, it's the opposite. That would be possibly the solution from a theological perspective of this war. And of course, Al Aqsa. Is the name of this war, it's called the Al Aqsa flood and Al Aqsa meaning in their language at the moment, Temple Mount. They don't differentiate between the Dome of the Rock and the actual mosque even though historically Al Aqsa definitely referred only to their side of it and the Dome of the Rock was nothing particularly special. think it's obvious that the potential to make peace here is in our hands and we're being restrained. By Western forces were saying don't attack and don't do this and don't do that. And of actually, the more that our brave soldiers are fighting in Gaza and solving this problem, the closer we're getting to a situation of Shalom. Israel's now, I think, past the turning point where we're not a victim. We don't have to act the poor neighbor. But actually we can take a bit of control and actually we can assert ourselves and we can behave like the peacemaker in the region rather than the one that's always receiving aid and instructions from larger powers.

Azi: 40:47

when you envision the day after this war, what is going to look different about the day to day lives of people? people in Gaza, people around Gaza, after the war, as opposed to before October 7th.

Leo: 41:03

quite astonishing if you look at how Israel has interacted with the Palestinians over the past 50 years how we've never used a stick and a carrot. We just give you an example in Judea and Samaria, I live. There's never been a stick. been investing heavily in weapons. actually supported Fatah, which is the military wing of the Palestinian Authority. They've perpetrated many of the terror attacks in the region. And they pay their terrorists and families for pay for slave hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid. And they train their kids in UNRWA, United Nations schools terror. So there's no stick, there's been no deterrent. There has, however, been a carrot. The carrot has been that 200, 000 workers have come into Israel every day in the last recent years. Now if you work it out, I'll just give you the sum for those who are mathematically minded. are 2 million people in the Palestinian towns of Ramallah and Bethlehem and around the West Bank, as they call it. 200, 000 workers who are the breadwinners for a family of five means that a million of them are being supported by Israeli jobs. Israeli jobs pay over twice what local jobs pay. That means that from those jobs alone, about 60 70 percent of the income is coming from Israel. If you add into the fact that 90 percent of exports from the from that region go straight to Israel, that means about 80 percent of the total economy is coming from us. That that's an incentive. So we had a carrot without a stick. Now in Gaza, there was no stick, as we know, they were building terror tunnels and training their kids and paying money to terrorists and doing whatever they wanted to do. And there was no carrot, because there were 18, 000 people working every day in Israel, which is less than 1%. Probably about 10 percent of their economy was from Israel, 90 percent from other, sources. and basically enough to be a bunch of spies coming in to tell their friends where they could attack, but not enough to actually prevent for their friends to say, don't do it. don't we try a stick and a carrot? Because to be honest, that's what we did with the Germans after the war. The Marshall Plan was a stick and a carrot. It was denazification and money, basically, to rebuild industry. And the two came together, and they were pretty successful. in

Azi: 43:32

terms of rebuilding and creating new systems, you spoke about how the Arabs and the Palestinian Authority are not able to come into Israel right now to work. And now we also have a situation where The Gazans are not coming in and out. Do How do you feel knowing that these people, even young people who are being raised within a terror curriculum in their schools, in their mosques, and then they're, coming in to do business right alongside us. In

Leo: 44:07

this happened, I have some Palestinian friends, but basically people who work for me in home and other places throughout Jerusalem. And they're telling me we're stuck at home. We've got no money. I know some of them who really have no income, obviously, except for working in Israel. they're really struggling. that I know are lovely people, honest people. I trust them. The last nine years that we were in a frat, I trusted them to do a good job with the work which they did, which they always did. And in some ways, more than some Israeli workmen that I, knew. And it was a nice chat with them about their families. And I know that people in Faraza and Behrisa are the same about their, workers. But think that we've lived alongside the Palestinians in the PA for 20 years. problem has been, as I said, there's been no stick. We, we haven't been able to stop them from attacking us on the roads as happened to my wife and my daughters. And that's because we've allowed them to have weapons. We've allowed them to have an army. We've allowed them to pay their terrorists. We've allowed them to train their kids but why do we do that? why don't we, why don't we have a stick? doesn't seem like rocket science to me, to, a stick and a carrot.

Azi: 45:23

So all of the things that you're saying are essentially making sure that there there weapons

Leo: 45:29

that's order for that to work for them and for us and many people now talking about this model, there has to be what I call distributed to state solution distributed to safe solution means that basically, we break up Gaza into 10 towns, units, provinces, we break up, the PA into 10 separate provinces, which they pretty much are Bethlehem Jericho Ramallah, et cetera. There are 10 of them has 200, 000 people. Now each of them will have their own locally elected mayor, leader and they can, between them, select a president, let's say, even, and call it a state, have a seat at the United Nations each of them is relatively independent with little police force, no army. is surrounding them on all sides. So the IDF can actually surround any of these 20 units if necessary. And that would be the sort of, in my opinion, that would be the stick. They'd have to be demilitarized. They'd have to be de terror. They'd have to have a curriculum for school, which is probably based on the Israeli Arab curriculum, which is perfectly good for Arabs who live in Israel, would be perfectly good for Arabs who live in Gaza or the PA. So if they tick all those boxes, they hand over the weapons, they hand over the terrorists, and there's no attacks, at some point, one could say, okay, because you, unit number six have done this first, you get 50, 000 work permits you can send the men in to work, or women, whatever, you can come and work in Israel. travel freely, obviously go through the same security barriers, Kerem Kat, that's a great incentive. That's your carrot, good living. And to put your life. And if one of these units chooses to elect Hamas. Great. So circle them around. We block the blockade them and you've got 200, 000 people living there without them to work in Israel. But 1. 8 million people in that area are able to go to work as normal. accountability because if you had a terror attack, God forbid, from one of those regions, the IDF would come along, they could circle it, and for one month, let's say they close it off, 50, 000 people would lose their livelihood perhaps for for a month. And very soon that mayor might be on his way out, or the ideology for the local government would be how can we crack down on terror in our region? And it's, because of it. That doesn't happen when you have 2 million people together. But if you break it up a little bit, that's what I call distributive two state solution. work because the incentives and the accountability are much closer to the hearts of the people who live there.

Azi: 48:04

Interesting.

Leo: 48:05

if we had the carrot, which said if you tick all these boxes, then you, your province will have the right to come and work freely and travel freely, by the way, in Israel, sit on the beach in Tel Aviv, fly from Ben Gurion, have all the benefits of being able to move around Israel, then we would have the right as a condition for that. to send in experts regularly into their schools and if they're mosques and to find out exactly what's going on and to monitor them. And, and that's by the way, in the United Arab Emirates, that the sermons, I don't know if you're aware of the imams in the mosques in the UAE have to be vetted by the government on a Thursday night before they're allowed to say them on a Friday. And most people don't know that. That is what leaders of these countries are worried about the radicalization that could take place in the mosques, and they don't permit it.

Azi: 48:55

It's fascinating.

Leo: 48:55

a ticket to prosperity. So if there's that carrot, then they'll say, fine, come in you can stick your people in our schools, come and do the rotation of the schools. You can have cameras, whatever, if you want to, watch lessons, we don't care, monitor us because we really would like to have the freedom and the opportunity and the prosperity. And because of Then frankly, you don't get the work permit. You don't get the travel permit. You can live in your four amot and you can die there and you can be as radical as you like, but you're not going to leave and you're certainly not going to come into Israel. So, has to be that approach because as can't actually, we don't want to be managing them. They have to be incentivized themselves. And it's one of my Arab friends said that there's been no hope in Gaza. For 20 years, and that's not just our fault. It's they elected Hamas and they lost hope but when people lose hope, they do become radicalized and they start doing tremendously evil things. And I think that we can give them hope but at the same time with very, clear boundaries as to what they're allowed to do. I the same with that, incubator for a lot of startup companies, but effectively we're also an incubator here for peace. And, an incubator for Shalom. The Jewish people, our purpose, as I say in my book, is to create Shalom in the world. We've done very well in the West and Western. Cultures that promote peace and prosperity and civilization and human rights are based on Torah values effectively, which we've spread gradually over 2000 years. And our, our to spread that now to the Muslim world, which generally doesn't have these values. And we are so close to Gaza and the PA that actually they can be the prototype for this. And I have no doubt that if we can parent them into democracy and freedom that will be a model that will fall like dominoes across the Middle East and the Arab world and the rest of the Muslim world and become a template. And, and that's our role that we went through a very cruel age 3, 000 years ago, the Jewish people, believe it or not, under David and Melech. Was pretty violent going around killing people left, right and center. And that's why he didn't build the the temple, even though he had the right to do so by God, but David didn't build the temple. and that very quickly, right? We became a peaceful people and moral people and so forth. The through this period a thousand years ago during the Crusades and killed hundreds of thousands of people, probably ten times more than we did, right? And they've grown out of it and now they're a civilized civilized culture. The Muslims are now in their crusade period. and what they call jihad. The difference being that the number of people they could kill in this period is 10 times, 100 times more than the Christians could have killed during the crusades and a thousand times more than we would have killed at the time of King David. requirement now to parent and to come in to teach them. these morals very quickly, because if we don't, they're going to destroy themselves or destroy everything. so I think that, beginning of that process of us literally parenting the Arab world, how to run itself in a democratic and free way, which they, have no idea because there are 50 Muslim countries, 22 Arab countries, none of which are free. and democratic, all of which have lack human rights, no, no, no religion, no freedom of speech and no equality for women and no quality for gays and, and, and so forth. and those values, which we hold dear to our heart and Christians have learned from us, we now need to very, very quickly. Educate the other 2 billion people on this planet who have 50 states running in rather inequitable ways.

Azi: 52:56

It's interesting to think about all of that in the context of what's happening in Israel. And someone so hard to create a democracy that we've been fighting amongst ourselves. And you pointed out in our last conversation That this construct of the left and the right needs to evolve, and that's that's really hear from you about what the left looks like, what the right looks like, and how we can move past those divisions.

Leo: 53:26

I this war shone a light on many different things. we talked about last time, I think anti Semites and the evil in the world that people suddenly started sticking their head above the parapet, walking down the streets of London, Paris, New York, and now we could see who they are. And so it's shown the light of truth. It's shown the light of truth on the political, country. And I can say to you, that were created in order to create freedom and democracy. in the last 100, 200 years, which are basically politics and media. Those two instruments now have turned 180 degrees. They are now the instruments of division in every society, not just in Israel, but, most recently here. And, a left wing media and left wing politicians, you have right wing media and right wing politicians. When a left wing politician says something, the right wing media cracks down on him. And when a right wing politician says something, the left wing media And so it creates this divide, and the 80 percent of people who are basically normal and in the middle and not extreme are subjected to this ridiculous bickering which eventually, you down, and almost convinces you that there are actually people who believe these extreme ideas. Which is not true, because the truth is that 80 percent of people probably agree. think that challenge we have. And of course, programs like your own, which are outside the sphere of these left and right wing media are critical. I think podcasts, are really the way to go. For sure, this way of spreading truth because, you don't have the political affiliations of, of, of the established do you get around that fact? Because everyone's worried at the moment that given another 6 months, 12 months when this war is finished, the bickering again. It's already started about and, the that needs to be a new party, a new group, at least movement of a mixture of X left and X right to get together and basically discuss these issues in depth the issues of disagreement and before they're released to the public, they're actually thought out and there are slightly more intelligent solutions formed and voiced before they're released, right? At the moment we have, extreme leftist, right? Shouting one thing on the extreme and the extreme right is on the right. And before anyone else has a chance to think about it, everyone's marching in the street fighting about something that's so ridiculous. Either black or it's white. There's no gray in the middle. So we need a gray party that can actually think out sophisticated solutions. And I'm telling you, there's not one problem in this country, which can't be solved by a few intelligent people, mixed group from X left and X right coming together and discussing it. It's really not that complicated. We're a small country years time or ten years time because the boys and girls on the front line in Gaza will be the next generation of politicians, and I think they're amazing. I think they're strong, they're brave, and they have a great love for their country, for what they've been through, and they love their fellow from all different parts of society, and those people will be the most incredible leaders in five or ten years time. The challenge we have, I think, is only in the next five or ten years to make sure that bridge between where we were and where we're certainly going is made in a way which, fall apart in the meantime. It makes

Azi: 56:48

a lot of sense and your It's so inspiring conversation happening between politicians in the media? Are we looking for,

Leo: 56:56

sides and to create disharmony sells a lot of newspapers and a lot of advertising. And that's where the money is. It's a great instant. Great creating disharmony as far as the politicians are concerned. The only way in the media today that you can actually get your voice heard is by saying something that's completely abhorrent. And so people are trained to say things which are extreme in order to get their voice heard. Otherwise, basically, no one's interested. So I think that the structure is wrong. For encouraging civilized discussion and agreement so that, that, that that's what we see during this war when the war started? The government failed to provide equipment to the soldiers on the front line. And movements, civil movements, literally just Jewish people stepped in and helped in the most incredible way, ex left, ex right groups, synagogues and groups have been marching for the left wing against the the reforms in the, in the, baguettes and people started packing boxes and contacting American donors who were sending money to buy helmets and and bulletproof vests and then distributing them around the country and, and the people could step in and solve that problem, which frankly, is such an incredibly huge problem to how do war without the equipment and yet we did. Then I think we can solve any problem if we want to. So I, I think part of the first is to understand that we have this problem and, we need to, in the same way we disintermediated the, government just going straight to the soldiers and giving them the equipment. I think we need to disintermediate intermediate the politicians and the media and solve this problem in Israeli society. And I think that there are, movement organizations that, or people who could get together. And could do this, and it's increasing. The Are, they have what they call maglesia, as are circles. I, don't really like talking circles because you get a group of mixed people together and discuss things, but it's a bit of a waste of time. I think you need action circles where you actually get together and you discuss and then you say, and this is what we, rather than next week we'll meet again. It's next week, this is what we're going to be doing because of this. Cook said. A hundred years ago, and he was just ahead of his time, he said the Jewish people is made up of three groups, and we tend to call them Haredim, Dati Lumi, and Chilonim whatever, liberal Jews, religious nationalists, ultra Orthodox, And he said, Jews, the Jewish people needs every single one. In other words we, God forbid that everybody should be like me. Everybody should in their own way. And, those people who were being Jewish means to fight in the army. That's amazing. And those people who it's been Jewish is sitting in the in the Bay, mid Russian studying. That's amazing. Those people who being Jewish is helping other people and setting up charities, though. That's amazing. Every, Jew, it's a bit like saying, you know, you know, my, my or my liver is important, but I don't really care about my stomach. And I mean, you know, we, we, the all connected. And different parts of us do different things and you can't say that everybody has to be the same because everybody was the brain or everybody was the stomach or everybody was the heart. wouldn't have an organism at all. So somehow Hashem has made it that, we're beautifully balanced between these different groups. And please, God, it should last. And just, we just need to respect each other. and I think that's what's been lacking.

Azi: 1:00:41

Is there anything else? How can we, how can our listeners support you and connect with

Leo: 1:00:45

you? they're welcome to, contact me by WhatsApp if they want to. and, I have a Facebook group, D and ah, a page and a group, things along through there. and the book Amazon soon when it's restocked. and the book should be available on Amazon soon when it's restocked. and there's a, there's a Hebrew version, by the way, which is just, gone live on re sh which is the Israeli Amazon. they can get that, from the, in, in Hebrew for their kids. It's

Azi: 1:01:21

incredible. Wow. Incredible. I'll definitely be sharing the link to the book, the link to the Hebrew book. And have to tell you my 19 year old daughter who hasn't been too interested in anything along those lines she couldn't get enough. So that speaks volumes for anyone who, anyone who knows us. And I just, I so appreciate your time and your perspective and your optimism. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you

Leo: 1:01:47

for inviting me.

Shure MV7-14: 1:01:51

​To learn more artist support our growing movement. You can visit tiny url.com. Backslash humanity, POV movement. That's tiny url.com. Backslash humanity, POV movement. Thank you so much for tuning in. And we'll see you on the next episode.