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Hello everybody and welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.

I have a big smile on my face, a smile you can see by the way if you watch the show at the Salem News channel. Uh, big smile, and you'll immediately understand why I have a big smile. It is what we call a wry smile. What is a wry smile? People can read a wry smile. It is interesting, isn't it?

Interesting. I mean, almost centimeters or millimeters of a, of a, of a, of a lip can tell you the difference.

That's why masking was so bad for children, because they're not reading— they're not reading faces at a very, very important time in life. But who cares about children among the elite in this country? Here it is, Fox News: Israel to expedite gun licenses after deadly shooting near Jerusalem synagogue. Did you happen to see that? I knew you'd like it though.

Israel is poised to speed up gun applications in response to a shooting in East Jerusalem over the weekend that left 7 people, including a 70-year-old woman, dead.

The measure was among several that Israel's Security Cabinet announced Saturday evening.

Firearm licensing will be expedited and expanded in order to enable thousands of additional additional citizens to carry weapons, unquote.

Facebook page of the Prime Minister.

Ready?

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told reporters over the weekend, quote, when civilians have guns, they can defend themselves.

Radical notion, no? When civilians have guns, they can defend themselves. Who'd have thought of that?

Yes, the things that the left come up with.

We don't want you to be able to defend yourselves. We don't want anybody armed in a school because after all, if it's a gun-free zone at a school, who's going to attack it? There is no issue upon which the left thinks clearly. None. Zero. These are convoluted minds. Sick in many, many instances, especially in the treatment of children.

Another interesting aspect of this is the difference between most American Jews and most Israeli Jews.

American Jews Liv. I had her on.

She was a remarkable woman.

Carol.

Yes, I had Carol Markowitz on when I was in Florida 2 weeks ago, and she had a fascinating theory on American Jews. She's herself a Jew, as I am. And she had a fascinating theory that American Jews have had it so good in America that they became naive. And when you're naive as an adult, you're an idiot. It is inexcusable to be naive as an adult.

It means you want to remain a child, and that is an extremely unimpressive character flaw.

Now, all character flaws are unimpressive, so you might say, "That's redundant, Dennis." And Dennis does not want to be redundant.

However, I wished to emphasize its unimpressivity. To be naive as an adult, it means you want to remain a child, and a very important goal in life is to grow up. And that's what maturity is about. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a grown-up. Today, grown-ups want to be kids. That's a nice inversion, worthy of keeping. That, that's, that's a biggie. Yeah, they're naive. All the whole left in America is naive because they've had it so good.

America's systemically racist.

Oh really? So in what country where there is a mixture of races is there less racism? Can you name one?

Of course you can't.

And why is it that so many millions of non-white people wish to live in America? They didn't get the message from the American left that this country hates them? I guess they didn't get the message. Oh, those silly people from non-white countries who want to move here.

It's the world of the lie, the world of the left.

Anyway, American Jews are on the left, and they certainly are on the left on the gun issue. For them, all these murders are not a statement of moral decline in a society. No, like all leftists, It is a statement of too many guns. Of course, we had less gun control 50 years ago and fewer, even proportionately, murders.

Not to mention 100 years ago. Yeah, everything that the left thinks is the child's view of the world.

By the way, an immature child's view of the the world.

But in Israel, Jews are not naive because they deal with the real evil, unlike American Jews and American non-Jews, for whom life is so damn good for the most part that in order for them to find meaning in their secular lives, they make up evils As I've said all of my life, conservatives fight real evils, and liberals and leftists fight make-believe evils. That is the reason Israeli Jews and American Jews differ in so many ways. American Jews are naive. They've had it so good. So they don't have the notion that Israelis do. Hey, when civilians have guns, they can defend themselves.

Voilà!

There you have it.

So they are— while in America they are working feverishly to restrict gun access In Israel, they are working feverishly to expand gun access. Israeli Jews know what evil is. American Jews, at least the ones on the left, which is unfortunately a large number, don't know what evil is. Not in the American context anyway.

You know what they think is evil? Shrump.

That's what they think is evil. In Israel, they think evil are terrorists whose civilization throw parties when Israeli civilians are massacred. Hmm, who's right? We know the answer to that. Good one for you to remember.

Okey-doke. So, uh, who's the latest attacker on Ron DeSantis? Oh yes, the NAACP.

Is that right? That he's, according to the left, which lies every time they open their mouth or type an idea He's banning Black history.

That's what they're saying. You know that he's banning Black history.

The Wall Street Journal sort of clears up the record.

Florida rejected a planned advanced placement class in African American studies.

Why did they say African American? I thought that was taboo now.

Hmm.

African American studies because it, quote, lacks educational value and is a vehicle for a political agenda, unquote. In response, NPR quoted an academic, quote, involved in creating the curriculum, who explained again that CRT is too advanced—

critical race theory—

for high school students. This is their line: we don't teach critical race theory. No, no, no, it's too advanced for high school students.

Which is—

it's funny, I wish they would say that about sex.

I wish they would say that some things are too advanced, or inappropriate at least, for elementary school students. There's nothing particularly ideological about the course except that we value the experiences of African people in the United States.

So the academic on NPR lied.

Are you surprised? The academic is on the left. Truth is not a left-wing value.

The chattering class is already committed to that narrative by the time of a draft of the AP framework when it leaked. It starts innocuously enough with topics on Africa's linguistic diversity and the history of the Songhai Empire.

But keep reading until Unit 4, which includes— I will tell you then what It really includes the so-called African American Studies curriculum.

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Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here. Voilà, voilà, voilà. No, it's not. All right, so let's see the attacks on Ron DeSantis. Who doesn't want kids taught to use race to hate the country? So here are what what are included in the advanced placement class in Florida in African American studies that he objects to. It's from the Wall Street Journal editorial board. One, the reparations movement, a topic that, quote, explores the case for reparations, unquote, in which students, quote, may examine House Bill H.R.

40 and a text by Ta-Nehisi Coates Ta-Nehisi Coates is a white-hating, America-hating Black writer.

That is all he is.

He's extremely popular at NPR. He is, along with Ibram X. Kendi, the two big Black left-wing, America-hating, white-hating simpletons who are considered profound. That's who they're now putting in the AP course. By the way, is there a single I'm asking. I don't know the answer. Is there a single Black conservative, Black conservative, who is read in this APR course?

Is it advanced placement AP course? Not APR.

Advanced AP course. Do they read Tom Sowell, one of the finest thinkers of the last half century in the United States of America? Hmm, or any of the other black intellectuals like at the Wall Street Journal, Larry Elder.

They read them? Je le doute. I'm in a French mood.

Movement for Black Lives, quote, explores the origins, mission, and global influence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Oh, there you go.

This is not propaganda. This is Black Studies. This is not propaganda. Okay, so it, uh, adulates Ta-Nehisi Coates and the reparations movement and, uh, Black Lives Matter. Next, Black Queer Studies. I'm just curious, as a member of a minority called Jews, Would the average Jewish liberal be happy if the schools of their state all taught Jewish queer lives?

Let's study Jewish history, and we're going to study Jewish queer lives. I don't know.

It's an interesting question to ask. Given that queers, quote unquote, the term that they're using, comprise about 3% of the population, no matter what, why would you even have a course on 3% of the population isolated? You should never disqualify a gay individual from history, obviously. I mean, Tchaikovsky was gay, to the best of our knowledge.

Would you give a course on Russian music or even great classical music of the late 19th century and exclude Tchaikovsky?

But, but would you want to actually give a course on queer composers? Why is that important? Black Queer Studies, quote, it explores the concept of the queer of color critique grounded in Black feminism and intersectionality. Oh, this isn't left-wing claptrap, right? This is genuine Black studies. As a Black Studies lens that shifts sexuality studies towards racial analysis.

Do you understand that, what that is? I don't.

But as soon as I see intersectionality, I know it's propaganda. Next, we're not done with the advanced placement class in Florida in African American Studies. Post-Racial Racism and Colorblindness, which explores concepts such as post-racialism, colorblindness, racecraft, or inequality. Oh, I see. This is honest studies. This is not left-wing studies.

And finally, Intersectionality and Activism.

Which, quote, examines intersectionality as an analytical framework and its connection to Chicana and Asian American feminist thought. The thought that I did not study that when I was at college.

I feel truly intellectually impoverished. Let's repeat that because That's a winner. This is part of the advanced placement class for which the NAACP has accused Governor DeSantis of abolishing Black history courses. They support this because, like the ACLU, it is just another left-wing organization. NAACP, they hide behind Fighting Racism: ACLU Hides Behind Civil Liberties. Intersectionality and Activism examines intersectionality as an analytical framework and its connection to Chicana and Asian American feminist thought.

Oh.

To think that a student might graduate without having studied the intersectionality of, I don't know what, of what's the "it" in the "it's connection to Chicana and Asian American feminist thought." Finally, students, quote, may explore a text by Kimberlé Crenshaw whose official Columbia Law School bio says that her work is, quote, foundational in critical race theory. Okay, this is what is known as Black Studies or African American Studies in Florida and probably everywhere else. That is why DeSantis is such an important voice.

Okay, all Dennis Prager here.

So now that you know what left-wing anarchy they would be teaching in the advanced placement class in African American studies in Florida, you understand why the governor objects. However, however, you'll be happy to know Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has urged no changes saying his state expects history lessons that cover the role played by Black queer Americans. That's important. That's right. By the way, the Wall Street Journal editorial board ends by noting Black history is not an elective. Florida mandates instruction on the enslavement experience, quote unquote, the civil rights movement, quote unquote, and the contributions of Black Americans. 3 years ago, Mr. DeSantis signed a law to teach the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, in which a white mob killed dozens of Black Floridians. But it doesn't matter. The left hates DeSantis, so anything that he does will be listed as six-herb: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted.

Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.

The amazing thing is that she was not mocking the concept. Whenever I hear the Hillary Clinton quote on that, I'm thinking, was she serious?

And the answer is yes, she was serious. Amazing indeed. Hmm, there we go. Okay, let's take a call here. 1-800-PRAGER-776, Prescott, Arizona. And Neil, hello.

How do you do, sir? I hope you would remember a gentleman, Dr. Harry November. He was my doctor, a poet, and a very outstanding human being with my family. A Jewish doctor. I learned I was supposed to go to Israel a bunch of times. Instead, I stayed because they kept having wars. It's interesting that I went by a— about 100 yards— a shooting at a Jewish grammar school. Where they had disarmed the guard the day before. The bad guy was using an Uzi carbine, cut-down barrel, illegal. And of course nobody could stop him. I had a rifle. I did not know he was doing that, but I stopped at my gun shop that I worked at, and of course the left blamed us for him buying ammo and the gun. He did not buy the gun from us. I find it interesting, Black History I was almost beaten to death by a crypt with a cane back in '75. Before that, I was chased by a biker gang because my buddy—

wait, forgive me, what was the point that you wanted to make on the gun? I don't want you to go to a second point right now.

Oh, okay. The whole idea that the human being has a defensive attitude, family and themselves. Without a tool, we can't defend ourselves.

Yeah, that's right.

That was my point. That's Israel's point. I wonder how many American Jews know that Israel has expedited gun ownership among civilians in Israel. I do wonder. And of course, what it would do is further the rift, because American Jews don't have— the majority of American Jews don't have Jewish values. They have left-wing values. Of Of course, they will say that left-wing and Jewish values are identical, and one of us is wrong. I'll be very gentle in my response. Okay, let's see here. Tampa, Florida, and Tom. Hello, Tom.

Hey, Dennis.

Thanks for taking dissenting calls.

I appreciate it.

Well, I have a thank you to those who make the dissenting calls.

It means you listen to things you differ with. It's to your credit.

So if gun violence in this country is due to immorality or, or inferior morals, why is it that Canada has had no mass shootings this year, 3 in '22, and none in 2021, and we've had 39 in the first 24 days? Could it be because Canadians can't buy guns easily?

Yeah.

And why does that make me irrational or emotional?

Why does that— what? I'm sorry, why does it make me irrational?

Because—

because—

all right, okay, I'll answer you.

Stay on with me. I have to take a break. It's a totally fair question and I gave a totally fair answer. If you can't acquire guns, you can't have shootings. Like that. That is correct. The question is— well, I'll tell you what the question is.

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Hello everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.

Welcome to the show. Do you remember when the left used to say that blacks were executed disproportionately in cases of murder to prove that the justice system is systemically racist? When that turned out to be a lie, which everything the left says that is controversial is, because truth is not a left-wing value. They don't think of themselves as lying. They think of themselves as doing a service to their cause. So truth is, is not a higher value than their cause.

So they dropped that, and then they said, no, no, it's not that They of course didn't say we were lying the whole time.

It's not that blacks are executed at a greater rate in proportion to their murder convictions.

It is that you are more likely to be executed if you killed a white than a black.

So you get it? That's what they did.

So we now have the same thing happening now with police racism. It's so— it's not that white policemen are racist, it's that all policemen are racist. Black policemen as well. Now here's an interesting thing. Left-wing lies are colliding. Every single one of you who went to college, including me, long time ago, I was told at Columbia University in the 1970s A black cannot be a racist, correct? What happened to that? What happened to that lie?

I guess that's gone too.

That's gone too, I guess. Black policemen are racist. They only lie. Do you not understand that? I catch them so regularly. Not because they wake up and say, how can we lie? It is because truth is not a value to them. Pursuing whatever ends they believe in, that is the value. So you can lie and not even think you're lying because it is irrelevant. They don't ask the question. The left does not ask, am I telling the truth? The moment you become a leftist, the moment you leave liberalism and leave conservatism, you don't ask the question, am I telling the truth? You ask, am I furthering equity? Am I furthering the fight against racism? Am I furthering the dismembering of America and the West? Am I furthering the dismembering of colonialism? Am I fighting sexism? Not am I telling the truth. That is not a left-wing question. It was a lie that a Black cannot be a racist, and it is a lie that all cops are racist. But you can't have it both ways. If a black cannot be a racist, how could a black cop be a racist?

Wouldn't you love to get an answer from Charles M. Blow, the hate-filled writer for the New York Times?

Hate-filled?

The man is truly hate-filled. Every column drips with hatred.

Anyway, ask your left-wing friends. Can you start off like this? Just curious, can a black be a racist?

And of course, if they're on the left, they'll say no. And if they, if they say yes, then they're not leftist. They might be liberal. They have not truly incorporated left-wing thinking into their minds if they say yes. But the odds are they'll say no if they're really If they're leftist, they'll say no, a black cannot be a racist. Uh-huh. So are the— how are the black cops in Memphis racist?

What would they answer?

I usually can come up with left-wing answers. I know how to think like a left-winger. What would they say? It wouldn't be clear, but they would say that Well, first of all, would they use the term intersectionality in their response?

Uh, maybe.

Yeah, it's a good— it's a good chance. Yeah, go on.

It would be that systemic racism—

yeah, systemic racism overwhelms even the impossibility of a Black being a racist.

Okay, so, so then a Black can't be a racist.

That's fine.

I don't care what the cause is. It just means you've told a lie for the last half century. Blacks can't be racist.

There's another—

oh, wait a minute. Oh, I know what they'll say.

There's a possibility.

I'm not—

I don't know. I don't know.

They'll say it. A black cannot be a racist against a white. A black can be a racist against a black.

There you go. That's what— no, I think I got it.

But look, a Black cannot be a racist against whites. It's— what is Ibram X. Kendi, and what is Ta-Nehisi Coates, or Charles M. Blow? All the people who say all whites are racist. Now you'll say, but whites, the white leftists say that.

So therefore what? So therefore what? If that's not a state—

anytime you say all, you're a hater. One of the most clarifying things you can have in your life is that generalizations about groups are not necessarily a, a form of hatred, even if it's not a positive one. I remember the guy called me almost 30 years ago on the radio.

He said, you know, Dennis, Jews control Hollywood. And he thought I would hang up on him and call him an anti-Semite. He probably was an anti-Semite. Why else would he call to say that? So I simply said, you know what, Jews are— there's no question Jews are disproportionately It's less so today, but it was certainly more so then. Jews basically started MGM— what, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer? Those were three Jews, right? Hollywood was created by Jews. Yeah, exactly. By the way, America-loving Jews, one might add. Jewish liberals historically love this country. And as did liberals in general. Then leftism started infecting liberals, and that's the tragedy of America in a nutshell.

Anyway, so I said to the guy, yes, Jews are disproportionately dominant in Hollywood.

And I said, and what's your point? Has it in any way benefited Jews? I asked him. Did you see any pro-Jewish movie recently? Any pro-Judaism movie? Any pro-Israel movie since Exodus in the 1960s? And of course there was silence. That ended that. Anyway, anyway, so my only point is you can generalize. For example, blacks are disproportionately involved in violent crime in the United States. That's a fact, period. You're not a racist if you note that. You're a racist if you say all Blacks are criminals, which nobody says anyway. But I'm saying that the word 'all' is what makes you a hater. That's, that's the— that's a very important point. Or if you assume that when you meet somebody, the negative characteristic you associate with the group will attach to that person. That moves you into the realm of bigot. What you have to understand is that humans are individuals in every single group.

That's—

and what you do is you seek out the good individuals in every group.

Then you'll have a good life. Good people make life really worth living. Alright, by the way, it's my biggest argument for coming out of the closet as a conservative. If you have to hide who you are, you'll never draw people into your life who share your values. That's a very lonely life, is it not? Alvin Bragg is the DA in New York City, the district attorney. Woman arrested for the assault of two police officers during protests in New York over the death of Tyree Nichols has been freed without bail. That's something. You can assault police officers and you're free. In a move signed off by the city's famously soft-on-crime district attorney— this is the Daily Mail— Candy Nicole, who has a prior arrest for grabbing a male partner's testicles during an argument, was released on her own recognizance Saturday following a brief appearance in New York City criminal court. Notably, DA Alvin Bragg's office did not object to the decision. But if you were in the Capitol on January 6th, you could end up in prison for years. The corruption that the Democrats have brought to this country is unprecedented.

The Dennis Prager Show.

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Because you're mine. My wife just texted me. We text— not text, excuse me, IM, instant message. She was just at a Trader Joe's near where we live in Southern California, and she saw a fair number— I don't know, what did she write? How many people? Several people.

On a cool, windy day in Southern California, wearing masks outdoors. Yeah, this is—

you too?

I mean, I saw it yesterday.

You saw it yesterday?

Yeah.

This is 2023.

Yeah, the last day of January of 2023, and people are wearing masks. See, the problem— there are many problems. First, it tells me that the person is irrational. And I want to tell you, as you probably know, I have very few fears, but I fear irrational people. They scare the living daylights out of me. Maybe very nice people, and some undoubtedly are. Nevertheless, knowing nothing about the person, they scare me. People governed by irrationality In other words, their behavior is irrational. I don't care if people have irrational beliefs. There are those who believe that my religious beliefs may be irrational. I believe God split the sea during the Exodus. Is that irrational or just non-rational? Either way, it doesn't affect my behavior. I have extremely rational beliefs, by the way, even about religion. So I might commentary on the Bible. It's called The Rational Bible.

But even putting that aside, I go— I try to govern my life in opposition to the irrational.

So there, there's a scary aspect to people wearing masks.

Number 2, they are harming society wearing masks. If people do not see faces, society suffers.

It becomes less human and less humane.

You have to be a mask wearer to deny this truth. You are harming society by wearing a mask.

I condemn the hospitals for the idiotic demand that everybody in a hospital wear a mask.

Do you realize if you're a patient in a hospital, you are only visited by masked human beings? Do you know how bad that is for your recovery? Do hospitals not take that into account? Are hospitals run by hypochondriacs? If so, that's a very scary thing about hospitals. You can't see the face of your nurse, you can't see the face of your doctor, and they can't see your face.

That's good?

That helps your, your process of recovery? It's bad on— for one day. Imagine if you're there longer. This is what I mean, the, the amount of idiocy that governs our lives. It's like people have become stupider.

It's a combination of college and secularism that has rendered people stupid. Like there's no price paid. You know that the moment you ask, "What's the price paid?" you've left the left. That is one of the few questions— well, not one of the few— is one of the questions that you don't ask, and it becomes characteristic of leftism.

What is the price paid? What was the price paid for lockdowns? How many people have suffered, have died, have gotten sick, have gotten mentally disturbed, have gotten depressed, have gotten suicidal thanks to lockdowns? This was not asked by, by the, the fools who run the World Health Organization, the CDC, and NIH.

And American Medical Association.

I, I think to be— it is clear that to be in high office in any medical arena on Earth, you have to be a fool. If you're not a fool, you don't rise. Fools rise to the top.

I don't know why. I don't know why. Anthony Fauci is a fool. He may even be a bad man, I don't know. Let God judge that one. But he is a gigantic fool.

But he rose to the top. The mediocre who know how to handle things well rise to the top in organizations. As individuals, often the best rise to the top. But in organizations, the best do not rise to the top.

Not the best humans, let's put it that way. Maybe the best at doing something that has no positive impact. Yes, so I am quite annoyed with the mask wearers. They hurt the society.

Do you feel more human?

Have any of you visited a masked society where all the women are masked?

I have many times. I've been to many Muslim countries. Not all Muslim countries veil their women, but many do.

It is not human. The face is what makes the human.

That is why when people say You know, he's so humiliated he can't show his face in town, right? And now we consider that a virtue. Yeah, it is not a harmless act wearing a mask. Somebody ought to tell this to the people who do, but they won't. They don't want to alienate their friend.

We return.

1-800-PRAGER-776. Hello everybody, Dennis Prager here.

Okay, Simi Valley, California.

Dean.

Hello, Dean.

Hey Dennis, how are you?

I'm really well, thank you.

Thank you.

I am a big supporter.

You and I are often like-minded, and I just wanted to hopefully share something to help you so that your distractors don't give you grief. A couple of segments ago, you talked about whenever you use the word 'all,' it means you're a hater. And I often hear you say, 'All leftists do this,' and 'All leftists do that,' and I didn't want them to have that ammunition.

Oh, they can have it. I hate all leftists.

If you're a leftist is an idea.

I hate all Nazis. I hate all communists.

I hate all fascists.

The left, remember, I always make a distinction between left and liberal.

I mean, if you believe that the United States is systemically racist, if you believe that it is a good thing that we remove religion from American life like they just did in England at the London School of Economics, they no longer have a Christmas break or an Easter break, and etc.

If you think that it is a good thing to have girls' healthy breasts cut off when they're 18 years of age if they say they're a boy, I really hate you.

I admit it.

Tell me a leftist position that makes you unworthy of being hated, as opposed to a liberal position. I don't hate all liberals. A lot of liberals are wonderful people.

They're naive, and that's inexcusable in an adult, but I don't hate them. So hating an idea is not the same as hating a race or an ethnicity or a nationality.

I'm with you. You know what, I stand corrected. I actually think I would appreciate being labeled a hater if what I hate is leftist content.

Yes, if you hate evil, you're a good man. Ohavei Hashem sin'ura. Those of you who love God, you should hate evil. There's a command in the Bible. The Hebrew has a command form, English does not.

In the Hebrew, it's a command form.

You can't love God if you don't hate evil. And by the way, for those of you who made up— I don't know, where is the term from? Love the sinner, hate the sin. Could you look that up? Is that a New Testament phrase? I don't think so. But I would be very curious because in Psalms it says that God hates evildoers, not just evil, which makes me love God more. I mean, you know, let's be honest. What am I going to say? The left is destroying everything good in my country and in Western civilization, but I don't hate them.

I, I, I dislike them, right?

Just what they're doing to children alone.

I, I think you're ruining children in the millions in this country, leftists, but I don't hate you for it. No, not at all. Yeah.

It's, um, it's not in there.

It's not? So who made it up? Well, who is it?

Sometimes to Gandhi, sometimes to—

oh, to Gandhi? Well, he's not my hero.

Sometimes.

Okay, who else?

A pastor named Adam Hamilton.

I don't know, a pastor named Adam Hamilton?

Yeah.

When did he live?

That's so interesting.

I'd love to know when that, uh, may—

let's do that for an Ultimate Issues Hour.

We have a different one scheduled today, but Let's do that on an Ultimate Issues Hour. Do you believe God hates evildoers?

This notion that God loves everybody is so interesting. How do you reconcile that with the, the God hates evildoers in the Bible?

This is a, a friendly debate I have with my beloved Christians who are in my life. I never, I never understood the idea that no matter how you act, God loves you. Like, it sort of strikes me as like God is sort of like an air conditioner in that way. Air conditioners blow out the same cold air whether you're raping somebody in the room or saving somebody's life in the room, but the air conditioner is not moved by, by love and kindness.

God is. Okay, let's see here.

Brentwood, California.

Sharon, hello.

Hi Dennis, thank you for taking my call. Um, I'm a great fan of yours. I'm listening for since Religion on the Line, so I love the show.

Thank you.

Every day that I can. Thank you. And what I wanted to say is that I do believe this is more in the hospitals, in the medical community, and how patients are treated, especially the elderly and the young. That, uh, it basically— it's a godless society now and very much under the influence of Marxist, communist, whatever you want to call it, socialism.

All right, hold it there. I gotta take a break. Forgive me.

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Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here.

The third hour every Tuesday is called the The Ultimate Issues Hour because we talk about ultimate issues. One of the ultimate issues that has preoccupied me throughout my life is the riddle of goodness. I don't find evil to be nearly as complex as I find great goodness to be complex. So I have studied goodness as much as I have studied evil. And it is a very complex, as I said, issue. So when something on the subject comes out, I find it important to read, and in this case have the author on The Ultimate Issues Hour. The most obvious, or at a most obvious example of extraordinary goodness, were the non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. There weren't many of them, which is not surprising because goodness is not common, but they need to be studied. And one man has just written a book on that very subject. The Garden of the Righteous is the book. The heroes who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. The author is Richard Horowitz, not spelled the normal way, H-U-R-O-W-I-T-Z. He lives in New York City, is a writer and the founder and publisher of The Octavian Report. It's been published in most major publications. And Richard Horowitz, welcome to The Dennis Prager Show.

Well, thank you for having me.

So Have you been as, uh, transfixed by the question of goodness as I described myself?

I have. Uh, it was interesting to hear how you, uh, how you describe that. Um, and you know, when you look at the Second World War, which I guess is the sort of, at least from my perspective, the nadir of humanity, um, it was a very rare thing So I've been very interested in courage, I agree, and in goodness. I agree with you, it's a very rare thing, and it's, in the case of these people, it was also tied up with another very rare thing, which is courage. And it was their goodness and their courage that came together that allowed them to do these extraordinary things. And I'm also very interested in what made them do that and what lessons we can learn from them that we might be able to apply today so that there is more, more goodness and more courage in the world. I think it's sorely needed.

So you describe how many individual cases?

So there's 10 stories of rescue. You know, I, in my introduction, I touch on a number of others, but I tried to You choose stories that cover different places in Europe, different motivations, different types of rescue. So there are 10 stories, it's not 10 individuals, they're 10 stories. Some of them are about communities and some of them are about individuals.

[Speaker:DENNIS PRAGER] So here's a question that truly intrigues me, and that is this.

Did you go in with any preconceptions?

Part 2: If you did, were they confirmed or non-confirmed?

Um, I didn't go in, I'd say, with any, any preconceived notions, partly because it's such an understudied area. So most of us probably really only know, knew at one point the story of Raoul Wallenberg, and then after the Spielberg movie Schindler. I had some suspicions about, you know, why people might do this in terms of, you know, particularly if they were inspired by religion or something greater than themselves, but there wasn't, I didn't have a preconceived notion because I knew going in that the places and the types of people that did this were very diverse. But, but on the back of the research and the back of writing the book, I do have views as to, you know, what, what, what may have motivated some of, at least some of these people, or what, what worked to, to create the circumstances where rescue happened and where people risk their lives for for other people, including people in many cases they didn't know, might not even have liked.

Oh, you don't know what a sensitive and important subject that last comment is to me. There were— and people are usually shocked to hear this— there were people who didn't like Jews who risked their lives to save them.

Their—

and their comment was, yeah, I don't particularly like Jews, but exterminating them is evil. Is that what you're referring to?

Yes.

Yeah, that's why I wrote a book on antisemitism, Why the Jews, and I distinguish between disliking a group and hating a group. There's a very big difference.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, in this country, there's an ongoing and long-standing debate about whether we did enough, and I have views on that. I don't think we did enough, but there were elements of the State Department and other parts of the government that clearly were very anti-Semitic, but I don't think they were seeking to exterminate Jews. Right, right.

Yeah.

That's a good variation on the theme. So here's another provocative question. Question, and then we'll get into some of your— of the stories, because it's important for people to hear about courage and goodness. So I, uh, I've been in this so long and lived long enough that I actually had a very long dialogue which I printed up in the 1980s in a newsletter I produced at the time. I interviewed Sam and Pearl Oliner. Are you familiar with them?

Dennis Prager.

Well, I actually had the great honor to know them. So these were secular Jews, and I always emphasize that, who were sociologists at Humboldt State, California State University in Humboldt, the very top of Northern California. And they wrote a book on altruism and on this subject. Of rescuers of Jews. So I asked them, knowing all you know now about who risked their lives to save Jews, imagine you were a Jew in Poland, let's say, in during the Holocaust, which— and they were, they were Jews in the Holocaust, by the way. They did survive the Holocaust and they were rescued. Knowing all you know now, if you could knock on one door of a non-Jew in the hope that they would hide you? Would you knock on the door of a doctor, of a Polish doctor, a Polish lawyer, a Polish professor, or a Polish priest? Who do you think they answered?

I, I would guess the priest.

Correct.

And what would you answer?

I would answer the priest or the doctor.

Okay, I was just curious. And now let's, uh, let's get into the stories.

First, how did you—

I'm not fascinating. Sorry that you, uh, that you, you spoke to them, and they're— they actually— I talked about their study in my book.

So yeah, well, it shows you I'm not young, and it shows you how long ago I was interested in the subject. Yeah, yeah, I, I, uh, I printed up that interview. I have to dig it up anyway. Uh, so, oh, one more thing before, uh, because we have the time happily, uh, you'll—

I'm—

I just want to get your reaction to this. I have mentioned this to my listeners on a number of occasions. My brother was at Harvard Medical School and I remember visiting him. So I was, I was just in college. I was 6 years younger. And I was visiting him and I went to the Harvard Coop, as they called it, which was an enormous bookstore among other things. And I went crazy because I always loved ideas. There was a book on rescuers of the Holocaust, in the Holocaust. And they, the author, I can't remember the book, which kills me. And I didn't have the money to buy it at the time. He gave 4 characteristics of rescuers, and one of them remained in me my whole life. People who were considered eccentric prior to the war were more likely to be among those who rescued, rescued Jews in the war. I want to get your reaction to that when we come back. I'm speaking, folks, with Richard Horowitz.

The book In the Garden of the Righteous is up at DennisPrager.com.

Richard Horowitz, H-U-R-O-W-I-T-Z, a writer and obviously thinker. In the Garden of the Righteous has just come out, subtitled The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Jews During the Holocaust. So I had mentioned to you right before the break, if I may call you Richard, I mentioned to you that a book that I saw obviously so long ago, my— it would be— it would have been the 19, uh, the late '60s or early '70s even. I was a kid and I— but I was interested in this. The book described 4 characteristics of rescuers. The first 3 were things that I had intuited or read about already, but the 4th blew my mind. People who were considered eccentrics were more likely, before the war, were more likely to be among those who rescued Jews during the war. That had so planted a seed in me that I've come to the realization that virtually all good in the world is done by outliers. There are outliers who do bad, but almost all good is done by outliers. What is your reaction to the eccentric point? Is it an eccentric point itself, or do you think there's some merit to it?

I do think there's some merit to it, um, and I'm trying to rack my brain as to what the book is you saw, because there's so few books.

Oh, I know, believe me, it drives me nuts.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, I— maybe I'll try to dig it up, but I—

that doesn't—

I mean, it depends how you define eccentricity, but I can think of at least like 3 different reasons. One is there definitely were people who were in sort of, you know, creative or professions, you know, thinkers that definitely were more likely to rescue. I spoke to Varian Fry's son, who talked about his father being very much an outlier, a little bit manic, directly attributed his heroics to that. But I think even more broadly that, and this came out in the Oliners' work you were referring to earlier, that people who rescued were definitely people who fought for themselves, who had a, and that sometimes came from how they were treated as a child by their parent or other role model. But people who, and we might think of them as eccentric, right, but people who were free thinkers and who were not easily, just didn't go along with what everyone else was doing. And obviously, and some of that goes to their own personal self-esteem. Because in order to do what these people did, you really had to go against the tide. In a lot of places, pretty much everybody was going along with the Nazis. And so you had to be somebody that really felt, you know, had a very strong view internally of what was right and what was the correct thing to do and acted on it. And those, yeah, I think in normal times a lot of those types of people, many of them do great things, but they're also often people who are outliers and who are, you know, you know, not in the mainstream. And so I don't think it's because outliers were people who felt like they themselves were persecuted and therefore they were gonna, you know, they sympathize. I think it was more about, you know, people who kind of listened to their own inner moral compass.

Yeah, people who march to their own drummer. That's it. That's exactly right. Yeah, so the outlier, the eccentric. I know one of the cases in your book is of circus performers. Yeah, who generally would be considered on the eccentric side of things. That would—

that—

so that would be a perfect example, uh, I assume.

But yes, in fact, the rescuer I profiled at one point was bitten by a tiger and continued performing. So, so I would put him in that category.

Right, exactly. The, the, the question for me, and then I want to hear some of the the examples, obviously. The question for me, and I don't have an answer to it, and I may leave this world without an answer, is— it's, it's almost, uh, it's a little depressing. Some people, there's no question, and I wish it weren't the case, but some people are just born better. Just as there are bad seeds, there are good seeds. They're both at the outer end of the proverbial bell curve. So the question is, can society make heroically good people, or do they make themselves, as it were? You have an answer to that?

Oh, that's a really good question. I think society for the vast majority of people can have a big impact. And I think it's everything from probably the most important thing is how your family's values, how you were raised, what you were taught at a young age, what's modeled for you. But then I profile in my book, and I actually wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal a week ago about communities. That came together that where they had survival rates of between 95 and 100% of their Jews, the most famous being Denmark, but there were other places like Albania, the only majority Muslim country in Europe, which had more Jews at the end of the war than before the war. The Protestant village of Le Chambon in France, and there are things I think we can do to create a culture where when everyone stood together, they actually were able to stand up to the Nazis and end up saving their neighbors. And these were places where there was often a code of honor or some deep religious belief or some cultural ethos that led people to that was commonly held. They were places where people viewed their neighbors as maybe different, but they were their neighbors and friends. So people knew in Denmark that people were Jewish, but they viewed them as Danes first, and they were their neighbors, and they were their countrymen, and they fought together, and they lived together. And so I think we can do a lot there. I mean, in Holland, which had a mixed record, where obviously Anne Frank was rescued, there was an interview with one of the rescuers. And again, these people, they may be the extremes you're talking about, you know, people who risked their lives or the lives of their family or other, you know, to do this. They were— this man who was a rescuer said that he was—

All right, hold on. I want to hear it, but I don't want to interrupt you.

Back in a moment.

The book is up at DennisPrager.com. Hi everybody.

There is nothing more important—

there may be things tied with it, but nothing more important on every level than studying goodness, because it is at least as big a riddle as evil, unless you believe people were born basically good, in which case you have decided to remain a child. And I don't have respect for that. But in— if you have grown up, you know that human nature is a flawed creature. It has good in it, but it is flawed. And so goodness must be studied. And it is also important because it gives you courage to move on. You, if you despair, and there are reasons for despair, but if you despair, then you do no good. As I have said in writing my Bible commentary, I read a great piece by another commentator, and it was Despair is a Sin. It was— I'm working on the Book of Numbers, and in that book there is despair over entering the Promised Land. And that's where the commentator wrote that brilliant thing, despair is a sin. So that's why this book and others like it is so important. Just published, In the Garden of the Righteous: The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Jews During the Holocaust, Richard Horowitz, H-U-R-O-W-I-T-Z. So you, sir, were telling us a story. I believe it was in, in Holland.

Yeah. So I was just saying that one of the rescuers there was saying that while people who actually, you know, did the front line of the rescue, you know, hiding the Franks in their attic were the tip of the spear, what really made it effective in Holland was the fact that for the large part, a large portion of the population would look the other way. And was quietly sympathetic. And you contrast that with other parts of Europe where people were running to turn people in for rewards or because they really believed in, in, in, you know, bigotry and, and for all kinds of other reasons that, you know, are the kind of the worst in humanity.

So I—

this was an answer to your question about society. I think if we have a society that, that values this kind of action and supports it, Even if not all of us are going to be the person who is risking their lives on the front lines, that actually was an important part of the formula. And so that goes to kind of, I think, what values a society puts highest and who we value and who we celebrate. And if we can, I think, particularly with young people but just in general, make more of an effort to celebrate people who do things for others, you know, for altruistic people, people who do good, people who are courageous. I think we actually can create something of a bulwark and have a better society where more people will do good.

On the record, on the national record, you noted Denmark and what was the other country? Oh, Albania?

Albania. Albania.

What is the story? Because I get mixed reports.

What is the story on Bulgaria? I thought Bulgaria did save its Jews.

Yeah, so Bulgaria did. It was a little bit controversial. The, the, there was the king was put under a lot of pressure by a member of parliament and by a couple of the, the metropolitans, so the, the leaders of the Orthodox Church there. And so the Bulgarians did save a lot of their—

Wait, so the religious leaders in Bulgaria put pressure to save Jews?

To save Jews, yeah.

That's good to know. People need to know that. Okay.

Well, I talk a lot about different, you know, the Greek Orthodox Church was also, I mean, I talk a lot about them in the book. But the sort of stain on Bulgaria is that when they occupied Greece, it was divided into 3 zones, the German zone, the Italian zone, and the Bulgarian zone. The Italian zone was always the place where the Jews would not be rounded up. The Italians had a very good track record on not rounding up Jews. The Bulgarians, for a variety of reasons, largely because they wanted to be able to annex Thrace, basically turned in the Thracian Jews. So whereas they saved their— the Bulgarian— the Jews in Bulgaria itself—

Uh-huh, okay, this is so clarifying. Okay, stay on with me. This is endlessly interesting. Goodness is interesting, folks.

There are no movie—

very few movies compared to movies on criminality and evil. It's a tiny fraction. People find evil more interesting, but, uh, I understand it. But goodness is very interesting, to say the least. Great goodness should be taught, and examples of it are taught in The Garden of the Righteous, the book by Richard Horowitz, just out, widely reviewed. The heroes who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, that's the subtitle. We were talking about various countries Thank you for clarifying the Bulgaria one. Would you say, so given the Greek Orthodox priests or leadership in Greece and the, uh, Bulgarian Orthodox in Bulgaria, would you say— and I have no idea what you're saying, may not even be an answer, it might not even be a legitimate question But were Eastern churches better than Western churches?

Oh, um, I, I don't know if I put it— well, let me say that the Greece was a tale of two, um, you know, it's tale of two areas. I mean, in, in most of the Greek Jews were, were murdered in Thessaloniki, but in the south of Greece, in Athens and in the islands There was a third kind. There's, you know, the Ashkenazi Jews, the Sephardic Jews. There's a third kind of Jew called the Romanov Jew that had been there for generations, and they had a very good survival rate. And a big part of it, it was both the local government and the partisans, but the church, and it was led by Archbishop Demaskinos, who later became interim prime minister. He was on the COVID of Time magazine. He is the only leader. He signed a letter that was also signed by many members of civil society protesting the treatment of the Jews, and he's the only leader of a church in Europe who formally protested the Holocaust. So I think as an institution, there may be some truth to what you said. That said, religion is a through point throughout the entire book, and I have— it is probably the single biggest driver of people for rescue, and that includes Protestants, as I mentioned, Muslims, Catholics, right? Even, even in the Catholic Church, there were parts of it like Archbishop— the Archbishop of Florence was a heroic leader. So, but as an institution, it was more split. So I would say as an institution—

so why didn't you, why didn't you answer my original question that you would knock on the door of You said a priest or the doctor. I don't have as elevated a view of doctors as you do. I used to, I don't.

So why would you have knocked?

You really would have flipped a coin if you could knock on one door to be rescued as a Jew in the Holocaust, a doctor or a Catholic priest?

Well, I was probably colored a little bit by the fact that one of my chapters is about a woman named Irena Sendler who saved 2,500 Jewish children. Her father was a doctor, and he taught her, you know, he was a doctor for all the right reasons. And it's similar with, I would say, the church. I mean, the people who really took to heart those teachings of religion, as opposed to kind of were focused on the hierarchy of religion, really were— that was a major impulse for rescue, so people who believed I am my brother's keeper. I think the parable of the Good Samaritan probably saved more Jews than anything else in Europe. So if it was a priest who really believed in those teachings, that is the kind of person that many, many people were driven to save because of those teachings. So that is, that's why, again, maybe my doctor, You are right, professions, lawyers, I went to law school myself, that did not correlate. If anything, it might have correlated somewhat negatively with rescue, but people who believed in something greater and also believed that there was a moral imperative and a religious imperative to save their neighbor.

Right, so I'm gonna throw out a provocative, you don't even have to react, but I just want to say, that as a Jew myself, I fear the secularization of America more than any other single thing that I fear. Most Jews are secular, and I think it is a mistake of Greek tragedy proportions that Jews think secularism is their friend. I had to throw that out because otherwise I'd be self-suppressing and and causing, uh, ill health. Uh, but I, I just want my listeners to be aware. I want you to be aware of that too, but you don't— you're certainly not obligated to react. So why don't you give us one of you— well, I, I guess every one of your stories is your favorite, but if you could only give one, give an example.

Um, I would, I guess the, there's two that are really, I guess I opened the book, so he's probably my favorite, was a Portuguese diplomat named Aristides de Sousa Mendes. And I mention him because most people haven't heard of him, but he is credited with the largest single rescue by an individual in the Holocaust. He was born an aristocrat. He was a twin. His brother had a much more stellar career than he did. He became foreign minister, but Sousa Mendes was one of these diplomats that was a great entertainer, so he was a wonderful host. He was posted all over the world, and he eventually found himself Consul General in Bordeaux when the Nazis invaded France in June of 1940. And his, the dictator of Portugal, Salazar, who was an enormously complicated guy at that time, was more sympathetic to the Germans than the Allies, but was also adamant that there not be a refugee crisis in Portugal, particularly in Spain next door. But they were both neutral countries. So if you were able to get there, you were able to, you know, you were safe and generally able to move on to places like the United States And Sousa Mendes, he was a devout Catholic. He actually believed he was probably descended, as a lot of Portuguese are, from converted Jews. And he was also a humanitarian and a bon vivant. And he found himself again in Bordeaux when millions and millions and millions of people were making their way south in probably the worst traffic jam in the history of humanity as the Nazis were approaching Paris. You had German planes—

All right, hold it there. I want to hear the rest of the story.

Dennis Prager here.

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