This week's video was supposed to be for Patreon and it was supposed to be a motorcycle diary, but a couple of things happened. First was my fuel pump I think broke and the second of course was this now I am not a Jew officially, but my spirit. the spirit in the spirited Man is a Jewish Spirit If you connect with me, connect with this channel, connect with my point of view. What? I'm connecting you with the chord I'm connecting you with is probably Irish My story telling gift probably comes from my Irish heritage, but what I'm connecting you to is my Jewish Soul Irish blood Jewish Heart this I'm made of and my soul was built by the Jews who saved and nurtured me throughout my life.

I Came up with the idea for this episode last: February Over the past two weeks or so, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and accounts of the October 7th Terrorist attacks on Israel I've seen the footage of the anti-semitic chants and rallies from around the world, especially on college campuses at a very young age. I was warned that these things would one day come again I see the explicit anti-Semitism and I and others who know Jews or are Jews We're astonished by anti-Semitism because it makes no sense in the face of the contributions Jews have made to our civilization and in the face of the consequences that we know Jew Hating leads to. It makes no sense that kids in Australia and England and in the United States are rallying against Jews. So why why do people hate Jews Thomas Soul says that hostility towards Jews is beyond all proportion to any other group that he can think of.

Soul says the reason for the hatred is because because Jews succeed in a way that is a threat to the egos of other people historically immigrant Jews Wherever they've gone, started out with nothing and arose to tremendous success. Weak unsuccessful people see that rise and they hate the successful Jews for it because it's easier than hating themselves who, especially in this country, are the actual ones responsible for their own lack of success. Soul Said that an official of a Jewish organization once asked him what Jewish people could do to minimize the hostility they face and soul said fail I have a little boy who uh, thank God will never get Polio Polio Infantile Paralysis that's what they used to call it when polio was around and you were a little kid. you'd leave school for your summer vacation and when you came back to school some of your friends or you would be crippled for Life leg braces, wheelchair, and a Jew named Jonas Sulk invented a V so that none of us nor our children will ever get polio.

There are almost no cases of polio globally now, and when Jonas Sulk was asked who owns the Polio vaccine patent Suk said well the people I would say there is no patent could you patent the sun Sal didn't patent the polio vaccine. that's a you. The polio vaccine is an absolute good. 22% of the winners of the Nobel Prize have at least one Jewish parent hardly anyone is Jewish There's 14 million Jews in the world, 2% of the global population that's 1 in 500 humans is Jewish and Jews don't live in that many different places.

most people don't know any Jew which probably makes it easier to hate them. Well I know Jews but I was not born to Jews I'm not Catholic but I was born to Irish Catholics in Maine in the mid '70s I doubt they knew any Jews things went sideways in Maine My mother divorced my biological father, moved me to Connecticut met a Jew named very niist thatat they got married and Barry Neistat adopted me and became my father. That's where my name comes from I've never met a stranger with the same last name as me. The Russians killed all the Niist stats in the Pags of the of the 19th century though I Have heard that there are some Niist stats that live in in Brooklyn I've just never met them I am Barry Neistat's eldest son.

He raised me and he saved my life. This life, this beautiful life, the life that over a half a million of you connect to in one way or another. when I break my life down into three phases or eras. So far, my youth, my education, my career, it was an individual Jew who opened the door and guided me through the Wonders and miracles I experienced therein within each era of my life.

a failan of Jews has supported me, encouraged me, helped me along. loved me. um I I wrote down I had to write down some of the names so that I could remember them. um and these are only the ones I remember um, the Ni stats of course Copeland's Rutberg Linda Riches, Godders, Fishkins, Zelkin Freemans Mrs Plotnik My fifth grade teacher taught me the importance of writing volunteered for the Israeli Army she's an American volunteered for the Israeli Army halfway through my my school year when I was in fifth grade.

the Kers boms, the Saxs family, the Hawgs Lilian Vernon the pools, the Gfts the Rudin the D Woodies the Safties, the Lenos Calans Schulman Bishes Hons Gon weisses. There was nothing special about me a Gentile boy with Gentile blood, but there was certainly something special about them them. Jews My father was 27 when he adopted me. He has no relationship with my mother now, but he continues to have a strong one with me.

Down the street from my Jewish grandparents lived a boy my age Named Sam and I thought Sam was the bees KN He got a pair of V sunglasses 85 bucks a pair. When he was 13, he had a Swiss army knife with his name on it that he got in Switzerland He had his own laser sailboat that we could sail across the Long Island Sound to New York by ourselves when we were 14 and I wanted to be just like him. his mother had converted to Judaism and his father was the son of German Holocaust Survivors Sam's parents gave me books, taught me the value of Education the value of reading and it was his mother who bought me a video camera when I was broke right after September 11th 2001. It was a Jewish lady Nancy who hired me for my first professional writing job, taught me how to be a professional, and a Jew named Tom Sachs hired me, took me under his wing, taught me how to be an artist, how to make things from scratch and sell them Elliot I'm keeping him.

Why do I make videos? What's the fundamental biographical reason I Make these videos I Think the visceral embodied experience that drove me to this medium was seeing ET in the theater when I was six. The movie had such an effect on me that I broke out in hives all over my body while I was watching it. and hives is kind of like a poison ivy rash. Um, they went away in the in my sleep that night.

I was six and I learned that ET had been directed by a man named Steven Spielberg Spielberg was not only the first director Ctor I had ever heard of Spielberg The name Spielberg introduced me to the concept of a director. There is a person who makes movies. This person is called a director and the director. Steph Spielberg makes the best movies.

They were all Giants the Spielberg movies when I was a kid Jaws Close Encounters ET Raiders of the Lost Arc they'd come out and be the biggest movies of the year. the biggest movies of all time. ET was the highest grossing movie of all time until Jurassic Park came out in 1993. Spielberg made Jurassic Park Of course it was the biggest movie ever, but in that same year in 1993 I was 18 Spielberg made his most important film Schindler list I Don't think Schindler's List is Spielberg's best movie I think Empire of the Sun is Spielberg's best movie starring a young man by the name of Christian Bale Empire of the Sun is my Spielberg number one.

but there is no doubt that Schindler's List is Spielberg's most important movie. Spielberg made Schindler's List at the height of his power 1993 He knew that whatever holocaust movie he made would be the most important movie he would ever make and he knew he could tell any story. He could choose any hero from the Holocaust and to me, it is a massive stroke of Genius that he chose for his holocaust movie, his most important movie, the height of his power, and for his hero, he chooses to tell the story of a Nazi Oscar Schindler was a Nazi Schindler's List is 30 years old. of course you've heard of it.

Maybe you haven't seen it. So here's the story based on real events: Oscar Schindler was a real guy. He was a Czechoslovakian of German descent, an industrialist who sells War supplies to the Nazis. He's more opportunistic than ideological, so he becomes a Nazi supports the Nazis because it's good for business.

He uses Jewish slaves as workers. he pays the Jews salaries to to the Nazis and the Nazis I'm pretty sure just pocketed the money. The Jewish slaves are pulled from the Warsaw Poland Jewish ghetto. the factory it was a an enamel factory making pots and pans and whatnot for the war was in Warsaw Schindler Witnesses the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis liquidation being a nice word for Massacre to 2,000 Jews murdered at gunpoint 2,000 Jews the 2,000 surviving Jews shipped to a Nazi concentration death camp Schindler sees this massacre.

he has an A moral: Awakening realizes how very very wrong this whole thing is and sacrifices his fortune so that he can buy as many Jewish workers as he can. The idea being that if the Jews are working for for him, they won't be taken to the death camps and and murdered. And the list Schindler's List is the list of Schindler Jews the Jews who worked in his factories. If you're on the list, it meant you worked for Schindler you worked for the German war effort and that you wouldn't be shipped to Awit.

1,098 Jews were on the list and they survived. Why choose a Nazi as the hero for what will be the most important holocaust movie ever. Made the holocaust movie that more people than any other holocaust movie will see why Schindler A greedy Nazi Why is he the hero? Why did Spielberg do that? I I Think it's a a stroke of of genius and I I think it's sort of a form of forgiveness for human fallibility, not forgiveness for the Holocaust understand a forgiveness for our humanness that leads us to making mistakes and a testament to our ability to awaken spiritually and choose the right path. It's a story about the possibility of the Redemption of sins.

Redemption Maybe we've looked the other way. Maybe we've taken the wrong side for whatever reason. What matters is that we do the right thing in the end. at the very end of the movie, we see some of the actors walking arm inarm with the actual surviving Schindlers Jews that each actor portrayed in the movie.

they Place stones on Schindler's grave which is an old Jewish tradition. you put a stone on the grave of a Jew as a momento that says this grave has been visited by the living. We learn that Schindler was buried in Jerusalem and that he was named a righteous Gentile I Saw that sequence when I was 18 and I immediately and still I immediately thought and I still think that a righteous Gentile was the greatest possible thing that a gentile like me could ever be. it's an aspiration and I think Spielberg chose Schindler because like Schindler almost all of us humans are not Jews and perhaps the film is meant to encourage our bravery and virtue when the time comes for us to help.

Jews When they're existence is again threatened, there is a deep quality I've seen in the Jews that I have known and which I know now Uh, which I consider possibly their most admirable quality and a quality that I wish I had more of. Maybe the word for it is forbearance, but it's this quality of giving the extreme benefit of the doubt a willingness to swallow Pride or ego a sort of like softness or Mercy that only the strongest Among Us can possess. It's like a deep, no strings attached generosity of spirit. I've been to Passover saders of Jewish families who have had multi-generational divorces, divorced grandparents, remarried divorced parents remarried all of them at the Seder all of the exes and the new spouses all together to celebrate Passover No hard feelings for the family for the kids for the love of the kids Judaism doesn't require Jews to believe in God Did you know that Jews don't have to believe in God Judaism simply requires Jews to act as if there is a God Jews Don't Believe that only Jews go to heaven.

If you're good, you go to heaven. There's a story from the Hebrew Bible that very beautifully exemplifies this generosity of spirit that I'm talking about. This story is a big part of my conscience. The story is called the Judgment of Solomon and Solomon was a Jew the King of Israel back in the old school Israel A Very wise.

King So two mothers come to Solomon to settle a dispute. There's a dead baby and a live baby and both of the mothers claim to be the mother of the surviving baby. Neither mother will back down. so they go to Wise King Solomon to settle the dispute and King Solomon says I'll cut the baby in half and each of you can have half of the corpse.

One of the mothers says fine, I'm good with that. That's fair, but the other mother says no, Do not cut the baby in half. Let her have it. Let the mother who is willing to let the baby die, who's willing to let the baby be cut in half, let her have, but let the baby live To which wise King Solomon says then you the mother who is willing to give up the baby so that it might live.

you are the true mother and you get to keep the baby. Now to me, particularly the righteous mother, captures the essence of my experience with the Jewish Spirit A Divine Mercy Divine Justice and a relinquishment of ego in the Name of Love in the coming weeks, months, years. maybe God forbid. for the rest of our lives, we're going to be hearing brutal stories and seeing brutal images coming out of the war in Israel.

There will likely be a lot of finger pointing and judgment about Israel and her actions, but there are two things we must remember before we pass judgment upon her. First, Israel is our is our is the West's best friend in the region and second, Israel is not Goliath That star on the Israeli flag is called the Star of David the same David who slew Goliath thank you Jews.