Day 602 - AJC head Ted Deutch: Calls for 'intifada' don't bring social justice

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

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4.4 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's newest podcast series, Friday Focus. Each Friday, join diplomatic reporter Lazar Berman and host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan for a deep dive into what's behind the news that spins the globe. In this episode, American Jewish Committee head Ted Deutch fills in for Berman, who is on reserve duty.

On May 21, Sarah Milgrim and her boyfriend, Yaron Lischinsky, were shot to death outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, where the victims had just attended an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee that focused in part on humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Both Milgrim and Lischinsky were employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Their alleged killer — a far-left activist from Chicago — shouted “Free Palestine” as he was arrested.

This week, the head of the AJC talks more about what type of coexistence event was held prior to the murders.

We discuss the rise in antisemitic violence across the Diaspora and what, in Deutsch’s opinion, can be done to counter it.

The former Florida congressman emphasizes the need for leaders around the world to condemn the surge in antisemitism and use nuanced language when speaking about the war in Gaza.

Friday Focus can be found on all podcast platforms. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and the video was edited by Thomas Girsch.

IMAGE: A mourner lights a candle during a vigil for the victims of the Capital Jewish Museum shooting outside of the White House on May 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. Two Israeli Embassy staff members, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, were gunned down after an event at the museum by a man shouting slogans in support for Palestine. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/AFP)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Times of Israel's Friday Focus.
0:05.1	I'm your host, Deputy Editor Amanda Borchel Dan, here with AJC head, Ted Deutsch, filling in for Laser Bearman, who is still on reserve duty.
0:15.8	Today is Friday, May 30th.
0:18.4	Ted, you are the head of the American Jewish Committee and we are going to discuss
0:22.7	the very tragic shooting that took place outside of one of your events last week. We'll discuss
0:29.5	the anti-Semitic surge in the United States in particular and across the diaspora and what
0:35.7	people can do to potentially counter it. So all of this and more
0:40.1	when we're back. Tolkien's trilogy was a perfect book to send to a POW W. Very well-defined good and evil,
0:55.1	and it was a great escape from the physical environment that we were in.
1:00.6	It's November 16, 1973,
1:03.2	and we're at the military section of the Lode Airport.
1:06.0	A red and white, DC-6 passenger plane lands,
1:09.3	and out of it comes a stream of young men.
1:11.7	Ten men known collectively as Shvuyay Milcham It Atasha, the POWs of the War of Attrition.
1:18.9	All of them had been held, most of the time together, in an Egyptian prison for more than three
1:23.9	and a half years.
1:25.0	So it was very much a kibbutz. I want to draw your attention to a
1:29.6	tattered bag, Menachem Eini is holding. That brown knapsack actually held a treasure. A manuscript
1:36.5	that would make these men in their unlikely story momentarily famous. It was the fruit of their
1:42.2	communal work during the years in which they were held in one of
1:45.1	Egypt's most notorious dungeons. The Hebrew translation of The Hobbit. Check out the Israel Story
1:52.8	episode, The Hebrew Hobbit. Find Israel Story wherever you get your podcasts.
	...

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