Were you able to ever, I don't want to say win an argument, but do you feel that there's even a place for dialogue with people when you meet someone who is totally brainwashed by some biased media and really no clue about what's happening, and yet they hold on to certain opinions so strongly against Jews and about Jews? do you find that there's, there's room for dialogue? There's, there's, you know, there's, is

there a, I don't debate.

So I've been invited to go on like different, like sort of like Dr. Daff show and like different, um, sort of, you know, programs like that, but that's just not my nature.

Um, I'm also just not going to debate whether or not we should exist or whether or not Israel should be a state.

If that's the conversation that we're having, I don't even need to speak to you about this because Israel is alive and well.

Um, but in real life, you know, I'll have conversations with people that have known me forever.

Anybody that's known me, especially, you know, I've lived in Portland for a long time.

I wouldn't say wrong, but are we not living to our full potential? Do you feel that there's something that we could do better as Jews?

Can you speak to that?

Um, yeah, you know, it's sort of interesting because I wasn't really introduced to sort of like the Black community or African-American community until I was in college.

So this is like post-IDF because I grew up in a very, you know, Corvallis, Oregon is very small when my dad was getting his PhD.

Also went to McMinnville High School, very small town in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.

So, yeah.

I didn't really grow up around Black kids.

High school had like 14 Black kids.

How did you personally process that betrayal? And what is your advice to a young person listening who feels suddenly isolated by their peers?

How have those different identities shaped your worldview?

Wow, that's a good, that's a good question.

Um, you know, obviously, who I am is how I was raised as Israeli and Ethiopian.

A lot of my traditions, a lot of just, like, my outlook on life i- is very much, um, based on that.

Like, the Ethiopian side is very much about respect, you know, honoring your mother and father.

Having, um, sort of like a close-knit sort of family is very important as, as well as being Israeli.

Israeli-- Being Israeli has helped me to just take on life, like, with the chutzpah that you need, um, to take it on, and that's been amazing 'cause I think that that's just, like, such a good, like, yin and yang with the Ethiopian and the Israeli side.

You lost a lot of friends because they died, or you lost a lot of friends to the ideology that, that we were-