Saturday, September 05, 2026

09/04 Links Pt2: How Israel became the Left’s organizing target for grievance coalitions; ‘Fauda’ creator slams Mark Ruffalo as ‘rare combination’ of ‘stupid’ and ‘ignorant’; Roger Waters to headline 9/11 ‘truth’ conference at NYC

From Ian:

How Israel became the Left’s organizing target for grievance coalitions
Antisemitism is a lie used to acquire or maintain power
Dara Horn, author of People Love Dead Jews, has a new book coming out with the provocative title, The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living. In it, she argues that antisemitism is not just an organizing target but an outright “lie that is used to acquire or maintain power.”

Antisemitism is particularly sticky, she says, because unlike typical bigotries, which view others as inferior, antisemites see Jews as especially powerful. Taking power away from privileged groups and giving it to marginalized ones doesn’t look like racism, Horn explains. “It looks like social justice.” The haters can then consider themselves morally righteous.

Those of us on the receiving end typically try to explain why the accusations aren’t correct.

Responding to specifics is always a bad idea, Wisse says. “Whatever you do, don’t defend. Never defend. Because the problem being articulated is not the real problem.”

If the accusation is “Israel is uniquely evil,” don’t respond with, “Look how extraordinarily virtuous we are.”

If we’re called settler-colonialists, don’t answer “Jews are indigenous.”

When we’re brushed off with the “genocide” defamation, it does no good to point out all the precautions the IDF takes.

“Once you step into that frame, you already are in the defendant’s dock of a show trial,” Horn warns.

It’s not that factual rebuttal is never appropriate. But rather than trying to demonstrate Israel’s liberal values, instead ask questions. Interrogate how “genocide” became a slogan, why the accusation has achieved such extraordinary currency, and why the Jewish state is so readily cast in this role.

'What right do they have to put Israel on the block here?'
In a 2014 video interview with Bill Kristof, Wisse insists we demand to know who the political entity is that’s “asking the question, and what right do they have to put Israel on the block here?”

“There’s so much more ignorance than malice out there,” says a surprisingly optimistic Horn, “and that is such an opportunity. This is absolutely a solvable problem. Most Americans are not fans of the hate movement. Most Americans are not interested in harassing their neighbors, vandalizing property, or pushing people out of public life.”

Horn has created an educational program for middle school students – Jewish and not – she calls the Tell Institute. “A lot of what we’re teaching is how to understand when you might be being manipulated.”

When Horn lectures on college campuses, inevitably, a student will take the microphone and scream, “Zionism is genocide.” But when Horn probes the student further, the student says, “They have nothing.”

They couldn’t tell you what Hamas would do if a “queer for Palestine” entered Gaza any more than they could identify which river and which sea animates the protesters’ chants.

“Complexity is exhausting. Moral certainty is exhilarating,” notes Nahum Kaplan on his Moral Clarity Substack. “Once everyone has been assigned a position, moral judgment becomes [simply] administrative.”

This is not a fight we can ignore, adds Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, podcaster, and creator of the app Waking Up. “When you look at what antisemites also hate, you find they hate everything that makes culturally rich, diverse, open societies possible. [Instead], they bring censorship, political repression, conspiracy thinking, and the politics of dehumanization and scapegoating.”

Halting the use of antisemitism as an organizing principle for grievance coalitions is ultimately a necessary “defense of the moral and institutional architecture that makes free societies possible,” Harris concludes.

That’s an organizing target everyone should want to get behind.
The Marwan Barghouti effect
There’s a strange collective amnesia taking hold of the cultured masses. Certain circles in Hollywood and beyond have found a new cause: Marwan Barghouti. Some stars have adopted Barghouti’s cause with a passion.

Barghouti, 66, is the new Nelson Mandela. He has been conveniently sanitized to become a saint.

Those promoting Barghouti often fail to mention that he is serving five life sentences for masterminding terrorist attacks that took the lives of four Israelis, including a woman killed at a gas station, three murdered in an attack on Tel Aviv’s Seafood Market restaurant in 2002, and a Greek monk who was mistaken for a Jew in 2001.

Barghouti is the leader of Tanzim, one of Fatah’s “military” wings, and founder of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. He was acquitted of 21 counts of murder in 33 other attacks for “lack of sufficient evidence.”

It seems the victims’ families have more reason to claim Barghouti’s trial was unfair than he does.

Multiple actors join Freedom for Marwan campaign
As several writers have noted in this paper recently, more than 20 actors who have appeared in Marvel films have joined the Freedom for Marwan campaign calling for his release. These include Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, and Tilda Swinton, among others.

According to an Instagram post last week, Barghouti’s family launched the campaign at the end of 2025 in coordination with organizations in the UK. Some 200 cultural figures had already signed a petition before the latest round of celebs voiced their support. It’s a culture war with a twist.

As Stephen Flatow noted in an opinion piece last week, the campaign isn’t new: “What’s new is the branding. Someone decided the fastest route to a younger, historically illiterate audience runs through the MCU [Marvel Cinematic Universe] fan account, not the literary supplement. It is a genuinely modern piece of message discipline, and it deserves to be examined as such rather than waved off as showbiz noise.”

Flatow’s daughter, Alisa, was murdered in a 1995 bus attack by Palestine Islamic Jihad. He notes that her name and the names of Barghouti’s victims – Salim Barakat, Yoela Chen, Eli Dahan, Yosef Habi, and Tsibouktsakis Germanus – are being erased, like their lives, while the Barghouti campaign cashes in on famous names.

“Nelson Mandela was never convicted of ordering the murder of a restaurant patron. The comparison was always doing more work than the facts could bear,” Flatow pointed out. “It is doing that work again this week, with better production values and a Marvel logo.”

I was reminded of the so-called Mandela Effect. Nelson Mandela is remembered as a human rights activist who, after years in jail under the apartheid regime, became president of South Africa. His name lives on after his death in 2013 for another strange reason – his non-death.

The term “Mandela Effect” was coined by writer and paranormal researcher Fiona Broome in 2009. She mentioned at a conference remembering Mandela’s death in jail in the 1980s and found other attendees had the same collective memory of the non-event.

I suspect Mandela might be rolling in his grave, now that he is truly dead and buried, at being constantly compared to Marwan Barghouti, a living martyr in some minds. While Mandela supported Palestinian aspirations, he called on the Arab world to accept Israel’s legitimacy and right to exist in security, and even visited the Jewish state in 1999.
‘Fauda’ creator slams Mark Ruffalo as ‘rare combination’ of ‘stupid’ and ‘ignorant’
“Fauda” co-creator Avi Issacharoff sharply criticized Mark Ruffalo’s interpretation of the Israel-Hamas war, including the Hollywood actor’s repeated claims that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.

According to Variety, Issacharoff made the remarks during a panel in London. “Mark Ruffalo saying ‘Genocide, genocide.’ Then you know that there’s a kind of people that are ignorant, there are some people that are stupid. He’s a rare combination of those two,” Issacharoff said.

“I’m sorry to say that,” the Middle East analyst and producer continued. “Do you understand what it means ‘genocide’? Do you, as a lead actor in Hollywood, understand that when Israel allows every day 600 trucks of food and supply to go into Gaza, they are not intending or planning to kill the people of Palestine?”

He continued: “Do you understand if more people were born during the war in Gaza than died, so no one was trying to eliminate those people and the only ones that were trying to commit genocide were Hamas people? And that guy and many other people don’t get it.”

Issacharoff, a journalist and security affairs commentator for ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth, co-created the hit Israeli series “Fauda” with actor Lior Raz. The show’s fourth season is set to return to Netflix next week.

In recent weeks, Ruffalo has emerged as one of the most prominent opponents of the roughly $111 billion deal under which David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is set to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. The controversy intensified after Ruffalo moved beyond criticism of potential layoffs and media consolidation and directly connected the proposed acquisition to his views on Israel and the war in Gaza. In a social media post, Ruffalo accused a Jewish member of Paramount’s board of “reveling” in “genocide.”


Columbia To Host Jew-Bashing Student Protester at Free Speech ‘Symposium’ After Damning New Report Claims He Backs Terror Groups, Said ‘I Like To Kill Jews’
Columbia University's prestigious Knight First Amendment Institute is slated to hold a symposium next week on the eve of 9/11 that will prominently feature "an interview with Mohsen Mahdawi," the Palestinian Columbia protest leader who was recently exposed for a history of supporting "terrorist organizations" and allegedly claiming during a job interview at a gun shop that "I like to kill Jews."

Mahdawi's participation in the event—which will examine how the United States "Forever War" or "War on Terror" has stifled free speech—will test whether Columbia's support for the First Amendment trumps concerns that it is offering a sympathetic and sanitized forum for a man facing a deportation order and who once promised to "annihilate the Jews." Columbia University is under scrutiny after entering a $220 million settlement last year with the federal government over allegations it fostered a campus environment dangerous to Jews.

The event will "mark 25 years since 9/11 and the dawn of a seemingly endless proliferation of open-ended conflicts waged against poorly defined enemies in North Africa, the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and even here inside the United States," according to an online invitation. Speakers, including Mahdawi, will "consider the ongoing impact of the Forever War on democratic rights, including the freedoms of speech and the press."

Mahdawi, who is currently fighting a deportation order over his support for "pro-terrorist riots" at Columbia, is well positioned to discuss the issue. He served as a central force in Columbia's pro-Hamas protest movement that advocated violence against Jews and turned the campus into a hotbed of antisemitic fervor. A scathing investigation released Wednesday by two investigative journalists further revealed that Mahdawi made frequent statements that lent "support for terrorists, terrorist organisations, armed violence and those who carried it out."

Mahdawi will be interviewed on Thursday, Sept. 10—a day before the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks—by Columbia Daily Spectator reporter Daksha Pillai, according to an online schedule. Mahdawi is billed by organizers as "a Palestinian human rights advocate and Columbia University graduate student." The biography includes no mention of Mahdawi's longstanding praise for terrorist organizations like Hamas and the jihadist operatives who murder Jews.

"A new low for Columbia - the Knight First Amendment Institute will be hosting anti-American, antisemitic bigot Mohsen Mahdawi on the eve of 9/11," the advocacy organization StopAntisemitism said Thursday on X. "The same Mohsen Mahdawi who said he liked to kill Jews while shopping for a gun."

Another X user opined, "Supporting free speech does not mean you need to invite someone who wants to 'annihilate the Jews'. At the very least, update his conference bio to include 'Jew hater and terror supporter.'"

The participant list for the symposium at the Knight Institute—which is housed by and received major funding and oversight from Columbia—brims with anti-Israel sentiment. In addition to Mahdawi, it includes several other journalists and activists who've accused Israel of genocide or, more specifically, in the case of the nonbinary New York Times writer M. Gessen, compared Gaza to a Nazi-era Jewish ghetto. Representatives from virulently anti-Israel news sites Zeteo and Drop Site News are official participants, as is Lydia Polgreen, the anti-Israel New York Times columnist and former masthead editor. There is no billed participant who has publicly supported Israel's campaign in Gaza.
Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs: He Wanted to Blow Up a Synagogue. Then 9/11 Changed Everything
At 17, Mubin Shaikh was a regular Canadian teenager. A few years later, he had embraced a jihadist worldview, learned to see non-Muslims as enemies and even fantasized about blowing up a synagogue.

Then came September 11, 2001. His first reaction to the attacks shocked even him and forced him to confront what he had become.

In the first part of this extraordinary East to West conversation, Mubin takes Sarah Martinez-Amir inside the process of radicalization: how a search for identity became extremism, why jihadist ideology can feel morally righteous to a young person, how religious texts are manipulated to justify violence, and why 9/11 ultimately sent him searching for a different understanding of Islam.

This is the beginning of a story that would eventually lead Mubin back into the world of jihadist extremism, this time undercover.




Roger Waters to headline 9/11 ‘truth’ conference at NYC-owned museum
Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, a far-left conspiracist who has long been accused of antisemitism, is scheduled to headline a New York City conference run by a group that raises conspiracies about the September 11, 2001 terror attack.

The conference, called “Turning the Tide: 9/11 25 Years Later,” will be held at the publicly subsidized New York City-owned Museo del Barrio in Manhattan on September 10-13, during the anniversary of the attack, according to organizers. The museum appears to be renting space to the group, not sponsoring the event.

Waters and the group organizing the conference, the International Center for 9/11 Justice, have raised false allegations that Israel was involved in the al-Qaeda terror attacks.

The International Center for 9/11 Justice, a US-based nonprofit founded in 2008, says its goal is to create a “society that is no longer shaped by the false official account of 9/11.”

The group identifies with the “truth movement” that raises alternative explanations for the attacks and calls the attacks an “inside job” orchestrated by the US government with assistance from Israel and other countries.

“9/11 was the first step in the plan for US-Israel hegemony in the Middle East,” the group said earlier this year.

The four-day conference will include dozens of speakers and the premiere of a documentary film. General admission tickets cost $150, according to a press release. Mourners place flowers in the name cut-out of Kyung Hee (Casey) Cho at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York, Sept. 11, 2020. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

El Museo del Barrio, known as El Museo, is a prominent cultural institution on the Upper West Side of Manhattan focusing on Latin American and Caribbean art.

The museum, an independent nonprofit, is a member of the city’s Cultural Institutions Group run by the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA). El Museo and the other members are located on city-owned property and receive funding and operational support from the city.

The city’s 2026 budget showed that the museum received $3.5 million, in addition to around $14.7 million in previously allocated municipal funds that were still available.

The museum does not appear to be sponsoring the event, but renting out space to the organizers. According to advertisements for the event, the conference will be held at the museum’s El Teatro, a rental space at the museum. Organizers said event costs include “the crew at El Museo” managing livestreaming.


Lawyer for Palestine Action activist who hit police officer with sledgehammer says his sentence was ‘excessive’
Four Palestine Action activists who caused £1.2 million in damage to an Israel-based defence firm’s UK factory will seek to challenge their sentences in the Court of Appeal, their solicitor said.

Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 24, Leona Kamio, 31, and Fatema Rajwani, 22, used sledgehammers and crowbars to destroy computers, drones and other equipment at the Elbit Systems site near Bristol in August 2024.

Corner, a former student at Oxford, struck police officer Kate Evans twice on the back with a seven pound sledgehammer, leaving her with a fractured spine.

In June, Justice Johnson jailed Corner for seven years and eight months for criminal damage and causing grievous bodily harm, while Head and Kamio were jailed for five years and Rajwani for four years and eight months for criminal damage.

The case is believed to be the first time that convictions for criminal damage have been classified as having a terrorist connection.

Their solicitor Simon Natas said at a press conference on Thursday they will seek permission to appeal against “excessive” sentences, saying a judge was wrong in law to classify their actions as terrorism.

The judge’s ruling that the raid amounted to an “act of terrorism” means the four activists will have to serve at least two thirds of their sentences and will have to face Parole Board hearings to secure their release from prison.

They will also spend an extra year on licence after the end of their prison terms and be subject to terrorist notification requirements for 15 years.

Defendants seeking to appeal against an excessive sentence must be given permission to do so by the Court of Appeal before an appeal is considered.


Human rights tribunal sides with TMU teaching assistant who decried 'desecration by the Jews'
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has sided with a Muslim former teaching assistant who was fired after publicly denouncing “desecration by the Jews,” awarding him $7,000 for injury to “dignity, feelings and self-respect.”

Although adjudicator Cyndee Cherniak rejected Ayman Elkasrawy’s claim that he had been fired due to Islamophobia, she nevertheless approved the cash award due to “circumstantial evidence” that some discrimination may have inflected his dismissal.

In 2016, Elkasrawy was videotaped delivering an Arabic-language prayer at the Masjid Toronto mosque where he called for Jews to be slayed “one by one,” and for none to be spared.

The prayer was condemned at the time by both Masjid Toronto and the Muslim Association of Canada, who called it “an inappropriate supplication that was offensive to those of Jewish faith.”

It also prompted Elkasrawy’s dismissal from Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) where he was working as a teaching assistant in the school’s engineering faculty.

“One of Ryerson’s core values is our commitment to community and inclusion … your comments are in contravention of this core value, do not foster a respectful learning environment and reflect adversely on, and are to the detriment of the University,” read his dismissal letter, according to Tribunal filings.

Clips of Elkasrawy’s prayer were first circulated by the now-defunct outlet CIJ News, which translated its lines as “Oh Allah! Count their numbers; slay them one by one and spare not one of them. Oh Allah! Purify the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!”

In front of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, Elkasrawy’s counsel said that this was a mistranslation, and that the comments had been “twisted, to make them appear inappropriate, violent and anti-Semitic.”

According to Elkasrawy, what he actually said was “Oh Allah; has full cognizance of them, slay them one by one, and don’t let one escape your punishment. Oh Allah; cleanse the Aqsa Mosque from the desecration by the Jews.”

He testified that the “slay them one by one” statement was unrelated to the second, and referred to members of Syria’s Assad regime.

As for the second, Elkasrawy confirmed that he was referring to Israeli control of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque, but that if he could say it again he would change the prayer to “the occupying Jews.”

These explanations were accepted by Cherniak, who characterized the prayer as a “human moment.”


EU commissioner defends Jewish rites amid Belgian ‘milah’ row
Amid an international diplomatic row over the prosecution of three Jews in Belgium for performing brith milah, the E.U. commissioner for health and animal welfare said on Thursday that in addition to keeping Jews safe, European nations should allow them to practice their faith.

The commissioner, Olivér Várhelyi, spoke during a gathering to celebrate Rosh Hashanah organized by the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) in Brussels, at the offices of the Representation of the Free State of Bavaria to the European Union.

“Europe cannot say that the Jewish life belongs here, while making it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to live a full Jewish life here,” said Várhelyi, a Hungarian politician who belongs to the Fidesz party of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. “Jewish traditions and Jewish religious practice must be therefore respected and protected.”

Shortly before the Rosh Hashanah gathering, CER’s chief rabbi, Pinchas Goldschmidt, unveiled a seven-point manifesto on how E.U. authorities should tackle religious extremism, mainly within Muslim communities, that fuels antisemitic violence. Várhelyi addressed this issue, saying: “There is no justification for intimidation or violence. No Jew in Europe should ever have to choose between being visibly Jewish and feeling safe.”

But, he added, “Belonging is much more than about security. It must be that Jewish life has a future in Europe. A future lived openly, confidently and proudly.”

Earlier this year, Belgian prosecutors said they would indict three mohels, Jewish professionals trained in the removal of the foreskin, typically in 8-day old Jewish male babies. The procedure, which CER defines as cosmetic and nonsurgical, is part of the brith milah ritual, an initiation into the Jewish faith.

Prosecutors are preparing to indict the mohels for allegedly violating Belgian laws that state only licensed medical practitioners may perform surgical procedures. The affair has caused a diplomatic uproar after Israel and the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, called the prosecution antisemitic. Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot defended the prosecution, claiming, falsely, that representatives of the Jewish community supported it.

In Belgium and elsewhere in Europe, the legality of brith milah is being challenged by activists, often left-wing secularists, who cite child welfare principles. Some right-wing anti-immigration activists also support a ban on brith milah, a version of which also exists in Muslim communities. A similar debate is happening around the kosher and halal slaughter of animals for meat. Two out of Belgium’s three regions—Wallonia and the Flemish Region—have effectively banned those methods, in addition to several E.U. member states. Currently, Belgium is the only E.U. country where mohels are under a criminal investigation.
Why NYC widower wants driver charged with antisemitic hate crime months after wife was killed in hit-and-run crash
More than three months after his wife was mowed down in a shocking hit-and-run crash, a Jewish Queens man is searching for answers — and wants the accused killer charged with an antisemitic hate crime.

Michael Trager, 70, and his 71-year-old wife, Cara, both members of the Hollis Hills Jewish community, were walking to a neighborhood restaurant after watching a movie on Memorial Day — when tragedy struck.

A motorist going 75 mph in a 35 mph zone rammed into two other vehicles, sending one of the cars into the couple and mortally wounding Cara, who died days later.

“Physically I’m lucky to be alive,” the victim’s distraught widower said in a recent sit-down interview. “Mentally, honestly, I had a really wonderful marriage and it’s very hard to lose somebody that you really loved.

“Am I not dead?” Trager told The Post. “It makes you think and for the first time in 47 years, I’m alone and that’s not the way I wanted things to go out for her, for sure. 
Because you don’t get the chance to say goodbye.

“And the fact that she died in this way is unbelievable,” he said. “Because you couldn’t be any more pro-Jewish than she was.”

Trager said that detail is relevant because accused killer driver Dawood Faisal, 22, who is now being held on Rikers Island on manslaughter and other charges, had allegedly vandalized a Jewish bagel shop in the neighborhood twice in the weeks before the fatal crash.

The grieving widower believes those alleged crimes and the fact that it was a known Jewish neighborhood, raise troubling questions about the suspect’s motive.

“What I am alleging was that he was in a Jewish area, a very heavy Jewish,” he said. “And though he did not necessarily try to kill Cara Trager or injure Michael Trager or kill Michael Trager for that matter, it was a good likelihood that if he was gonna do that activity, it’s going to be more than likely hurt a Jewish person.”
‘Baby killers’: Jewish family targeted with antisemitic abuse at Melbourne Airport
A Jewish family from Melbourne says it was subjected to repeated antisemitic harassment at Melbourne Airport, where a woman allegedly shouted slurs including “baby killers,” “Zionist Nazis” and “Zionist pigs” as the family waited for an international flight.

The incident took place several days ago while the family, which included an 11-year-old girl and a 1-year-old baby, was preparing to board a flight. Their final destination was Israel.

The father, who asked not to be named because of concerns for his family's safety, told Australian media that the harassment occurred three separate times.

After the first encounter, he said, the woman found the family again while they were going through security and confronted his sister, who was carrying a crying baby and was accompanied by her 4-year-old daughter.

The third encounter took place while the woman was drinking wine at a café in the terminal. Security personnel then intervened and brought the incident to an end.

According to the father, his 11-year-old daughter burst into tears and the family was left shaken by the episode.

He said that since the October 7 attack, he has instructed his children to conceal their Jewish identity in public settings.

Dr. Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, condemned the incident and called on the Australian Federal Police to investigate and identify the woman involved.
In first, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa to open Jerusalem’s Oud Festival
In an unexpected musical twist, frequent musical collaborators Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead and Israeli rocker Dudu Tassa will open this year’s Jerusalem International Oud Festival.

The two will perform songs from “Jarak Qaribak,” their 2023 album renewing classical Arabic love songs with singers from Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco, along with selections from Tassa’s albums.

The eight-day festival opens November 5; tickets are on sale via Bimot.

Greenwood, whose wife, Sharon, is Israeli, hasn’t performed in Israel since 2024.

The Radiohead guitarist has long collaborated with Tassa as well as with Arab artists.

A concert he and Tassa played in Tel Aviv in 2024 prompted a call from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to boycott Radiohead’s upcoming tour. The band had gigs canceled in 2025 amid pressure from the boycott movement against Israel.
The Moynihan Report: Gene Simmons Just Wanted to Make His Mother Proud
Gene Simmons sits down with Michael Moynihan in Los Angeles for a conversation about family, ambition, and the American dream. They talk about his mother’s survival of the Holocaust, coming to America, KISS, Bob Dylan, money, marriage, and why the music business isn’t what it used to be. Oh yeah, and after nearly 50 years as the Demon, Gene Simmons is still speeding up.

(0:00) Cold Open
(0:31) Monologue
(1:47) Gene Simmons, Nice Jewish Boy
(6:31) Assimilation, America, and Learning the Language
(9:36) His Mother Survived the Holocaust
(19:23) The $8 Million Check to Mom
(20:05) At 77, Gene Is Speeding Up
(21:03) Why KISS Had to End
(22:26) Bob Dylan Shows Up to Write a Song
(31:24) Selling KISS and the Business of Rock
(33:23) Streaming Killed the Romance of Music
(36:36) Ace, Peter, Drugs, and the Breakup of the Original Band
(45:25) Diana Ross, Shannon Tweed, and the Playboy Mansion
(50:50) Twenty-Nine Years as “King Asshole”
(53:48) Making His Mother Proud, Then His Wife and Kids Proud


From Iranian missiles to menorahs, Israeli blacksmith forges trauma into works of art
Yaron Bob is getting ready to receive a new shipment of seven Iranian ballistic missiles, which were fired at Israel in March. The internationally known Israeli blacksmith transforms the Iranian rockets in his blacksmith studio into works of art and Judaica, which have reached as far as the White House.

“This is my playground,” says Bob of the Qassam rockets, Grad missiles, and Iranian ballistic missiles that fill the backyard outside of his blacksmith studio.

Bob lives in Moshav Yated, about 4 km from the Egyptian and Gaza borders, where he raised his children in the open fields and relative quiet that initially drew his family there from central Israel over 25 years ago. Back then, he worked as a computer teacher at the local high school. But a Qassam rocket attack from Gaza changed Bob’s career trajectory nearly 18 years ago.

“It directly hit our high school. Although the students were able to get to the protected area of the school, I wasn’t able to get to shelter on time. The rocket blasted the ceiling. I was lucky that I didn’t sustain physical injuries. But debris and dust covered me completely. When I returned home, I couldn’t stop shaking,” he recalled.

When the PTSD symptoms and physical tremors from the rocket attack didn’t stop, Bob understood that he had to do something. “I was telling everyone I was fine, but something had changed,” he said.

Blacksmithing becomes way to move beyond reliving trauma
“Twenty years ago, there wasn’t a lot of awareness or conversation about PTSD symptoms or resilience. But I understood then that I had to find something to do to ease my mind and stop reliving that rocket attack,” Bob explained.

His initial foray into blacksmithing started after another Qassam rocket was fired at his agricultural community soon after the rocket attack on the high school. A security guard gave him some remnants of the rocket.

“I’ve always been interested in blacksmithing and working with metal. Even as a kid, I liked to make things from metal and read a lot about the world of blacksmithing,” he said.

“After the rocket attack, I started off using a pair of pliers to reshape metal forks into different animals. This helped calm me. I had this space for a workshop to craft but didn’t have all the necessary blacksmithing tools. So I built up the tools I needed.

“When I created my first rose out of rocket metal, I experienced a truly great feeling,” Bob shared. “It was as if something magical happened, like this energy cleaned away all my fear.

“Confronting my fear and turning a piece of metal that brought destruction into something beautiful was transformative for me.”





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