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Conan O’Brien talked to this New York rabbi about Judaism on his podcast
(New York Jewish Week) — Regular listeners of Conan O’Brien’s podcast generally expect to hear the comedian interview A-listers such as Michelle Obama and “Fleishman Is in Trouble” star Lizzy Caplan.
But the former late-night host interviews “regular” people, too, and sandwiched between two recent episodes — featuring “The Office” star Ed Helms and “You” star Penn Badgely — listeners can hear O’Brien crack jokes about Jewish life with a New York rabbi.
David Schuck, who is the rabbi at New Rochelle’s Conservative Beth El Synagogue Center, appeared on the Dec. 29 episode of “Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend,” where he discussed his job as a congregational rabbi.
“I honestly did not expect to be chosen to be on his podcast,” Schuck told the New York Jewish Week via email. “I just thought it would be a thrill to meet him, and it was.”
Schuck said that he has “always been a fan of Conan,” adding that anyone can fill out a form online to be considered a guest on the show.
“He is a brilliant comedian with a rich intellectual life and he seems sincerely interested in other people,” Schuck said. “The wonderful thing about Conan is that as far as I could tell, he is who he seems to be. There was no pretense with him or anything performative that changed when the audio was not being recorded.”
In one segment of the episode that was featured on the comedian’s YouTube page, O’Brien joked about accidentally mistaking foreskin for calamari at a bris — eliciting both groans and laughter from Schuck and O’Brien’s crew.
Schuck then shared that he buried his son’s foreskin behind home plate at a baseball field in Central Park.
“What a terrible image,” O’Brien said.
Conan, who is an Irish Catholic, said he grew up in an area of Boston where he was surrounded by synagogues. “Many of my friends were Jewish,” O’Brien said. “I think I went to many more bar mitzvahs when I was a kid than first communions or any other Christian ceremony.”
“You ended up in a good place, in Hollywood,” Schuck joked.
“What the hell?” Conan said laughing. “Tone it down, David. It’s not true, there are no Jewish people in Hollywood. It’s all Mormons. It’s the Mormons that control Hollywood.”
O’Brien asked Schuck if he wears anything outside of synagogue that would identify him as a rabbi, or if Schuck can “go undercover.”
The rabbi replied that he does get recognized frequently, adding that when he runs to the grocery store for some chips, he might then find himself “counseling somebody in aisle six around a cancer diagnosis.”
“When I am not in New Rochelle or Westchester, I never tell people I am a rabbi, ever,” Schuck said.
Schuck told the New York Jewish Week that he did not let his synagogue know in advance that he would be on O’Brien’s podcast.
“People were surprised, and they were excited to hear us establish a sincere connection with one another,” Schuck said. “In a strange way, people were touched that Conan felt genuinely grateful for the ways in which rabbis serve their communities.”
On the podcat, O’ Brien riffed on New Rochelle, saying that he grew up fantasizing about living there because “The Dick Van Dyke Show” was set in the upscale northern suburb of New York City.
“If I could live in New Rochelle and be married to Mary Tyler Moore and write comedy,” O’Brien said. “Well, one of those came true.”
The rabbi added that Conan is always welcome to visit New Rochelle.
“I bet I could convince the mayor, Noam Bramson, to give him the key to the city,” Schuck told the New York Jewish Week. “I make a mean cholent if Conan wants to share a Shabbat meal with us. Otherwise, this will just go down as a thrilling opportunity to chat with someone whom I admire.”
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The post Conan O’Brien talked to this New York rabbi about Judaism on his podcast appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The one Jewish value everyone should hold dear in the age of AI
As friends, relatives and even colleagues dive headlong into our AI future, I’ve been stuck nervously on the platform’s edge. I’m not a skeptic of technology by nature, but by experience. I’ve watched too many shiny new toys come along, promising to make society smarter or better connected, only to become superspreaders of confusion, alienation and disenfranchisement.
So when you tell me a machine can summarize any book, draw any picture or write any email, my first thought is going to be, What could possibly go wrong?
This, too, was the reaction of the Haredi rabbis who declared a communal fast over AI last month.
“If at the push of a button, I can get a hold of a d’var torah for my Shabbos meal from AI, to us, that’s a problem,” a Haredi leader told me at the time. “No, no — I want you to open the book and read it and come up with a question and come up with an answer. That’s part of what’s holy about learning Torah. It’s not just end result. It’s the process.”
Curious about their logic, I spent some time tracking down Lakewood’s gedolim to learn more. This was no straightforward task — I found it easier to get a hold of their wives than the great rabbis themselves. Even at dinner hour, these titans of Torah study were still in the beit midrash. But eventually I got through to three — thanks to my cousin Jeffrey, who knew a rav who knew a rav — and that was fortunate, because I came away with the Jewish skeleton key to our brave new world.
That key is the Jewish value of עֲמֵילוּת (ameilut), or toil. As far as Jewish values go, ameilut is an obscure one. It lacks the celebrity swagger of its better-known peers like chesed and tzedakah or the political power of tikkun olam. It was never associated with a biblical matriarch or carved into a golem’s forehead. Yet I believe it is just as crucial. Yes, toiling is a mitzvah. And in the age of AI, ameilut can be a human road map.
The word’s root appears a couple dozen times in the Hebrew Bible — unsurprisingly, it’s a recurring theme in Job — but its salience comes not from the Torah but from commentary on Leviticus 26:3, which establishes ameilut as a sacred endeavor. When God implores Israel to “walk with” the commandments, Rashi, an 11th century rabbi whose commentaries are considered authoritative, reinterpreted this to mean that God wants Jews to be ameilim b’torah — toiling in Torah study. He is reinterpreting God’s command that we walk and move forward to also mean that we should take time to stand still, turn over (and over) the same words to find new meaning and view getting stuck as a sign of progress.
For Haredim — who pronounce it ameilus — the notion that struggle can be its own reward underpins a life spent poring over sefarim in the beit midrash (and missing phone calls from the Jewish press). It follows that ChatGPT, which transforms knowledge from something developed to something consumed, is anathema to their approach. They’ve realized that making learning easy has actually made learning hard.
To be sure, the goals of the Haredi world are not exactly the same as mine. Those communities are famously insular, wary of the internet and especially cognizant of secular society’s pernicious influence. I’m basically the opposite: I love to mix it up (including with Haredi Jews) and am extremely online. A little narishkeit is good for the soul, as far as I can tell.
But I’ve found that ameilut-maxxing translates pretty well to non-religious life, too. It’s an imperative to embrace the challenge. As a notoriously limited chef, I’m now toiling in cookbooks; as a writer, I can cherish the blank page. Reframing the hard part as the good part, then, is a reminder that the toil is actually our divine right. Because ameilut is something AI can’t experience, replicate or understand. It is the very essence of what it means to be alive.
The post The one Jewish value everyone should hold dear in the age of AI appeared first on The Forward.
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Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
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Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.