Ashira Solomon joins Dave Rubin to dismantle the "White Israel" myth, revealing that African Americans are Israel's largest Black immigrant group and 51% of citizens are Sephardic. She recounts surviving October 7th in Tel Aviv, escaping via an Arab taxi while witnessing Iron Dome interceptions, contrasting Israeli resilience with American Jewish assimilation into a "fake woke religion." Addressing backlash from Black and Arab critics, she rejects conspiracy theories about reclaiming Gaza, noting neighboring states oppose it, and argues for peaceful coexistence alongside Israel's right to self-defense. [Automatically generated summary]
African-American immigrants who've left America went to Israel.
They have the largest African-American immigrant population in Israel.
With that being said, I'm very dedicated to the Black and Jewish relations and building bridges here in America between both communities because of the myths on both sides of who we are in the community.
And I happen to be both Black and Jewish, so I feel like I can do that.
But I have to explain a lot of the times to Black people when I come home to America and say I go to a hair salon to get my hair done and they say, well, where do you live?
And I say Israel.
And the first thing out of their mouth is, don't they hate Black people over there?
And then I'm thinking like, well, where did that narrative come from?
I am very excited to have you, except I have to say, I don't know if you watch my show, I make an awful lot of fun of the ladies of The View, so I'm hoping that you're doing a slightly better version over there in Israel.
I actually have watched a couple episodes, and you also have Flor Hassanan, who I've had on the show a couple times, who is the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, and she is just a magical, magical character.
Apparently, last time I was at her house, and we interviewed her there a couple months ago, she was having Shabbat dinner that night, and she invited me, and you were there, so we would have crossed paths earlier, but here we are.
Let's start off with a little biography, because I I think for the average person watching this right now, they might be going, wait a minute, this is a woman who hosts a show in Israel.
What is that connection that you feel beyond your grandma?
You land, you feel something, it's now completely changed your life and you're here in America, obviously doing advocacy for Israel and telling your story and just being who you are, which obviously bucks a lot of the conventional wisdom as it comes to Israel.
I think it was just, you know, I've traveled to a lot of countries and you go to these countries and you enjoy them, you enjoy their history, you enjoy that beauty.
And Israel, I have to say, it's not the most beautiful place in the world, right?
There's other beautiful places like Italy and things like that.
Something about Israel directs you to your purpose, and Jerusalem really directs you to God.
Like, if you're ever confused or you're lost in life, I always tell people, like, go to Jerusalem.
You don't have to be religious, you don't have to be Jewish, you can be Christian, Muslim, or, like, atheist, whatever, but you will feel drawn back to what's important.
It's not like when you go to, like, South Africa and you see poverty and then it makes you grateful for your materialism here in America.
It's different because there's like a direction it puts you in, like it lines you up with purpose.
Okay, so you've been now living in Israel for some time.
I definitely don't want to make this whole interview about October 7th, but obviously we need to discuss it because that's really what brought you and so many others to America and to places in Europe to tell the story and all that.
So can you tell us a little bit about that day and sort of how it changed you and the country?
So you launch a talk show to deal sort of with all of the issues within Israel and outside of Israel and the geopolitical stuff and for four women of different walks of life and different ages and all of these things.
Because it's utterly ridiculous if you know Israel, but for people outside that don't, there is now this meme out there on college campuses that somehow this is a white country, where if you were to go to Israel, if you just walk through Tel Aviv on an average day, in some cases you would have no idea you weren't in even, say, Jordan or Lebanon, because there are a huge amount of Arab Israelis there, but there are Sephardic and from Morocco and Iraq and Iran and blah blah blah blah.
However, there's this idea out there that somehow there are either no black Jews, or they don't exist, or if they do exist in Israel, they're not treated the same, or something related to all of that.
African-American immigrants who've left America went to Israel.
They have the largest African-American immigrant population in Israel.
With that being said, I'm very dedicated to the Black and Jewish relations and building bridges here in America between both communities because of the myths on both sides of who we are in the community.
And I happen to be both Black and Jewish, so I feel like I can do that.
But I have to explain a lot of the times to Black people when I come home to America and say I go to a hair salon to get my hair done, and they say, well, where do you live?
And I say Israel.
And the first thing out of their mouth is, don't they hate Black people over there?
And then I'm thinking like, well, where did that narrative come from?
Like, how did you learn that?
Like, what made you conclude that in Israel they hate Black people?
So then I have to say, no, there's actually lots of Black people that live there.
And they go, really?
That look like us?
As dark as us?
And I'm like, yeah, darker than you.
You know what I mean?
And they're like, ah, so you feel safe.
And I'm like, I feel more than safe.
And they're like, and they like you?
And I'm like, yes.
And then they say, and do the men date you?
And I'm like, yes, they like dark skinned women.
And so I'm like, why do they have this ingrained in their mind?
And this is not by accident, right?
It's been programmed for them to think this way.
But yeah, people don't know that majority of Israel, 51% is Sephardic.
What does that mean?
They come from North Africa, they come from the Middle East.
And when they say it's like white colonizer people in the Middle East, I'm just laughing
because you barely see white people.
You barely see people who look like you, Dave.
You know what I mean?
You're not white.
I shouldn't even say you're white because you're Jewish, period.
I was going to say that they think that Israel is this white country oppressing brown Palestinians.
Things like that, you know?
And so this is one of the narratives that I really have to fight against with the Black community because in large part, they put their support around the Palestinians because of color.
You should never put your support around anyone because of color.
You should put your support around someone because you believe in their ideals and their fights, not because of their color.
But with that being said, not all Palestinians are brown.
And so this color thing is the biggest thing I see with Israel.
Some other misconceptions are that they think Israel is kind of like a third world country.
They're kind of like, are you living poor there?
They think, I remember the first time I went to Israel in 2016, my godmother called me and she's like, do you have to cover your hair?
And I was like, no.
And she was like, you don't have to cover your hair.
And I was like, no, it's a democratic country.
You can cover your hair.
You don't have to cover your hair.
You can wear shorts.
People don't know that Israel has the biggest pride in the world in Tel Aviv.
They even have pride parade in Jerusalem.
So all of these things, they're just like a bit shocked because they hear Middle East and they just think ancient and all women are just oppressed.
Our internal media is very different from what they report out to America.
I would say our internal media is not as bad.
I mean, you have like, you know, the leftist news and they're against Bibi and things like that.
What you see in the media like most of Israeli media and the people in Israel they're very very united right now and they're trying to I mean I know you guys are seeing the protests that are happening against the government and some are the families are upset because we want our hostages back and What are we going to do?
Are we going to have elections or are we not going to have elections?
But for the most part, what you see in Israel right now is a lot of unity and we're trying to stay positive and unified and not really like trying to rip each other's heads off.
I mean, when I was there a couple months ago and I went to hostage square and I, I went to one of the rallies and I talked obviously to people.
I didn't ask about their politics, but it was clear to me people were all over the place politically, but everybody was united and like, well, we got to get the hostage back and we need to survive.
Prior to October 7th, and I still feel this way now, but prior I had this huge amount of Honor and gratefulness and thankfulness to be able to live in the land of Israel.
We think about Moses, which is like our biggest prophet in Judaism.
He didn't get to enter the land.
Like one of the Torah portions, that's my favorite Torah portion, is Moses saying to God, will you let me just go into Israel and come right back out?
I just want to see it and come right back out.
And God says, no, I'll let you see it from the mountain.
So Moses and many other big sages that we've had, Never got to enter into the land of Israel.
And so I see it as a privilege, like, we think, oh, we take our American passport and we just get to land, you know?
But no, there's so much more spiritually at the fact that we get to be there, we get to live there if we want.
And I still feel that way after October 7th.
It's increased even more because I got to see how Israelis unify, how they can literally put their issues to the side.
And like you said, we need to get our hostages back and we need to fight for ourselves and we need to survive.
And for months, I mean, now we see some protests happening, but for months, a lot of people just had that one track mind.
And there was no more infighting.
Like, everyone on the streets of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, I describe like New York, right?
It's a city.
People are moving.
People don't stop and say hi to you like in Tel Aviv.
But everyone was like, Shabbat Shalom!
Shabbat Shalom!
Shabbat Shalom!
I'm like, why is everyone talking to me, you know?
Everyone's like, do you need a place?
Do you want to eat here?
Like, it was just so unified.
People were in the parks, filling the parks, having big potluck Shabbat lunches and everything.
So I think on the outside, the diaspora of Jews on the outside are really, really scared.
Like I talked to my friends who live in San Diego and in New York, I came to New York in January, I went out with my friends, we're eating, we start talking about Israel, they start whispering.
And I'm like, I can't hear you, so I'm like talking louder because I'm like, I didn't catch on to why they were whispering until later.
I'm like, they are whispering because they are scared.
So for the outside world, they cannot be Jewish and proud, you know?
You told me here in Miami, it's like a safe haven, but when I was in New York and San Diego, that's not the feeling I'm getting from my community and my friends.
They're really scared to be Jewish, and if they're wearing their kippah, now they're putting a hat on.
They're not necessarily wearing their Maguindavid all the time, and they're very conscious of, like, who's around us and what can we say depending on who's around us.
And also, I think they're consuming lots of the news.
It kind of looks like the whole country is in war.
So people don't understand, like, you know, how can you go out into the Shuk and into Tel Aviv and all the bars are open and we're still, you know, having joy.
We're still moving on with our life.
Even when the Iranian missiles hit, the reason why I came home is because my parents were like, you got to come home now.
Iran just hit, like, you gotta come home.
And I didn't go home after October 7th, so I just didn't want to stress my dad out, so this is why I came to America.
But even after that, like, Israelis were like, we're gonna go to sleep.
Like, we're gonna go to sleep, and when we wake up in the morning, Israel will be here.
So Israelis have more of, like, a calmness and strength and resilience, and I think people who are watching it from the diaspora on the outside are, like, really scared for us.
What do you think the spiritual component of that is?
Because I've noticed, if I've noticed one thing with Jews in America since October 7th is I am seeing a kind of spiritual awakening that probably hasn't occurred for American Jews who've had it pretty good in a secular world here for several decades and feel that that might be slipping away.
I think about this often, like, I was talking to my rabbi and I was saying, like, you know, with Egypt, 80% of the Jewish people stayed in Egypt, only 20% left.
With Babylon, when Ezra went to rebuild the second temple, same thing.
They were like, no, we have a good life in Babylon.
80% stayed, 20% returned back to Israel.
And I just feel like that the spiritual component is the assimilation.
And American Jews have unfortunately assimilated and they have adopted into the fake woke religion is what I call it.
And I think they're having this awakening of like, Oh, we're not a part of the fake woke religion.
We supported it, but we don't get to be a part of it.
We don't have the original sin of being white.
We don't get to have the tenets because we're a minority group, but we didn't fail enough according to the fake woke religion.
You have to fail to be a part of it.
And so, especially given that most American jury is liberal and on the left, they're really contending with their politics, with their identity, and all of these movements that they supported that they now see don't support them.
I feel like, I always say, especially since I'm focused on Black and Jewish relations, we can really learn from each other.
For the Black community, they can learn from Jews how to be communal, how to build communities, how to set aside your differences and have long-lasting, strong communities.
And from the Jewish community, they can learn from the black people of how to have pride.
You know?
I'm black and I'm proud.
Say it loud.
unidentified
And here in America... I just can't do that thing with my neck.
But I think that pride that black people have, the Jewish community here in America needs to have that same pride, not hiding the fact that you're Jewish.
You know, now everyone's with their big McGee Davids, but You should have always been that way, you know what I mean?
Not blending in because, oh, I can blend in and people would just think I'm white and maybe if they don't recognize that my last name is Jewish, all of those things.
No, be proud to be a Jew, be proud of your Jewish identity, and strengthen your Jewish identity.
So I think the spiritual component has been assimilation, and it's nothing new that's happened to us since Egypt, Babylon, and wherever we go.
Actually, both have its challenges because with the Black community, they still see Jews as white.
And so when they see that your skin is white passing, they still associate it with colonialism, imperialism.
But that is not the sin of the Jewish people.
That is the sin of the European people.
And then with the Jewish community, because historically they have always supported the Black community, they can't see where in their part where the relationship had a breakdown.
So from their view, it's like, we've always supported you.
Why don't you support us?
And it's just been like this one-sided relationship and the relationship broke only because this one side.
So it's a bit hard for both to see like, where did we go wrong?
So I'm launching a new show called The Black and Jewish Podcast, and my mission really is to start with the podcast and open up these conversations.
I'll interview Black Jews, Jewish people, just so we can start conversing about our communities and what's happening in our communities, and Black people who are not Jewish.
You know, just to say, like, what do you think?
What do I think?
And start conversing.
But that's just to start.
My real mission is to take delegates to Israel.
I believe that the land of Israel can speak for herself, and I want delegations of Black people to go.
Historically, Black people only go to Israel on their Christian trip.
There's nothing wrong with that.
You want to come to the Holy Land and connect with Jesus.
But they're not connecting to modern Israel.
They're not connecting to Israelis.
They're not connecting to the startup nation of the world.
They're not learning Israeli slang when they leave Israel.
Like, you have to do more than just go to where Jesus walks.
And so I really believe, like, first opening up with the podcast and having the conversations, and then the delegation will really help both communities start to talk and then see one another.
Like, I love to do this either way, but if you want to pay me to do it, great!
And so mostly from the Black community is that they cannot believe as a Black woman that I could stand with Israel and speak on behalf of Israel.
And then the Arabs attack me because I talk about their history and their history with Black people and African people.
And, you know, Europe wasn't the biggest colonizers, like Arabs were.
Don't ever talk about Arab colonization and how they treated, you know, black people in their countries, etc.
If we're just going to make it about race, you know, it's not my focal point, but because you're attacking us about that, then I'm also going to attack you, you know, in that area.
So those are the biggest pushbacks.
But like I said earlier, I'm one of nine children.
Comments, like, don't sway me at all.
Like, I have tough parents.
Like, I fought with my siblings all my life.
Like, those things kind of just, like, roll off my shoulders.
What do you think sort of the day after the war looks like?
I mean, eventually there will be a day after, you know, whether, whether the hostages are back alive or at least they know what the end was or whatever it is.
Well, they could go to Jordan, I suppose, where they're already more than half of the population and living under true apartheid there because they're living under the Hashemite kingdom.
And so I don't think we're ever going to be able to push them out of Gaza or the West Bank.
We will have to figure out how to live together peacefully.
But that's really going to have to come from their side, because I feel that Israel has done everything it can do in its power As of right now, to try and make us live next door to each other in a peaceful way.
But at this point, we have to continue to defend ourselves.