#97 - Behind the Bima: Dan Grunfeld

from boca raton florida rabbi's ephrem goldberg philip moskowitz and josh brody are taking you behind the bema the brs rabbis schmooze about contemporary issues and talk to special guests who give a behind-the-scenes look at how they got to where they are and what keeps them going welcome to behind the bema good evening wednesday night pm i'm your host rebecca from go we're joined by my colleague and dear friend back after a long break rabbi josh brody and we are here to take you behind the bema it is so great to be back first of all it's great to have you back it's great to have you stay behind the bema properly we had a phenomenal guest co-host last week i've ever had the the rabbitson but when i teed her up for and we're here to take you she's like behind the beam she's uh in fact i got the most feedback maybe i've ever gotten about have to have her more often basically telling me you stay home she was great so maybe maybe there's a spin-off show maybe there's like a interesting one behind the beam ribbitson edition or something interesting interesting well we're gonna have to we're gonna have to work on the exuberance and excitement for the behind the beam so it's taking years to perfect that you know this is not uh didn't just happen overnight that's true we can go back soon we will go back because we are almost up to the 100th episode and we are going to have big celebration special guests maybe a little trivia competition we might even have people who share their favorite in fact we're going to invite our guests our listeners our audience to share their favorite moment on behind the bema not us we don't need it it's not our ego the guests that we've had we've had we will have had almost 100 phenomenal fascinating diverse cross the spectrum guests tell us your favorite moments what did you learn what did you grow how did you change who are you inspired by what really spoke out to you and we're looking forward to being able to have that so you could talk about how you have worked on your recommendation of behind the bema and i'm looking for that super fan out there i wonder if there are some super fans that just know so much about the history know so much about the content of the show who are you let us know sometimes you can be surprised somebody mentions that they watch or they listen and uh you know i just got an email actually i just got a beautiful email hi rabbi goldberg my name is son so i'm a baker in the mirror yeshiva and you shalom i listened behind the bema and i heard alana tweet i'd love my family's coming they want to visit her farm shmita that's great you never know where who what what the message is so we'll we'll let you know how you can share and then we will play whatever message you leave for us so you can share with others what was that what was that monster by brody you're back you were on a little hiatus where were you what were you up to and what do you want to share from that experience just so great it was great being back in in israel you know getting a chance to visit and see the kids but just you just spoke about the shmitah you know it's hard to drive down any of the highways in israel without seeing these massive karanashvia signs which say that this field or this farm is observing shemitah we even went to we didn't go to hers but we went to another one we got to see some of the uh the magic who was the wii who'd you go with so i was there with my wife the the rebbitson with simone and you know hashem we have six children but we really traveled for the most time for most of most of it just with our two kids the two younger ones because everyone else is busy doing their thing and and it was fun it was fun just getting a chance to kind of kind of see see the country it's our first 45 trips to israel i have everyone listed one day when you make aliyah supposedly they ask you where when when did you go to israel so i have all the trips there's the first time we've we've done a real family trip so really it was nice um so the highlight was the farm what was the island there were so many highlights there were so there's some i mean one of the every day was a highlight i mean just driving in israel is a highlight for for uh for for you know you know me i'm not such a such a such a driving for me with with israelis is obviously not so simple um but uh but everything just just living israel was was was really special as opposed to just waking up every day and trying to be on you know part of a tour or leading the tour here it's like you know what let's let's go to minion let's go go for a jog let's go make breakfast it's it's a different experience so amazing and did you get to go to one of your heroes the daff with rebellion that was actually a josh brodie daf update the daf update so it was it was really special because uh to get a chance to go go uh go see go see ellie behind the bema right literally i was watching him from right right off behind his vemma and it's it's fascinating it's so i can't explain it's it's almost like uh you know when you when you go to when you when you go to uh you know disney world for the first time as a little kid and you look up at that big castle and as you get closer and closer you realize maybe it's not as big in person as the dream you had but it's so much more exciting so much more powerful than than anything you ever could have imagined the hovershaft the the guys the the community that's built around it and uh it's just it's exciting it's a you know we're actually starting now just so just so you know right we spoke about this a little bit before that uh every day's ad is a little bit more momentum but we really are trying to build up a bokeh group of guys to perhaps celebrate cm's together to to to come together weeknights and even if it's watching the same thing on the same you know in the same room right locations well that's part of his magic right it's not just the way he gives this year he created a community around this year and i think there's lessons for all of us to learn without harping on or glorifying mostly because he would like that too much elise stefanski i'm just joking he's amazing he's a cover of ami magazine this week what he's built and what he's done but really i think that sort of rabunam jewish community institutions should stop and analyze and learn and say what went right here right we're trying to engage people we're trying to draw people in we want people to feel connected we want them to learn what's he doing right it's a case study right when when in graduate schools and business school you're trying to learn in management school so the best way to learn is with case studies so if you take the mdy as a case study you could do the same by the way with revellia da goldberg and smith revelliada tapped into something incredible it's mikha's cover he chased after me tried to recruit me to teach it in our community not on anything special but he was trying to spread it around and get it started i hesitated i avoided i was reluctant and actually there were guys in the community who pushed we got to start it's most of one of the most rewarding things that i do wake up early every sunday morning right you know how many guys there are at 7 45 a.m for an hour and 15 minutes here and then a beginner a test on it and see again a lot of the same things there's community there's camaraderie there's a sense of accomplishment there's continuity so there are several case studies we could be looking at be it stefanski and mdy be it that goldberg and smith and just look at the daffy home as a whole and just say what's the next thing how do we learn from it and what's the next thing we can do someone even said yesterday or the other thing was yesterday's share they said you know what because he starts out every morning you know good morning my boy sai and you get ah and then he shows little clips or videos of children doing it every single day so someone said imagine what that's gonna sound like at the cm hashas now obviously he hasn't been asked to speak he hasn't you know but everyone knows it's it's gonna happen it's just like a light bulb went off of course it's gonna someone's gonna say it the whole hundred thousand people are gonna participate but i think one of the things that he does which is which is something we could all learn from and there's many different different different pieces here but is that he really encourages the participants to go out and get more people to join so like with because you activate these guys and you say you love this you're so into it bring five of your friends to the next one well so there's an interesting question that comes out of this and it could be a bigger question we've discussed it before and by the way the 100th episode we're looking forward to and hoping to have all the hosts back together um but it is an interesting question because stavansk himself when he was on behind the bema we spoke about he's shameless and it's not his ego it's really about the torah and he's willing to do anything even a pure like ego in order to grow torah but but meaning a person has to be willing to do that when you recruit and solicit and push and sponsor and send free gumaras and create a whole community and one might say a cult around it you have to be willing to do that and so there's always that question you know i i don't think i've shared this publicly but i'm regularly debating it's the greatest privilege of my life aside from from being a husband a father a grandfather but teaching torah is the greatest privilege sharing torah teaching torah promoting torah trying to inspire myself and others with torah and barak hashem thanks to technology the internet we've been able to do it everything that we do has grown organically behind the bhima partial perspectives living with them when it turned friday into arab shabbos arab shabbos calls musically everything that we do so the question is if you put a little money into it you know people ask what's the marketing budget right we've never spent one penny we never spent one penny on a guest for behind the bema we don't spend one penny on promoting behind the beam sponsored by the bema you know getting it optimized i don't even know the terms of of how to how to grow the audience of any of these things maybe we should not behind the bema you know but but take shirum where we're teaching real torah maybe maybe we should but then there's that yucky awkward feeling of really am i investing money in promoting myself is that ego whoever trips up on the shear will trip on the shear but should we is it ego that's saying we want to grow the numbers get more people reading downloading the newsletter or reading the partial perspective write-up yeah you know what's going to happen imagine if like you're you're you're you're feeling insights or nuts feel insights sitter snippets sitter snippets right consider snippets that you put together some form of like like a workbook or something and yeah and and you say to everyone that's participating get this in the hands of 10 people you know so it's it's it's not about you it's about the the torah like like this this past week when you're talking about schweinsteiger right and you're talking about the three steps back and the three steps forward and and the three the three people in in in in in in jewish history that that that that's supposed to remind us of and you know by gosh you don't realize i mean you do realize but maybe you don't you realize that that changes the people that are listed changes right they're happening forever so you know it's interesting you raised that so first of all shameless plug we just started the amigo the introduction when that's right there are almost uh 400 snippets but you can go on this and you can get it delivered right on whatsapp you could listen to a podcast player but you could sign up rabbiafongoberry.org sitter2ds obviously.org sitter but it's a good question you raised right meaning you put out a book you put out a safer so the publisher is spending marketing money so the biggest names we know the people we admire incredibly let's take rabbi fran we admire nobody thinks he's a bad guy even the least referendum is incredibly modest he's an ana he's at sadiq but but artscroll's taking out ads in newspapers selling rabbi friend on the parsha or my french trooper rushes and nobody's like wow he's promoting himself he lets his book be be sold but yet if somebody would say we'll take that same marketing money and instead of putting that in a newspaper we'll use technology online to get people to read rabbi fran's weekly partial thing on the website then you might be like really you know so maybe this is only in my head maybe i got to get over this i don't know yeah i think there's a lot of people that could benefit from your torah no i was thinking out loud don't make it about me and they just don't know it's it's different if someone says listen i gave it a shot it wasn't for me it's another thing to say there's a lot of people out there that may be interested if you just put it in front of them they just know about it i live with this and i'll tell you that i've spoken to a lot of people that i admire and respect who are struggling with this question you know without without filing in with confidence but a previous behind the beam of guest charlie harari or my cousin david bashevkin or others and say what do you say like look i put it out there and then it should just grow organically whoever hashem wants to fall on it trip on it and discover it and when do you say no the same way that like you put out a flyer you promote a sheer and that's not about you we are in the business of drawing people closer to hashem's torah inspiring teaching so if the work's already going in to do a six minute snippet every day and and maya meet is growing and your dominic's growing not because of me it's the torah of the other people so then yeah let's try to have as many people as possible grow at six minutes a day in color so i don't know i'm still struggle all the time with this i'm not over that hump aside from the fact that i don't know where the money's coming from to market it's not exactly in a sure budget um and i don't know who it's fair to ask to to have that money but it's a it's it's a question we have a pleasure pleasure this evening we're going to bring out dan grunfeld in a moment but first right brody you want to tell us about that shirt is this your garth brooks uh invitation what's going on here today it's not garth brooks let me let me tell you something i was it i was in a meeting this afternoon with some of my uh incredible friends from project inspire these guys are serious guys these guys are like the best in in the outreach world i was like you know what do i come in do i do i go with the classic white shirt put on the nice suit pants it'll go with this new look the black jeans the black shirt i'm gonna say new it's very new you've seen the last two days so i'm like you know what i'm going all in on this look you're going to work they didn't say anything but in the kirov world you can go all in on that look because it's like you know you're trying to relate and there's nothing wrong with the look not to criticize judge there's nothing wrong with any look feel free be yourself but you can definitely go uh you can go one of the interesting things just a little behind the bema trivia as we approach the 100th episode will be a fun thing for someone to track what rabbi brodie wore on every episode because one thing i could tell you i wore on every episode this big yamaka a white shirt and a tie but do you remember the days by brody like when we had aaron cutler you were with a suit and a black hat then we had someone from israel you're wearing like a white pastry yeah like you used to like a chameleon like a chameleon you would adapt adapt you each episode right so you never know what you're going to find the good old days the good old days well dan grunfeld father incredible ernie grunfeld the great new york knick player executive announcers grandmother amazing holocaust survivor dan in his own right tremendous uh beautiful life story and uh i learned that that the grunfeld are actually mishpochah they're cousins of a member of ours bob strauss our beloved dear friend bob strauss member here at brs is a cousin of grunfeld i think bob's father and ernie grunfeld's father or bob and her grandfather's father were first cousins but a cousin there you have it but dan's written a great book by the grace of the game fascinating if this interview this conversation you don't have to have heard of basketball frankly rabbi brodie doesn't even know how to play basketball you don't have to know or care about sports you just have to care about life the jewish people and our history and our destiny so we are very excited to be able to welcome dan grunfeld we have the great pleasure of being joined by dan grunfeld uh author of by the grace of the game the holocaust of basketball legacy in an unprecedented american dream really a fantastic read a stimulating read and a read that's that's thought-provoking not only dan for your life but it's sort of a mirror that we hold up to our lives about our family narrative our background our challenges where we've need to persevere and so we're really grateful for a fantastic fantastic book thank you thank you so much for saying that so we got a lot to unpack here there's so much in that book and so much to talk about uh dan you are a two-time academic all-american at stanford uh played eight professional seasons top leagues around the world we'll get to germany spain foreign israel short stint in the nba uh mba now you're you're working in silicon valley i believe you're working in high tech uh you've been an author and published in sports illustrated huffington post jerusalem post and and so much else so we could talk for hours but we're going to try to narrow it in and sort of follow the outline that you do in the book where you broke it up into three chapters and more than three chapters but three um vantage points and you weave them together and that is your grandmother your father and of course you but we're gonna go out of order and with your permission we're gonna start with your dad so i i grew up in the new york area um you know anyone who followed the knicks knicks fan knew your dad's name obviously a player an exec accomplished but they don't know i didn't know your dad's story it doesn't seem like he wore that on his sleeve or spoke about it didn't come up in in interviews you say in the book that your father is the only player in nba history whose parents were were holocaust survivors and his own story is fascinating born in romania eight years old immigrated the united states and learns to play basketball in queens and he goes from this immigrant who doesn't speak english to 10 years later being a gold medalist and one of the most famous names in in the nba in nba history so how did that happen how did your dad discover the basketball court and what'd the basketball court do for him yeah absolutely listen my book is called by the grace of the game right and the details you just mentioned kind of explain why you know my dad came to this country like you said he spoke fluent hungarian romanian and italian didn't speak a word of english he was made fun of by kids in new york city right for not speaking the language for being a fish out of water my dad had an older brother when they got to the united states and what my dad called my uncle in their native language hungarian translates to english as my king that's how much my dad revered and looked up to his older brother and my uncle was diagnosed with leukemia not long after arriving in the united states and he passed away within a year and so that was the name right is that your your middle name yeah your name my middle name is after my uncle and as you know from my book i carry that with me that history you know i take it very seriously it's an obligation that i have to the past but you know that's just a crushing loss for my family and so my dad did what all the other kids in new york city were doing as he described it he went to the local park to play hoops you know and i think he was you know the game moved him away from so much tragedy right not only losing so much family in the holocaust but also losing his brother and so the game of basketball really appeared and shined its light on him when he needed it and as you said you know he wasn't long before he became an all-american was an olympian you know and my grandparents who both survived the holocaust got to be there in attendance and watch him become a gold medalist for the united states so really uh you know surreal trajectory and that's why i wrote the book that is incredible and basketball in many ways is it's not just an escape in an unhealthy sense as many substances are it's a healthy escape right because you know somebody who likes to i never obviously played professionally or amateur sports but who enjoys playing you know with all the stress and pressure you have not yet exactly i'm waiting for the senior tour with all the pressure and stress you have in life you know the second you're on a court or you're competing you can't be thinking of anything else you have to be focused on that ball or your opponent or defense of whatever game you're playing so you know you described coming and being an immigrant and living under the shadow of the holocaust and with all that loss and his brother that basketball becomes that escape but you're sinking yourself into something it's healthy physically mentally competitive it's it's it's bringing out good things in you so do you think that basketball played that role for you too or you know you have anything to say about sports in general as a healthy outlet absolutely it's an incredible outlet right it's it's a great sense of community and that's what it was for my dad right he he made friends he learned the language and basketball you know language is a theme throughout the book right because my dad came to america not speaking the language but then he found basketball and that ball is a universal language doesn't care what country you come from what language you speak what color your skin is it brings people together and so he's the ultimate example of that it happened in my life as well you know i have lifelong friends who who that that ball that game connected me with and so and like you said you know it's healthy it's active it's stimulating it's competitive it's fun you know so for all those reasons sports basketball but sports in general just a great unifier right and there are so many things in the world now that you know we see people being teared up torn apart sports brings you together you know and certainly basketball has been that force for my family and it's that force for people around the world so i i can't underestimate the power of sports to change lives to bring people together and it's healthy right brody we'll explain to you what basketball is later how it works i appreciate it i'd be happy to do that i'll do a full tutorial you'll like it it's a good game you'll need it it'll need it listen i just need a few more feet you know that's the little challenged on the vertical side i always tell people you don't need to be tall but it helps did he did he have to break into that community or or did they welcome him into that community i think both you know i think that he was he had to find his way uh and he always says you know especially in the neighborhood that he grew up in once he came to the united states forest hills queens you know if you could play ball in the neighborhood that's how you got respect you know and that's how you made friends so i could look at him and say well you must have made a lot of friends because you know sometimes things just click and i think i don't think he would have flown so far so fast had he not been moving away from all that tragedy but it just was a great fit for him he loved the game he was competitive you know my grandparents holocaust survivors who had this this maniacal work ethic you know he learned that from them this toughness this discipline and so it it took him a while to find his footing but once he did he was embraced you know he became a legend in the neighborhood you know but at first people made fun of him you know so again by the grace of the game you know it didn't take him long until he was the one kind of you know controlling the park that the park that you know he used to kind of have trouble fitting in at right here he was with his college career university of tennessee drafted by the milwaukee bucks 77 played for the kansas city kings ultimately the new york knicks i think he's most associated or synonymous with the new york knicks managed teams executives some radio broadcasting um he wore number 18 symbolism of wearing the number 18 absolutely of course i mean we know what that means in judaism right that's high and my dad is the only jewish player to ever wear number 18 for the knicks he's the as you said the only nba players parents or holocaust survivors and so yeah he picked that number 18 very intentionally and you had a line in the book you said quota yeshiva in queens once denied him admission for not speaking english and now he was being recruited to announce games on new york radio for the beloved knicks so yeshiva really didn't let him in because he didn't know the language well enough solomon scheckter in the bronx yeah so my you know when they came to the united states that's what my grandparents knew right there were orthodox jews in europe and so they wanted him to go to yeshiva and he you know he went and they interviewed him whatever that means but he couldn't speak the language and say you know we can't let your kid in so he went to ps 101 in queens you know because the the yeshiva and the bronx wouldn't let him in and then he eventually you know found the game became a new york knick player and then after he retired the knicks hired him ultimately to announce games on the radio in english of course because you know he spoke for perfect english tremendous irony so the great ernie grunfeld so he didn't he didn't speak about it was a conscious decision that he wasn't going to be sort of you know the the the jew on the court or this survivor or child of survivors of the holocaust did he suppress that intentionally was it not sort of a safe space to be able to share that part of who he was or was it just incidental that here he was focused on competing on basketball on excelling and growing professionally why do you think he didn't speak about it more i think that the basketball court it's a great equalizer right everyone has a background everyone has a story there are always things that push you that motivate you and once you're on the between those lines you know you play the game and i think that that's how he always approached it i think off the court because he was such a public figure there were more opportunities to talk about it but i think and as you know from reading the book basketball's wins and losses but this story is life and death you know these are really hard themes really hard things you know he was born and from the ashes of the holocaust essentially you know fled his homeland under duress lost his brother and then here came you know basketball came around and everything changed and so you know i talk a lot in my book about privilege and i'm privileged for a lot of different reasons one of those reasons that i have a generation of separation from all that tragedy and trauma so i can look back on it reflect upon it learn from it he never really had that luxury like a lot of survivors didn't talk about it and i guess you know even as an immigrant to since he was an extension of that survivor and it made sense he didn't uh he didn't speak about it um bro do you want to jump in yeah i'm just wondering you know first of all you know you could talk about subliminally or if it was very overt the 18 but i know that if i knew that there was a jewish player wearing an 18 you know that's like a yarmulke i mean you've got something on there and it's just exciting i know that's that's our that's our code word you know that's our that's our guy on the court did he go around and speak and inspire kids just to because they were so excited that there was another you know lonesman there was someone someone from the from the from the tribe that was that was on a team like that he did he did he was you know active in the community i know he spoke internationally i know he when he was playing for the knicks he did a basketball clinic for kids in budapest in hungarian you know they weren't all jewish kids but he certainly mattered to him i have had people since the book came out write to me that oh your dad came to the jcc in knoxville when he was playing for tennessee you know i didn't know that those aren't things that he talks about but i think behind the scenes he did things like that i mean obviously just making that decision to wear 18 right in his history matters to him his faith and culture matter to him and so he he walked that walk are you are you more proud of your dad's accomplishments on the quarter off the court which one do you think is more impressive wow i'm enormously proud of both you know i think that what he did as a player is remarkable i mean he was a legend in high school a legend in college had such a strong nba career then you look at his career as an executive right he was 30 years as a general manager and as you know from the story to have come to the united states with nothing son of holocaust survivors not speaking the language and then not only to be such a tremendous athlete but then a tremendous executive right and that's that's a that's a businessman that's a leader and uh you know my dad always he has amazing instincts for how to manage how to lead how to deal with people of course knows the game of basketball so well and i'm a very proud son you know about both of those both of those areas of his life i couldn't be more proud of the success he's had have they been back have they been back to europe to to visit the camps and and and see their old community they being my grandparents yeah so my grandparents have been back to romania to their village that they fled but you know they fled as refugees it wasn't happy you know they were more than a decade under communism there and so it wasn't a happy trip you know and uh my dad has not been back to romania since they fled and you know my dad was he was pat down by the communists and and screamed out by the communists as he boarded a train to to leave his homeland right and so again that wasn't a happy departure either he's certainly been to europe he's been all over the world with basketball but but not back to romania have you been on the march of living or a program like that where they take you back to the camps and i haven't visited the camps you know i've been also around the world and i visited holocaust memorials in different countries around the world but i haven't visited the camps i think you know the trip that i really need to make is the budapest because that's where my grandmother survived the holocaust that's where raul wallenberg saves her life twice she was in the ghetto there as you know and so i will make the trip to budapest i will visit those sites i will visit auschwitz one day that will be very hard you know that's where all of my dad's grandparents were killed for the majority of my you know my grandmother's family my grandfather's family were killed and so that's going to be a hard trip but an important one robert brodie's led uh countless trips of teens how many times have you gone fourteen trips back fourteen times i've been there four or five times recently led a trip a few summers ago with members of our synagogue before corona about 40 adults many of them were second generation and you know simultaneously living the pain of walking through those same camps and those hollowed grounds where they lost loved ones and and reciting the kel male memorials and saying the kaddish so powerful on the one hand it's so raw and it rips open scars and scabs there's pain but there's also the sense of triumph like here we are and we're thriving and there's a state of israel and there are jewish families and jewish continuity and hitler and the nazis are gone they're a distant memory and here we are it's really something very very powerful and we actually are planning my wife's um grandparents were from hungary and uh we're planning to please god you know at some point when the time will be right a follow-up trip open not only to the people who came with us to poland but also to continue to see that story as it played out later but in in hungary as well but i want to dan i want to ask you about espn 30 for 30 bernard king and your dad ernie grunfeld talk of bernard king if you will that relationship here you have two very different diverse people diverse backgrounds you wouldn't necessarily land them in the same 30 for 30 episode if not knowing that relationship that they had what did that relationship mean to your dad early in his career and what does bernard king mean to you even today you know we talked about the game of basketball as a unifier and my dad and bernard are such a great example of that right they're from the same city but they're from very different places you know bernard was from the projects in brooklyn my dad was from this the working-class immigrant neighborhood in queens and they went down to knoxville tennessee and the basketball brought them together and they became legends in tennessee separately and together you know they were called the ernie and bernie show one of the greatest duos in college basketball history you know i write about it in the book and they documented in the 34 30 on espn called bernie and ernie it's a very special story and they also played in the nba together you know for the knicks and so bernard lived up the street from us and so i would come home from school and see bernard there i can even tell you that today when i was talking to my dad we were just chatting and he said oh yeah i talked to bernard today and so that's that's how close they are this is all those years later and uh they talk every month you know bernard i call him uncle b you know he texted me a month or two ago just telling me he was so proud of me for this book and the story it tells and so i think it's a very special story and it also is symbolic of what we've been talking about the power of basketball and sports to build bridges to heal wounds for people individually right both those guys had complicated histories but the game was a salve for both of them and then it also united them but not only at the time for decades right our families are very close as i mentioned bernard are very not to grow up in available in the shadow of a celebrity of somebody larger than life of an accomplished athlete executive on every stage on the big stage of the hardwood of new york and then back in the office in business in every arena he's excelled is it hard to grow up in such a shadow does it create certain expectations for yourself or others put on you do you measure yourself against having such a dad is that a complicated childhood and and i share that not to get too personal with you but also for everyone to listen and to learn for other people who maybe their parents aren't as famous but in their own way struggle to figure out where they fit in yeah it's funny because i was thinking if i'm passing on a question it's got to be really really really deep because you read my book right i'm very honest very open and i'll be that way here too there are incredible perks growing up with that kind of background you know we we did really fun things always going to knit practices and nick playoff games an nba all-star games and not only the cool experiences but they're really meaningful to to do as a family right so it brought our family really close together brought me very close to my dad but there there are drawbacks too and there are things that are really hard about it i'm very honest about it in the book all the pressure you know i i always felt that people were assuming things about me and that you know any success i had on the basketball court i didn't earn right it was given and listen and i own my privilege and the opportunities that i did have and those things it's 100 true but at the same time between the lines on the basketball court you really do have to earn your keep and i think it really put a chip on my shoulder to to outwork people not only on the court but off the court and so you mentioned i was a two-time academic all-american at stanford which of course i'm very proud of but that happened you know there was a lot of elbow creeps a lot of hard work that made that happen i think part of it was that kind of that determination and that motivation i got from feeling judged and feeling the pressure to kind of live up to what people thought i should be because of who my dad was it must be complicated but you're accomplished in your own right and the truth is no matter who your dad is that doesn't make the ball go in the basket right you still have to get it in there you got to put the ball yeah if you're playing hoops again like ball don't lie like between the lines you have to earn your keep you know and that's what i always try to do so let's talk about your grandmother who's really the the hero of the book in many ways and as impressive your dad you um each a story of perseverance in its own right you point this out uh in the book you know pay also to say in comparison to to her life story what she endured and the president and and what she passed on to you the power of perseverance so you know share with our listeners a little bit about that that story she lost i know five siblings a total of 70 family members which is unimaginable she grew up in a large orthodox family in romanian village near the hungarian border did i read correctly with connections to satmar was she connected even to to satmar in her youth and and here the nazis come in and she's 18 years old and it changes her life she's saved by raul wallenberg so give us a little a little synopsis of her story so we could talk a little bit more about her absolutely as you said my you know my dad was this big basketball star and i had a nice career but my grandmother is the star of our family she's certainly the star of this story she is not only our hero she's a hero you know she risked her life to save others during the holocaust my family's from suthmar that's where my dad is born and raised and so you know rabbi joel title bomb you know who's very famous from you know leaving romania coming to brooklyn he blessed my grandmother in her childhood kitchen uh i think in the 1920s you know before maybe the early 30s before the war and so wow yeah my dad is from satmar my grandmother you know is from a village very very close to sadmar on the uh in transylvania on the border of romanian hungary grew up in a happy home 10 siblings including her two loving parents you know beautiful orthodox home and i write with in pretty vivid detail about what her childhood was like because we know the numbers of the holocaust right but these weren't just numbers they were people you know they were my grandmother's loved ones and you know my grandmother's 97 she lives in the bay area i just spent a week with her she's doing incredibly well amazing you know i always tell when i talk to groups of youngsters about this book we learn about the holocaust in history in history class but it's really important to know that it wasn't that long ago and it wasn't that far away you know so i wanted to recreate that in the book and let them know like these were people you know these were human beings just like us and so you know my grandmother had a chance to survive on the run during the war because she happened to be visiting an older sister in budapest when the nazis invaded she was able to obtain a shit's pass from raul wallenberg that's when she risked her life she got 17 passes for other people she was eventually caught and put in the budapest ghetto and narrowly avoided a massacre at the end of the war and again the book goes into great detail about what happened in the ghetto and how she survived but it took her 40 years to learn that it was wallenberg who saved her a second time so you know he's one of the greatest heroes of the war and the holocaust museum in dc is on raw wallenberg way and you know my grandmother is one of the lucky ones who who was saved by him and so we we wouldn't be having this conversation if not for wallenberg but yeah like you said my there were five siblings there were ten total siblings five of them were killed in the holocaust both of my grandmother's parents as well did she talk about it when you were growing up did you know about it or was this process of the book really getting into it with her she talked about it yeah you know it's often a binary with holocaust survivors either they don't want to talk about it or they feel an obligation and my grandmother was in the latter camp you know she would always tell stories about her father who was you know they were so close and my son is named after my great-grandfather you know my great-grandfather was solomon and my firstborn son is solomon and my grandma would always talk about him and you know talk about what happened in the war but in an age-appropriate way so when i was seven and ten years old you know she would share the details that were appropriate but as i got older you know i went to stanford as an undergrad and my grandmother lives 25 minutes from campus so she came to every single home game i played i remember sitting at her kitchen table during the summer with a notebook and just asking her questions i was just always interested you know i wanted to know the specifics about what happened and she has an incredible memory even to this day like and that's why you've read the book like there's a lot of texture there's really rich vivid detail it's because of my grandmother what what she remembers and what she's willing to recount is just it's incredible and it really contributed to me telling a really deep and meaningful story but you know she uh i'm lucky that she's always communicated about what happened have you ever ever met the satmar khasiram have you have you gone back to try and and and and engage them as a as a husted yourself well i i have informally when i played professionally in israel some of my is professional basketball some of my israeli teammates would make you know mention because there are different parts of the wardrobe that signify where you're from and so there would be there would be some some soft martial syndrome that uh would be pointed out to me but i've never made any formal attempt to connect with the community oh they're going to attempt now hey man listen we we don't shy away from our past it's all in the book this is where my dad was born and raised right he he was raised in sothmore that you know who knows who knows if it's the the blessing of the samurai in somer maybe that set your dad on his uh on his illustrious career who knows it could be and listen another part of the book is you know i mentioned my uncle you know my uncle got sick and passed and when uh you know my grandmother of course was so heartbroken when my uncle got the diagnosis through a mutual friend she reached out to rabbi title bone and she said hey this is what's happening to my son what can you do anything to help and he said i'm so sorry there's nothing that i can do you know but but so he she not only met him in her childhood home before the war she reconnected with them in new york city to try to help when my uncle was was terminally ill you know how many you know how many jewish knicks fans probably never would dream in a million years the connection between ernie grunfeld and the samara rabialis like that in itself that's why i wrote the book you know i always grew up saying man this is this is a wild big story and i think it's a relatable one that needs to be told breaking news 100 so your grandmother your grandmother remembers all these vivid details obviously life changed for survivors um you know she after the war there and then ultimately migrating and coming here um anything you could share with us about your grandmother's connection continued connection to judaism to faith to israel she she grew up in that satmar background and had that observant uh upbringing is their holiday is there her favorite hungarian foods is their part of her faith her relationship with god i'm sure as complicated as it is for so many survivors anything to share about your grandmother in terms of her faith and the holidays and the like yeah well listen the food is a huge part of my family it's a huge part of our relationship and i write us so much about her food in the book it's she happens to be the best cook in the world but it's also a vessel of love you know the meals that she cooks for me to this day i was just with her last week eating this food you know they're the meals that her mom made for their family before the majority of them were killed in auschwitz right now listen i told you my wife's grandparents are hungarian so what's your favorite hungarian food what's your favorite for my it's got to be around tattoos uh you know that's like the breaded chicken it's like schnitzel but whatever my grandma does to it it's magic you know she makes delicious veneta you know eggplant dishes uh so many soups mejlavesh sour cherry soup right listen i i'm i love my grandmother's food you know so much it's my favorite cuisine she's still like you know judy has been such a huge part of her life you know the the faith the community and like you said with holocaust survivors it's complicated but nonetheless the culture the community it's still still very strong presence in her life you know she she she's fasted i think she'll say 87 straight years on yom kippur wow wow you know so she she's still fast to this day you know she's fast on yom kippur so uh yeah it's still still a big part of who she is please god for many more years you you share in the book hold on rabbit we'll get to one second but you share in a removing section about when she went home in january to her ransacked childhood home and she found something that you now have i have it with me i actually you know i had just traveled from california to the east coast and i brought it with me yeah so you know the house was looted and my great-grandfather made me rest in peace was a successful landowner you know they had crops and they had animals and all these things and everything was gone after the war the house was empty completely looted and in the back of one of the drawers in the kitchen my grandmother found an old metallic serving spoon that my great-grandmother used to serve milk right because it was a kosher house it was a milk spoon and it was really all my grandma had left and so she grabbed it you know she held it to her heart and she kept it for 75 years she gifted it to me not long ago and then i write in the book i keep it in my bedside drawer near where i sleep and it's true right it's it's talk about priceless i mean it it really is it's it's a spoon it's a metallic serving spoon but the meaning behind that is so profound huge wow just talking about the meaning behind something you know i'm wondering your grandmother when she sees your dad making the new york knicks and now he's on tv and he's all over the place obviously a massive amount of pride now you make at some point you're playing for the state of israel on different teams what's bigger to her you know it's the knicks which is great it's america but yeah you listen you got you got israel you know what's how did yeah i i don't think she compares the two i just think she celebrates them both and i think they're both really special trajectories i mean for my dad what he did it just came out of nowhere for my grandparents you know i write about it in the book where they didn't even see him play basketball until he was a junior in high school he was already one of the best players in new york city they knew he was playing basketball a lot but they had opened up a fabric store in the bronx and they were working six seven days a week to build a life right these are holocaust survivors immigrants in new york city and so once they found out what was happening you know my grandfather barely missed the game but they just didn't know and then they blinked their eyes and he's just this phenomenon this sensation he's on the cover of sports illustrated he's an olympic gold medalist and so that that was just kind of this unthinkable thing that happened because of basketball and again by the grace of the game you know and then for me i grew up so differently my dad was the player for the knicks when i was born he was the general manager of the knicks growing up and so basketball was always in my plans right it didn't come out of nowhere it was everywhere for me but at the same time i i fulfilled my my childhood dream of playing at stanford i had a successful professional career and then to finish my career in israel to play for the team in jerusalem right that was all very cool very meaningful and special too so i don't think my grandmother would ever measure one against the other i just think she would celebrate both of them that is that that story that that circle that you just completed it is an amazing circle from your mom running in budapest her life being saved losing 70 family members struggling and fighting to survive to fast forward aside from having a celebrated son a grandson play for the state of israel right what a what a vindication what a triumph what a story no pressure on your kids you have two sons dan what what what happens if it turns out they're not athletic whatever they want to do you know and honestly my parents never force basketball on me and i won't do it to my boys at all but listen again this is why i wrote the book and i remember before my games in israel right hatiko would play and i would always get chills because basketball is bigger than just a game for us because of what it did because of the future and enabled and and the thing the wounds that it helped heal you know so for all those reasons the game has just been so instrumental in in our lives and again i'm so proud to share the story through this book because it's one that that has neither been told can can you talk to us about the process of writing the book and i don't mean you know did you sit down and how many words a day did you write i mean did you hesitate maybe your grandmother maybe it would really open up wounds maybe it would be hard for her to have these conversations maybe putting this all out there for your whole family and for her in particular you know it's private so can you talk about were you concerned or worried did you hesitate and how did you overcome that why did you decide nonetheless to publish it and and to extrapolate out a little bit bigger how important is it for people to know their own family narrative how important is it for everybody to take a deep dive into where you come from and to take the time to research and find the stories and maybe not all of us are going to publish the book or do the interviews that you've been doing but maybe for all of us there's an enormous amount to gain from doing that deep dive into our own family background yeah absolutely and so you know my book has really resonated it's done well and it's it's moved people and i think the reason is is because it's truly something that's produced from the heart you know this is a story that you know sometimes stories just you have to tell them so when you say it like there wasn't much of a decision because it was something that i had to get out and i think that's why the book has done as well as it's done and the story has resonated the way it has because it's sold from a very authentic place and so i never said to my grandmother or my dad i'm going to write our story what i said to them is i wrote our story so i did a year and a half of research i i talked to them every day i recorded those conversations i transcribed them i didn't exactly tell them what i had in mind i said you know i want to memorize their history i have a project but i think i needed to create some space for them to be very open and honest but also for me to kind of process this history and so i did the research i wrote the book i was working on it for years before i had a first draft done where i was able to tell them i wrote it you know and then the decision making started coming in and i said you know are you comfortable and they were they were supportive it's very hard for both of them particularly for my dad you know because he's basketball's taking him away from this history but i think they both very clearly identified that this is an important story not only for our family but kind of a little bit more broadly and so they were 100 supportive um and to the second part of your question i always you know when i talk to groups i encourage people especially younger people know your history you don't have to write it right i love to write so i wrote a book just know it you know ask your grandparents ask your parents particularly for the jewish people we you know we share this history right whether it's the holocaust or what we've all been through these trials and tribulations we've all experienced anti-semitism we all know what you know these journeys are like and so i hundred percent think it's super important to know it that's the first part of it know where you come from be proud of where you come from be proud of who you are then if you like if you like to write if you like to make documentary films go for it right definitely go for it but first and foremost just know it yeah there's research that actually shows that what gives the um strength and the the capacity for perseverance is knowing your family narrative and what's interesting about the research i think it was done out of duke is that it's not just if you know that you have a wonderful family narrative that doesn't make you as strong as and if you know that you have a terrible one that also the most powerful family narrative to be exposed to are aware of that helps you the most is what they call the oscillating family narrative which your yours is right the doctor from the ups the the the sacrifice the struggle and the perseverance and the triumph and if you know that that's in your background and it's in your dna then it gives and that's really the theme of the book is is that isolating family narrative and where you're at and what a great gift that you're giving your sons that you've done that hard work and that they just have to read they don't have to do the research but they'll know where they where they come from is there talk about taking this book to the next level maybe producing a movie or maybe something bigger about your dad's story your grandmother's story your story yeah we are we're in conversations right now to do it for movies and you know our a movie and which is amazing you know and i this is not a commercial endeavor for me as i just told you i just wrote it you know and actually how books like this usually happen is you you have an idea you put a proposal together then with that proposal you get an agent then the agent sells that idea to a publisher then you write it you know that that's the normal process i i worked with a professor at stanford a writing professor and we talked about the story and he could sense how much it meant to me and he was like you know what you can write and this means the world to you write your book and figure it all out later so i did it backwards i just wrote the book and then i got an agent and then we got a publisher and so this was you know i didn't write it to do anything other than just tell a really important story and so now that we're having these big conversations about movies and different things it's incredible and i just want as many people as possible to be exposed to the story because i always say there's a lot of darkness in the story but there's much more light as you said there's there's tragedy but there's more triumph one more question about your grandmother before we get to your life which we've been talking about all along um in your life you know you played obviously college in america a short stint with the new york knicks ultimately spain israel but you made a stop in germany what was that like given the conversation we just had about hungary and surviving and auschwitz and the holocaust and so much of who you are shaped by the cloud of the holocaust um what was it like telling your grandmother that you were going to play in germany and what was it like playing in germany i write in my book i'm likely the only professional basketball player who had to call his grandmother to ask permission to sign his first contract and that's true my agent called me said hey got a great opportunity for you to start your career you know perfect perfect team perfect league i said great you know where am i going he said first league germany and as soon as i heard germany i really think i interrupted him i said hey i have to call you back yeah you know i called my grandmother right away and just told her you know that i had a chance to start my pro career but it's in germany and you know i'll never forget what she said to me she said sons are not responsible for the sins of their fathers you know and that's what people have done to jews over history they've made assumptions about us they've blamed us who said you can't do that to this generation of germans that wasn't their fault you know she said you should go you should experience a culture you should have a good a good time there and and that's what i did and listen i was 22 23 years old i was very motivated so a big part of my focus was on the basketball but i couldn't entirely separate from the history you know when we played in berlin we visited the memorial to the murder jews of europe and i remember searching in a database my family's name you know and we we toured the nur the side of the nuremburg rallies and truthfully there were some folks associated with my team who were older around my grand my mother's age and i couldn't help but wonder you know what what were they doing at that time you know and so this is just kind this is the history and my best friend on my team in germany he was a german national team player from berlin we were the exact same age and i was of course the only jewish player on the team probably the only jewish player in the league and you know i opened up to him about my grandparents being holocaust survivors losing so much family and he opened up to me that his family was on the other side of the war and all the guilt and shame that his generation felt from that right and so that perspective taking is really important to to wow you know to understand and to listen and to yeah so that was a really really special opportunity for me to build that bond with him to to you know relate to him on that level but it was complicated right playing in germany was complicated did you experience anti-semitism in germany or at any point in your career in stamford anywhere not overt you know listen but but the truth is like i had a teammate once who said hey any anyone on the team jewish i have a really funny joke about a jujo you know i said yeah i am and it's not funny to me you know so in my mind right i can tell i didn't experience anti-semitism that's anti-semitism right and so and there are always microaggressions and i've heard comments made i never had anything serious happen but you could argue that even that is serious because you want to be treated in a you know you don't want to be treated that way i in my life you know i've seen property in my hometown just to face with swastikas i've seen property when i was in business school at stanford to face with swastikas you know i've experienced those things i've had people call me names you know growing up and so i don't think you can be jewish anywhere in the world and not experience anti-semitism as an athlete aside from some of the things that i mentioned it wasn't really overt or aggressive or anything like that and again it's nice to think that on that the court the field the com the field of competition is a little bit of a safe space in that way yeah hopefully is there like an inner circle of jewish athletes that make it make it to the to the top level remember it's a small pamphlet it's nothing yeah yeah yeah i'm not sure i'm in it if so my dad you know listen my dad's one of the one of the really great legendary jewish athletes of all time he was recently inducted into the international jewish sports hall of fame there are i think there are you know mark spitz mark space is he friends with them are they friends i'm not sure they met each other i'd have to ask but my dad certainly talks about him right and even before my dad in basketball dolph shays and there's a great sense of pride i think amongst jewish people in general when you see a jewish athlete succeeding but certainly amongst the jewish athletes right and for me i i know like ali raisman you know who is an olympic gymnast right is jewish you just you feel it and you feel real pride for that and i think in my dad's generation there are those few athletes you know who had a lot of success and there there is a great sense of pride and community there lieberman right nancy lieberman you know lady magic basketball hall of famer is a good example yeah going through a little renaissance now with it because first of all you had the you max who went on this incredible run and ryan tyrell who was still trying to break into the nba but you had steinmetz who who uh arizona diamondbacks and baseball the yankees just in a deep round in the draft but the yankees just drafted an observant jewish young man so you have not only jews but outwardly observant jews who are breaking through in sports a little bit and it's a really really interesting time but let's go back dan let's go back to your your college career a little bit because this really fascinated me and i'd love to learn more from you about it so you know you're an outstanding athlete in your own right as a young man but it's your sophomore year at stanford and you're having this breakout year you go from averaging three points a game to nearly 18 points a game that's a huge breakout year that's a huge improvement and here you're on the big stage and hoping to make it into the final four tiger woods is watching he's at this game and you tear your acl you go down and that's a horrible horrible injury you know again i'm just a guy who likes to play ball several years ago i tore my achilles and surgery six months of coming back still haven't been drafted by any team i'm pretty disappointed but here you your breakout year from three points to 18 points you're on the cusp of a breakout basketball career and you tear your acl and you go down and you didn't stay down and you weren't down and out you came back and you did what was necessary to come back how did you how did you do that where did you draw that strength from that example from what you need to do in order to be able to overcome this obstacle that was put in your way yeah listen like you said i i between my sophomore and junior years i was the most improved player in college basketball i went from 3.4 points to 18 and you know i was projected as a you know potential first round pick in the nba draft my dreams were really coming true tore my acl at the end of the year at home national television as you mentioned tiger was was there but my grandmother was sitting 20 feet away from where i got hurt and you know i panicked of course i was rolling around in agony on the floor and when i finally kind of came to my senses my grandma was kneeling next to me rubbing my head wow that's all you need to know right my grandmother she survived the holocaust she lost the son she came to america with nothing not speaking the language and she built a life that's what my grandparents went through my dad came as an immigrant not speaking the language he became this legend in the game of basketball for losing his brother that's my example you know and so i i mourned my injury you know and even to this day if you bring this up in front of my grandma she'll say i don't want to talk about it you know because she she the things she went through can't be compared to what i went through i had a knee injury she her family was killed but you know she this is a disappointment in my life you know and so she gave me space to feel it to mourn it to own it but then to move past it you know and so and and i had that great example so listen there were tears shed there were moments of doubt there were moments of disappointment because we're human right and that and that's what it is but i have these great examples of person what it takes to persevere what it takes to keep going and i just put my head down i worked and i stayed positive and it allowed me to come back from that it's huge because so many other people would get stuck and a lot of people would spend their life saying what could have been what would have been what if and to not get stuck and paralyzed in that place but but build a beautiful life going forward and not you can't change what happened but you can determine where you go i think that's actually one of your grandmother's sayings right it's not about what happens to it's how you respond to what happens to right and that's how you respond in that moment that that's right you know and again it i i learned these things these things these were values that i inherited these were examples that i was able to witness and to learn from and again that they're not without moments of doubt and disappointment and sadness and because we all do have that that part to us as well but i think that you know when you when you come from people who survive the holocaust who fought you know who just kept fighting for something better you know that that's that's what it takes you know and i was able to kind of apply that into my situation wow now not it's not a competition it's not a competition but i already like this question by the way wherever this is going i like it it's not a competition but you know the basketball accomplishments that your dad has almost nobody could compete with but there is one way in which you surpassed your father right your dad wanted to see it i already know what it is your dad won the silver at the 73 maccabiah games and in 2009 you won a gold medal at the mccabe games which i think are taking place actually right now or they just ended uh right now in israel what did that mean for you winning that gold medal in maccabiah games in israel what was that like yeah it's one of you mentioned it right because my dad is an olympic gold medal olympic gold medal is a big deal but we he will say yeah but i have that mcavia gold medal he uh he was a senior in high school in 73 and the great talbrodie and mickey berkowitz some legendary israeli players beat my dad's usa team in the in the gold medal game winning gold in israel was a great experience but it was even more so than the athletic accomplishment that was my first time in israel and so it was spiritual for me reconnecting with the jewish homeland and as you know from the book when my dad and our family fled romania they had passports for israel it was israel that paid money for jews to leave communism and at the last minute they had a chance to come to the united states but most of our family ended up in israel so there was something so deep and meaningful for me about stepping foot on that soil and feeling and touring the country and the western wall and haifa and masada and the dead sea i felt i write my book i felt it in my bones right so that's what i take more than anything and i i told my it was my sister's my older sister's first time as well and i remember saying to her i'm gonna finish my career here i just felt it and i did last four years of my career were in israel so that in and of itself was enough for me the fact that we beat israel in overtime in the gold medal game and i was the mvp of the cop like that was all awesome and i and i'm really proud of that it was a great it was a great experience but it was bigger than that right it was about it was about reconnecting for me with the jewish homeland you got to see the beauty of israel unfortunately israel is depicted so often as something it's not this aggressors warmonger apartheid bds given your time in israel and given the sort of profile that you and your family have are you involved in advocating for israel trying to set the record straight out israel letting people know about the beauty of the real israel without a doubt i mean i think through my book you know that's a way that i advocate and i it's all there it's all in writing and of course personally i i speak about it as i am right now it's a wonderful beautiful place meaningful fun you know there's there's so much to to love about about the state of israel and yeah i'm very very open about it still pick up a basketball you still play i say no one wants to watch it happen but it does happen occasionally um yeah i have a group of guys who i enjoy playing with and you know there's a switch in there you know when you play at that level and it means that much to you you could always turn it on but i don't want to anymore right i want to i want to enjoy and you don't want to be too competitive about it you just want to be competitive enough and i have a group of guys who i play with from time to time that i think it's the right mix right because you know after all those years of grinding and fighting that hard on the court it doesn't take much to go back to that place but at 38 you know with you you don't want to go back there right the only thing that could happen there are more injuries and i don't want that so i do enjoy playing but at the right pace which is you transition to other sports do you play other things now i don't i should you know i've always i always enjoyed playing tennis growing up i i was never a big golfer so i i need to i need to figure something i think i'll you know hopefully play tennis you know as i kind of get older a bit but i enjoy i enjoy playing sports i enjoy watching sports for for all the reasons that we've mentioned you know i know and i felt how what it does for people the passion that's behind it the emotion that's behind it the stories you know this is my story but every athlete who has really just fought and it means so much there's always a reason behind it right so i always think it's very interesting to learn what drives athletes why it matters to them so much well dan thank you for sharing your story with the world thank you for joining us behind the bema and sharing it with us and and i feel like um you know given your grandma and she should live and be well and be healthy fast for many many more young kippers but given your grandmother your grandparents history the holocaust given the story through your dad and to you can't help but end and the number on the back of your dad's jersey end with amis the jewish people really the grenfell story are alive and well so thank you so much for joining us behind the bema thank you for letting us uh listen more into your story with you it was great to be here with you both i really appreciate it thank you that was a great conversation rabbi brodie wow did you learn about basketball i learned a lot about everything i'll be honest i didn't know him i didn't know his father i haven't i did hear of the knicks because i went to knicks games when i was growing up but i was amazed it's such an incredible story what's your takeaway lessons learned what do you what do you got i love the part where you spoke about family just making sure you know you know your family your family's history and you said you don't have to write a book but you got to speak about it and you know when i go to sinai or some of the the the assisted livings in the community you know there's so many times we we hear some of these people talk about the experiences that they had growing up and some incredible stories i say to them do your children know these stories do your grandchildren do your great-grandchildren know what you've done with your life yeah the family narrative that's what gives us strength and knowing it is powerful um first of all i love to learn about his grandmother she should be well i love that she fasted on yom kippur almost 90 times what is that that's great surviving the holocaust but what what strikes me the most is is perseverance right is strength what strikes me the strongest is is the fact that when he was injured he's lying on the court tiger woods is watching national games watching and his grandmother's holding him just like but and basically not not judgmentally critically but like buddy i survived the holocaust i lost 70 family members you're gonna get through this that's gonna be okay it's gonna be okay so perspective strength per civilian circumstance resiliency coming full circle right the maccabee like unbelievable winning the gold state of israel there was no state in israel there was no yeah roe wallenberg saving her life and her grandson is playing basketball state of israel ha tikva makabi again what what a wow it's inspiring emotional beautiful great night it really was a great conversation and so glad that he joined us for it and it's a book worth worth checking out we are nearing the 100th episode we want to share your impressions nothing to do with us this is not our ego our guests we've had amazing guests men and women and jewish and non-jewish and religious and not religious we've had amazing amazing guests leave us a message at 561-247-4757-561-247-4757 to reflect episode we want to be back both on that and rabbi brodie's warboat wardrobe changes are they are they able to leave a message that if it's yeah it's not worth leave a message at that number right now we'll play that message yeah play that message so make sure it's appropriate leave a message favorite moment we're excited we're looking forward most importantly we're looking forward we hope it can work out to be reunited all the hosts together again that'd be great it's the biggest hope that would be the biggest hope so anyway thank you to dan gronfeld thank you rabbi brodie for being back garth brooks thank you for being here the year this year i just wanted to tell you this is i'm so excited i've never been more pumped for a year so you know i wanted to get into that i guess we'll have to do it next week every year rabbi brodie comes back for the summer i'm fired this is going to be the year i got ideas and i want to know what is it about the summer what creates that margin or space that you're able to dream what reignites that everything that makes you come back so for next week right bro here's your homework we're going to talk about it when you come back on fire and you have all these dreams and plans you ever stop and measure and say did i accomplish them did i achieve them did i make it happen yeah or if it's just like you have them and you run with them and what is it that enables you to have those dreams that fire to run with it and uh how could other people find that inspiration and run with it and and move with it all that next week and more and more behind the beam until next time stay happy