On that had had no bar miss mitzvah, couldnt speak hebrew and had a very bad attitude. So after a little bit of trying, i sort of gave up and went back to being a regular american. But through this whole era growing up i was looking around for any other guy for, like, role models. What jews are out there that i can relate to, and this is the 50s and the early of 0s, so i thought, w456s this, Molly Goldberg or Something Like that . There was just nothing that i could relate to. So i never could quite get with the program. Should ive never done anything about my own people. Not to mention the fact that the sick day war is in the ranks with gettysburg or anything like that. But beyond that, its a great story because it is a story of return from exile and the whole climactic western wall. I dont know if you know about that but i will get into that. So i decided this was about three years ago. Paul knows about it because he was with me. So i decided to do that and the first thing i did i have never been to israel, so i called up my friend who lives not too far from here and he is connected and said who do you know in israel that is connected in the military so that i can go over there and he can open doors to ask the sitcom by my house and i will introduce you to somebody. Standing there it is too bad we dont have the capacity to do projecting that its the picture of a Fighter Pilot. So, meeting him at davids house he lived in venice and he was 92 or 91yearsold at the time and he had an eight marine corpss air Fighter Pilot in world war ii are flown against the home islands, so on and so forth, and when the state was founded in 1948, they flew for the air force and in fact he led the First Mission of only four planes that saved tel aviv. I will get to that country, too. So i was a marine, he was a marine, and he just sort of adopted me like a son or younger brothebrother and said i will su up with everybody over there. So i went over there and i was there for three weeks, so nine weeks total interviewing 67 pilots, paratroopers etc. And then came back and put it all together. So, let me tell you now a little bit about the war in the context just to give you a sense. I wont take long i promise. 1,000 bc, king david captured the city of jerusalem and the kingdom of israel comes into its own in the holy land. The arc is there, the raiders of the lost ark, all that kind of stuff. On the temple mount in jerusal jerusalem. Now cut to 587 bc they conquered jerusalem and dispatched to catalonia where i know that youve heard the bob marley song and if you dont know by the rivers of babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered via an. So after a while they come back and cut to 70, 80. The romans come to town and expel all of the jewish people out into the world. So by the way both of these have been on the same day of the hebrew calendar of the ninth. Notice when the romans expelled the jews, this started. I ask the mayor of the jewish people for 1900 years lived as aliens and exiles in the countries of others. All the while longing for home for jerusalem that always seemed to be the dream that would never be fulfilled. And because there were exiles and aliens all of the terrible things that happened, the persecutions, inquisition, all leading up to the hollow cost. So i know this is longwinded but bear with me. Now im going to cut it to france come et 90. Has anybody heard of the dreyfus case. In france there was an artillery officer named Alfred Dreyfus who was accused of treason and convicted. He wrote the famous editorial in defense of dreyfus. This wave of antisemitism cannot where they were chanting kill all of the jews etc. , etc. He was there covering the trial and when he sold his outburst event was that im sure was appalled and horrified and the conclusion that he came to is they could live in the countries of others and that it was never going to work. If this could happen i have beee country of the civilized culture like france where the community had been thriving for a thousand years and where thousands had served and died for the armies of france, he said this is never going to work. So, he said they went to paris and was with a two star general when the original, the first boutique was on the corner and on the plaque on the wall it said here in 1895 the founder of the movement wrote the book the jewish state that foretold of the resurrection of the state of israel. So finally, going ahead 1948 the state of israel was founded in the jews are back in the holy land. So, now to return to my friend of 1948, as soon as the jewish state declared itself the 1948 may 14, 5 armies, egypt comes her. , lebanon, iraq and jordan attacked across the border to drive them into the sea. My friend is a tel aviv. I will shortcut that this was the war of independence and a big battle occurred over jerusalem over the old city of jerusalem and what happened is the arabs want and captured the oldest city which is where all of the holy sites were including the western wall. Remember the temple i told you about that turned down twice . The only thing that remained on the temple is the western wall, the founding that site had become the sites to which pilgrimage would be made first to be burned 60 synagogues and kill every jew they could find, and then it was now impossible for anybody to come to the western wall. So this being kind of the center of the jewish people. Now finally cutting ahead to 1967 does anybody remember . He was the president of egypt probably the most charismatic ever into the short version is he brought a thousand tanks and 100,000 egyptian soldiers into the cyanide desert threatening the existence and fantasy react, jordan, same thing. Again the short version of the story is that in six days the jewish people defeated the army and captured jerusalem and the key moment of this i remember this vividly when the israeli paratroopers passed through the lions gate in the walls of jerusalem and if there were moments of the secular paratroopers who didnt know how to pray begging than teaching them how to pray and it was a sort of overwhelming moment in jewish history. So the cycle finally came to its conclusion at that moment. So to me as a writer you look for not just the surface stuff into the action scenes and that sort of stuff but we were talking about this what is the metaphor underlying this and the metaphor to this story for me was the concept of exile. The jewish people stand for in the total world the people that had been in exile and aliens and strangers in a strange land forever because they were separated from this place, the sole center of the people. And i feel like that is as true for individuals as it is for nations. And in any sense, according to the rabbi, the belief that the exile was the essential state of the human being. We all are sort of in exile from something. From god, from the higher nature, from who we were born to be from our best selves. And in our lives so actualization is a search for that center that is our true selves as artists. We try to find that spot where we are in touch with the news into seems to me that we kind of go to the evolution of our lives we sort of try on different identities searching and coming closer and closer and closer. So to me that moment that when the paratroopers reached the western wall, the sole center after so long was so emotionally than around the world because i think people really did to that and could understand. The other thing is you dont get to that place nobody can give it to you. It cant be handed to you on a platter like the western powers. It wouldnt work. It has to be taken by the force of arms in the face of opposition. And so anyway, that is kind of what it meant to me. And at the same time, the process of meeting the people i met and immersing myself into that world which id never been in israel and i knew nothing and was also kind of transformative in a way for me as a way of kind of coming home in a certain sense. So ive abbreviated a lot of stuff. I dont want to bore you. If anybody has anything to say or ask and you can ask about the wall if you want. Want. I dont know if this is working or not but hopefully everybody can hear me. How did he end up in santa monica and did the research and write the book can give you a different understanding or change anything on how you view the Current Events that are happening in the middle east . Let me tell you a little longer story about lou. He came home from the war as a Fighter Pilot hero. One day a palestinian major combat that kind o of time but y that lived under the british rule came in and spoke at a synagogue at hollywood and saidd he was recruiting people into looking for soldiers and pilots and at that time the fbi was after anybody that tried to help the jewish state because you were serving under a foreign flag set the same time the Jewish Defense forces were comes to hiring like mad to get around that. So one guy if you could buy an airplane he was given 5,000 went on to th down to the city t an airplane, curtis command. Anyway he wound up going over to israel and at that time, this is more than you asked for but im going to give this to you, the air force had no planes at all, none. And the only thing they could get, they get for screwed up message 109 for together with ballmer and jens and mismatched parts from czechoslovakia, flew them in from israel and they were not even bolted together yet. Meanwhile the Egyptian Army was coming up towards tel aviv which was only about 60 miles. And there was the famous fight where the women fought in the trenches against the advancing egyptians, so anyway, he is planning to take them and attack this big. Suddenly onto the air force comes a cheap in charge of the jewish forces defending against the Egyptian Army coming up. So she said we need your planes and he said to him im attacking tomorrow. He said no you dont understand we need them right now. Weve got the egyptians held up at this half bridge and if we dont stop them right now they are in tel aviv tonight and that is the end of israel. So they took these four planes up and the bombs didnt work, the guns didnt work. It was a total debacle but the emotional shock of seeing the stars david on the side stopped the army. Fullstop the Egyptian Army and kind of deflected away so that was how he at whatever age he was said this was his home. He actually just got married to a gal that was 55 and now lives in israel. In this book together and interviewing people in all the research that went into it, did it change your perception in terms of the Current Situation in the middle east and a lot of the conflict thats happening right now . Yes. But i can confess i am not really an expert in whats going on as far as the palestinians or anything like that. But it certainly showed me like what i was talking about let me read you i sort of hate to read because it gets really boring. I will just kind of abbreviated this. There is a moment when the paratroopers got to the western wall and there were two guys that were best friends and he was killed shortly thereafter by terrorists. But mabove me see if i can finds he was a deputy brigade commander, and if they had gotten to the wall and a photographer i will read it it is only two paragraphs. A photographer was recording the moment with his camera. He put my body between himself and the lens and hid his face so that no film could be made of his tears. He held my arm and twice he tried to speak and twice his voice failed. He is telling the story that i can hear the words still if my greatgrandfather, if any of my family who had been murdered, if they could know somehow even for one second that i, they are grandson would be sitting here wearing the red boots of a paratrooper, if they could know him for one instant they would suffer a thousand times and count it as nothing. He gripped my arm as if he would never let go. We shall never leave this place, he said. Never will we give this up, never. So data show that shows me sorte depth of emotion that is there at least on the one side of the conflict that was not there before. And so, i am not sure that at all answers your question, but thats what i did learn the depth of emotion on the one side. Anybody else with anything . This book sounds like a good torture how did it affect your methodology of writing because i would think that compiling other peoples words and stories, pushing them into a narrative its different than the in other words youve got a forced very good question. The answer kind of his i am never going to do nonfiction again because it is much too hard. Like right now paul knows im fixing to israel 300 separate books. Its going to cost me over 30,000 its taken me but to answer your question, although its completely nonfiction and completely different and that this is a narrative nonfiction so its like black hawk down or a perfect storm in that you cant make anything up. You want to make a point so you just invent the scene. Buby the same rules apply to the storytelling. There has to be a theme and it has to be paid off in the final scene and it has to be set up all the way through. There has to be a protagonist and antagonist. So that was on target because you take all these facts and its like a puzzle of what comes first and second and so on and so forth. So for instance i distrust talking about the western wall so in putting this together, chapter one is about that. And just kind of plant it in the readers mind. [inaudible] spinnaker to add something. I know a bunch of those that fought. Out of all of the pilots that fought, only three of them were israeli. And i know him very well and i just finished an article myself about another pilot that was a very good friend during the war. Hes 91yearsold and he lives here in los angeles and he told me the whole story, what they did and how they got under the radar is an amazing story. I was in the military and in israel before was in june and ended in september. Where were you . Up north. While thank you for coming here tonight. Yes . What specifically inspired the story . Did you read an article about something . And also what was your process like . How long ago was that up until today. Thats a great question. One of my classmates from high school sent me a message on facebook and said did you know that alan died . He was the cocaptain of the Football Team back in high school, and he totally was secular. She said did you know that he became a rabbi and did you know that he was the rabbi of San Francisco and he became a very big deal of that figure. So this kid i knew in high school had written two books so i bought them and they both kind of blew my mind. One was about his sort of journey as a totally hip and cool and nothing bothered him that he was talking about how he was going through all kinds of turmoil and stuff like that but then the second book was about partly about this holiday that was the date that the temple was destroyed two times come into that sort of grozny into thinking about that stuff. Later it came through that way and that was like maybe the idea was five years ago because i was that means the end of time. Was there anything specific that you wanted to ask about in the process. I have a blog that i do every week but yes. It was an allconsuming fact. The other night i was going over my mind and how much money i spent verses on this. [inaudible] youve never been associated with that . After the kin time that you spet with these people out there what happened to you . You mean in terms of how it changed my outlook and everything . Speak to no, you cant. Lets see if i can boil it down to something simple. Over here since the vietnam its been the all volunteer army. No draft. So we have had two generations grow up that have never served in the military. So when you meet somebody that is under 6 60 years would you assume that theyve never been in the military at all because it then you go over to israel in q. Can see a certain sort of jewish face and over here it is good to be a lawyer or film maker or whatever and then you go over there and its the same only everybody is like a italian commander or Fighter Pilot or Something Like that and they dont think anything of it. That is just the way that it is. And i must say that i admire that. That means a lot to me. For instance one guy that became a good friend of mine, we were driving along and i noticed i spent a lot of time driving with him through the heights and other places. At the top of the hour he turns on the news in the car just for like a minute, 20 seconds and i asked him why do you do that and he says this is israel, you just never know. Its a real sobering and inspiring thing to see how the ideal of service that still exists. Scott, did you want to Say Something . I had a couple of questions for you. I know everybody here. Well in 1967, when this war broke out there, was kind of a spark. There was a sort of answer to an identity that you were looking for, riding on an idea you brought up earlier about trying on a series of identities through our lives. Yes. In 67, 47 years ago i only know that because thats the year i was born im wondering you look great for 47. I juice a lot. In going through this journey, as a writer, were there was there an identity finally in completing the work, or in working in israel, an identity you had been perhaps looking for since 1967 or the 1950s, when you father informed you, you were jewish. Was there an identity that you found that you realized you had been working for, and then one small question after that, going back to a previous work of yours, were there any forces of resistance that were unexpected and how did you defeat those. Those are both great questions, deep questions. Ive been looking a lot about identity, and im torn. On the one hand we all have our tribal identities. No matter how much we pretend we dont. We have a certain face, certain body, month to a certain thing, and when i was over there, i certainly felt id be with a bunch of these Fighter Pilots or guys, men and women, and i would really feel like, this is where i belong. But then would fool, will, maybe i dont. So that sort of one kind of way of looking at that, became very that really it was born in me and kind of grabbed me. Thats there for sure. But at the same time, im really not a believer in tribal identities. I think that is what fucked up in the world now. Everybody says its us against them, da da da, and if were ever going to get anywhere we have to get beyond those identities. Right . Im a sunni, youre a shiite so im going to kill you. Im torn. Im both, i guess. It certainly didnt come down to, like, lou, move to israel. I wont be doing that. But im my heart is much more there than it ever had been before. In terms of resistance a good question about the war. One of the things that happen when i first got there, i started having panic attacks, and i never could really figure out i still dont know exactly what it was. I wrote about it on my blog. I would get locked in the parking garage and i couldnt figure out how to get oust the garage, or get lost or just try to go to from my hotel to the bagel shop i could see from the window of my i couldnt find my way there. And i would be in such a state in the morning, getting up to go on these interviews, i would have to, like, literally tell myself, now put the toothpaste on thing too brush. Enough put it in your mouth. And i never really figured out exactly what that was. But i still dont know. But eventually it kind of went away and i got in the groove of it. As for the writing of it, this long process ive never been so deeply shoveling working as hard as i could, but the writing of it was a piece of cake. That was like nothing. Everything else was just a nightmare of hard, hard labor, you know, against the grain. I dont know if that answers your question, scott. Thanks for asking great questions. You said you came up with the metaphor of exile for this book. Did you decide that or come to you as you were working on the book. I decided from the start. Thats really good question. I think thats the way a writer works. We talked about that. The first question i found, for a lot of years of doing this, is to ask yourself what is this about . What is this project about . Whether its writing or any other thing. And when i was telling the story about rabbi lou, my friend from high school, i already thought from his story of exile and return and my knowledge of the six day war and the moment at the western wall, i already knew that was it. But i very definitely that was the spine of the story and i built the story around that. So, sort of like what you were saying, your question or fiction versus nonfiction. If this had been fiction i would have made up this scene, that scene to make it work, but because it was nonfiction, i had to go there and find people to tell me those things. But i knew lets say the question, whats going to happen in the final scene at the western wall . If its Steven Spielberg . I can come up with some bull shit but i knew if i could talk to the real guys that i would tell me something i would have never thought of in a million years and just a couple of tiny things here. Do you still have patience for this . Of the craziness of scar this kind of stuff. When the israeli paratroopers got up to the temple mount where the western wall is, they didnt really know where it was because no jew had been allowed there in 2,000 years, but they new there was a poplar grove so they found the poplar grove, and suddenly out of nowhere, just came out of a gun battle, and an old aint saint arab appeared in a white robe with a huge key around his neck, and one of the guys said to him, where is the wailing wall, in english . The guy what too freaked out to say anything. But they dragged him over to this gate the were looking for a gate finally realized he was the gatekeeper and that is what the key was. So when they had him by the gate, small door in a big gate, he said to them he recovered himself and said to them, i knew id been waiting for you for 19 years. I newell you would come. He i knew you would come. He gave them them the key, and they turned and it there was they wall on the other side. Another crazy story ruth after that. The paratroopers wanted to hang the israeli flag and they had to find a spot above the western wall. So they went back up, the same small group of guys, and they there was sort of a row of buildings blocking them from a place where they knew they could hang the flag. Suddenly this guy appeared, young guy, with a blond on one side and a brunette on the other, and he says in english, dont shoot, im one of the good guys, and turns out he was jew from brooklyn, named mark im going to forget his last name he converted to islam, changed his name too abdullah, and was there working for english lange newspaper. He said come through this door it was his apartment. He says the place youre looking for is right on the other side, and thats where they went through. So these are the things you could never make up in a million years, but thats how things happened. I never knew. I never knew. His girlfriends, i guess. Quick question, steve. How did your background as a marine help you do this project . Was it were you able to relate to the soldiers better . Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. A lot of the story was infantry stuff. So definitely. I could relate to it and they could relate to me. So, yeah, definitely. First of all, congratulations. Quite a journey. Thank you. Inspirational to watch. Recently i had a friend named jim who said, im going to israel, and i was like, really . Why are you doing that . He goes, well, thats where the rental car is. And i said, what . Thats a great reason to go i didnt hear that. He says thats where the rental car is. That was his excuse for going to israel. Thats where he rented a car. I never rally understood. But thats my israel story. Doesnt actually qualify as a question but i did think it was kind of a unique recent to go to israel. Okay. Thats where the rental car was. And i also i read your blog of yesterday, the part about youre entitled to the labor but not the reward, and or that the reward was the sitting on how should i on your ass for a long time. And i was thinking, god, thats an interesting reward. I was wondering if you had any other thoughts . Thats the only question i can come up with. I understand. But i did think the profundity of the award was sitting was an interesting comment. The blog was about the lions gate, the lions gate had been out for a week, and it was the question of, as a writer, how too you manage your own expectations in a situation like that . Just like actors and directors, when your movie comes out. Are you so psyched up and so over the years it being d being in the movie business ive head my heart broken so many times, the bottom line was for me thats what said in the blog was that you cant base dish tell the story of i wont tell the story you cant base your selfesteem on what other people say or what the response is out there in the real world. You can do something great and it goes nowhere. Do something terrible and youre the toast of the town. So, the i was just talking about, as kristina says, were entitled to our labor but not the fruits of our labor. And i dont check amazon, da da da. I just asked myself, am i happy . With what i did . Did i live up to my own expectations, and if i can answer yes, then im okay with that. What paul was saying about the sitting, the kind of the zen thing that the sitting is its own reward. Annot as thoughor seeking enlightenment and if you dont get a bolt of lightning that makes you a different person, you failed. Youre there to sit and be still and be in the present moment. So same thing to me with writing or any art. It is its own reward to do it. That is the only way to stay sane in this racket, in the creative racket. Anything else . Thank you, doctor. Yes. This actually might you talked about how the state of israel came into being as a result of a force that had to be, the assertion militarily of, like, were going to be have a violent expression. Yes. Do you see any relationship with that thought, as controversial as it is its i mean im not saying its not true. Im just saying its an interesting thought as it relates to the treatment of palestinians today. As they relate to the jewish state. Could you be a little more specific . I mean, like, obviously we would all like peace in the middle east, but if a country is forged in blood, does that Carry Forward . Thats a great question. Its an insolvable question, because going back for centuries, blood for blood for blood for blood, right . Ill tell you one anecdote i thought was interesting [inaudible] you can go to back to the crusaders and all that stuff [inaudible] let me tell you an anecdote and maybe this will be of interest. This is my other friend, elly, the goo who was checking the radio each time. Were driving past an arab town in israel, and i said to him, elly, tell me the truth. Any hope of peace here . He said, yes, and ill tell you why. And he said, how can you when i came out here i was in the movie business, and i would drop everything and wait for the everyone was a bomb and it was just heartbreaking. So i sort of learned over that time to be well into the next project, halfway through the next project, and put that one kind of behind you and because try not to jinx yourself by doing that. So, yeah, i think what has been my experience, even with successful stuff, is things go out there and its not like people hate them. Its like they dont even know theyre there. They just sort of sink without a trace, and its really depressing. Yes. Are you going to make a movie . No one has asked me yet. Not yet. Scott . One last quick question here. I know that when i read, reading always leads me to maybe eight or ten other books. What i the one book i read informs my next step. Me, too. Im wondering if in writing the lions gate, if this book has informed what youll be doing in the future at all, and if host go good question. If youre willing to give us a hint about what maybe is on the horizon. I will. I usually superstitiously dont want to talk about it. But im actually writing a book [helicopter running] writing a book about the writing of this book and how it affected me. And in fact the blog post im doing now are part of that. I was talking about panic attacks. Ive written about that on the blog. And so, yeah, i think its in many ways the story is almost as interesting as the story of the war. Its a transformation youre going through. Its about thats all ill say. Anything else . Okay. Lets call its night. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming out. [applause] i guess ill just go into the book store, and if anybody and sign or if you have a book here ill sign them now. Whatever. You dont have to boy a book. [inaudible conversations] if you go back and look at coolidge, he was conservative hero, and his tax rate was a Gold Standard tax rate that we saw, 25 . Is what he got the top rate down to. And he fought like crazy. It started with wilson in the 70s so that was enepic battle, when you look at what socialites said about coolidge, he wouldnt meet anybody, but they were probably from other families who had different ideas. Here was coolidge, prissy and cold and not giving out favorites. She said he looked as though he had been weaned on a pickle. Coolidge was from new england, farmers dont talk a lot or wave their arms about because a cow might kick them. If you lived and it was tempermental. He was a shy person. Also had a political purpose. He knew if he didnt talk a lot people would stop talking, and of course a president or political leader is constantly bombarded with requests, and his silence was his way of not giving in to special interests, and he articulated that specifically. Taxes booktv asked, what are you reading this summer . I think im doing a catchup summer. Reading a lot of things that are not particularly new but i have meant to read and not gotten done. So i ticked off a little list of them