Bryan Schwartzman:
From my home studio. Welcome to Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations.

MUSIC:
[Hebrew 00:00:09]

Andy Levin:
If we want to have a peace in the Middle East, if we want a secure future for Jews in the Holy Land, the only way to achieve that is by giving Palestinians their political rights and their human rights.

Bryan Schwartzman:
I'm your host Bryan Schwartzman. Today I'm going to be speaking to former Congressman Andy Levin, and this interview was a real treat and coming on the heels of the election, I can't imagine a better guest to help us process and understand and try to move forward than Congressman Levin. The basis for our interview, although we go much wider, is his Evolve essay called Courage Has a Life of Its Own. This essay is part of a symposium that Evolve put out based on the historian Timothy Schneider's bestselling book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. And I say book, but I read it in prep for this interview. And it's really a pamphlet. You can go through it in a few sittings and it's sobering, but very clear and digestible, and I'm going to go on record and recommend it no matter who you voted for.
I think it's got valuable lessons for how to act as citizens. The Evolve Symposium offers Jewish takes on each of Schneider's 20 lessons and Andy's Evolve essay and today's episode are stemming from this one, and it's the last lesson that Schneider put in his book. It reads, "Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny." So, I could tell that he doesn't remember it, but I first met Sam Watson. I first met Andy Levin in 2018 at Reconstructing Judaism's Convention in Philadelphia, and it was a whirlwind time for him. He had just come from DC and orientation for New House members. He had just been elected. He took the time getting ready to serve in Congress, to spend at least a day at Reconstructing Judaism's Convention.
Sam and I spent about an hour with him on camera, and I'll put the link to that interview in our show notes. And I'll just say, when I was a full-time reporter, I actually was on the politics beat and I interviewed countless state and national politicians. And no matter the party I really often found I was talking to somebody who was behind a sort of wall, impenetrable, calculating everything they said. And Andy didn't seem like that, and certainly not in this interview.
We talk about so much. We dive into takeaways from the recent American election. You might've heard something about this and what really concerns him about the reality of a second Trump presidency. We dive into his loss in 2022 and the larger issues that race highlighted how he ended up in a hotly contested primary with fellow Democrat Haley Stevens. And why the America Israel Public Affairs Committee known as AIPAC, spent more than 4 million to defeat him. And we talk about courage, where it comes from, why it's so important now, and how we can project it. We cover his time in Congress, including his sponsorship of the two-State Solution Act. And yes, we also discuss Israel, the war in Gaza and Lebanon and so much more, including why he's proud to be a Reconstructionist Jew.
Okay, let's get to our guest. Andy Levin now is a distinguished senior fellow with the Center for American Progress. He served as Democratic representative for Michigan's ninth Congressional District in the US House of Representatives from 2019 to 2023. Before that, he created and ran a statewide market to help Michigan businesses and nonprofits obtain favorable financing to deploy renewable energy and energy efficient technologies. He's also the past president of a Reconstructionist congregation T'chiyah in suburban Detroit. And in 2023, he and his father Sander were honored with the Keter Shem Tov Award at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College's graduation. It is the highest award given out by the Reconstructionist movement. Former Congressman Andy Levin, welcome to the podcast. It is great to have you here and good to see you.

Andy Levin:
Thanks so much, Bryan. It's great to see you too.

Bryan Schwartzman:
So, you and I are talking about nine days after the election. This episode will come out shortly after. I'm just wondering how you're doing, I know you've in the past about the importance of spiritual practice in your life, meditation going out into nature. I wonder if you've turned to any of that in the past days or maybe it's too soon.

Andy Levin:
Well, yeah, no, thanks for asking. I mean, personally, basically, I'm fine. I went out the other day in a little solo canoe and paddled around a lake, which here in suburban Detroit, there are many, many lakes and they're often full of boats, but not at this time of year. So, I had the entire lake to myself. But it's a profoundly difficult time and a time to take stock of where we are as a country. And unfortunately, given the outsize role the United States plays in the world, the election of Donald Trump to a second term will have massive consequences for people around the world, for the planet itself, for human rights and policy and economics and everything all around the world. So, it's a difficult time. One of the things is, I don't know why I've been thinking about this, but Ronald Reagan was elected president when I was 20, and the Republicans held the White House for the next 12 years until I was 32. That's a long time and a formative time in one's life.
I consider, by the way, the Reagan presidency to have been really a very important historic presidency in terms of changing the direction of the country and also terrible. I think he launched an era of forty-plus years and counting of ever-increasing income and wealth inequality and a lot of other problems. He tore down the solar panels that Jimmy Carter put on the roof of the White House, all this kind of stuff. But I left college became a union organizer and environmental and human rights activist, and it was a very meaningful time in my life. So, sometimes governments are going more in the right direction and sometimes they're going in the wrong direction, but we all just have to look in ourselves and think, what is my best contribution to repair this world? And so I guess that's where we are. Challenging moment of thinking about that.

Bryan Schwartzman:
This might be a tough question to answer, but what most concerns you about a second Trump administration?

Andy Levin:
Oh, it is a tough question to answer because I think one of the things that people don't really realize about the federal government, the presidency, the executive branch, is just how it touches every part of American life and then life around the world. So, if your issue is early childhood or daycare or childcare or preschool, or if it's K-twelve education or higher education or job training, or if it's the environment, clean water, clean air, PFAS contamination, species extinction, climate change, you have whole huge categories, each of which has many parts.
All of it is deeply affected. I guess if I had to pick one overall thing, it would be if our worst fears come true, and this really does mean we're marching to the end of the 230-some year American experiment in democratic self-governance of the people. And Donald Trump loves autocrats. He seems to want to be an autocrat. And if he actually could change our system, I mean, is this our Germany 1932, which was really the last real election in Germany before the Nazis just assumed power through dictatorship. So, that would be the worst possible outcome, I guess,

Bryan Schwartzman:
Right. Yeah. So, I do try to prepare, and I read on Timothy Schneider's On Tyranny in preparation for talking to you, and he does have a line in there. Countries never know when their last free election is at the time, and it did stand out to me. If it were up to you, how would you like to see Democrats respond? Where do you think they should go at this time?

Andy Levin:
Well, I think there's no question that part of what happened on November 5th is that some significant group of Americans is not ready evidently to have a woman as president or a black person or Asian American person as president. That is deeply troubling and we must fight on for justice for all peoples and the rights and leadership potential of women and people of color and everything. But I think that if you really look at the outcome of the election, you have to take a couple things into account, Bryan. First of all, 2024 is the first year going back all the way to 1950 where the governing party lost ground in every election in industrialized countries in the whole world. It never even happened before in any year since 1950 where there are at least five elections. And so part of this is just we had this global pandemic, and then we had this horrible Russian assault on Ukraine.
Both of those led to inflation, supply chain problems, oil prices and so forth. And so there was a difficult period of global inflation, and the people of the world are just pissed off and they're like fairly or not, they blame who's ever in power and they want to get rid of them. So, in that way, let's not read more into it, right? That's possibly just a big general trend. But the other thing is the fact that Harris lost ground from how Democrats performed in 2020 across the whole country in deeply blue states, in deeply red states, urban, suburban, and rural areas. And even some of the people who study rural America dice it much more finely. There's like the mid-sized cities and then their suburbs, and then there's the outright rural areas. You lost ground in all of them. I take the message one message, the most important message to be pretty clear, the farmers and workers and unemployed people and people struggling in this country do not see the Democratic Party as the party of the working class.
And until we change that, we won't be able to win elections well. And the fact that the idea that Black men voted for Trump in significant number has been overplayed. They did vote for him more, but the numbers are still overwhelmingly for Democrats. Latino men did vote for Trump in more significant numbers. But the way I take all this is the notion of the working class being like white guys in hard hats was never true and it's so outdated. And so we've got this multiracial working class, and they're all pissed off, Bryan because they're living paycheck to paycheck. They feel like they're going to be less well off than their parents. And the main lesson is that the Democratic Party can't be the party of, I'm doing air quotes here, Chardonnay swelling, coastal elites. We've got to be the party of what I've mostly focused on my whole life, which is helping working people have living wages and good benefits and a dignified retirement and a little chance to have a vacation in Michigan terms.
I'm here at home in Michigan, a cottage up north, a snowmobile, something like that, a jet ski, something that they could play with their kids. Personally, I'm not into the motorized stuff so much, but that's the thing. So, we have to win that back. And then the future could be very bright. And so it's about unions and workers and pensions. Look at how, isn't it amazing how the Boeing workers rejected two offers before they finally accepted a very enriched offer? The machinist union represents Boeing workers in the Northwest. These workers wanted a real pension back, so they didn't get that exactly. But Bryan, what is the basic message there? They feel like they don't have economic security anymore. They used to have it. We know that Republican policies won't help them, but the Democrats have to be way more kind of bold, fierce voices for working class people. Again, I think, or else it's going to be difficult. In politics in any way that's the right thing to do. So, that's what I would say.

Bryan Schwartzman:
Oh, thank you. By the way, I got in a jet ski accident I think when I was 16, and I will never set foot on one again.

Andy Levin:
Okay. I don't think I've ever been. I paddle a canoe, so I'm like the slowest boat.

Bryan Schwartzman:
Stick with the canoe. Much more peaceful. So, you did publish an essay on courage, and I'd like to talk about that theme. And I guess while we're still on the post-election, I'm wondering in what ways you think ordinary citizens might need to exercise courage in the coming years? And if it's a muscle that one hasn't exercised, how do you do it?

Andy Levin:
Well, I think there are several ways. One is people, ordinary people need to run for political office. We don't need just a bunch of wealthy people or lawyers or financiers or something like that. And I think it takes courage to run for office, just like my daughter is in a performance major in college. Like, dude, I would never have the courage to do that, right? But politics is a little bit like that. You're putting yourself out there and just like somebody, if you're like a tenor and you're in college with a bunch of other tenors, one of you is going to get a part and the rest of you aren't. It's competition in a way that that's a little scary. In politics, if you're going to run for school board, run for city council, run for mayor, run for state rep, for Congress, whatever, obviously you'll either get picked or not. The voters will either pick you or not.
And it feels personal. And so it takes courage in that way. And also, there's so much ugliness in politics and it takes some courage to deal with that and all the horrible social media stuff. That's one way people need to exercise courage. I also think people need to have courage to figure out how to have conversations and relationships across political difference. That's real courage, Bryan, right? Gee, that uncle who votes the other way, and you think the best thing is to just avoid it. Sometimes it is, that's fine. But if we as individuals really want to understand other people, we have to listen to them and why they are voting the different way or why they are acting like that and listening, watching Fox News or something is, yeah, that's okay. But it's really more I think about listening to people.
Then a third way that people will have to exercise courage probably is we're probably going to have to hit the streets and that very, very important part of our democracy that's in our system, enshrined in the first amendment, freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Voting is super important, but assembling to shout about what you don't like or what's a danger is also important. And so we're probably going to have to get out there, whether it's about horrible treatment of LGBTQ people or immigrants or whatever the issue may be, destruction of any chance of protecting our planet from the overheating we're subjecting it to. We're going to probably have to have courage in that way.

Bryan Schwartzman:
I mean, when things get uncertain, destabilized, I think a lot of people, their instinct is to protect themselves and to protect their families. How does somebody gauge, evaluate the risks of doing that? If a government is intent on doing something and an ordinary citizen wants to get in the way? I mean, I think normally Americans feel pretty safe doing that. I guess that's my question is have you ever given advice on how to evaluate the risks of taking to the streets in some fashion?

Andy Levin:
Well, for sure. I mean, because I've been involved in a lot of creative, non-violent, direct action of all kinds. And I mean people, no one should feel forced to go be in a skit in a park or block traffic or get arrested or anything. They should only do it with consideration. But in the broad sense of your question, if I understand it, I think it goes back to the old saying about how well, first they came to the Jews for the Jews, and I wasn't Jewish, so I didn't get involved. Then they came for the queer people and I wasn't queer. If you want to protect yourself and your family and your rights, and you just in your own honest assessment, you look at it and you're like, that's wrong, that's racist, that's discriminatory. That's violative of what America is supposed to be about. It's kind of better to do it before it gets a big head of steam. Intervening early may be often better for protecting your family and yourself than waiting until everybody else is already in jail and there's nobody to lock arms with, because you're the last one.

Bryan Schwartzman:
Well, I mean, we're laughing, but it's powerful. Thank you for putting it that way.

Andy Levin:
We have to laugh, Bryan. We have to keep laughing. I think. I mean, you can cry and laugh and cry and laugh, but we have to keep laughing.

Bryan Schwartzman:
Amen to that.

Andy Levin:
I mean, just let me just say Matt Gates as Attorney General, I mean-

Bryan Schwartzman:
Not yet, but-

Andy Levin:
Right. But as the nominee, he's already resigned. But of course, he had an ulterior motive for resigning quickly, because he didn't want the ethics committee to actually come out with a report about him and sexual trafficking. But I mean, to be honest with you, I assume Trump would pick someone horrible for Attorney General, but in a literal sense, Matt Gates being the attorney general is laughable. I mean, would one of our great satirists that we've had have the imagination to say that would be the pick. It's so ridiculous. It's like satire in real life. I served with the guy. He is not a serious person. He doesn't have respect for the rule of law and our basic norms, and it is absolutely something to cry about, but it's also flat out laughable.

Bryan Schwartzman:
So, you mentioned the courage to serve for office. Let me see if I could get this question right. Your essay, and we'll get into specific talks about taking a position, introducing a bill that you knew could be risky to your electoral prospects, but you were convinced was the right thing to do. And I feel like every Hollywood movie we've seen of politics involves somebody ultimately doing the right thing. I guess I'm wondering why is it so hard for elected officials to do that once we're there to say, I'm going to risk my career on this. I mean, it just doesn't seem like being in the House of Representatives going back and forth from your home district to Washington, having to raise money, run every two years is such this amazing job that you would keep it at all costs. I guess I'm just ... why is it so hard to do what you did and for politicians to do what you did? I'm assuming it's hard, otherwise we would see it done more often.

Andy Levin:
Yeah, for sure. Well, I think that power is attractive. People like to be in power, and your intro to the question is so right on. Being a member, especially of the house, is a huge drag in the sense of just the lifestyle of it. I think most people wouldn't want to have to travel back and forth constantly, leave their kids while you're in DC.

Bryan Schwartzman:
I mean, thank you for your service, by the way. I was saying it seems [inaudible 00:25:25]-

Andy Levin:
Oh yeah, of course. But when you're in DC you may have breakfasts and endless receptions at the night. In the night you've got to run around to as well as working all day. You would often, I'd get home to my apartment with this huge briefing book for the next day for the hearings and whatnot where I had to question witnesses or whatever I was doing. And at 10 PM after the last, I'll say it's unhealthy. How do you eat healthily? How do you sleep healthily? And then at home, then you'd fly home. And then every community is like, well, you haven't been at our rubber chicken dinner in two years. This is the beauty of America, right? In my district, Ukrainian Americans were really important. Chaldeans, that's Iraqi Catholics, many Arab Americans, rich Jewish community, on and on, all different kinds of people, and everybody wants you to be at all their events.
Even if you go every night to three, you couldn't get to all of them. So, it's wonderful and difficult all at the same time. But I think that the answer is people, it's a wonderful platform to get to weigh in on the full range of domestic and foreign policy issues, and there's a status in society of it, and people like it. Also, to be honest with you, you become a lot more famous or successful if you serve for a long time than like me for four years. So, people calculate, right? They calculate about where they can take a stand and where they can't in order to keep getting elected. And so is it cynical that they're just being there to just get re-elected and they don't have any values or is it practical? And they have a lot of values, but they're not going to be able to exercise them in Congress unless they stay there.
Now, let me give you a concrete example where I disagreed with my dad and my uncle and John Dingle, the whole Michigan Congressional delegation. So, if people don't know, my dad served in the house for 36 years, and my uncle served in the Senate for 36 years. My dad's Sander Levin, my uncle's Carl Levin, and they served 32 of them together, which is by far the longest any siblings have ever served. These two Jewish boys from Detroit, grandsons of immigrants are by far the longest-serving siblings in the history of Congress. Okay, Bryan, we're going back to the eighties, nineties aughts. This is Michigan, right? The auto companies are super important. They opposed increased CAFE standards, increased standards for fuel efficiency in cars, and the key thing is the UAW leadership, the leadership of the Union of the Auto Workers also oppose them. The higher CAFE standards were the right thing to do, actually, and I feel clear about that.
I don't know, I think my dad and my uncle probably would have privately agreed with me, but when GM and Ford and so forth and the UAW agree on something, it takes all the oxygen out of the room. And if you want as a Democrat, are you going to oppose the UAW like that? So, that's an example of them not doing the right thing I think out of political necessity, some people would say it, or what's the word I'm looking for? Not convenience, but expedience, right? Out of political expedience.
So, there's no absolutes in this, right? That someone's an angel and someone's a devil, or someone always does the purely right thing. But I do think what tends to happen over time is that politics gets kind of filed down as if it was you want a nice set of nails so it all gets filed smooth, and people don't stick up for that pointy object that is actually, it's uncomfortable to say it in the room, but we can't keep letting farther and farther right-wing Israeli governments build more and more settlements and even annex things if we want to have a peace in the Middle East, if we want a secure future for Jews in the Holy land, because in my judgment, the only way to achieve that is by giving Palestinians their political rights and their human rights. I don't think there's an alternative. So, at some point, Bryan, I just said, well, I just have to do this. It's the right thing. And so there you have it. I don't know.

Bryan Schwartzman:
Okay. For months and a whole lot of episodes on this show, we've been talking about the war in Israel responses. We've talked about reconstruction as values and the conversation related to Israel, and now there's a chance to be even more part of that conversation in a direct way. Consider joining Reconstructing Judaism on December 15 from 1 to 4 PM eastern time for all the people Israel are responsible for one another. Reconstruction is values that shape our relationship with Israelis and Palestinians.
This will be a movement-wide program, virtual convening to explore the shared values that shape our connection to Israel, and response to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict on this program, Reconstructing Judaism, we'll take a close and nuanced look at what binds us in covenantal community even during this time of deep crisis. Registration for the program is free. We'll have a link to our show notes, or you can go to reconstructingjudeism.org and look for it on the events page. So, what were the most important components of the Two-State Solution Act, which is what you introduced that you were talking about, and that drew so much backlash from certain parts of the pro-Israel community?

Andy Levin:
Yeah, well, what I call the right wing on Israel, because yeah, you said certain parts. That's right, because I certainly feel like I'm part of that, but it's the part that just says you have to do whatever the Israeli government of the moment wants. It was actually pretty, I would even call it a milquetoast bill. People said, oh, wow, this is so great. It's the clearest legislation ever introduced to move towards a two-state solution. But remember the context. Before Trump, every Republican and democratic administration set a two-state solution based on 67 borders with land swaps, this kind of stuff, was official US policy, and Trump walked away from that completely. And then Biden was faced with this Netanyahu government. And so anyway, the key parts of the two-State Solution Act were that we would build up on the Palestinian side, that we would invest in democracy groups, human rights groups.
Basically call the question, support groups that are calling the question on the fact that the Palestinian authority doesn't have legitimacy among the Palestinian people, that there's corruption there, that there haven't been elections, and to try to help on the Palestinian side to build up a democratic culture and democratic practice. So, there would be an actor on that side that could help lead towards a two-state solution. And then on the Israeli side, and together it called for building up efforts to have more dialogue, more interaction, more collaboration between Israelis and Palestinians and Nita Lowey had just retired. She had been very active on this, and she had passed legislation to that effect. It wasn't really funded very well, so it kind of built on that. And then on the Israeli side, it opposed further settlements. It encouraged moves by Israel to work with Palestinians to move towards negotiations.
It didn't actually condition aid. It just said that the United States would follow existing US and international law. And of course, there's kind of two main parts of US law on this about arms transfers that we can't have arms transfers to any regime or government that violates human rights or that prevents necessary humanitarian assistance from being delivered. So, it just said we would follow those laws, and you've seen tremendous controversy about those laws even this week, but throughout the war in Gaza, where, to be honest, Bryan, you can't say that we are complying with our own law by supplying offensive weapons to prosecute this war in Gaza to the Israelis when there's just no question that they're hindering humanitarian aid and that they're serious questions about human rights violations in many ways, both in Gaza and in the West Bank. And these are tools that Republican, the laws weren't always the same, and actually, these laws didn't necessarily exist for President Eisenhower and Carter and Clinton and George H.W. Bush and so forth. Republican and Democratic administrations, President Reagan, held the Israelis to account.
And we had this balance, Bryan, of kind of being Israel's best friend and also being a neutral arbiter to try to bring the parties together, or it was always imperfect. But we moved in that direction under Republican and Democratic administrations in the past, and I would say in this quarter-century, about so far of the 21st century that has been lost. We just haven't made any progress in that direction. And of course, that many things have happened that will make a peaceful resolution more difficult. So, I felt like I had to get in there and write a bill and push for legislation that would get us back on track, I guess.

Bryan Schwartzman:
I mean, over the last year, we've certainly seen American aid and military technology save an enormous number of Israeli lives, whether from missiles from Iran, from Lebanon, from Yemen. What do you say to the folks who would say any attempt to condition aid might endanger more Israeli lives?

Andy Levin:
Yes. Well, I think that what I would say is that we have to discriminate between different kinds of military aid, and it's not very difficult. And this is why the idea of an arms embargo on Israel is a total non-starter for me, and most other people I think. The defensive weapons, Iron Dome and the other parts of the missile defenses are absolutely crucial, and we have to maintain them. But some of these weapons that have been used like the 2,000 pound bombs, our journalists so important to democracy, have done a really excellent job at analyzing some of this. So, they have reported that, and they have statements from Pentagon officials that the US has not used 2,000 pound bombs in populous populated areas in this century, and maybe even before we didn't use them, for example, going after ISIS in Iraq or Syria. We do not use them period in populated areas because it's killing tens or hundreds of people who are going to be innocent by definition.
The US has supplied massive amounts of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel throughout this, and Israel has used them. And as the New York Times reported in exquisite detail or horrifying detail, Israel used 2,000 pound bombs on leveling apartment blocks and whole neighborhoods in areas where they had told the Gazans to flee. So, anybody who goes to law school and takes one course in international law knows that this is simply ... If, as we know, Hamas is guilty of using people as human shields, that doesn't excuse the other side to wipe out massive numbers of civilians in order ... Let's say Israel is imploding whole set of apartment buildings because let's say we know there's a tunnel underneath where Hamas is operating.
Those ends do not justify those means. So, in other words, there's a very developed doctrine about all this, Bryan, and we mustn't cut off all military aid to Israel, by any means, but the US should not be paying for and abetting this kind of destruction. This is biblical. They have wiped out the vast majority of the built environment in Gaza. 3,000 children under five dead, many, many more children, women, etc, etc.
I think that we have to have the courage to say to Israel, there is no military solution to this conflict. You cannot kill your way to peace with the Palestinian people. There's 7 million Palestinian people on the land. They're not going anywhere. There's all the millions of Israelis, Jewish Israelis, as well as Palestinians on the land. They're not going anywhere. And the US has to lead a diplomatic effort that the EU would be eager to join, Egypt, Jordan, the Abraham Accord countries. Take advantage of that progress and call the Israelis and Palestinians in and say, okay, that's it. No more bloodshed, no more killing people. The stuff in Gaza and the West Bank and Lebanon and all these attacks from Yemen and Iran, all of this has to end. We're going to have an emergency diplomatic summit. And with all the frailties and faults of the Israeli government and the Palestinian government, which are many, we are going to start a diplomatic effort in real time to basically require the parties to come up with a plan to live together in peace.
And it's not even for us to dictate what that is. Of course, I have been in favor of a two-State solution. If the Israelis and Palestinians wanted to live in one secular democratic state, I don't see that happening. But the point is, it's up to them. It's up to them. But this is just this level of I don't understand whose Jewish values are ... Who can say that this way of handling this problem is a Halachic way of acting. And Bryan, it's even the worst possible strategy to bring hostages home alive. I mean, we knew this from the beginning. The only time significant number of hostages were released was when there was a ceasefire and a negotiated deal. Can you imagine the hostages that are still alive, what they've been going through? It's now 11 and a half. I mean 12, no, 13 and a half months.

Bryan Schwartzman:
I mean, one could argue that military pressure led help bring about the first deal, but that was almost a year ago now, right? If I'm [inaudible 00:44:08] correct.

Andy Levin:
Yes, I have not said, I've never said that Israel didn't have a right to take military action. I mean, good God, the horrifying, horrifying assault of October 7th and just massacring people in their homes, massacring people at a dance, massacring people on the street, horrifying sexual assaults. It was just terrible. And so of course, Israel has the right to respond. But do you remember in the days between October 7th and when Israel began its military operation where Secretary Austin, our Secretary of Defense, said, "Well, killing all the Hamas people or wiping out Hamas or eradicating Hamas is not an actual military strategy." And President Biden said, "Well, Israel, hey, please think about our experience. We were so aggressive in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it actually many, many thousands of people died, and our strategy really wasn't effective. We have to have some humility here and say to you, please learn from our mistakes." Sadly, none of that happened.

Bryan Schwartzman:
I mean, maybe historians will tell us one day we'll have access to cabinet or war cabinet documents. I really wonder what options were on the table were considered in those early days. What was feasible? I don't know if that's something-

Andy Levin:
Right. Well, who knows? But one thing we do know is that Bibi Netanyahu is an ethno-nationalist. He has never been for Palestinian self-determination or a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for one day in his life. He's always been for Greater Israel and annexing the land, and sometimes he has to sugarcoat it. But now he has this ultra right-wing government with ministers who have been convicted of racist crimes against Palestinians, and who openly ... Some people say What's happened in Gaza is a genocide.
You don't have to say that to say that some of the things that Smotrich and others are saying are openly genocidal. They want to displace the entire Palestinian people, remove ethnic cleansing, remove them from the land, and it's extremely troubling. And of course then there's Netanyahu's personal efforts to, he just wants to stay in power, so trying to delay his corruption trial and potentially going to jail for that. And also accountability. How on earth did Hamas and Islamic Jihad and so forth get away with this on October 7th? Obviously a huge majority of Israelis have been extremely angry at their government for what we already know. As you say, we'll learn more from documents.

Bryan Schwartzman:
I mean we've seen the war carry on long enough for Netanyahu's poll numbers to rise, which is, I think, alludes to what you've said it's hard to separate the two or to think that carrying on the war in some way wasn't an attempt to do that.

Andy Levin:
Yeah.

Bryan Schwartzman:
All right, so you talk about it in your essay. So, I'll ask a couple questions about your favorite subject, which is AIPAC. I'm trying, you said to laugh, so I'm trying to go with it. But I guess I am wondering, I mean, a couple of news stories I read said, look, the way that the redistricting worked, the way you were facing another incumbent, that the odds were against you in running in that kind of race. So, I guess I'm wondering, looking back, how much do you think the money, the ads, the efforts from AIPAC impacted the result?

Andy Levin:
Yes. Well, you're right. There's sort of two parts to that at least. So, the first part is that it was much more complex. I'll just say the answers first and then talk about it a little bit. AIPAC's role was crucial, but it is much more complex. And there were many factors. So, taking that second part first, every 10 years we have the census. And then once we get the results of the census, we re-divvy up the US House of Representatives, right? 435 seats, and they're apportioned to the states based on their population. Michigan isn't shrinking, but like New York and Illinois and other northern states, our share of the national population shrinks because other places in the Sunbelt, the south, the southwest continue to grow fast. So, in 2022, Michigan was going from having 14 members of Congress of the house to 13. So, we lost a seat. And by the way, we once had 19 Bryan in our peak when Detroit had 1.8 million people and so on and so forth.
So, anyway, we were losing a seat and we had a new nonpartisan redistricting commission made up of citizens, which was great. We got rid of partisan gerrymandering, but it was a new process. It was pretty messy. And they came up with two finalist maps for us house seats, one of which would've had a place for all of the Democratic incumbents to run. And the other of which didn't really in my view. And I tried to raise the alarm bells around that to my colleagues. That's another story that's probably not of great interest that we can talk about if you want. But in any event, the worst map was chosen by the commission. And so I was smushed in with my democratic colleague, Haley Stevens. We both decided to run in what was the new 11th district. My reasons for running there were my house was smack dab in the middle of the new 11th district.
My kids were the fifth generation of my family to live in this new 11th district going back to the 1890s. I'd grown up in the district. Meanwhile, Haley Stevens didn't live in the district. She lived in a part of our county that was going over in the New 10th District. But on her best argument was she represented more of the new 11th than I did, which was true. And so I could have run over in the new 10th District, which was where she had lived, but I represented more of it because it had Macomb County. I would've given up almost any representation of the Jewish community, and I could have done that. But I think that in the end, I lost to Haley Stevens in the primary. AIPAC put four and a half million dollars of dark money in. Emily's List, which supports Democratic pro-choice women put over 3 million of dark money in, even though I was actually a more public and fierce advocate of reproductive rights than my colleague, she's a woman, I'm a man.
That's what Emily's List does. And they coordinated. You may know, Bryan, that candidates or campaigns of candidates can't coordinate with the dark money groups, but the dark money groups can coordinate with each other as much as they like. So, one week AIPAC would put a million dollars of ads against me and Emily's list $50,000. And the next week, Emily's List would put a million dollars ads against me at AIPAC 50,000. Anyway, and they both raised hundreds of thousands or small millions of hard money for my opponent too, like straight campaign contributions. So, I raised I think $3 million for the primary, which seemed like a lot to me, but I was completely swamped by all this dark money. Now, my wonderful pollster who pushed me to run in the new 11th when had breakfast with her afterwards, I said, "Look, shouldn't I have run over in the 10th?"
She said, "Well, it probably would've been a better idea because it stinks to have a fight in the family like that, within the Democrat. Everybody picks sides and it's so stressful and unpleasant and yucky, and it's sad." But her opinion was that I would've lost in the new 10th anyway, because, and this is why the AIPAC thing is so crucial, AIPAC would've spent any amount of money to try to defeat me, including backing a very right-wing Republican, because AIPAC has no qualms. They've almost become an organ of the Republican Party backing scores of people who voted, as you know they backed, many, many Republicans who voted against certifying the election in 2020, people who literally tried to end our democracy.
So, if you have no morals in that sense, and you'll do anything to achieve your one goal, which is support the Israeli government, right or wrong, then ... So, I don't know what would've happened, Bryan, but that AIPAC played a key role. And I think it's interesting, AIPAC has mostly, besides me, spent huge sums to defeat candidates of color and mostly women of color, but also Jamaal Bowman, Donna Edwards in my year in Maryland, but Summer Lee and so forth.
But I think that I was a threat to them in a kind of unique way because I'm Jewish. I'm really joyously Jewish. I was the president of my synagogue right up until I went to Congress, and I had to resign that I had mezuzah on all my doors in Congress. I'm the son and nephew of these kind of legendary Jewish lawmakers. And the idea that I was out there just very clearly proclaiming, "Yeah, I'm proIsrael and pro-Plestine. I have a vision of what's necessary to achieve an Israel that can live in peace and security, and it's not what AIPAC is pushing. So, I'm going to pursue my vision."
And they just could not stand this. So, it was a big factor. But in the event how it came out, Bryan, running against a younger woman five weeks after the Dobbs decision, no matter how much of an advocate I was for reproductive rights, and I was even backed in my primary by Cecile Richards, the longtime leader of Planned Parenthood and Heather Booth who had founded the Jane Collective. Anyway, average voters don't know any of that. I didn't have the funds to advertise it that much.

Sam Wachs:
Hi, Sam Wachs here. I edit the show. We're covering so much in this interview, aren't we? If you appreciate the substance and the depth of this episode and all of our episodes, please consider leaving a five star rating or give us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I come on here a lot and ask for this, but ratings and reviews, they really, really do help people find out about our show. So, if you could just take a moment and tap that five stars, it'll really help us out. Thank you so much for listening, and let's get back to this great interview that Bryan did with former Congressman, Andy Levin.

Bryan Schwartzman:
Last AIPAC question, just as a college student, I remember going to the AIPAC policy conference, it featured Bill Clinton and Shimon Peres AIPAC was very the labor government at the time, and there were more Democrats involved than Republicans. And I think that's the AIPAC that shaped my mind, and it was very, it's always been singularly focused, making sure Israel had what it needed to defend itself and it didn't use to directly support candidates. That was a change made a couple cycles ago. I definitely know people who really consider AIPAC a uniquely bad actor in American politics now. I guess I'm wondering, do you see it that way or do you see more it's the system post Citizens United with dark money with everything outside groups can spend in races like yours?

Andy Levin:
Well, there are plenty of bad actors in American politics. And essentially, I think that there is a huge problem in American politics that mostly corporations and moneyed interests that have an outsized role. So, for example, how do we allow, I'll just give one example, the carried interest exception. So, there are these people who make millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars a year who pay 15% income tax because they don't pay any income tax because they say, I mean, evidently they work, and when you and I work have to pay income tax, but they say, oh, everything they do is just carried interest. It's just profits and it's absurd. But if really we were kind of this healthy democracy in an ideal sense, a Greek sense or something where we're all just sitting around and everybody has a say, 99% of people wouldn't go for that. But because of the role of money in politics, they do that.
And the fossil fuel companies and the tobacco companies and so forth have a long, long history of distorting American politics. However, AIPAC is an especially bad actor, I think in a certain sense for the health of our democracy, for Democrats, but also a political scientist would say this about democracy in general, whatever the party is. So, here's my point. What AIPAC has done is gotten millions and millions of dollars from Republican mega-donors to mess in democratic primaries. And the problem, if AIPAC wants to support Republicans, free society, it's a free country. You can support Republicans. But from a political science perspective, if the idea in a democracy is you have multiple parties and they represent different viewpoints, different groupings of society, and each one puts forward its candidates, and then they go at it with the other party, right? I am for aggressive active on climate change.
Nope, I just want to drill for more oil. And the people can decide. But if the Democratic Party allows millions and millions of dollars from Republicans to come in and determine the outcome of their primaries, like who the Democratic candidate's going to be in the general election, it distorts our democracy. And this is what, this is AIPAC's innovation right here in the last, in 2022 and 2024, flooding the field with massive amounts of Republican money in Democratic primaries. And the thing is, Bryan ExxonMobil's not dumb, right? Altria's not dumb, whatever, big Pharma's not dumb. They're going to be like, gee, thanks AIPAC. We'll pick the winners of primaries in both parties. And in a way it's sort of beyond Citizens United, or it's like some people hadn't even a corollary of it, of extra horribleness that people hadn't even dreamed up, that moneyed interest can control completely who wins primaries in both parties.
I do think this way of theirs is a big problem. And frankly, I also think that we have to treat horrible ethno-nationalist governments around the world as being what they are. So, for example, another case like Netanyahu has been the regime of Narendra Modi. And you have many Indian Americans, Hindus, mostly upper caste Hindus, who are crazy for Modi, and they want the US to support Narendra Modi and Narendra Modi is a Hindu nationalist who his whole politics is about discriminating against Muslims especially, because that's by far the biggest religious minority in India. There's 200 million Muslims and more in India and just a small number of Christians. There's more [inaudible 01:03:24] than Christians. But anyway, and no, we have to have the courage to say, look, and this is a perfect example for me personally, because I spent a lot of time in India. I love India.
I studied there for years an undergraduate. I went back in graduate school. I have a master's degree in Asian languages and cultures, I would say, who loves India more than me, but I would call, there's an Indian couple, I think they're both doctors who lived in my district and they had hosted an event for me in 2018. And then India, the Modi, as prime minister, tramsformed the rights of Kashmiris. He took away Kashmir's little special status in order to undermine the independence and the power of the majority Muslim citizens there. I criticized this. So, I called this same guy to support me in 2020 I think it was, and I think his name was Prasad. I said, "Prasad, it's Andy. I'm on call time, hoping you'll support me." He said, "Well, Andy, you have to support India." I said, "Oh, Prasad, easy. I love India. I totally support India", right? Blah, blah, blah.
He said, "No, no, you have to support the BJP." And I cracked up. I said, "Okay, Prasad, how many calls like this do I have to make? I think it's the first call I've ever made where someone said, I have to support a particular political party in another country." And so this is not just limited to Israel, right? We have to support democracy and human rights around the world as core to our Jewish values. And it happens in my view, Bryan, even if it takes courage to say it and do it, I just think it happens to line up with the only path forward for the Jewish people of Israel to have long-term security.
You can't just sit there with guns blazing and everybody around is an enemy. And forever, what we're going to do is have bigger guns than everybody around us and just be in endless wars. In the end, the world was able to help people solve the troubles in Ireland. People were able to support the end of apartheid in South Africa. And the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a very nettlesome one and very difficult. But I believe in the Israeli and Palestinian people and that they can learn to live together, and we have to have the courage to help them do it.

Bryan Schwartzman:
Where does your courage come from?

Andy Levin:
I don't really know. I think my parents, I mean, I just have a sense that we just are nothing, Bryan. We passed through this life, this one precious life we have. And it feels long in a way, but it goes pretty quickly. And if we don't spend our time building relationships, loving other people, looking around and honestly saying, "What does the world need of me? How can I help repair the torn fabric of this world torn by human beings?" The world's pretty amazing if we didn't mess it up. What else should we do? What else should I do? I mean, it's nice to, I guess, have some money or I like pleasure, food, sex, whatever, nice weather, comfortable clothes. But I mean, really, it's the most, to me, I guess it's the most meaningful and rewarding thing. And I guess where courage comes in is you find out, oh, shoot, there's a lot of powerful forces in society and in the world and other societies that I guess their advantaged by unjust power relationships, and they want to maintain them.
And so you're going to have to oppose them. So, I don't know, but it's enlivening. I guess from a young age, I was an activist in college and in the anti-war movement and the anti-nuclear movement, the anti-apartheid movement, pro worker stuff, and the things I was into being a student always, I liked my studies, but the things that made me feel most alive were doing when we took on our administration at Williams College, that our endowment was invested in companies doing business in South Africa. And Bryan, the president, I was a religion major, and the president of Williams College had been a religion professor.
And he made all these excuses about, "Well, we might lose a little money in our endowment if we divested in Coca Cola or whatever." And I said, "President, sorry. No, you're a religion professor. I know you know better than that." So, I don't know. And guess who the president, or I think the head of the board of trustees or whatever it's called at Williams was in those days, Fay Vincent, who later became a commissioner of baseball. I think he was a really good commissioner of baseball. But anyway, when we demanded a meeting with the trustees and we said, it should be public with the students being able to watch if whoever wanted to come with our little Williams anti-apartheid coalition in the trustees. And they refused.
And they said, we have to have it in this really small room. So, anyway, we had a huge demonstration outside, and we said, okay, we're going in to meet with the trustees, and what you all do is up to you. And this was January of Williams Town Massachusetts, middle of winter, super cold. And so we went in there in our suits, the six designated spokespersons, and okay, all these kids in parkas filed in behind us and completely packed this room. And the trustees were furious about it. And afterwards, Fay Vincent said to me, "You're the one who negotiated with the administration about this." And I said, "Yes, sir." And he said, "You're a bad person."
And I said, "Oh." And he said, "Because you weren't honest." And I said, "Well, I feel like we were pretty honest, sir. We said there should be an open meeting. I don't think you have a leg to stand on in refusing to do that. And so we did have six representatives as designated, and the fact that some people insisted on coming anyway. I mean, I won't deny that you could even say we encouraged them, but I think we were in the right." But anyway, Bryan, I was shaking in my boots. I mean, that's the point here. This super powerful corporate lawyer was telling me I was 19 or whatever, 20, whatever, I was a bad person.
So, I don't know. But look, I'm telling you this story, evidently it's important to me 40 years later, so do I remember that I did well on some paper or some exam? So, I think that these, it's just the most important thing you can do, right? To stand up for what you believe in and try to effectively advocate for it. And the great thing is there's so much room for creativity in this. And you being yourself, who's ever listening to this, you'll do it in a different way than you would, Bryan, or that I would. But everybody can have a role to play at the local, state, federal level, in cultural institutions, in education institutions, whatever, in standing up for the dignity of every single person. That's what we have to do.

Bryan Schwartzman:
I've kept you forever. You've been more than generous with your time. I'm wondering if standing on one foot, so to speak, you might speak to why you're a reconstructionist, because you've been president of a reconstructionist synagogue, you've been to a couple conventions. I know you were an honoree with your father at the most recent RRC graduation, and there the reconstructing Judaism puts out our show.

Andy Levin:
Well, Bryan, that's easy for me. I mean, to me, the way I look at Judaism from the way I think about it and the way I want to practice it, if I could articulate that, which I'm not sure I'd do a very good job of, right? If I could articulate that and say, now I have to create a denomination that would spring from that, it would be reconstructing Judaism. So, it's just the best fit. And so why do I say that? Because the idea of that our texts are not ... obviously, I don't believe they're supernatural word of God.
Those generations at that time doing like we do the best they could to figure out what the world means and what their role in it is. They put down their stories, and it's our literature, and it's so valuable and we want to learn from it. But the whole idea of the tradition having a vote but not a veto, we have to treat it as literature. And so we have to make decisions about what makes sense in our own time and how we can be Jews in this time. The whole way of both being really into the diaspora of being Diasporic Jews. And here we are living here and we have to be full participants in America or wherever people are, as well as in Jewish life and still being into supporting the idea of a homeland for the Jewish people. I mean, there's just so many elements of Reconstructionism are just how I think, actually, I can say as a lawyer and an organizer and former congressman and whatnot, I view the way Reconstructionism treats our tradition in our text similarly as the way I treat the Constitution.
It's a living document that decisions recently of the Supreme Court, like we have to figure out gun control by what the technology was in 1789 or something. It's ridiculous. Nobody dreamed of bump stocks and shadow guns and printed guns in 70s, no. So, I think Reconstructionism is a way for Jewish people to love their tradition, to try to learn, just soak up the wisdom our tradition has to offer, but then boldly apply it, happily apply it to the world we live in and what it can mean and how it can guide us. And I don't know if I have a good interpretation of Reconstructionism, but that's what my interpretation is. And so there was really no other place I would be in Judaism, but Reconstructionism, and so I'm a shameless advocate for it.

Bryan Schwartzman:
Andy Levin, thank you so much for your time. You've given myself and our listeners a lot to think about, and thank you for sharing your analysis, your personal stories. It was an important interview.

Andy Levin:
Well, thanks, Bryan. Thank you so much, and thanks for what you do. It's great to have these discussions for the whole community and the whole country. So, thanks.

Bryan Schwartzman:
What did you think of today's episode? I'd love to hear from you. Evolve is about meaningful conversations and you're a part of that. Send me your questions, comments, feedback. You can reach me. This is my real honest email address bschwartzman@reconstrutingjudiasm.org. We'll be back soon with an all-new episode and wherever you celebrate, happy Thanksgiving everyone. Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations is executive produced by Rabbi Jacob Staub, and edited by Sam Wachs. Our theme song Ilu Finu is by Rabbi Miriam Margolyes. This show is a production of Reconstructing Judaism. I'm your host, Bryan Schwartzman, and I'll see you next time.

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