On Chol Hamoed Pesach of 2023—six months before the Hamas atrocities on Simchas Torah—Rabbi Leo Dee suffered an unspeakable tragedy when his wife and two daughters were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Half a year later, on Chol Hamoed Sukkos, he found himself being harassed for leading an “illegal” gender-segregated minyan in Dizengoff Square that went against the ruling of Israel’s Supreme Court and the mayor of Tel Aviv.
As the current crisis continues to unfold in Israel and around the world, Rabbi Dee—a former director at a private equity fund who received his rabbinical ordination in Israel and served as a rabbi in a British village in South Hertfordshire—is on a mission to help Jews transform the world into a more positive and spiritual place.
I spoke with Rabbi Dee two weeks ago.
I see you’re calling from a Manhattan area code. Are you currently in New York?
Yes. I’m staying with some friends on the Upper West Side. I’m doing a tour of Ivy League universities on the East Coast. I have a specific message for Jewish college students, as well as a challenge.
Are you being sponsored by an organization?
For this trip, I’m here on my own steam. I was actually brought over by the UJA to speak at a luncheon on Tuesday, but I am also using the opportunity to visit American campuses.
It seems that many universities in the US need to change their policies. I’m sure you’ve been following the congressional hearings.
That’s true, but my concern is more about the students than the politics involved.
What is your basic message?
The message is that as Jews, we have a particular task in life. On the verse “Shema Yisrael,” Rashi says that the L-rd Who is our G-d will be the L-rd of all the nations in the future, and our job is to spread the concept of Hashem in the world, which translates into the Sheva Mitzvot Bnei Noach. At the moment, the anti-Semites are targeting Jewish American students and distracting them from our mission. The more we fight them with pointless arguments, the less we’re shining a light on the evil that their culture is perpetrating. All of the time the students spend fighting anti-Semitism is a complete waste.
Wouldn’t shining a light on the evil activities of our enemies include anti-Semitism?
I think so, but I don’t believe that that’s the biggest issue in the world. If you look at it with a very zoomed-in perspective, it might feel terrible to be surrounded by anti-Semites, but in reality there are no more anti-Semites right now than there were on October 6; it’s just that they popped their heads above the parapet and marched down the street with a banner. They were there before, and they will always be there, so I’m not sure that it’s tremendously valuable to waste your energy on them.
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