Ask Me Anything with Dan Senor, Yael Bar tur and ChayaLeah Sufrin

Dan Senor (0:00)

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Yael Bar Tur (0:15)

You are listening to an Ark Media podcast.

Dan Senor (0:33)

Welcome to Call Me Back's Ask Me Anything, our members-only edition where we open the door and let you shape the conversation. Thank you for subscribing to Ark Plus and supporting everything we do here. Normally, this is an Ark Plus exclusive, but this week is a little different. On Monday, we officially launched Ark Plus, and throughout this past week, we've opened up the full Ark Plus experience to everyone. So whether you're already a member or just taking a look inside, you're hearing an episode that would usually be available only to our members. This is also a perfect excuse to introduce you to the newest members of the Ark family, Yael Bar Tur and ChayaLeah Sufrin, hosts of our brand new podcast, Chosen People Problems. My conversation right after this message.

You're going to hear me ask for something here and I'll be up front. I don't love doing these reads. But the truth is, the kind of conversation we have on this show only works if we're not chasing an algorithm or softening what we think just to avoid offending people. We get to have these conversations because the only people we answer to are our listeners. So if this show is valuable to you, consider becoming an Ark Plus member. You can join ArkPlus at arkmedia.org.

Yael, ChayaLeah, welcome to Call Me Back AMA.

Yael Bar Tur (1:54)

Hi, Dan.

ChayaLeah Sufrin (1:55)

Wow, thank you so much.

Yael Bar Tur (1:56)

Thanks for having us.

Dan Senor (1:57)

This is so exciting.

Yael Bar Tur (1:58)

You did great, by the way. You're really good at this podcasting.

Dan Senor (2:01)

You know, I know how to read a document that Alon and the team put in front of me. I can do that. Where things get dangerous is when I kind of go freestyle and just start improvising. Our specialty. I know that, yeah, I, from what I understand, Douglas Murray was subjected to some freestyle.

I tried to warn Douglas.

ChayaLeah Sufrin (2:22)

I warned him.

Dan Senor (2:23)

I said, this is a different kind of interview than you normally do. And he acted totally cool and find that he got it.

ChayaLeah Sufrin (2:28)

He seemed scared after.

Yael Bar Tur (2:29)

He actually said after that he's becoming an anti-Zionist.

ChayaLeah Sufrin (2:33)

Yeah.

Yael Bar Tur (2:34)

So sorry about that.

Dan Senor (2:37)

He managed to turn Douglas Murray. The only guy we got.

Yael Bar Tur (2:40)

The only one left.

Dan Senor (2:42)

The only one left and we alienated him.

Yael Bar Tur (2:45)

We're coming for John Spencer next. We're coming for John.

ChayaLeah Sufrin (2:48)

I literally offended him in the first question when I asked him if people only care about him because of his English accent. I didn't know that was like his biggest fear is that people don't take him seriously because of his hard work, but because he's British. How was I supposed to know that? So I just went with it.

Dan Senor (3:04)

I hear this from Brits all the time, by the way, that they're very self-conscious about whether or not it's their brilliance or it's their accent. So, okay. So for people who haven't heard the show yet, how would you describe Chosen People Problems? And maybe in telling us that also tell us who you guys are. Like, who are you? Where did you come from?

Why are you here? Why are we here? I know you're here. I know why you're here, but you know.

Yael Bar Tur (3:33)

Who are we? What is our show about, ChayaLeah?

ChayaLeah Sufrin (3:36)

I mean, our show is a mix of fun conversations around Jewish identity, Israel politics, but also pop culture. We come from very different backgrounds. Yael grew up secular Israeli in Tel Aviv. I grew up Chabad in Long Beach, California. My father's the Chabad rabbi here, and my mother's the Rebbetzin. I'm married. I have four kids, all raised in very Chabad style.

And Yael and I became best friends over COVID, at the beginning of COVID. We became connected through this libertarian podcast. I know that makes no sense. People think we started this because of Israel and Jewish identity, but actually we started this to complain about wokeness. And then it sort of turned into, especially after October 7th, it really turned into a conversation that Jews were having around their kitchen tables and dining room tables and in their backyards and things that mean a lot to the Jewish people. But also, we talk about like, is Achman Dinah Jad hot or not? And things like that.