Running a Jewish Media Company with Rabbi Dovid M. Cohen

[1:36]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to totally booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to. Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com and follow me on Instagram zibby owens. Rabbi Dovid M. Cohen is the author of Reimagining the Relationships That Anchor Our Lives and We're Almost There. Rabbi Cohen is an internationally renowned motivational speaker, spiritual leader, life coach, entrepreneur, and author. His empathic approach has empowered many individuals to achieve success in all aspects of life. His teachings are firmly rooted in Torah knowledge mixed together with contemporary thinking. His listening skills and ability to understand his counterparts in diverse situations is admired, and his expertise is often marshaled in complex situations. He is currently the CEO of the alga minor. Welcome, David. Thank you so much for coming on totally booked to talk about your two books. We're almost there and together again and also just your whole life and the algeminer and everything else. So welcome.

[3:10]Dovid M. Cohen: Zuby, thank you so much for having me. I'm pumped to talk about my books because it's something I haven't done in recent days or weeks. So I'm excited about it. Oh, well, I feel some sort of pressure because

[3:21]Zibby Owens: I loved the podcast you did with me so much. And you opened it up with such a great thing. You were like, what do you wanna talk about that you don't talk about all the time? And I was like, gosh. I don't even know, but I love that question. And you were such a thoughtful, great interviewer. So I don't know. I I have to, you know, show up and do a good job.

[3:40]Dovid M. Cohen: I'm I'm flattered. And I'm I have no I have no doubt or concern whatsoever

[3:45]Zibby Owens: that you will you will topple my whatever prowess I demonstrated, I think you'll you'll be completely fine. I don't know. Plus, you're a rabbi. I mean, that's so cool. But, anyway okay. Well, why don't we talk first about We're Almost There, Living with Patience, Perseverance, and Purpose. And I was hoping I could just kick it off by reading a passage. Is that okay with you? Alright. Remind me what I said. Okay. I'll remind you what you said. So in the book, you talk about so much about your life and your family's life and whatever, but the parts you wrote about your firstborn son being born with Down syndrome, found so moving. And you wrote about it so beautifully in a way that people can relate to no matter what it is they're going through. So I was hoping I could just read a section about that. Please. Yeah. Alright. You said it's overwhelming to contemplate how transformative a moment in time can actually be even when just an observer. I experienced my own sudden loss upon the birth of my first child, Yedidiah Shlomo. Did I pronounce that right? Kos. Kos. Kos? Go ahead. You tell me. Yedidiah.

[4:42]Dovid M. Cohen: Yedidiah. Let me just actually it's just it's worthwhile just to to translate. So the word Yididya, the name Yididya actually means if you bifurcate it, Yidid ka, which ka, Yudhey, is God's name in Hebrew, and Yidid means friend. So the name actually means a friend of God, somebody who's very close to God. That was actually the idea because he is as we talk about a little bit in the book, he's a a very spiritual persona. There's a lot in in Jewish thought and text about the elevated soul of individuals who have physical disabilities, but they have a greater spiritual side to them. So we named him this name Yedidiah

[5:20]Zibby Owens: or Jedediah would be an English translation of it because we felt that sense of his closeness to God. Amazing. Okay. Is Yedidiah Better? Yeah. It's great. I don't mean to compare it to a death. Okay. Now you're gonna embarrass me. How do you say this?

[5:37]Dovid M. Cohen: Oh, means like a terror like, just like like, it shouldn't happen. Like, a terrible like a terrible like, death that shouldn't be meaning, like, it's it's not right. This is not this is not that. Like, this is not not a death. It's actually a birth. That's what I was trying to communicate. Okay. Because this is the furthest thing from the truth. Our special needs child has brought us much life and joy. What we did lose was the child we were hoping for, the idyllic child who would learn in high level yeshivos and make us extremely

[6:04]Zibby Owens: proud, the one who would marry and produce future generations of Tom Ade oh my I can't even read this. I'm gonna see that. Torah scholar. Torah scholars. Learning Torah scholars. Scholars. Some on some level, sudden loss is about shattered expectations and feeling intense vulnerability, realizing that life will now move in a different direction from what we expected or anticipated, and that no matter what, we may fool ourselves into thinking, we really have almost no control over life events. Sudden shifts in life are plain hard. Sometimes we see people who have suffered a loss far less challenging than death struggling with it as much con with as much confusion as those who have suffered extreme grief. Disappointment, especially of a sudden nature, is of the greatest challenges to adapt to. Unexpected loss jars us from the expectation that we are entitled to another day of life, a perfect child or any child for that matter, or that fairy tale ending. As we recover, we reorient and begin to appreciate how every moment along the trajectory of an expected lifespan is really an important part of our life journey. After all, no aspect of tomorrow is guaranteed, and yesterday isn't proof of a tomorrow. Not bad. Not bad? Sorry for messing up all the Hebrew. My No. No. It's fine. School teachers would be mortified. But anyway, tell me, it was beautiful, and the notion that we have to make the best of every day is so important. How has Yadidya

[7:23]Dovid M. Cohen: really taught you this? So we're very blessed. I mean, Yadidya is 20 years old today. He is a a rock star. He is the apple of our eye. And really, everybody, the other children in our family truly admire him. And I actually by accident, I scared him last night. I unexpectedly came into his room and he dropped his phone, and he shattered the cover and he was like he was very upset at me, which I understand. He was like, dad, you destroyed my phone, so don't do that again. He's a great kid. He's a normal kid and when I think a lot of times when things happen to us, in that moment, we just can't fathom what the future is gonna bring. There's just a sense of tremendous fear and being overwhelmed. And then as time goes on and things stabilize, at least in our situation, we began to appreciate really the tremendous blessing that we had and we have. I do think, and I feel like maybe we talked about this a little bit when I interviewed you, we haven't even released that episode yet, But I do think that it foreshadows other events in life. I've had a few events even recently that came out of nowhere and really threw me for a loop. And that, you know, it's an important training ground, But that does happen because it does happen in a lot of different realms to be rooted even in prior experiences like that, and to know that we're going to get through it, or that we'll be able to handle it with time and with the proper amount of healing and investment, that everything is but a moment in time, and we can regroup and we can recover from most things. I mean, there are things that are almost nonrecoverable from. I just was thinking that one of the hostages has been speaking recently. She bravely has come forward. Her name is eluding me at the moment, but she's talked about how she was terribly sexually abused in Hamas captivity. I read. Yes. I saw that. And, you know, she said, how do you ever recover from that? So, you know, some things maybe are not recoverable from. But yeah. But in that sense, yeah, for in our life, that was something that was an anchor, ironically, in certain ways for future unexpected events.

[9:28]Zibby Owens: And you have how many kids?

[9:31]Dovid M. Cohen: We're blessed with six. Amazing.

[9:33]Zibby Owens: Wow. The unexpectedness of life and this whole notion of being thrown for a loop. I mean, we are all like, who has not been thrown for a loop? And yet we all expect not to be thrown for loops. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe it should be this big reframing. Right? That when is my next loop coming as opposed to, like, oh, no. I've been thrown for a loop.

[9:54]Dovid M. Cohen: I agree. By the way, I agree with that. I think that those of us that are really tuned in, and I think life is too busy to do this, but on a higher level of cognition, every day we should wake up or every night before we go to sleep, we should just be like, wow, like, I survived, I made it through, nothing unexpected happened, everybody I care about most is seemingly okay. That requires tremendous gratitude because, yeah, nothing is nothing should be taken for granted. And I think we many of us, myself included, take things for granted because it's so expected and it's so it's it seems to be that way for a long enough time. You think that's the reality or that's kind of the fallback, but that's actually not really the reality as is proven when things go awry. So I think I think with the way you framed it is actually excellent. I think just too many of us aren't always tapped into that or tuned into that.

[10:43]Zibby Owens: See, now people listening can just tap into it. Thanks to this. Thanks to your book. Even, like, even tapping into it a little bit is is worthwhile. It doesn't have to be always, but just once in a while to appreciate when things are okay and realize it's not you shouldn't one shouldn't take that for granted because there's so many people that don't don't have that reality in their lives. You wrote in the book also about how difficult, especially the first few years were of becoming a rabbi, and your career path was not that to begin with. And now it has sort of veered off. You're obviously still a rabbi. Once a rabbi, always a rabbi, but you're also now CEO of the Algemeiner where you're not even practiced. So tell me tell us a little bit about your your career path and and this stop into rabbihood.

[11:26]Dovid M. Cohen: Yeah. It's interesting. My parents encouraged me when I was younger to be an attorney. My father was a successful businessman. But in when I grew up in the nineteen seventies, nineteen eighties, I think parents always wanted more for their kids. And in in in that I think it's changed today. But in those days, like, being an attorney or being a doctor was kind of like the desired career paths. My parents very and I I like to argue, make a good argument that I liked the legal shows on TV. And my parents encouraged me strongly. My mother was also the daughter of a rabbi, interestingly enough, and they were not financially well off or comfortable. Many rabbis today, thankfully, are much more comfortable than my grandfather was. So that always always a fear, I think, that there wasn't enough to eat. And my mother really wanted me to have a solid foundation, you know, livelihood. So they pushed and pushed and pushed the legal profession. As I began to develop spiritually post high school, I saw that I had a certain affinity for spiritual growth, for inspiration, for the ability to touch other people through communicating stories or or content. And excuse me. I basically dual tracked for for a while. The legal profession, studying to be ordained as a rabbi, and even practiced as a rabbi, kind of as a junior rabbi, concurrently exploring all these different fields. Ironically, at least in that day, it was difficult to be a rabbi with your own congregation without a partner, without being married. And I was I didn't get married till my early thirties, which I talk about, I think, a little bit in the book as well, which was a little later in my community. So I then spent a number of years kind of away from the rabbit into the legal profession, but then always wanted to kind of take a stab at the rabbit. And some interesting things occurred, and I did get those opportunities. But the early years of that were not like, kind of didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. I was in I I kind of entered into, like, an intricate communal infrastructure, whether it was kind of this older senior rabbi who'd been there for many years and wasn't necessarily so quickly letting go of the pulpit. And there was a little bit tension and friction there at the beginning, and and the curingants were not exactly kind of what I had hoped or thought would be, or meaning they weren't as open as I had hoped they would be to my messaging, or it just was like kind of fraught with different challenges as life often is. Then ultimately, I ended up pivoting to other career endeavors as life progressed. It sounds like nobody wants this season two. Have you been watching? Yeah. I did watch it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. It's true. It's an interesting yeah. Like, it's like anything in life. You really need to it it needs to be a really good the Hebrew term for it, we we call it Shidduch. But it needs to be, like, a good fit. It needs to be a good partnership. Like, I don't care how talented you are. If you're put in the wrong framework or with the wrong it's not a match, you're not gonna succeed. You're not gonna do well. And I don't think I I think my situation wasn't so much that it wasn't the right match. I think I had undue or unrealistic expectations, or frankly, I was a little immature at that stage in terms of knowing how to handle what was in front of me. And I I tend to always try to learn have a lot of life experience. I try to at each stage, learn from previous mistakes. I find myself sometimes even repeating them now. But I try to at least talk them out. And that's like, you're doing that again. Like, let's let's let's be aware. What's why are doing that? Like, let's be careful, so on and so forth. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[18:09]Zibby Owens: Amazing. So you also now have gone into media. So you're the CEO of the Algeminer. Tell listeners they don't already know about it, and you were nice enough to give me the top 100 people in Jewish whatever last year. So thank you so much. Way to have you as a Bialis. Aw. Thank you. Tell listeners about it. It's really interesting. I never thought it's it's kind of I think it's actually quite interesting from my perspective in the sense that

[18:36]Dovid M. Cohen: I always was informally in the media space, meaning I was active on social media. Not hugely, but active. I had launched my own podcast in a different realm of Jewish philanthropy, where I did over a 100 episodes that started during COVID. It was kind of a way I was in the fundraising space and it was kind of a way to meet with people during COVID and it kind of just metamorphosized into something else. I did write two books, which was a passion of mine in terms of having a platform to communicate. It started really because the my pulpit in Manhattan was very transient and I used to find it challenging sometimes. Put so much into my messaging and into my oratory, and then people weren't there. I was trying to find other mediums to share the content. So these were all different platforms where I was informally in media. But if you would have asked me, could you see yourself heading up a media outlet? Like, it was never on the radar. Like, it was really never on the radar. Being a rabbi of a community was. Being a lawyer in a firm was. Being a Jewish nonprofit communal professional probably was in some manifestation. But to be the head of a media outlet actually never was. But, you know, we get guided, you know, life sometimes to places that we don't expect or we need to be. And the Algamat is a story in a media outlet, the same age as I am, 53 years old. It was founded initially as a Yiddish print newspaper with the blessings of the rabbi, really kind of had Chabad origins. And it was really meant for a post Holocaust demographic, didn't really have a voice. It was meant to be something for everybody. The word algemony means universal. It means global. It's a whole story that, you know, that it metamorphosized and morphed into an English online media outlet today. My personal connection to it really came about being I was recruited for it, but my interest in it really was sparked by October 7 in the sense that I was in a space, special needs children, which we started off talking about my son, which I was very passionate about, care deeply about. But I've been doing that for many years. I was already kind of ready for something new. Then everybody's attention, of course, focused to Israel and the media and how we can defend and fight for Israel and the Jewish people in really some of the most tumultuous times in our history. And this opportunity fell into my lap. And even if it wasn't a natural fit, I felt that kind of my cumulative life experience plus the opportunity to kind of be helpful and use my God given talents in this critical time, in this critical juncture for our people, it was almost too good an opportunity to pass up. So I kind of dove in. I've been doing it for sixteen months. It's been a whirlwind, but really really been enjoying it. And I've really learned a tremendous amount, and I'm very passionate about kind of what we hope to do in the coming months and years with our outlet. Amazing. And you have a big event coming up in March. I have to mention that. We have a huge we have a huge event. We have a we have a a gala every year, which you alluded to, the j one hundred gala. This is our twelfth. What's so unique and special, I think, about this year is we kind of have a a slate of a of iconoclasts. It's just like there's, like, a theme that runs through all the honorees this year, president Javier Malev of Argentina, who were really graced. I don't think there are too many Jewish events that he has been present for in this format. Maybe there was one in Florida a couple years ago, and this is probably the first in New York. He has really been an unabashed friend of the Jewish people in Israel, a non a non Jew who really kind of recognizes the truth and the beauty of the state of Israel and what the Jewish people stand for. And we're really we're incredibly honored that he's going to grace our event in person. David Draymond, who is a a renowned musical talent. His band is called Disturbed. He's also been an incredible voice, Jewish voice defending the Jewish people in Israel throughout his tour in Europe recently when obviously he was confronted with a lot of adversarial forces. Boaz Weinstein, who was actually an amazing member of the New York hedge fund community, finance community, an ardent that he named his his hedge fund is called Saba Capital after his grandfather, Saba, his Saba, his deep roots and his Zionism. So we're really honored to have the three of them. We also have Scott Jennings, who is gonna be the emcee for the evening. Just wrote a brand new book. He's really a voice of reason on CNN and then other forums and platforms and many other incredible surprises. It's gonna be Monday night, March ninth in Manhattan. There's a lot of details out there. The the website for the gala is a j algeminer journal, ajgala.com. You can learn a lot more there. You can sign up, make reservations. We're really now we're about little more than two months out. So really now is the the the critical push to really make this event. And we're also gonna, of course, reveal our our j 100 selection list. Zibby was one of the j 100 last year. J one hundreds, as people should know, is really it's also kind of a list of iconoclasts. It's a list of people who kind of are doing things that are movers and shakers in the Jewish world. They're making an incredible impact. Some of them are Jewish, some of them are not Jewish. And every year, we try to recognize new people. Like, you can have the same people on the list every year because Azim, you could be on the list every year, but we really wanna expand the community of of of j one hundred members. So we're really our team is working carefully this year to really hone in on new voices and and new people. There's always gonna be some repeats in terms of heads of state of of that ilk, but we're really looking to really grow our community in terms of the j one hundred community. We're gonna be doing some new things at the gala in terms of that demographic. Hopefully, you'll be there as well, and we'll be able to honor you again, Zibby. So it's gonna be it's something I'm very excited about, and it's gonna be an event really an event like no Really, all our events are great, and there are many gals in in New York and elsewhere. But I trust me when I say this event this year is gonna be something that is gonna be truly talked about and is really gonna I think it's really gonna catapult the algeminer forward in terms of our vision and in terms of our mission. Amazing.

[24:48]Zibby Owens: How are you feeling about life as a Jewish person right now? And you don't have to go into the whole thing. But, you know, I did this book on being Jewish now. What does it mean and how does it feel to be Jewish now? And every day, it seems the context and the landscape is shifting and moving and what they're what we have to contend with. How do you feel? How do you keep hope? How do you how do you feel in general?

[25:15]Dovid M. Cohen: Let's draw a parallel between what we spoke about a few moments ago in terms of, like, what's the de facto default Mhmm. Of things are great or things are or being grateful because don't take that for granted. Mhmm. I think that's very much kind of coming to the fore. I think I'll talk particularly here in America. I think it's a very unique diaspora, a very unique experience for Jews in the world. Maybe we talked about this ourselves also last time. It rings a bell, but I've talked about this with other people for sure. And I do think that we kind of have gotten very comfortable, very comfortable in this particular aspect of our historical exile from our land of Israel. And this has been you know, it's been it's been golden. It's been really unique and special historically, and the American milieu in terms of the inculcating Jews into high positions of power and influence has been incredibly unique and incredibly special. At the same time, there is a principle, it's actually a principle in the Torah, that there is always going to be a certain enmity or ill will between the nations of the world and the Jewish people. And frankly, that is manifesting itself much more now than ever before post October 7, certainly now in New York City. I tend to be an optimist because I have grown up in this country and feel very at home here, very comfortable here, and frankly, I've always been treated amazingly well here. At the same time, don't wanna be naive and I don't wanna make the mistake that our, you know, ancestors made, certainly in Germany and other countries in Europe before World War two. I think everybody needs to be keenly aware of the challenges. I think that we need to speak out. We need to defend our position. We need to use the media effectively and cleverly to communicate with people. The rightfulness and the justice of Israel and the Jewish people in our positions. And at the same time, I do think everybody should have an eye on, you know, what's the what's I don't call it escape hatch, but kind of like more Jews should be moving to Israel. I think that's something that everybody should aspire toward. It's something that I know myself and my family talk about, think about. We're not ready to do it immediately tomorrow, but it's not we don't we don't wanna kind of spend the rest of our lives here in the diaspora either, not because it's not an amazing place, just because Jewish destiny calls in in the land of Israel, in the state of Israel. And that, think, has only been strengthened over the last two years post October 7. I I know I just said a mouthful, but that's some of my complex feelings on the on the moment that we're in. I think many people share your your views and also the coming from this golden era to to now and that adjustment, I think a lot of people have been

[28:00]Zibby Owens: contending with. Are you thinking of writing another book?

[28:04]Dovid M. Cohen: I've been I was asked that question. So my last book was written actually during COVID. Mhmm. And the other one was written before that. So that was a common question. I still get that question decently enough, frequently enough. I love to write, but I I don't it's not like it's not like on the agenda at the moment. It's just not. Like, right now, I really wanna take the algeminer has been around for a long time. But I I think that in this unique moment, it's it has a potential to reach many, many more people than it currently is. And I think it's messaging and its authenticity and its unique voice, and it really, I think, is a unique voice in a lot of ways. I wanna kind of invest my energy into strengthening the alga minor and amplifying its voice to a lot of audiences. So in the immediate term, I'm not really thinking of amplifying my own voice as much as I am thinking of amplifying the voices of the people that work with me and who are not yet hired by me, but hopefully will be, and are gonna be and are gonna be our voices. And I really wanna really have a five year plan to kind of really, really raise our impact and raise our voices as one of the defenders of of the Jewish people and of the Jewish cause. So that's kind of my immediate focus in the near term. A book one day? Maybe. Who knows? I happen to be an avid golfer. I love to play golf. And I always had a dream of writing some sort of book that was built around the 18 holes of a particularly historic golf course Mhmm. Integrating kind of like Torah messaging, kind of based on the intricacies of each hole. That's so cool. Tying that in with like life and some of the complexities that we talked about earlier in this discussion. So that's kind of always been kind of on the back burner in my head. Maybe when I'm I don't know if I ever retire, but if I'm ever, you know, if I'm ever retired, and maybe that's something I would work on playing playing more golf and also doing I I think this would be a super fun project, kinda taking a lot of my passions and my loves and kind of integrating them. But I do find you you're the expert on this, but I do find that it's a lot of things. Like, how do you get even if you invest so much in writing a book, but then you you have to get people to read that book. And to a degree that it's not it's if it's not being if it's not being consumed, you know, there are many people in my orbit don't even know I've written books because it's not again, I don't walk around all day with this, and it was kind of you know, you kinda promote it more when it comes out, so on and so forth. So do I think it's very valuable? Of course, I do. But, you know, how do you get people to it's a whole and as part of our discussion at the outlet too, how do you how do you get people to consume the content and to to read it? So that's always a challenge. I see there's dog in the background. I didn't realize. Right? Oh, yeah. Yep. She blends in with the couch. I didn't realize. Told us I literally, like, we're talking out of hall. I know. She is. I just said, wow. What's going on over there? Okay. Well,

[30:54]Zibby Owens: David, thank you so much. Thanks for writing the book, sharing your inner heart and soul on the page, and then using that talent to usher in more stories through the alga minor and being a voice for people in a really difficult time. So thank you so much, and, yeah, exciting about the gala. I hope to be there, but I think I have to be out of town. But if I'm in town, I'll come for sure. Let me say one other if I can, just one quick thing. So my second book, Together Again,

[31:24]Dovid M. Cohen: is actually it was conceptualized in terms of being a part during COVID and the and the hope and aspiration of how do we kind of enhance our relationships post the pandemic once we're together again. So just to tie this kind of whole conversation together, I do think that it's something that I think about frequently in terms of and I think we spoke about this too last time we spoke. Zoom is great or Google Meets or whatever medium you use, but it's not the same as being together in person. And that's together, again, really was written with that in mind in terms of how do we reconnect and how do we reassess and appreciate the critical people in our lives, family and nonfamily, after being separated from them. That's frankly, think, the beauty of the Algematter Gala and many organizations in the sense that you have a community, and it's kind of amorphous community, and you have thousands of people that are engaged with your content. But you have this one platform or context where people can come together in person, touch the flesh of other people, and kind of be united around something they care about and they're passionate about. That's, I think, a beautiful thing that I think we still kind of forget even so many years post the pandemic because, you know, we just take it for granted that we kind of have fallen back on the tools that we use then. But I think, although it obviously helps in many ways, it also kind of hinders us in other ways. So I just want to highlight that

[32:46]Zibby Owens: construct as well. Very important. Thank you. Okay. Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.