Digital Social Hour
Surviving a Car Bomb at Age 7: My Childhood in Jerusalem - Barak Swarttz | DSH #1614
12 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: How does Barak compare safety in Israel and the U.S.?
I feel safer in Israel than I do in the United States of America.
Chapter 2: What was Barak's childhood experience in Jerusalem during the Intifada?
Wow.
Chapter 3: How did early experiences shape Barak's love for basketball?
And I'm white Caucasian saying that.
Chapter 4: What insights does Barak share about being an Ashkenazi Jew in Israel?
If you're in a good neighborhood, you feel pretty safe just walking out and about.
Chapter 5: How has travel influenced Barak's perspective on life?
It's crazy that like even you asked me that, but I think a lot of people share that same sentiment.
Chapter 6: What are the challenges of growing up in a conflict zone?
When I would go back to Israel, there would be people who would hit me up on Facebook or Instagram and be like, you good?
Chapter 7: How does Barak view the role of sports in bridging communities?
Now I live there in a very complicated place.
Chapter 8: What personal growth lessons does Barak share from his journey?
But when I step outside of Tel Aviv, my house, people have this idea that like I'm ducking from like bullets. Okay, guys, we got a guest. He's been traveling a lot lately. So thank you for making the time to make it to Vegas, Brock. Good to see you, man. I saw you on social media and I thought you had a really important message to share. So thanks for hopping on. Thank you for having me, man.
This is the tail end of my trip, but we're going to grind through this one. Yeah, you've been all over. Is that for basketball or business or what are you traveling so much for? I was on Roseanne Barr's podcast in Texas. I was in LA to see a few friends, some work stuff, and then my family's in Boston. Nice. So I've been Boston, Texas, New York, you. Wow. Head back to Israel on Sunday. Let's go.
You grew up in Boston, right? Born in Boston. Yeah. Suburbs in Newton. Both of my parents come from the rabbinical background. So when I was six years old, we went to Israel. I was in Jerusalem for 2001, 2002, 2003. It was during the second intifada. So it was just like a really difficult time in terms of tension within the Middle East.
So I got exposed to a very different reality at like six, seven, eight years old. Wow. And Car bomb went off on my street when I was walking to school with my brother. Holy crap. You get introduced to what sirens are and you just, you get thrown into the ocean. And it's like very different from Newton, Massachusetts, where like jaywalking might be one of the worst things.
So I, part of my childhood is very much woven into, and those really early childhood experiences are to Israel. Um, and I started playing basketball there when I was a kid, just picked up a basketball, fell in love with the game. We came back to the States after my dad's program. After two years, my dream was to be an NBA basketball player.
And I think I learned really on that as a white Ashkenazi Jew from Boston, I was not going to the league. And so like I accepted that pretty early, but I, I really, my, my aspirations were just to be a hooper and my environment, my life was always different. basketball. We talked a little bit offline about this, like my environment, my friends, my routine.
I would even neglect sometimes homework or dinner just to shoot. So I played at two high schools and two colleges in the States. I studied marketing and never really found my path, my passion through the corporate world in America. I had a bunch of experiences with internships and I worked for corporate companies, startups, all this stuff.
But my mind and my passion were always really connected to my Judaism, Israel, somehow actually after being in a war and basketball. And now I live there full-time. My parents and my family are still in the States. But I've been sort of kind of like going back and forth my whole life since, for me, home is quite multidimensional. Wow.
Given the fact that my family's in the States, I'm very close with them, and I'm kind of solo dolo on the other side of the ocean. Yeah. In the most controversial place on Earth right now. Yeah, especially these days, right? Especially these days, yeah. What a journey. You think seeing that stuff at that young age would turn you away from living there, right? You want to know what's interesting.
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