Track record of management, governance, administration and Jorge Mario Bergoglio had run one of the largest and complex archdiocese in the world. We wanted a man with honest yand sincerity and a man who was a pro at presenting the timeless truths of the faith in kind of a sparkling new way. Thats what we were looking for. That was the job description. We all thought, boy, thats a tall order. But i think, a year later, i think we said bingo. Charlie we conclude with ferran adria as one of the worlds most renowned and innovative chefs. The hardest thing is to get up in the morning, look in the mirror and to be happy. You know. Everybody wants this, of course. Everybody looks for this. I have achieved this. In 30 years, i get up in the morning, very early, and i work 16 hours doing what i love. I go to sleep and im happy. You ask the question why . Because i have passion for what i am doing, because i like challenges that i always believe im not going to reach, but i fight to achieve them. In the end, thats what life is, the struggle to reach a challenge. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Charlie simon schama is here. He is an historian, a professor at columbia university. His most recent project is a multimedia account of jewish history, including a pbs documentary series and two books. Heres a look at the opening of the series. This is a jail, and so is this. And this and this. And so am i. So what if anything do we have in common . Not the color of our skin. Not the languages we speak. The tunes we sing. The food we eat. Not our opinions. Were a fiercely argumentative lot. Not even the way we pray, assuming we do. What ties us together is a story, a story kept in our heads and hearts, a story of suffering and resilience, endurance, creativity. Its the story that made me want to be an historian in the first place. I understood when i was quite small that there were two special things about the jews that we endured for over 3,000 years despite everything that had been thrown at us and that we had an extraordinarily dramatic story to tell and, somehow, these two things were connected that we told our story to survive. We will our story. The story of the jews, finding the words 1,000b. C. To 1492a. D. Is this a story you were made to tell . Ates story i couldnt its a story i couldnt help but tell, actually. I was born in 1945, charlie, and when one came out of those bleak, austere, tweedy, brownsuit years, there were two histories that had been pulverized, one was english history and the other is jewish history. They were down but not out for the count. My father, who was absolutely equally a passionate lover of British Literature and history and a very passionate and loyal orthodox jew also thought somehow and churchill, they were connected, and there was something about owning a history that would sustain you when you were bombed, when you lost territory, when you lost land, when you were threatened with annihilation and even when physical annihilation took place, somehow if the words actually endures, and the jews invented the possibility of a story as a life belt, life, indeed, would go on . Some ways, jewish history, if youre a wordssmith charlie well, you qualify. I suppose so it is the ultimate history. You know, some cultures, would the greeks have been phenomenally grand and remembered if there wasnt greek mythology . There was a parthenon. Would the jews have been remembered without their words . No, they would have disappeared. Charlie whats the most important moment in jewish history. Some moments around 18b. C. In which your identity would not be around the king. You know, palaces and large chunks of territory, the Promised Land was an idea even as much as territory, were not the point. Someone had the idea that the book itself would be a way to establish who you were. A hook that would do two things it would lay down rules for living and it would give you a story and thats what remained. So some notional moment that we figure out there was a very clever scribe somewhere. Is that akin to what it means to be american in the constitution . A lot of americans would love the analogy of that, but its exactly so. And america is different. What makes it different in the 18th century from all other states is its built around an idea, thats exactly right, around democracy and its not built around a particular language you know, german its not built around the usual markers of who you are. The idea is who you are. Charlie you say that the history, the story is once the particular and universal. Yeah. Well, those rules, the Ten Commandments and the 630 precepts are, in some sense, addressed to the children of israel, to the jews who become their custodians you know, god told abraham in the version you will be essentially a light unto the nations, essentially these precepts also have universal application do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, all the rest of it charlie do you believe youre the chosen people . Well, the question is you are to weed that out of the bible would be passionately perverse, really, and to say that o of course, it comeh a huge burden. You know the diamond, a man sits down next to a woman and she has the biggest rock in the world on her finger, and he says, excuse me, madam, and says, oh, its the plotnik diamond, she says, yes, but it comes with a terrible burden. He says, whats the burden . She says, mr. Plotnik laughter so, in judaism, god is mr. Plotnik and his relationship with the jews comes with a burden. Charlie heres what you say, the most intense version known to Human History of adversities endured by other people as well of a cultural perennially resisting annihilation of making home and habitats, writing prose and portraits of life through a succession of uprootings and assaults. Right. That is another reason and i didnt want to put that right at the beginning, which is why i told the true story of thinking about jewish history when office child on, but it turns out, in my view, that, apart from the slow death of the planet, the most important problem we have, cultures of opposing and different beliefs, attempting to share the same space without the obligation to exterminate each other. When i was a kid, one thought that the kind of visceral religious ativism was sort of a thing of the past. That the horror of world war ii and the holocaust would make it all redundant and it would be about class or capitalism or whatever. That turns out to be you know, open the newspaper today, ukrainians, russians, shiites that turns out not to be peripheral but absolutely central to the way the human species behaves in the world today. Now, the jews, we are a type of refugees and fugitives, the terrible pictures in syria. Who would imagine at this moment in the 21st century, we are the era par excellence of the uprooted. So the jews are not the only uprooted but weve lived it most extremely and relentlessly and somehow got through it. How did it shape . Incredibly, predecessor, columbia maintained jewish history is a tearful history and thats not the whole story and thats a view i share. I equally want to say nor is it all about calamity and misery. I kept on collided with misery and wretchedness and tragedy, but what you can say and what is said, for example, in these, you know, spectacular illuminations in the bible and in prayer books which occur at a time of persecution in the 14th and 15th century, that when you have a sense that you have to be a suitcaseready people, that you assume the worst, better be prepared for it and have the suitcase handy, when that happens you tend to taste life, you tend to bite on life harder and deeper and with more relish than you might otherwise. Charlie because it might be taken away. Absolutely. Charlie and thats where a homeland becomes so much more crucial, right . Yes, well, the homeland issue actually is genuinely tragic because this one says, well, much more jewish history than you would imagine is about heroism of ordinary life. Its about families and weddings and jokes and all of the things that have been realized in america. Nonetheless, its also true to say that, in the particular circumstances from the late 19th century on in russia and then horrifically in central europe, you know, in the victim game, nobody is going to take our olympic gold away from us in that sense. I dont want us to be victims of bullies, but what happened to the jews, we were the most abandoned people. Charlie great book. It is extraordinary. He says that and its right. The United States all but closes the doors to the jews and the british do the same and pretty much everyone does the same except shanghai and the Dominican Republic and so on, so, at that point you say, well, the homeland is really our life raft and the competing instinct of inwardoutward paranoia and life celebration are you know, that stirs the broth of what it means to be jewish. You once told me you were skeptical that you could write a history of the jews. I still am. You dont know that youve done it . Im sure i havent done it. Am yulsamuel beckett, praise fas better. In television you have to make shatteringly brutal decisions about what stories you can tell in an hour and five hours. No, in there you will not find much of a history of the great chain of rabbinic thought. Charlie did it start as a film project . I thought of it as the jonah instinct. Not god, but the bbc is saying make this series. I cant, i cant, i dont want to do it. Flee to tarshish immediately. Charlie youre the only person who could have done this. What i did think was, the bbc with its grand and courageous institution, sometimes like pbs, you know, doesnt want to run into a storm of trample. Why would you cause it . I cant think of any more project more likely to cause trouble, and i was struck but be gutsy necessary of wanting to do it. And there is a chasm of ignorance and misunderstanding aboutish history in europe. Jewish history is thought of entirely pretty much as israel, palestine or the holocaust. Charlie right. And israelpalestine makes people put their spurs and brass knuckles on, and the holocaust makes people come out in a sweat because nay think theyre treading on egg shells or the bones of those lying in auschwitz. So other way, its not something that nonjews can engage with. Thats not the case here, i hope and think. So i thought, well, here is an opportunity actually to try and say, here is a story, come on in, youre welcome to this. Its not as scary as you think. It has lots of celebration. Theres lots of music. Theres a lot of grief. Theres a lot of color in this. Come on in to this story and i will boast of it here, we have more than 3 Million People watch the first episode. Wow. Ell, in britain. We have a quart o quarter milli. Charlie 250,000. Its small and getting smaller. Charlie why the dates . 1000b. C. To 1492b. C. . Well, its a recent dig where the david and goliath showdown is set, very, very beautiful. That has been extraordinary because it has shown very clearly there is a fortified settlement on the hills of judea clearly part of a slightly largelargejudean state. It wasnt as cow down as was thought. There was something going on which now has found a document in the archeology, around the 11th century. A short way of saying it is this site which is beautiful and which we walk around in one of the programs was full of olive pits. An olive pit, turns out, to the late century. 1492 is a traumatic upheaval, the expulsion of the jews from spain. You dont want to compare it to what happened in the 1930s. Jewish calamities are calamities in their own particular way. But its incredibly traumatic and its sort of the end just as what happened in germany was the end of a prospering, flourishing, creative community, what happened in spain is an obituary for a genuine im not starry eyed about it, but it was generally creative world in spain. That is simply destroyed, absolutely annihilated by the expulsion of the jews from spain in 1492. Charlie the guardian said this is a narrative that played to schamas strengths. He has genius to celebrate the myths he is simultaneously deconstructing. Im fond of it, yes. Charlie fond of what . Myths, really. The landscape of memory, which we talked about years ago, you have to enter the dark forest of myths, even though it feels very unjewish. Jews are city folk, really, basically. So we have our own myths in judaism as well. Charlie tell me what this is . This is a wall painting. Charlie 13th century b. C. Yes, from a place in syria, a place we could not get to film because we were inconvenience bid the civil war, with bitter irani. I actually wanted with bitter irony. I actually wanted to go. What youre looking at is baby moses as a new grandpa and hes being held by sarahs daughter in kind of a wet tshirt, basically actually, its quite naughty and behind miriam and baby moses mother and sister and theyre looking on. And what is extraordinary about this, charlie, is most jews still believe synagogues are not allowed to have any images in them because of the second commandment, thou shalt not have graven images or likenesses. The fact that all early synagogues are fes festuned in images until about the 16t 16th century. We have a jewish icon in one of the earliest synagogues we knew about. If it was all words, it would be good radio. Charlie the next slide is beaten out of england. Yes, this is clearly not a jewish image. This is a medieval jewish image. This is from smashing it down on the heads of jews. There are things i wish tragically would have been but have not been. For example, there is a moment in the 13th century where there are 100 gallows set up with jews swinging on them accused of coin flipping. There are horrible disasters i have to deal with. Charlie this is a twin story of ark geology and biblical. Yes, because word and image play together. We talk about portable writing. The jews invent this tiny miniature hebrew ai air aramaicg that forms pictures and animals and beasts from mythology. The deep relationship between words and picture is very important. Charlie the story of the jews, sometime sometime. Thank you. Charlie one wee year ago, pe francis became pope of the catholic church. He sent a tweet, please pray for me. Cardinal timothy dolan, the archbishop of new york, knows pope francis better than most and part of the college that elected him. Pleased to have you. Appreciate the invitation. Charlie you are one of those who selected this. Yes. Charlie you said you knew what you were getting but surprised at what you got. Yes, you quoted me right. Were not surprised at the tenor or the substance of the pontificate on this years anniversary. We rejoice in it. I think we are surprised how quickly and efficiently he began to implement his own agenda. That were pleasantly and gratefully surprised at. I never knew this i was a rookie going into the conclave a year ago almost as important as the conclave which is the actual time locked in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope, almost as important as the conclave are the congregations that meet ten days ahead of time. Its almost like the New Hampshire primary, not that anybodys running, but it was very clear that Jorge Mario Bergoglio listened big time because hes doing a lot of stuff we suggested and hell often refer to the congregation. Hell say, as we cardinals talked about before the conclave. Charlie tell me what you cardinals wanted in a pope. First of all, you would want the same as you would want in any man a holy man, a sincere man, a pastoral man, a man who mirrors jesus christ. That would be true anytime. What we really wanted this time was a man who had a good track record of management, governance, administration, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio had run one of the largest, most complicated, most diverse diocese in the world, the archdiocese of buenos aries very well. We wanted a man of simplicity and sincerity and a man who was a pro at presenting the timeless truths to have the faith in kind of a sparkling new way. Thats what we were looking for. That was the job description. We thought, boy, thats a tall order. But i think a year later, i think we say, bingo, got it. Charlie how has he changed the church . Well, hes changed the church in a way that i think, look, hes changed the persona of the church. The very fact, charlie, youre inviting me i have been invited to your show before. Most of the time when theres a crisis, when theres a black eye and something troubling, theres a controversy going here, the vatican says this and nobody understands it by the way, thanks for those invitations youre inviting me just because the world seems to be captivated by this guy. The church seems to have gotten some of its luster back, some of its magnetism, and thats what we wanted. We wanted a guy who could restore the luster, the poetry, the mystery of the church in a beautifully and simple and sincere way and is he ever doing it. Charlie he seems to have reminded the people of what the message of jesus was. You got it. Hes frustrated in some ways. One in where he gave the interview, im no superman, folks, im just like everybody else. I think one of his frustrations may be his basic message, 95 of what he says is what jesus christ said his person, invitation, his mercy, his salvation, thats his message. People seem to be caught up hes in a ford escort, doesnt live in the palace, wears black adidas, pays his own hotel bills and gets in and out of the jeep, where hes saying i wonder why theyre fascinated with this, and i hope they pay as much attention to what im saying as they do to some of the superficialities. Charlie is he changing the roman curimu . He is. He has to do it two ways. He has to do it philosophically. Hes reminding the roman coria, this is not a career, were not about ambition or clout or power, were about service, right . Number two so thats philosophically. But hes also got to change it structurally and practically. I think two appointments that would show he is the appointment of cardinal secretary of state who is widely respected as a man with immense pastoral skills, a sense of humility and service but very savvy when it comes to the Church Universal. And the second biggie the appointment of the australian rug by player. What everybody seems to be saying is weve got to get this money under control. This is giving the church a bad name that we cant balance our own check books and there is all this corruption. Frances appointed george pel who Everybody Knows is a no nonsense street fighter, ru rugby player that will ask the right questions and get it cleaned up. These are the two appointments that are working. Charlie you talked about the crisis in the church and had clearly to do with predator sexual oh, yeah, thats another one. Charlie where is he and what does he intend to do . I could tell you personally it wouldnt surprise you that the american cardinals