“You can ignore it, you can complain about it—or you can do something about it.”
Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s and lifelong activist, has made his choice.
Weeks after he disrupted a U.S. Senate hearing to protest military funding to Israel, Ben Cohen joined me for a raw and personal conversation about Gaza, justice, capitalism, and the radical act of refusing to stay silent on my podcast Out Loud.
There’s something quietly revolutionary about listening with your whole heart—especially in a time when outrage often drowns out understanding. That’s what I tried to do when I sat down—remotely—with Ben who reminds us that doing good is not just a marketing slogan, but a daily, often uncomfortable choice.
You probably saw the viral moment: Ben interrupting a U.S. Senate hearing to call out America’s role in the bloodshed in Gaza. But what you didn’t see is the why behind it.
Our conversation was raw, unfiltered, and deeply personal. And it started with the heart.
"I feel like heart is what we’re missing," he told me. "Definitely what the current administration and Congress are missing. They’ve sold their soul to the money."
For decades, Ben has used his platform not just for corporate social responsibility, but for real systemic dissent. Lately, he’s become one of the most unapologetically vocal Jewish American voices calling out what he—and many others—describe as a genocide in Gaza.
“Ben, you called it a genocide?” I asked.
“I have called it a… a genocide, a murder. A slaughter.”
He didn’t hesitate. He rarely does. And while he might laugh about organizing a junior high protest called We Shall Sit In Peace—over missing stall doors in the boys’ bathroom—he’s deadly serious when talking about U.S. policy and its consequences.
“Congress is deciding to spend our money giving gifts of bombs to Israel—$20 billion worth—so they can bomb children in Palestine. And they’re paying for it by taking money from Medicaid, from poor kids in the U.S.”
It was this intersection of injustice—children being bombed abroad while children are poisoned by lead in American cities like Flint—that pushed Ben to act.
“Everyone has their breaking point. I finally reached mine.”
Instead of chaining himself to the White House fence (now militarized and surrounded by a “60-foot moat,” as he put it), Ben disrupted a congressional budget hearing.
“I told the folks I work with, I want to do something. They suggested I disrupt Congress. I said, ‘I don’t think that’s gonna be really effective.’ I was wrong.”
He was. His protest ricocheted far beyond that Senate chamber.
“It was so impactful on me,” I told him during the interview, “and I know so many people who are losing their sense of reality.”
Ben sees that loss of moral clarity everywhere, especially in the way the U.S. justifies its military alliances.
“I actually think it makes us less secure. When our government kills family members, we create enemies. We’re trying to militarily control the entire world. It’s absurd.”
Absurd, yes—but profitable. And that, he says, is the real engine behind U.S. policy: a machine fueled by legalized bribery and dominated by special interests like AIPAC.
“They’ve substituted their hearts for their wallets,” he said.
Ben speaks plainly. He always has. As a fat kid who was bullied, as the son of Jewish parents who taught him about oppression, as someone who bought into America’s ideals—he now sees a country drifting dangerously far from its values.
“I was brought up to believe in justice and fairness. I bought it hook, line, and sinker. And when I grew up and saw that’s not what it’s about, it just offends me.”
So what keeps him going? Especially in a world that rewards profit and punishes dissent?
“Action is the antidote to despair,” he said, quoting Joan Baez. “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
And he believes small acts matter: calling your Congress member, writing a letter to the editor, showing up at protests. Especially when neutrality, he says, is a moral illusion.
When I asked what it would take, specifically, for him to feel like his efforts—on Gaza, on poverty, on peace—were worth it, he didn’t hesitate:
“They’re worth it regardless. You need to stand up for what you believe in. You need to fight for justice.”
And so he does. Unapologetically. Out loud.
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