Dennis Prager, the conservative radio host, writer, and co-founder of PragerU, shared an update on his health after suffering a fall that has left him paralyzed from the neck down, saying the key to remaining joyful in the midst of suffering is remaining grateful.
The 77-year-old gave more details about his health journey in a second interview with PragerU CEO Marissa Streit. The pair discussed a variety of topics, including faith, family, and “America’s moral crisis,” but he also touched on the “miracle” that he is living out despite being confined to a wheelchair.
“So let me give everybody an update because I really believe, as I did before, in transparency,” he began. “So I remain paralyzed. But the biggest work, in fact, virtually all the work that has been done has been to enable me to breathe better because the … nerves to my diaphragm have been severely injured.”
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“In fact, a number of doctors, independently of one another, have described the fact that I am talking as a quote ‘a miracle.’ And these are not religious people. I am cognizant of how lucky I am to be able to speak,” he continued.
PragerU announced in November 2024 that the co-founder suffered a severe spinal injury at the C3 and C4 vertebrae, which affected his diaphragm and movement below his shoulders. He did not sustain any brain damage. Despite efforts last June to return on-air, Prager faced a few setbacks.
He noted in his recent interview that even in the midst of tragedy, he is also experiencing a new level of gratitude.
“Life is a tragedy as well as a glory,” he expressed. “That gratitude is everything. Gratitude has been a large measure of what has sustained me.”
The New York native says he is grateful for the life he lived before the accident, and that his accident doesn’t dictate his outlook.
“And why would that leave? Because I had this terrible fall. Why would the gratitude be shattered? Do all those years not count? Everybody has to ask that question.”
“People who have terrible things happen go, ‘Why me?’ But they don’t go, ‘Why me’ when great things happen? ‘Why me? [I] have good health. [I] have a good marriage and good friends,'” Prager added.
He continued, “Happiness is a serious problem. And I am very grateful that I have a nature that has, as Dr. Steven Marmer put it in an interview…I have great shock absorbers.”
Prager says there is only one thing that bothers him more than his own health condition: the state of America’s moral condition.
“I’ve been very worried for decades, and what I had not anticipated, until a few years ago,” he explained, sharing that he began to grow concerned when he wrote the column, “America First, But Not America Only,” in 2006.
“Too many of the leading intellectuals on the right have gone to ‘America only,’ and I don’t understand how they justify that, if they are religious people,” he told Streit.
“One of the dominant themes of the Bible is do not stand by on the blood of your neighbor,” Prager explained. “In other words, you can’t adopt the attitude of ‘me only’. [It is] one of the five most famous dictums in all of Jewish teaching.”
“‘If I am not for me, then who will be for me. But if I am only for me, what am I?’ That’s how America and Americans should think,” he continued.
“Yes, we are first for America, just as we are first for our family. There are a number of firsts. But anyone who is only for their family or only for America is not a moral person,” Prager expressed.
Finally, Prager, who was raised an Orthodox Jew, discussed the state of Israel and shared how supporting the nation comes down to one moral question.
“The biggest reason to support Israel is not a faith argument. It’s a moral argument,” Prager said.
“And I asked one simple question: What would happen if Israel decided, ‘You know what, we’re going to stop fighting. We’re relinquishing all our weapons, and we will not fight’?” he said, noting, “On the other hand, what would happen if the Palestinians said, ‘We will not fight. Here are all our weapons’? OK. So, what would happen in the case of the Palestinians relinquishing violence and war and terror and giving up their weapons, there would be peace the next day.”
He argued that would not be the case if Israel made the same decision.
“If Israel did that, there would be literal genocide. The Israeli Jewish population would be largely wiped out,” he explained.
