Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, welcome to it could Happen Here.
Speaker 1: My name is Danel Kurd and I'm an associate professor
Speaker 1: of political science and a researcher and analyst of Arab ben,
Speaker 1: Palestinian politics and authoritarianism. More generally, today I have on
Speaker 1: the podcast. Ben lorber Ben is a senior research analyst
Speaker 1: at Political Research Associates. He's worked as a journalist, organizer,
Speaker 1: and movement builder for over a decade and published on
Speaker 1: right wing social movements, Israel, Palestine, Jewish culture, and other
Speaker 1: such topics for outlets such as The Nation, Salon, Jewish Currents,
Speaker 1: and more. He's the co author of Safety through Solidarity,
Speaker 1: a radical guide to fining anti Semitism, book published in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. I'll link in the show notes for sure. Ben,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Ahead Could Happen Here?
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me so.
Speaker 1: I thought we could get started with you just telling
Speaker 1: us about yourself and your research.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Well I came to the topic of anti Semitism,
Speaker 4: I guess, you know, in some ways, I mean as
Speaker 4: an American Jew, you know, it's a part of my life.
Speaker 4: But in many ways I came to it politically through
Speaker 4: the Palestine solidarity movement. Over a decade ago, I spent
Speaker 4: a lot of time in the West Bank doing solidarity work,
Speaker 4: and I worked for some years for Jewish Voice for
Speaker 4: Peace as their campus organizer, and I saw, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of firsthand how charges of anti Semitism are used
Speaker 4: to shut down descent, to stop Palestinian Arab and Muslim
Speaker 4: students from you know, asking their university to not use
Speaker 4: their tuition dollars to bomb Gaza.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: So at the same time, you know, we all saw
Speaker 4: the rise of the art right in the first Trump administration,
Speaker 4: and yeah, you know, like many, I started digging into
Speaker 4: you know, what do these folks believe? You know, the
Speaker 4: anti Semitism in their rhetoric was undeniable and.
Speaker 3: A long story short.
Speaker 4: Since twenty nineteen, I work with political research associates to yeah.
Speaker 3: To monitor the radical right.
Speaker 4: I write a lot about anti semitism and how it
Speaker 4: animates the MAGA movement and rising authoritarianism. And also I
Speaker 4: also focus a lot on how you know, the right
Speaker 4: uses these charges of anti semitism to go after their
Speaker 4: political opponents and to shut down criticism of Israel's genocide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's been something to behold to watch
Speaker 1: actual antisemites accuse others of anti semitism, and the irony
Speaker 1: seems to be lost on all university administrators apparently. But
Speaker 1: I've listened to you a couple times on different podcasts,
Speaker 1: and you know, read your work, I have your book.
Speaker 1: I realized that I really don't understand the contours of
Speaker 1: modern anti semitism, like maybe because I'm an immigrant. So
Speaker 1: the tropes that they're talking about, the tropes that they're using,
Speaker 1: it really is a learning experience for me to like
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I didn't realize these are the stories
Speaker 1: that they're telling. With that said, you know, you recently
Speaker 1: published something for Convergence magazine titled something like what anti
Speaker 1: Semitism is and Isn't And again I'll link in the
Speaker 1: show notes.
Speaker 2: So and I thought that was really useful.
Speaker 1: What are kind of the main takeaways for people to
Speaker 1: know from that piece? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, in some ways, anti Semitism has some
Speaker 4: unique features, you know, and it also it reminds us
Speaker 4: of say, you know, Islamophobia, with tropes that there's a
Speaker 4: grand Muslim conspiracy to take over the West. You know,
Speaker 4: anti Semitism follows that kind of similar conspiracy theory logic
Speaker 4: that really is at the heart of MAGA, you know,
Speaker 4: and basically it's a conspiracy theory that says, you know,
Speaker 4: there's a Jewish cabal you know, at the top of
Speaker 4: the government and politics, you know, society, the economy, the media,
Speaker 4: you know, culture, basically whatever authoritarians oppose and whatever they
Speaker 4: want to rally their base against. You know, they can
Speaker 4: use this this image of you know, things are not
Speaker 4: what they seem. I mean, there's kind of the hidden
Speaker 4: power structure, and it's it's Jewish. I think a lot
Speaker 4: of what MEGA does really well and what the left
Speaker 4: tries to do but in a different way, is you know,
Speaker 4: to tap into people's frustrations that the rent is too high,
Speaker 4: or that they feel alienated by the modern world, or
Speaker 4: you know, the more racist frustrations that their neighborhoods are changing.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of frustrations and grievance that
Speaker 4: MAGA can tap into in our world, a vast inequality
Speaker 4: and desperation, and you know, blaming someone at the top
Speaker 4: is very useful to channel those grievances. And that's kind
Speaker 4: of the way that anti Semitism has worked for over
Speaker 4: a century. I mean, even before fascist movements of Inner
Speaker 4: War Europe that led to the Holocaust. You know, there
Speaker 4: were Russian ulternationalists who who used documents like the Protocols
Speaker 4: of the Elders of Zion, you know, to tell millions
Speaker 4: of Russian peasants, hey, don't join with you. More radical
Speaker 4: movements for liberation, you know, those are controlled by the Jews, right, So,
Speaker 4: you know, the these tropes especially I think of Jews
Speaker 4: controlling progressive movement, you know, Jews behind mass integration or
Speaker 4: BLM or LGBTQ rights. They're very powerful for authoritarians, you know,
Speaker 4: to use and sometimes they say Jews outright. Sometimes they
Speaker 4: use dog whistles like George Soros or cultural Marxists or globalists.
Speaker 3: But it's the same kind of idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Heritage Foundation guy saying globalists, we're talking about
Speaker 1: down to globalists.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean lots of.
Speaker 1: Political ideologies use anti Semitism, and there are of course
Speaker 1: a lot of intersections and overlaps. But I think what
Speaker 1: I particularly found confusing, or like the piece that I
Speaker 1: was least aware of when I said I didn't understand
Speaker 1: the contours of what this looked like was the Christian
Speaker 1: nationalism bit, how has like the Christian nationalist movement used
Speaker 1: antisemitism and how has that movement kind of progressed and developed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good question, you know, because we're so
Speaker 4: used to the Christian right saying that they're built on
Speaker 4: a timeless foundation of Judeo Christian values, right. You know,
Speaker 4: I think in the West, you know, after the Holocaust,
Speaker 4: with the rise of US support for Israel, it became
Speaker 4: very common to have a kind of you know, philo
Speaker 4: Semitism on the Christian right of saying, you know, we
Speaker 4: are the world's you know, most valiant defenders of the Jews.
Speaker 4: In the eighties it was against godless Communism, or after
Speaker 4: nine to eleven it was you know again radical Islam.
Speaker 4: And you know that in itself has a lot of
Speaker 4: anti Semitism, right, I mean, I think, you know, listeners
Speaker 4: might know about, you know, the Christian Zionists, you know,
Speaker 4: a movement which supports Israel because of end times fantasies
Speaker 4: in which Jesus is going to return in most Jews
Speaker 4: are going to perish or converture.
Speaker 3: Christianity, you know.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of anti Semitism in the kind
Speaker 4: of we love the Jews we really really love the
Speaker 4: Jews attitude of Christian nationalists. But you know, more recently also,
Speaker 4: you know, there can be even a turn away from that.
Speaker 4: You know, like that was always like a kind of
Speaker 4: contingent phenomenon that you know, arose in a very particular
Speaker 4: kind of post war, you know, sort of neoliberal context.
Speaker 4: And the world is changing and there's a lot of
Speaker 4: Christian nationalists now who you know, who might say, let's
Speaker 4: just drop the Judeo and let's have a Christian nationalist
Speaker 4: movement in the US and in the West, and they're
Speaker 4: a lot more skeptical of US support for Israel, and
Speaker 4: you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's not surprising.
Speaker 4: I guess if you look at the history of anti
Speaker 4: Semitism and you know, you know, from the Crusades onward,
Speaker 4: or the Spanish Inquisition, you know, whatever, you have triumphalist
Speaker 4: Christian movements that are allied with state power, it goes
Speaker 4: south for the Jews pretty quickly. In many ways, it's
Speaker 4: not surprising that you know, today the majority of Christian
Speaker 4: country we live in as it gets more chauvinists. You know,
Speaker 4: Judaism has long been kind of the main sort of
Speaker 4: theological other for Christianity, and so all those tropes are
Speaker 4: coming back that Jews kill Jesus or you know, or
Speaker 4: Jews don't worship the same God that we do, Like
Speaker 4: it can be very easy to otherwise Jews as well
Speaker 4: as obviously you know, Muslims and you know, and non
Speaker 4: believers and every other you know, and and Christians who
Speaker 4: don't meet their definition of the good Christian.
Speaker 5: So it's yeah, so this is maybe a dumb question, excuse.
Speaker 1: My ignorance, but is Kenneth Owens a Christian nationalist? Like
Speaker 1: would she be classified as such?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, She's Catholic.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's the thing. There's you know, so many
Speaker 4: varieties of Christian nationalists. But yeah, you know, she's definitely
Speaker 4: called for Christianity to be at the center of American
Speaker 4: public life and for the American social order to be
Speaker 4: structured by like a far right vision of Christianity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, m hmmm hmm.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I was on the right track there because
Speaker 1: I did not listen to her interview with Norman Finkelstein,
Speaker 1: who is a American Jewish professor and writer who has
Speaker 1: been quite vocal on the Palestine issue and written you
Speaker 1: know a number of books. But you know, he's generally
Speaker 1: seen as on the left. He goes on Candace Owens's
Speaker 1: podcast and does a very long interview, and I could
Speaker 1: only still make the snippets that the Jewish Currents podcast
Speaker 1: put out. But that's what I was really confused hearing
Speaker 1: some of those tropes that she was using. I recognize
Speaker 1: now that they are Christian nationalist tropes, anti Semitic tropes
Speaker 1: about like Jews wanting to enslave Christians, And I had
Speaker 1: no idea that people believe these things anyway. It's a
Speaker 1: larger problem, I guess. But yeah, so Candes Owan's host,
Speaker 1: Norman Finkelstein, Tucker Carlson has been repeatedly hosting like Palestinian Christians.
Speaker 2: So there was like a nun and.
Speaker 1: There was a priest. Yeah, so yeah, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: How can we explain this kind of merging?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very confusing when parts of the far right
Speaker 4: can adopt talking points that sound from one angle to
Speaker 4: be left wing. You know, in some ways it's it's
Speaker 4: not just related to Israel Palestine. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: Trump ran both times on a kind of economic populace platform,
Speaker 4: you know, and he also you know, as he said
Speaker 4: recently when he met Soon Mamdani, he said, we agree
Speaker 4: on some things.
Speaker 3: You know, some Bernie owners went to me.
Speaker 4: So you know, the far right is always trying to
Speaker 4: kind of you know, co op some sort of you know,
Speaker 4: left wing ideas at times. But yeah, you know, around Palestine,
Speaker 4: I think since the start of the genocide, you know,
Speaker 4: MAGA pundits like Kennice Owens and Tucker Carlson have you know,
Speaker 4: started to get you know, very critical of the US
Speaker 4: Israel relationship, and you know, some of it is mobilizing,
Speaker 4: you know, genuine outrage at the images of the genocide
Speaker 4: all of our phones every day obviously, and some of
Speaker 4: that also as part of this kind of America First,
Speaker 4: we don't want any of our tax paramount need to.
Speaker 3: Fund you know, foreign wars. And that's you know, very
Speaker 3: reasonable and understandable.
Speaker 4: You know. The way they bring an anti Semitism is
Speaker 4: to say, you know, the reason in the US supports Israel,
Speaker 4: it's not because of imperialism or colonialism, you know, because
Speaker 4: that would indict their own you know, nationalism, but you
Speaker 4: know it's because of a Jewish cabal, right, So you know,
Speaker 4: they focus on Jewish Zionists in the US and in
Speaker 4: Israel obviously, who they think have kind of yet enslaved
Speaker 4: the US government or their you know outsized global power,
Speaker 4: you know, over finance and media is.
Speaker 3: The root cause of the US support for Israel.
Speaker 4: So that's what they mobilize, and they bring into it
Speaker 4: a lot of Christian nationalist themes, right, because if the
Speaker 4: US is a Christian nation and here's this state with
Speaker 4: you know, a Star David on its flag that claims
Speaker 4: to speak for world Jewry, it's easy to kind of
Speaker 4: then use those Christian tropes and say, oh, this is
Speaker 4: the same old Jewish enemy you are kind of you know,
Speaker 4: rearing its head again.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's a mess. Yeah, it's a mess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very conveniently removing American complicity from the equation, removing
Speaker 1: empire from the equation. It's been disturbing, I have to say,
Speaker 1: obviously on the basic level, Like this sounds trite to
Speaker 1: even say, but obviously, like rising anti Semitism has been disturbing.
Speaker 1: But then it's also been disturbing kind of the you know,
Speaker 1: mental gymnastics that are going into some people or like
Speaker 1: some people are using to justify this turn on the
Speaker 1: far right, as if the Tucker Carlson's and the Kendice
Speaker 1: Owens of the world like genuinely care about Palestine, you know,
Speaker 1: And so there is this like this ridiculous assumption that like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can, we can turn people on the right. And
Speaker 1: I think you see it also with like the discussion
Speaker 1: that's emerged after Momdanie met with Trump. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: the you know, it's not really a lie.
Speaker 2: Have to write it to the bottom top. I was like,
Speaker 2: what are we talking about here? What are we talking about?
Speaker 2: This is not yeah, what was your definition of the left? Exactly?
Speaker 3: I think we have to remember that these are the
Speaker 3: same forces.
Speaker 4: Who are you rounding up and deporting our neighbors, and
Speaker 4: who are you jailing you know, Mahmu Khalil and somebody
Speaker 4: in other dissidents and they, yeah, they want to see
Speaker 4: a future vision of America that has no room for
Speaker 4: most of us in it.
Speaker 3: So it's it's important to keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we have this mess. We have
Speaker 1: the right wing really tried to weaponize this moment and
Speaker 1: using allegations of anti summitism to attack universities, to attack
Speaker 1: political dissidents, et cetera, et cetera, and then we have
Speaker 1: kind of the establishment Jewish organizations, organizations like the Anti
Speaker 1: Defamation LEE, the ADEO.
Speaker 2: What's happening with them? What are they doing in this moment?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they're very complicit. You know.
Speaker 4: The short answer is they're really part of it. I
Speaker 4: mean since the first Trump administration, but really long before.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you want to really, you know, tell
Speaker 4: the long story of how the ADO has been complicit
Speaker 4: with Empire, it goes you know, at least back to
Speaker 4: you know, the seventies when the ADEL was you know,
Speaker 4: spying on left wing groups along side sides on fascist groups,
Speaker 4: or you know, even all the way back to the
Speaker 4: fifties when the ad L was complicit in uh, you know,
Speaker 4: the McCarthyist you know, purges and supported the state's actions
Speaker 4: against you know, the Rosenberg.
Speaker 3: So we can go way back. But you know, basically
Speaker 3: the reason these organizations.
Speaker 4: Exist in many ways, like so much of their funding, priorities,
Speaker 4: and their programming, you know, has become about you know,
Speaker 4: defensive Israel. Like so many American institutions, they're hollowed out.
Speaker 4: They're not democratic, you know, they don't reflect the priorities
Speaker 4: of most American Jews. You know, they're you know, bought
Speaker 4: and sold by a small donor class. And you know,
Speaker 4: so they you know, have made combating BDS and supporting
Speaker 4: Israel the entire focus of their existence. And yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: somewhere around the last year, last two years, probably since
Speaker 4: October seventh, you know, people like Jonathan Greenblatt at the
Speaker 4: head of the ADL, you know, made the calculation that
Speaker 4: they're going to go, you know, ride or die on
Speaker 4: teaming up with whoever they can to suppress, you know,
Speaker 4: the movement for Palestinian freedom. And so yeah, they've been
Speaker 4: closing up to the you know, to the Trump administration,
Speaker 4: you know, more than to give them a team bit
Speaker 4: of credit. And the first Trump administration, you know, they
Speaker 4: were saying, if there's a Muslim band.
Speaker 3: Sign me up.
Speaker 4: But Jonathan green Blatz, you know, tweet in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: You know, they did put up some resistance, even though
Speaker 4: they were also still quite bad in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: But you know, now they're just you know, all in.
Speaker 4: They're trying to curry whatever access they can to the
Speaker 4: Trump administration, even to the extent of taking down there
Speaker 4: their anti bias initiatives, you know, shuddering a lot of
Speaker 4: their anti extremism work, you know.
Speaker 3: Saying like they aren't going to teach critical race theory.
Speaker 4: You know, they're they're completely just you know, trying to
Speaker 4: keep a seat at the table. But the irony is
Speaker 4: the Magan movement doesn't even want them there. You know,
Speaker 4: some people in the administration are probably still working with
Speaker 4: the ADL, but you know, you have FBI Director Cash
Speaker 4: Betel saying we aren't going to work with you because
Speaker 4: now they think they is anti Christian, you know, which
Speaker 4: is it's self kind of anti Semitic. So it's yeah,
Speaker 4: it's uh, they're kind of in this losing battle where
Speaker 4: they're trying to ally with you know, rising fascism and
Speaker 4: the hope that they can find Jewish safety that way
Speaker 4: and you know, can suppress you know, Israel's critics.
Speaker 3: But it's a it's a fool's bargain. We're seeing that
Speaker 3: playout in real time right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never seen such a self own in
Speaker 1: my life, like a self goal, you know, where they
Speaker 1: defended Elon Musk and then Nazi salute and then Elon
Speaker 1: Musk calls them an anti Christian organization and like and
Speaker 1: calls them out. Then I mean, we have all of
Speaker 1: these kind of outrageous incidents, but the fact that the
Speaker 1: Idel kind of stepped away from its civil rights work,
Speaker 1: Like very clearly you've stepped away from its civil rights work.
Speaker 2: They missed the moment.
Speaker 1: Jewish Currents has been publishing on this. I mean, lots
Speaker 1: of people you're self included, have been publishing on this
Speaker 1: about how the ADLs.
Speaker 2: Like audits are skewed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for lack of a better term, I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: maybe you can speak to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know that was a great piece by actually
Speaker 4: the co author of my book, Shane Burley, you know,
Speaker 4: wrote that along with Naomi Bennett, who's another great analyst,
Speaker 4: you know, really looking at their data and you know,
Speaker 4: seeing that you know, in their twenty twenty i think
Speaker 4: it was twenty twenty three on it of anti Semitic incidents,
Speaker 4: they included like just a huge, you know, swath of
Speaker 4: pro Palestine rallies. If you go to their data, it says,
Speaker 4: you know, speakers chanted from the river to the sea,
Speaker 4: Palestine will be free. And so that was an anti
Speaker 4: Semitic incident according to the Adel. And this was you know,
Speaker 4: hundreds of incidents, you know, including some rallies that were
Speaker 4: led by Jewish Voice for Peace Right. So now you
Speaker 4: have you know, Jewish groups who are anti Semitic for
Speaker 4: you know, for calling for Palestinian freedom. So it's just
Speaker 4: you know, that kind of counting, which it's a departure
Speaker 4: from previous years. So even methodologically it's it's very unprofessional.
Speaker 4: They get to say, oh there's been a startling rise
Speaker 4: in anti Semitism. They're expanding their own parameters for what
Speaker 4: counts as an incident, you know, so they're kind of
Speaker 4: cooking their own books. But it does a disservice to
Speaker 4: the you know, to the real fight against anti Semitism.
Speaker 4: I think one thing that Shane and Naomi pointed out
Speaker 4: and that article is that you know, there is a
Speaker 4: rise in in white supremacist groups like Patriot Front, you know,
Speaker 4: who are holding rallies and harassing Jewish institutions, you know,
Speaker 4: alongside harrassing trans folks and black communities and many other groups.
Speaker 4: And you know that's you know, ironically undercounted in the audit.
Speaker 4: And if you have data that equates you know, real
Speaker 4: neo Nazism to people saying Palistine should be free, it's
Speaker 4: just you know, discredits the entire fight against anti Semitism.
Speaker 4: So it's it's dangerous to democracy, it's dangerous, you know,
Speaker 4: to the movement for Justice in Palestine, and it's also
Speaker 4: dangerous for American Jews and our attempt to actually get
Speaker 4: a grasp on the contours of anti Semitism that is
Speaker 4: rising in this moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is always this inflation I see over and
Speaker 1: over with the far right and people who speak on
Speaker 1: Palestine issues. I mean, this is not exactly analogous, but
Speaker 1: Sarah Herwitz, the Obama speech writer, has recently gone viral.
Speaker 1: I'll link the video, but I'll leave people to make
Speaker 1: their own judgments. But the part that I'm referencing here
Speaker 1: is when she puts like in the same breath Nick
Speaker 1: Fuentes and Al Jazeera reporting, and it's again, it's this
Speaker 1: kind of conflation between like actual extremists and people who
Speaker 1: just happen to say things you'd find uncomfortable saying. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's also this kind of trend of discounting
Speaker 1: Jewish voices that aren't part of the establishment, so like
Speaker 1: Jewish Voice for Peace is seen as an extremist group
Speaker 1: and not within the fold, which of course gives the
Speaker 1: far right, including President Trump, the ability to decide who
Speaker 1: is Jewish enough for their purposes. And when he's annoyed
Speaker 1: with Chuck Schumer, he calls him a Palestinian, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, is offensive on many levels to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I don't want Chuck Shim to be a Palestinian.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just really really quite a mess.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I was reminded when you said that
Speaker 4: of a group Psyche carry Mission, you know, do the
Speaker 4: same thing. They list you know, first first generation black
Speaker 4: and brown college students as anti Semites and then they
Speaker 4: list Nick front Days and it's you know, it's a
Speaker 4: way for them to kind of protect their brand of like, look,
Speaker 4: we are going after real anti semitism, but it's this
Speaker 4: totally discredited notion that you know, anti Semitism or all
Speaker 4: extremism really is like you know, you know, kind of
Speaker 4: an equal threat on both sides of the political spectrum.
Speaker 3: That is just you know, it doesn't meet our moment
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 4: It's very clear that that anti Semitism is much stronger
Speaker 4: and more deadly, you know, on the radical right. Data
Speaker 4: supports this not only in the US but around the world.
Speaker 4: And yeah, so this kind of discredited centrist notion that
Speaker 4: you know, both sides are equally threatening is just you know,
Speaker 4: not suiting us for not only around anti semitism. But
Speaker 4: it's the same thing you hear from people like Chuck
Speaker 4: Schumer about extremism, you know, more broadly. So it's it's
Speaker 4: not it's not the way to meet this moment of
Speaker 4: rising fascists in the sale both sides are bad, it's
Speaker 4: just very outdated and dangerous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely obfuscating.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So for me, like in the bubbles that I
Speaker 1: live in, I feel like the ideal because of the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, has really discredited itself and there
Speaker 1: have been you know, critics from within kind of the
Speaker 1: American Jewish even establishment. I would say from your perspective,
Speaker 1: of course we're going to link your book, so first
Speaker 1: and foremost read.
Speaker 2: Ben and Shane's book.
Speaker 1: But who do you think is speaking on anti Semitism
Speaker 1: in a rigorous way now? Like Nexus Foundation, Like who
Speaker 1: would you say has a better grasp of this situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the Nexus you know project is very useful.
Speaker 4: It's a coalition of you know, academics who you know
Speaker 4: are actually specializing in anti Semitism and They have a
Speaker 4: really rigorous attempt, you know, to really give people guidelines
Speaker 4: that can help to parse, you know, where anti Semitism
Speaker 4: is and where it isn't. And they really stress, you know,
Speaker 4: in every incident you come across, you know, every question,
Speaker 4: you have to pay attention to context and to really
Speaker 4: take a close look at what people are saying, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, to separate, you know, as you said earlier,
Speaker 4: you know, to separate the discomfort that you know, for example,
Speaker 4: like a Jewish student, you know who Zionist you know
Speaker 4: on a campus you might feel if they hear Free
Speaker 4: Palestine be able to distinguish that discomfort from actual danger
Speaker 4: or from actual antisemitism.
Speaker 3: So I think they do a really nuanced job at it.
Speaker 4: You know, there's an organization called Diaspora Alliance that's not
Speaker 4: always the very public, but they do a lot of
Speaker 4: important work, you know, helping folks, you know, to grapple
Speaker 4: with these issues, especially if you're being hit with these
Speaker 4: kind of false charges of antisemitism. And then yeah, i'd
Speaker 4: say Jewish Currents puts out great resources. Yeah, so those
Speaker 4: are three that I think of that I look to.
Speaker 4: But I think, you know, right now, we need you know,
Speaker 4: I go back and forth over do we need another
Speaker 4: better ADL. But ultimately, you know, I think we need
Speaker 4: new institutions and new projects that are able to look
Speaker 4: at antisemitism in an intersectional way, to see the connections
Speaker 4: between antisemitism and anti blackness, anti immigrants, enophobia, you know,
Speaker 4: to see how how anti semitism, you know, fuels authoritarianism
Speaker 4: and makes all us less safe. I think there are
Speaker 4: some exciting projects coming down the pike that you know,
Speaker 4: people will know about, you know, soon, But I do
Speaker 4: think we need kind of new institutions and new resources,
Speaker 4: you know, for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ariel Angel, the editor in chief of Jewish Currents brot. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it feels like a lifetime ago at this point, but
Speaker 1: about like the need for new Jewish institutions. And I
Speaker 1: think this is a you know, from the outside looking in,
Speaker 1: you know, not my not my discussion perhaps, but it
Speaker 1: seems like this is an unnecessary component because there's always
Speaker 1: this tension between exceptionalizing anti semitism and then not meeting
Speaker 1: the moment or seeing it as part and parcel of
Speaker 1: fascism connected to.
Speaker 2: Other you know, ideologies as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I know, it's so often exceptionalized as this
Speaker 4: kind of unique hatred that's you know, outside of all history,
Speaker 4: and it's the oldest hatred, you know, and it's the
Speaker 4: you know, the worst hatred right now, there's you know,
Speaker 4: all these reasons why not only Jewish leaders, but you
Speaker 4: know leaders of all establishment you know, bipartisan politics kind
Speaker 4: of frame anti Semitism in this exceptional way.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't serve anyone.
Speaker 4: So I do think we need, yeah, like you're saying,
Speaker 4: like a rigorous ground analysis that puts it in the
Speaker 4: context of Christian supremacy, of white supremacy, you know, of
Speaker 4: Islamophobia that traces these you know, these connections, and neither
Speaker 4: exceptionalizes it, you know, nor minimizes it, but you know
Speaker 4: sees it as part of this fabric of arising authoritarianism.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: So in the show notes, I'm going to link all
Speaker 1: the stuff you mentioned, as well as you know, the
Speaker 1: Asparalliance and NExSS project work. There's also an academic article
Speaker 1: if people are interested, by Dove Waxman that I find
Speaker 1: pretty useful, but yeah, I'll put that all on in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Thank you so much, Ben, This has
Speaker 1: been extremely helpful and horrifying but helpful.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, thanks for having me on. Great talking
Speaker 3: to you.
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