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Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcoit Show on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Isabella Tabodowski. Isabella is a scholar

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Speaker 1: of Soviet anti Zionism and contemporary anti Semitism, a senior

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Speaker 1: Fellow with the Z three Institute, a fellow with the

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Speaker 1: Wilson Center, a contributing writer at Tablet Magazine, and the

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Speaker 1: author of an excellent new book, Beer Refusnik, a Jewish

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Speaker 1: student survival guide. You can follow Isabella on x Atza Tabaro. Hi, Isabella,

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Speaker 1: so nice to have you on.

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Speaker 2: It's so great to be with you, Carol.

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Speaker 1: So I feel like we have a lot in common,

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Speaker 1: clearly in affinity because of our backgrounds, and I've always

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Speaker 1: enjoyed your work. Tell us about your new book, Beer Refusedick.

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Speaker 1: First of all, tell my audience what does it mean

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Speaker 1: to be a refusnick?

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Speaker 3: So a refuse nick. The term refuse nick was given

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Speaker 3: to Soviet Jewish activists in the late sixties seventies, and

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Speaker 3: is they fought for their rights as Jews, and they're

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Speaker 3: mostly known and they're known in America because American Jews

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Speaker 3: fought on their behalf. But they're usually associated with a

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Speaker 3: movement for emigration, the emigration of Soviet Jews from the USSR,

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Speaker 3: and the term comes from there. You know, people couldn't

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Speaker 3: emigrate from the USSR, but when they applied to emigrate,

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Speaker 3: they were refused the permission, and therefore they were called

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Speaker 3: refuse nick. However, there is a different way.

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Speaker 2: To look at the term and to understand it. What

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Speaker 2: they refused.

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Speaker 3: It's not that the system refused them the right to emigrate,

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Speaker 3: before that even happened. They refused the system. They refused

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Speaker 3: the anti Semitic system they lived in. They refused the environment.

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Speaker 3: They rejected all of it. And they was an environment

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Speaker 3: in which they were supposed to forget about their Jewish identity,

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Speaker 3: their connection to the Jewish people, their connection to the

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Speaker 3: land of Israel. They were supposed to reject their Zionism,

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Speaker 3: and so they refused all of it. And this was

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Speaker 3: really the essence of their struggle. And I think their

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Speaker 3: story is incredibly relevant for the current moment.

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Speaker 1: Did you always want to be a writer?

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Speaker 2: Did?

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Speaker 3: I know?

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Speaker 2: Wow, that's a really great question. I think.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if I ever thought about it until

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Speaker 3: a really wonderful person, Yosi klin Halevi, told me that

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Speaker 3: I have a story to tell, and I can tell

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Speaker 3: that story and I should do it. And when he

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Speaker 3: told me that, I thought, wow, that's no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: I'm a foreigner. English is not even my first language.

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Speaker 3: How do I become a writer. But here we are,

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Speaker 3: years ago, I have written a book, and I think

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Speaker 3: it's an important one, if I may say so myself.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, So, you know, I just the ex Soviet families generally,

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Speaker 1: when you tell them you're going to be a writer,

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Speaker 1: they don't take it that great. So that's why I

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Speaker 1: was asking if you had always wanted to or if

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Speaker 1: it was something that you came to maybe later in

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Speaker 1: your life.

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Speaker 3: I came to it later in my life. And what

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Speaker 3: really got me to start writing is in fact, you know,

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Speaker 3: this book is really a culmination or it comes out

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Speaker 3: of many years of my research and writing about Soviet

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Speaker 3: anti Zionism. And I began writing about it when I

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Speaker 3: first noticed around twenty eighteen that on American campuses there

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Speaker 3: was language about Zionism in Israel that we had heard

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Speaker 3: back in the USSR right when I we emigrated in

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Speaker 3: nineteen ninety. I was already twenty years old then, so

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Speaker 3: I remember the Soviet system very very well, growing up

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Speaker 3: in the seventies and eighties, but when we came to America,

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Speaker 3: I didn't understand. We forgot all about anti Semitism until

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Speaker 3: that time, like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and I remember thinking,

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Speaker 3: how is it possible? Why is this language here?

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Speaker 2: Why has it caught up.

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Speaker 3: With me almost thirty years later? And once I started

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Speaker 3: looking into it, I realized that the similarity was incredible.

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Speaker 3: You know, this equation that we hear all the time

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Speaker 3: today that Zionisms, Nazism, and racism and fascism and cythle

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Speaker 3: colonialism and imperialism, none of it is new. It was

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Speaker 3: all there already in Soviet times. And so I thought

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Speaker 3: to myself, well, it can't be that this language just

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Speaker 3: got reinvented from scratch, because the similarity is so It's

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Speaker 3: just it's like one to one. You know. It's the words,

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Speaker 3: it's the slogans, it's the explanatory logic, the way you

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Speaker 3: explained the world in very conspiratorial terms, by the way,

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Speaker 3: as claiming that zion you know that Zionists control everything,

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Speaker 3: zion Is rule everything, zion Is own and run America

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Speaker 3: as we hear today. And I started asking myself, well,

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Speaker 3: there must have been channels of transmission. At some point,

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Speaker 3: the US of SR doesn't exist anymore, so sometime in

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Speaker 3: the seventies and eighties, there must have been channels of transmission.

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Speaker 3: And in fact there were channels of transmission, and I've

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Speaker 3: traced it through my work, and once I did, and

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Speaker 3: this is how I got to the book is I

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Speaker 3: started asking myself, well, if the ideological environment was so similar,

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Speaker 3: Jews were facing the same kind of anti Zionist the rasure.

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Speaker 3: Obviously the country is a very different, the system is

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Speaker 3: very different, but the Jews experienced a kind of anti

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Speaker 3: Zionist pressure that American Jews are experiencing today. Then what

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Speaker 3: can we learn from the Soviet Jewish story, from the

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Speaker 3: story of Soviet Jewish resistance, from the Refuseniks story that

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Speaker 3: can be useful for us today? And so this is

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Speaker 3: really the book. It's not just it's not history. I

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Speaker 3: tell stories of the refuse Nicks and I matched them

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Speaker 3: with stories of young American activists today, some of whom

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Speaker 3: already household names like Traboscestenbaum, like Kyalia Kobe, Adela Kohav,

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Speaker 3: who are in many cases, in most cases unknowingly landing

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Speaker 3: on the same kind of mindset and the same strategy

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Speaker 3: that the Refusenicks of the Soviet Refuseniks landed on. And

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Speaker 3: so this is the story I tell you. Asked whether

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Speaker 3: I always wanted to write it. I think it just

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Speaker 3: came to me as I was myself on this journey

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Speaker 3: of trying to understand this anti zion is that reappeared

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Speaker 3: in our lives.

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Speaker 1: So your book is Beer Refusenik, a Jewish Student's survival Guide.

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Speaker 1: What is your top piece of advice for Jewish students

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Speaker 1: China survive on campus in twenty twenty five?

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Speaker 3: So what I tell them is, perhaps it's the opposite

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Speaker 3: of what many are inclined to do. I know it's

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Speaker 3: a time of a lot of fear and confusion. You know,

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Speaker 3: I just came from California, where I met and spoke

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Speaker 3: to a number of Jewish communities, and I sense this

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Speaker 3: kind of there's a dual feeling or sentiment that I

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Speaker 3: pick up. One is confusion and fear and the question

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Speaker 3: of how said that, all of a sudden the standing

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Speaker 3: American Jews standing in America seems to be much more

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Speaker 3: uncertain than there ever was, and there a lack of

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Speaker 3: confidence among many, But at the same time, I sense

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Speaker 3: that I think there is a wave of grassroots resistance

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Speaker 3: that's happening, that people are longing to fight really for

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Speaker 3: their Jewish dignity. The Jewish people have really been under

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Speaker 3: such an assault since October seventh that that people are

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Speaker 3: realizing that we need to fight against it and the

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Speaker 3: way to fight against it. And this is what I

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Speaker 3: write about, based on the experience both of the Soviet

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Speaker 3: refuseniks and the activists who I profile, is that you

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Speaker 3: actually have to reclaim everything that they want you to

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Speaker 3: give up. You have to reclaim your Zionism, you have

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Speaker 3: to reclaim your connection to the Jewish people. You have

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Speaker 3: to reclaim your Jewish story, because today the entirety of

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Speaker 3: Jewish story is under attack. You have to give up victimhood.

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Speaker 3: That's a really crucial piece of advice. I think victimhood

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Speaker 3: has become sort of this holy grail in our society.

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Speaker 3: And what's interesting is when you look at the refuse next,

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Speaker 3: people like Natansa Ranski, a lot of Peopleski, he's amazing,

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Speaker 3: He's a real hero of the Jewish people. You know,

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Speaker 3: he spent nine and a half years in prisons. In

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Speaker 3: prison colonies and the Gulag really being tortured, you know,

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Speaker 3: terrible ways.

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Speaker 2: But you know, you talk to him.

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Speaker 3: And the other people that I interviewed, and none of

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Speaker 3: them ever thought of themselves as victims.

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Speaker 2: They stood for what they believed was right.

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Speaker 3: They stood for their values, and we have to be

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Speaker 3: doing the same.

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Speaker 1: More with Isabella Tabarovski coming up. But first, history shows

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Speaker 1: that every market eventually falls, every currency collapses, and today

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Speaker 1: the US dollar is hanging by a thread. Trillion international

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Speaker 1: debt record high markets defying gravity, but stocks can't go

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Speaker 1: up forever. Meanwhile, your groceries, housing, and transportation costs, they're

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Speaker 1: all going up, and your dollar is buying less every

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Speaker 1: single day. So when the system breaks, when the crash hits,

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Speaker 1: your stocks won't save you, and your dollars won't either.

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Speaker 1: But one thing will.

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Speaker 2: Gold.

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Speaker 1: Gold has always survived a collapse. That's by central banks

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Speaker 1: any investment has a certain amount of risk associated with it,

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Speaker 1: and you should only invest if you can afford to

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Speaker 1: bear the risk of loss. Before making investment decisions, you

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Speaker 1: should carefully consider and review all risks involved. The Carol

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Speaker 1: Marko Witch Show continues right after this. Where do you

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Speaker 1: fall on the debate going on in the Jewish world

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Speaker 1: about where to send your kids to college? Do you

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Speaker 1: tell these college kids to opt out of some of

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Speaker 1: the like I wouldn't send my kids to Columbia, And

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Speaker 1: that's not post October seventh, that's you know, for years

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Speaker 1: and years I thought Columbia was just a hotbed of

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Speaker 1: like Islamism and and just really anti Semitic activity. But

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Speaker 1: I don't want my kids to opt out of like

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Speaker 1: the Ivy leagues, because I think it's unfair. And I

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Speaker 1: think back to my own parents in Russia and in

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Speaker 1: Ukraine not being able to go to certain schools because

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Speaker 1: they were Jewish, And now Jewish people are opting their

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Speaker 1: kids out of the best schools, and I find that

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Speaker 1: all to be difficult to swallow. At the same time,

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Speaker 1: I don't want my kids to have a bad four

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Speaker 1: years where they're stepping over hamasniks and tents on their

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Speaker 1: way to class. So where do you fall on that?

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Speaker 3: You know, I don't think that there is any virtue

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Speaker 3: in going to a school where you're going to be hated,

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Speaker 3: and not just hated, right what we see, for example

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Speaker 3: from the Harvard report. You know, the anti Israel and

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Speaker 3: anti Zionist sentiments have penetrated the school so deeply that

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Speaker 3: it's not only about avoiding let's say, departments of Middle

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Speaker 3: East studies or specific courses. It's there even in these

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Speaker 3: prestigious schools that so many kids want to go to,

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Speaker 3: you know, the medical school, the School of Public Health.

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Speaker 3: For some reason, these schools also have courses on Zionist oppression, right,

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Speaker 3: and they anti Israel. They're permeated by anti Israel propaganda.

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Speaker 3: I don't think that our kids should be going to

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Speaker 3: those schools. However, if they do go, and by the way,

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Speaker 3: I think that wherever they go, they'll make those schools better,

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Speaker 3: you know. So I think a lot of good people

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Speaker 3: are opting out of the IVY leagues, and I think

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Speaker 3: this will be to the benefit of a lot of

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Speaker 3: other schools or not IVY leagues. Ultimately, it's the people

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Speaker 3: who make the school great. But if they do go,

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Speaker 3: I think they should go be prepared, prepared to stand

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Speaker 3: up for themselves, and prepared to not let this propaganda

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Speaker 3: penetrate them.

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Speaker 2: I think it's.

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Speaker 3: Part of my message in the book is you have

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Speaker 3: to understand, you know that there are It's something that

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Speaker 3: we as ex Soviet Jews, really understand. We understand the sources,

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Speaker 3: we understand the point of it, and so we don't

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Speaker 3: let this language doubt who we are and undermine our identity. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: American Jews have never really experienced anything like this, and

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Speaker 3: so right so they allow for that to undermine their

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Speaker 3: confidence and create doubt. And I think that if a

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Speaker 3: student is well prepared to face that, and I think

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Speaker 3: it should be a priority for Jewish parents and for

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Speaker 3: Jewish schools to prepare students for that. Then that's okay,

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Speaker 3: then why not go? But I think we also we

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Speaker 3: should ask ourselves are these really the best schools given

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Speaker 3: what's going on in them?

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Speaker 1: They do open doors, it's hard to ignore that. You know,

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Speaker 1: people do still hire from these schools at a much

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Speaker 1: higher rate than out of other schools. I'm sure that

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Speaker 1: does change. But I have a fifteen year old. You know,

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Speaker 1: this isn't like in the distant future for me. This

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Speaker 1: is coming up very very soon and my concern and

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Speaker 1: you know, I would say, also, you know, how do

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Speaker 1: they have an anti Zionism class and in the mathematics department.

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Speaker 1: I really do think a lot of this is just leftism.

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Speaker 1: I always say, you know, the problem is liberalism. The

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Speaker 1: problem is it's not that the problem is antisemitism. The

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Speaker 1: problem begins with a leftist point of view and then

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Speaker 1: encompasses antisemitism. But my issue is not I'm not worried

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Speaker 1: about sending my kids off and having them come back woke,

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Speaker 1: like none of that is a concern to me, or

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Speaker 1: denouncing their Jewish faith or Israel or any of that

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Speaker 1: I'm just worried about them not having a fun for

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Speaker 1: years battling through that. But your book is specifically about

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Speaker 1: that kind of survival. I mean, I guess that's why

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Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you whether that's what you mean

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Speaker 1: by a Jewish Student's survival Guide, the way to survive

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Speaker 1: in places like that.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think definitely it's a part of it. I

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Speaker 3: think it's really critical if you go to a school

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Speaker 3: like that to find other Jewish students who think like you,

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Speaker 3: and to have a community and to be together and

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Speaker 3: learn together and analyze what's happening together. This is what

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Speaker 3: the Refusenicks did, and I think that this is what's

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Speaker 3: really important. And when you look at for example, at Columbia,

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Speaker 3: was one of the students had profile. Lisha Baker was

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Speaker 3: a co author of a letter that Columbia students wrote.

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Speaker 3: For Columbia students wrote a let that came to be

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Speaker 3: known the Letter of five hundred. It's a letter in

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Speaker 3: which they reclaim, they reclaim their design is they kind

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Speaker 3: of state their values very clearly. You know, again, it's

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Speaker 3: not for everyone, but I think if you have a student,

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Speaker 3: you know, not everybody is meant to be an attach Ranski.

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Speaker 3: Let's be cleaned right, right, right right. Not everyone is

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Speaker 3: meant to be a Shabos Kestenbaum who really can go

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Speaker 3: and review his political commitments and realign them according based

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Speaker 3: on what he views as really priority for the Jews

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Speaker 3: people today, not everyone is willing to go and sue

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Speaker 3: a university the way Adela Koha did, for example, and

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Speaker 3: the way Shabos did as well, and Aalia Kobe. But

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Speaker 3: you know, I think what's crucial is to have an

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Speaker 3: internal framework that prevents you from succumbing to this environment

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Speaker 3: and really integrating into this antisemitic environment at schools. And

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Speaker 3: I want to just comment very quickly on what you

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Speaker 3: said that the problem is leftism and that the universities

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Speaker 3: have succumbed to that. And I think the bigger problem

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Speaker 3: is that the universities have forgotten that they're supposed to

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Speaker 3: be non political environments, right. They're supposed to be teaching

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Speaker 3: teaching people how to think, not what to think. And

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Speaker 3: what we see today is an academy that believes it

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Speaker 3: needs to tell students what is the right way of thinking.

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Speaker 3: We see academics who are activists as opposed to educators,

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Speaker 3: and that is definitely a broader problem. The fact another

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Speaker 3: problem is that, you know, we no longer teach students,

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Speaker 3: or maybe we never did, about the history of Soviet Communism.

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Speaker 3: For example, they have no idea what happened in the

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Speaker 3: USSR in the seventy years or seventy five years that

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Speaker 3: it existed. They only know they know that Nazi Germany

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Speaker 3: was bad. They either don't know anything about the Soviet

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Speaker 3: Union or they actually think that it.

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Speaker 2: Was a force for good.

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Speaker 3: And that is just it's educational malpractice and that really

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Speaker 3: needs to change.

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Speaker 1: It absolutely is. I think that that's such a gaping

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Speaker 1: hole in our education system and the fact that people

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Speaker 1: just don't know what went on, and when you tell them,

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Speaker 1: their eyes get wide. It's like, how did you not

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Speaker 1: know this already? How did you not learn this? But

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Speaker 1: of course you and I grew up. You know, I

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Speaker 1: came to the US as a child. I came in

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Speaker 1: seventy eight. I was very little. I wasn't even two yet,

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Speaker 1: so it's a little bit different. But you saw it firsthand,

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Speaker 1: and I grew up with the stories of it.

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Speaker 2: I grew up with.

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Speaker 1: You know, your great grandfather was in the Gulag, and

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Speaker 1: this is how it all happened, but right for people

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Speaker 1: who don't grow up with the stories, the schools are

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Speaker 1: supposed to fill that in and they kind of choose

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Speaker 1: not to.

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Speaker 2: Oh right, exactly.

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Speaker 1: Switching a little bit topics. What are you most proud

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Speaker 1: of in your life?

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Speaker 3: So there are two things and they go hand in hand.

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Speaker 3: For me, one is becoming an American and the other

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Speaker 3: is becoming finding myself in the Jewish community, connecting to

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Speaker 3: Judaism and to Jewish culture, and they go together because

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Speaker 3: they both they involved really profound transformation. And I think

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Speaker 3: today it's hard for people to appreciate when you come

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Speaker 3: to America from behind the Iron Curtain. It's like you

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Speaker 3: land on a different planet and you know, different values,

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Speaker 3: different everything. And I understood very quickly that to be

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Speaker 3: an American is not just about acquiring the citizenship and

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Speaker 3: not just saying an oath of allegiance even and not

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Speaker 3: about acquiring an American passport. It actually means changing yourself.

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Speaker 3: And I really worked on it. I understood, for example,

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Speaker 3: that having been blocked off from the rest of the

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Speaker 3: world behind the Iron Curtain meant that you missed. People

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Speaker 3: love to talk about how Soviet people were so educated

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Speaker 3: but we missed so so much. You know, we missed

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Speaker 3: years and decades for example, of musical culture, a whole

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Speaker 3: cultural development, film, music book, certain books, absolutely and you know,

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Speaker 3: imagine growing up not knowing anything about I don't know

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Speaker 3: Audrey Hepburn or Bruce Springstey, and take your favorite musician,

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Speaker 3: you know. I remember there was this funny episode when

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Speaker 3: at some point in the nineties the film Forrest Gump

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Speaker 3: came out, and it, of course has this whole musical.

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Speaker 1: Love that musical yes, exactly a musical part.

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Speaker 3: And I remember going there with a friend and everybody

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Speaker 3: is responding to the events and the film and the music,

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Speaker 3: and I'm sitting there like I'm watching a movie in

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Speaker 3: a foreign language without subtitles, you know. So my friend

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Speaker 3: then had to explain to me what all the music

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Speaker 3: was and introduce it to me. So you were really

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Speaker 3: knocked out of global culture for years and decades and

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Speaker 3: so and then of course, and then the whole you know,

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Speaker 3: philosophical thought underlining the United States and the Constitution, Declaration

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Speaker 3: of Independence, all of that. So I had to learn

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Speaker 3: all of that from scratch. And I just feel incredibly

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Speaker 3: grateful that I took the time to do it. It

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Speaker 3: was really transformative.

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Speaker 2: I love that.

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Speaker 1: Actually, I think that that's the right way to be

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Speaker 1: an American, to catch up on, you know, not just

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Speaker 1: the history and the politics, but also the culture.

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Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely absolutely give us.

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Speaker 1: A five year out prediction, and it could be about

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Speaker 1: anything you want.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I am a historian by training and sensibility,

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Speaker 3: and we hate giving predictions. But you know, I'll go

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Speaker 3: out on the limb. I hope people don't, you know,

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Speaker 3: don't bookmark this part of it. But I do want

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Speaker 3: to believe, maybe it's more of a wishful thinking. I

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Speaker 3: do want to believe that the Academy will not look

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Speaker 3: the same in five years because I think that the

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Speaker 3: ideological abuse that we see in elite American universities is

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Speaker 3: so severe that I think things will change. And I

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Speaker 3: think what's the great thing about America is that you

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Speaker 3: have the market and people can vote with their feet

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Speaker 3: and with their money. And I think other universities will

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Speaker 3: appear and already are appearing, and other schools will draw people,

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Speaker 3: young people to them because they will offer them something better.

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Speaker 3: They will offer them better education, they will offer them

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Speaker 3: a better environment. Then, and professors will act the same

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Speaker 3: and so I want to believe more wishful think in

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Speaker 3: the prediction that in five years there will be changes.

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Speaker 2: I love that.

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Speaker 1: I hope you're right, because again I have kids that

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Speaker 1: are butting up right up against that system that I

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Speaker 1: would love to see change. And you know, I don't

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Speaker 1: know five years is going to be fast enough for me,

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Speaker 1: because again I have a fifteen year old. Maybe the

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Speaker 1: twelve year old and a nine year old will benefit

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Speaker 1: from that. Well. I've loved this conversation, Isabelle. I've always

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Speaker 1: been a fan of yours, and I think you do

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Speaker 1: such great work.

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Speaker 2: Leave us here with your best tip.

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Speaker 1: For my listeners on how they can improve their lives.

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Speaker 3: So you know, I'm a scholar of ideology and I'm

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Speaker 3: a scholar of propaganda, and I'm going to say I

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Speaker 3: think my big, big, big wish for Americans today is

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Speaker 3: to understand that we live at a time when we

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Speaker 3: are under an ideological assault as a country, you know,

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Speaker 3: and we see individual groups being targeted, but I think

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Speaker 3: the biggest target is our unity as a nation. And

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Speaker 3: I hope that you know this propaganda is very sophisticated.

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Speaker 3: I think there are multiple actors who contribute to it.

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Speaker 3: And I just wish look, in Soviet times, we had

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Speaker 3: this skill which I forgot that we used to have it.

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Speaker 3: I remembered it recently of reading between the lines. You know,

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Speaker 3: we knew that we were constantly under a propaganda assault,

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Speaker 3: and so nobody ever read took what they read for granted.

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Speaker 3: You read between the lines, which is different than being conspierological.

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Speaker 3: I want to make you know there's a distinction there,

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Speaker 3: so distinction there. Really trying to take kind of take

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Speaker 3: a step back and instead of responding to a stimulus

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Speaker 3: that comes through social media, asking yourself, what are they

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Speaker 3: trying to do? Really, what is the what is what

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Speaker 3: are they trying to achieve? Whoever they are, you know,

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Speaker 3: they're different actors, and not letting yourself, not letting yourself

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Speaker 3: follow or become the tool of that agenda. And I

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Speaker 3: think really remembering the foundation, foundational values and foundational what

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Speaker 3: you know, the foundational story of us as Americans, and

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Speaker 3: basing your decisions and working for changes from that place,

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Speaker 3: as opposed to by joining radical movements that have proven

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Speaker 3: themselves to be morally bankrupt already in the past.

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Speaker 1: I love that she is Isabella Tabarovski. Her book is

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Speaker 1: Beer refusedk a Jewish student survival guide by it now

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Speaker 1: anywhere books are sold. Thank you so much, Isabella for

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Speaker 1: coming on.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Carol