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Speaker 1: Also media, Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis,

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Speaker 1: and today I'm joined with the authors Shane Burley and

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Speaker 1: Ben Lorber, who have a new book out called A

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Speaker 1: Safety Through Solidarity, A Radical Guide to Fighting Anti Semitism.

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Speaker 1: Shane reached out to me to talk about both the

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Speaker 1: book and a variety of issues revolving around this topic.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for coming on, both of you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having us on.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, thanks for having us So.

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Speaker 1: A few months ago I put out an episode looking

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Speaker 1: at a genuine uptick in anti Semitic incidents that have

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Speaker 1: happened in the United States and Europe, and sometimes it

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Speaker 1: feels kind of like a tricky thing to talk about.

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Speaker 2: In some ways, it's.

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Speaker 1: Like you're threading a very difficult needle. It's like you're

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Speaker 1: caught between a rock and a hard place when discussing

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Speaker 1: this topic, because if you point to an actual trend

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Speaker 1: that you're seeing showing a genuine spike in anti Semitic incidents,

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Speaker 1: there's like a subset of people who are very focused

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Speaker 1: on the genocide in Gaza, very rightly so, but they

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Speaker 1: might push back since claims of anti Semitism have been

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Speaker 1: so conflated with any display of anti Zionist politics, or

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Speaker 1: even worse, they might even question, why are you talking

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Speaker 1: about this when there's this other horrible thing going on

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Speaker 1: right the actual genocide in Gaza. Now, I think, meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: if you avoid this as a lesser or a non issue,

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Speaker 1: if if you don't talk about these things, I would

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Speaker 1: argue that actually strengthens the Zionist political project of tying

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Speaker 1: Jewish safety solely to the state of Israel. And in

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Speaker 1: some ways, I think ignoring this entire issue legitimizes a

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Speaker 1: degree of criticisms that are being leveled against these massive

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Speaker 1: protests and calls for a ceasefire and justice in Palestine.

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Speaker 1: So I guess, how long have you been putting together

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Speaker 1: this book and how much did the war in Gaza

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Speaker 1: this past year kind of change the scope of it

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Speaker 1: as you were writing this?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we started, I think Ben and I

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Speaker 3: started talking about this and in the twenty nineteen beginning

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Speaker 3: of twenty twenty, so it's a totally it was a

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Speaker 3: totally different context when we started working on the book,

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Speaker 3: and what we had been wanting was actually the sort

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Speaker 3: of like drive a wedge into what you're talking about here.

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Speaker 3: Which is like that there isn't really good discourse on

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Speaker 3: what anti semitism actually is that takes it seriously, that

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Speaker 3: doesn't just kind of deflect and project onto anti Zionism.

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Speaker 3: Since Ben and I both come from like a history

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Speaker 3: of organizing a Palestine solidarity movement, me with Students for

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Speaker 3: Justice Palestine on campus, then the Jewish Voice for Peace,

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Speaker 3: so we had seems to basically firsthand how accusations of

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Speaker 3: anti Semitism basically leveled just constantly at Palastine solidarity protesters,

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Speaker 3: and then also in research and covering the far right,

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Speaker 3: seeing obviously the growth of anti Semitism in white nationalism

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Speaker 3: both in the US and internationally, and that only increased

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Speaker 3: increase over time. So we wanted to work on something

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Speaker 3: that took that seriously and also sort of revive different

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Speaker 3: traditions from the left that talk about anti semitism, whether

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Speaker 3: it's anti fascism, are different kind of Marxist trends or

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Speaker 3: the Jewish left kind of bring it to one place,

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Speaker 3: talk to other folks who are also taking it seriously,

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Speaker 3: and weave that together. All of that is different. And

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Speaker 3: before October seventh, because we were turning in the draft

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Speaker 3: or a book like a matter of days after October

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Speaker 3: seventh happened.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, we went and talked.

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Speaker 3: To the publisher. We're like, well, the whole world has changed.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we have to we have to make changes

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Speaker 3: about it. And so we've made some and basically, like

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Speaker 3: I address some questions there, and I think you can

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Speaker 3: kind of see the in the conclusion of like the

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Speaker 3: very end of the book kind of where we cut

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Speaker 3: it off in November December area and sort of have

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Speaker 3: acknowledge that things are different here. But I think that

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Speaker 3: there's also bigger questions that we're talking about now that

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Speaker 3: like we're doing interviews and the writing articles and stuff

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Speaker 3: afterwards about how that's changed. But a lot of this really,

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Speaker 3: I think one thing that's important is that because we

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Speaker 3: make very clear, like very incredibly clear, the anti Zionism

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Speaker 3: not the same as anti Semitism in a way, that

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Speaker 3: conversation is the same as before, because we're actually talking

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Speaker 3: about where real anti Semitism lives. And if you look

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Speaker 3: at the way that this course is now, particularly from

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Speaker 3: groups like in the Defamation League, is it's basically built

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Speaker 3: entirely around you know, attacking college protests, right, attacking these

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Speaker 3: mass anti genocide demonstrations, right, And since that's so foundationally

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Speaker 3: different than how we understand anti semitism, there's a way

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Speaker 3: in which, like the conversation that has the book is

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Speaker 3: sort of the same. And what do you think about this, Ben?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I mean I agree that it really hasn't

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Speaker 5: changed that much, even though it's just a lot bigger

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Speaker 5: and more prominent. And the forces that are trying to

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Speaker 5: attack the Movement for Justice and pasts that are stronger.

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Speaker 5: They're trying to pass legislation taking away our free speech rights,

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Speaker 5: they're trying to restrict academic freedom, they're trying to go

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Speaker 5: after the irs status of justice organizations.

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Speaker 4: So the stakes are really high.

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Speaker 5: I think the intervention that we've always been wanting to

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Speaker 5: make is to really put the conversation backward alongs like

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Speaker 5: on the rise of the far right, on the rise

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Speaker 5: of white Christian nationalism. Right, anti Semitism is part of

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Speaker 5: the right wing worldview. It's just like the other systems

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Speaker 5: of oppression like anti blackness, anti LGBTQ, biggest true Islamophobia,

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Speaker 5: anti integrant xenophobia, anti Semitism.

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Speaker 4: Is deeply connected.

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Speaker 5: Right, These George Soros conspiracies are being used by authoritarian.

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Speaker 4: Leaders like Donald Trump and JB.

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Speaker 5: Vance and the rest of them to build up the

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Speaker 5: MAGA base and to attack the foundations of our multi

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Speaker 5: racial democracy. And we've seen it have deadly results for

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Speaker 5: Jews and for other groups. You know, white nationalists, you know,

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Speaker 5: mass shooters who are motivated by anti Semitic conspiracy theories,

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Speaker 5: have attacked synagogues, have attacked Latin X communities, have a

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Speaker 5: Black communities, and so yeah, anti Semitism is part of

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Speaker 5: that machinery of oppression. And so our book tries to

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Speaker 5: reframe the conversation and give Justice Organizer a way to

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Speaker 5: take back the conversation away from the right.

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Speaker 1: Would one of you be willing to give like a

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Speaker 1: workable definition of anti Semitism because this is a word

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Speaker 1: that's certainly been used a lot, but I think it's

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Speaker 1: a word that signifies possibly a lot of different things.

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Speaker 1: And I guess what is the definition of antisemitism that

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Speaker 1: you are using in your book.

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Speaker 5: Yes, Sott, we really see anti Semitism as a form

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Speaker 5: of conspiracy theory thinking that developed out of Christianity in

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Speaker 5: Christian Europe and that essentially sees Jews as the root

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Speaker 5: cause of evil or the root cause of the world's

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Speaker 5: problems kind of behind the scenes. It trades in images

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Speaker 5: of a cabal lurking behind either government or the media

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Speaker 5: or the economy. And these conspiracy theories are core to

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Speaker 5: an authoritarian and nationalists worldview that mobilize, you know, millions

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Speaker 5: really away from examining and confronting the root causes of

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Speaker 5: oppression and convinces them to chase, you know, kind of

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Speaker 5: illusory shadows instead.

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Speaker 1: Why do we have like a harder time kind of

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Speaker 1: pinning down this term? You know, I think people have

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Speaker 1: a general idea and a pretty easy way to like see, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, what's like islamophobic?

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Speaker 2: Right, what's racist?

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Speaker 1: There's a few points in your book that you talk about,

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Speaker 1: you know, instances of people maybe unintentionally spreading anti Semitism

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Speaker 1: that if they were instead talking about like Muslims or

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Speaker 1: like trans people or like black people, they would like

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Speaker 1: easily identify as like, Oh, this is very clearly a

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Speaker 1: form of like xenophobia. This is very clearly like based

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Speaker 1: on some kind of like conspiratorial discrimination.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few reasons for this,

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Speaker 3: and we talk about this in the book. I Mean

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Speaker 3: one of them is that the way the anti Semitism

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Speaker 3: has operated is generally a narrative about punching up against power,

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Speaker 3: versus a lot of narratives of oppression, which are basically

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Speaker 3: about how various groups are subhuman or lesser than dominant population.

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Speaker 3: That's slightly different with Jews, though that has been a

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Speaker 3: component of some pieces of it historically. Is basically a

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Speaker 3: narrative that people who feel disempowered then use to sort

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Speaker 3: of like reclaim a sort of kind of populous energy,

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Speaker 3: and a lot of ways it ends up being a

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Speaker 3: place where folks are directed by people in power to

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Speaker 3: put their class aang or away from the actual ruling class.

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Speaker 3: So I think in a way, when people see anti Semitism,

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Speaker 3: they also recognize that there's legitimate class anchor legitimate like disenfranchisement,

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Speaker 3: and I think that's actually troubling to sort of people

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Speaker 3: don't want to undermine that feeling always necessarily. I think

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Speaker 3: there's also just the complexity of Jewish identity that's shifted

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Speaker 3: over time, different populations, different communities, different politics, sometimes religious,

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Speaker 3: sometimes more cultural, sometimes more ethnic. That can make it confusing.

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Speaker 3: So it's hard to use one model for understanding impression

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Speaker 3: than projected onto this and so in a lot of ways,

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Speaker 3: you kind of have to come at this question distinctly

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Speaker 3: from kind of other forms of oppression. That's actually true

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Speaker 3: of most forms of opression. They have a lot of distinctiveness,

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Speaker 3: but I think you have to kind of learn about

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Speaker 3: those contours. And again, I think part of it is

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Speaker 3: also that this hasn't been a big part of the

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Speaker 3: left conversation in the last twenty or thirty years. It

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Speaker 3: is to be more frequent that this would be like

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Speaker 3: you know, maybe trainings and left spaces where people would

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Speaker 3: talk about that. It just simply hasn't been the case

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Speaker 3: that much recently, and so I think there's actually a

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Speaker 3: big lack of just understanding of how to notice those

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Speaker 3: things and talk about them. And then I think weaponization

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Speaker 3: has become such it's not just such an overwhelming part

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Speaker 3: of it. It's actually the dominating conversation on anti semitism,

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Speaker 3: particularly in the US. So when you hear about anti semitism,

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Speaker 3: it's overwhelmingly going to be directed by the center or

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Speaker 3: the right, or for institutions directed at Palestine solidarity movements.

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Speaker 3: And again, people get heartened skin to that that they

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Speaker 3: don't want to give an inch on those sorts of things,

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Speaker 3: and I totally understand why, and so I think that

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Speaker 3: also has created that boundary of where examination would normally

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Speaker 3: take place.

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Speaker 1: It is interesting looking at like how much the right

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Speaker 1: wing has been able to weaponize claims of anti semitism

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Speaker 1: against the left. I think the term that you use

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Speaker 1: in the book is selective outrage on anti semitism, because

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Speaker 1: I mean, I was just at the RNC and you're

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Speaker 1: hearing Marjorie Taylor Green talk about how there's like antisemitic

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Speaker 1: protests happening around the country, and you're like, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: you're the Jewish space laser person, what are you talking about?

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Speaker 1: And I think it was Dysantis who just called all

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Speaker 1: university protesters hamas, right, not saying that they're like amas,

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Speaker 1: but just literally saying like these people are like are Hamas,

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Speaker 1: Like hamas took over university protests. And meanwhile, you would

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Speaker 1: be hard pressed to find anybody on this camp talking about,

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Speaker 1: you know, this strong degree, especially considering DeSantis, the strong

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Speaker 1: degree of anti Semitic people either involved in their own

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Speaker 1: campaigns or like their actual supporters. It was just a

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Speaker 1: year ago where DeSantis's campaign staff released a video of

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Speaker 1: him with the sonnet rat it's like Kamad buddy. So

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Speaker 1: it is interesting how how they've been able to try

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Speaker 1: to weaponize those claims while completely ignoring like the structural

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Speaker 1: anti semitism like baked into this new wave of nationalist

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Speaker 1: politics that we're seeing in the United States.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, no, it's totally. The example of Marjorie Taylor Green

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Speaker 5: is so striking. I mean, she, I believe, in the

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Speaker 5: same day once she called the protesters on a college

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Speaker 5: campus of anti Semitic and then she said that they

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Speaker 5: were funded by George Soros, right, and she's using them

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Speaker 5: both through the same purpose. And it's not only the Santists,

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Speaker 5: and they're right, I mean in Jonathan green Black, that

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Speaker 5: head of the d L, I remember, like a few

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Speaker 5: months ago, said that students of college campuses were Iranian proxies.

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Speaker 5: And when you use that language, you're basically authorizing military

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Speaker 5: counterinsurgency against protesters. It's just it really puts Jews in danger,

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Speaker 5: you know, not to mention Palestinians, the Muslims, you know,

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Speaker 5: basically all groups, right, because sure there's occasionally a stray

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Speaker 5: anti Semitic comment that shows up at protests, because anti

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Speaker 5: Semitism is part of our world. There's anti blackness injustice movements,

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Speaker 5: antiolgo guts pistory, and anti Semitism. I'm sure, but that's

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Speaker 5: no comparison to when you have like Elon Musk, the

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Speaker 5: richest person in the world, one of the most powerful

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Speaker 5: people in the world, saying that Jews are engaged in

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Speaker 5: patrid against whites. Right, there's no comparisons in terms of

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Speaker 5: power and threat level. So it's really making Jews less safe.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and we also talk about the fact that because

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Speaker 3: antisemitic conspiracy theories are such a foundational part of the

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Speaker 3: right's form of populism, it's sort of how they explain

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Speaker 3: of class, anger and energy from the base that there's

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Speaker 3: really no way to detach it, and so it ends

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Speaker 3: up being this foundational piece that even when they talk

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Speaker 3: about Israel consistently, the way that they've built a connection

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Speaker 3: with their base is by trumping up towards Soros or

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Speaker 3: Rothschild's conspiracy theories or basically presenting kind of us in

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Speaker 3: them populous narrative around theories about globalists and things like that.

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Speaker 3: So there's really no comparison that we're talking about anti

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Speaker 3: simpatism when it shows up on the left versus the

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Speaker 3: really deeply inlaid way that it exists on the right.

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Speaker 3: And like Ben was saying, right now, we have a

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Speaker 3: situation where the right is overwhelmingly united in support of

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Speaker 3: Israel and using that as their evidence of support for

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Speaker 3: Jews and then pushing sure great replacement theory claims which

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Speaker 3: are inherently anti Semitic on the one hand, or really

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Speaker 3: kind of mobilizing use in their rhetoric for their own

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Speaker 3: kind of geopolitical aims, which again is not based out

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Speaker 3: of like a deeply held love for Jews. It's either

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Speaker 3: built on sort of a Christian Zionist eschatology or just

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Speaker 3: simply an opportunistic use of this minority group to sort

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Speaker 3: of push their other political values, which itself is kind

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Speaker 3: of a deeply held antisemitic way of treating the Jewish community.

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Speaker 3: And so when we're looking at this, we can't let

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Speaker 3: the rhetoric that's become to dominate actually stand for how

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Speaker 3: we understand anti Semitism because it's been so politically motivated.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, as a researcher has it has been

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Speaker 1: quite frustrating because I've used to you know, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of people used to be able to rely on

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Speaker 1: some degree on like data aggorates like the ADL and

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Speaker 1: putting together like lists of incidents like maps. And as

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Speaker 1: I was putting together my piece looking at this opparticularity

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Speaker 1: semitism a few months ago, I was, you know, looking

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Speaker 1: through this ADL map and the amount of like equivocation

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Speaker 1: between just a standard pro Palestine protest protests that I

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Speaker 1: was present at, and I was like, this was a

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Speaker 1: Jewish led protest and having that be equivocated with acts

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Speaker 1: of like actual like neo Nazi terrorism as well as

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Speaker 1: acts of like genuine antisemitism from people on the left.

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Speaker 1: Basically it's resulting in like data poisoning, which makes it

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Speaker 1: really hard to actually unpack some of these like larger

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Speaker 1: issues that are that are facing both like Jewish people,

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Speaker 1: people who are very concerned about Palestine and people who

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Speaker 1: take like the threat of like you know, you know,

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Speaker 1: far right nationalism quite seriously.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I went through all of the ADLs twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: three anti semitism data with like this project with Jewish currents,

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Speaker 3: and the reality is is that the standard they use

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Speaker 3: on sort of like left oriented Palestine protests is to

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Speaker 3: have almost any measure of support for Palestinians or any

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Speaker 3: kind of global call for justice in Palestine that is

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Speaker 3: to facto anti semitism, and like you said, it then

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Speaker 3: overwhelms the data sort of sort of shuts out other things.

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Speaker 3: And the way that they even set up the reporting

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Speaker 3: system just privileges those kind of protests, so people it teaches,

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Speaker 3: for example, they'll partner with the organizations and show people

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Speaker 3: how to report, and so they'll end up mass reporting

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Speaker 3: these protest events and then under reporting white nationalist incidents

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Speaker 3: or like violent incidents. So what you end up seeing

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Speaker 3: in their data is that they've actually undercoded white nationalist

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Speaker 3: events because of the way that they kind of set

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Speaker 3: up the data, and they don't really track things like

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Speaker 3: housing discrimination, workplace discrimination, and ex Jews, those kind of

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Speaker 3: things really don't fit into their models. So what you

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Speaker 3: end up with is this kind of map that just

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Speaker 3: privileges people saying from the River to the Sea is

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Speaker 3: like this inherently anti Semitic meme, and then undercounts like

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Speaker 3: what often Jews will report as what makes them feeling unsafe,

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Speaker 3: comments of work, or actual pressures when buying homes. Things

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Speaker 3: like that like that doesn't really show up. You've experiences

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Speaker 3: of Jews in prison, those don't show up, So you

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Speaker 3: end up with this really skewed image on what it is,

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Speaker 3: where you assume that the left is overwhelming the responsible party,

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Speaker 3: and then it actually invisible a pretty growing force on

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Speaker 3: the right and even institutionally just like in structures of

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Speaker 3: kind of like American culture. So it's really hard then

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Speaker 3: to say, like, well, how do I know what's actually

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Speaker 3: happening here? The ADL's the largest organization. Every organization then

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Speaker 3: uses their data where am I going? It leads you

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Speaker 3: in a really big kind of a gap in how

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Speaker 3: to understand this happening. So we can look at pretty

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Speaker 3: clear evidence that there's a rise in anti Semitism by

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Speaker 3: looking at things like street attacks or by looking at

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Speaker 3: the rhetoric on the right, but it's hard to get

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Speaker 3: like a clear picture of it because every organization is

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Speaker 3: that's oriented looking at the left.

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Speaker 5: Like I was just going to say, like this goes

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Speaker 5: way back to the ADL. Like you know, in our book,

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Speaker 5: we talk about how even in the nineteen seventies and

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Speaker 5: the eighties, the eight I was like spying on left

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Speaker 5: wing activists as part of their pivot towards seeing the

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Speaker 5: most important side of anti Semitism on what they call

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Speaker 5: the radical left right. In the nineteen seventies, as global

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Speaker 5: criticism of Israel's occupation mounted after the nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 5: you know, Six Day Wars, the ABL like really pivoted

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Speaker 5: further from whatever original mission they may have had about

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Speaker 5: like genuinely countering bigotry to really becoming like Israel defense organizations.

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Speaker 5: And so in the seventies and eighties, like you saw

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Speaker 5: them spying on anti apartheid activists, You saw them attacking

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Speaker 5: Arab American you know, professors at universities. You saw them

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Speaker 5: spying on ACTA, even left in Jewish groups like New

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Speaker 5: Jewish Agenda, you know. And so it's not only Jonathan Greenblatt.

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Speaker 5: It's not only since October seventh. The BBL has been

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Speaker 5: playing this role for a long time, along with a

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Speaker 5: whole lot of Christian Zionists and both sides of the

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Speaker 5: US political establishment. And yeah, the career saying like the

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Speaker 5: stakes are extremely high. The right and the center are

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Speaker 5: trying to legislate their definition of anti semitism, to destroy

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Speaker 5: free speech and to protect Israel's genocide.

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Speaker 4: So the stakes are very high about this right now.

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Speaker 1: I think one of the most troubling notions about you

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Speaker 1: know how those groups like the ADL and others that

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Speaker 1: are kind of like, like you said, like lobbying for

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Speaker 1: legislation and trying to encourage like extreme crackdowns on human

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Speaker 1: rights protests and and anti genoside protests, is that this

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Speaker 1: is also like materially harms a whole bunch of Jewish

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Speaker 1: people who are involved in these protests and in organizing.

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Speaker 1: You're you're trying to get the FBI to investigate Jewish

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Speaker 1: people who are protesting against the genocide. And we saw

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Speaker 1: this with the with the campus university protests. You saw this,

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Speaker 1: you know, especially at Columbia of like a lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot of these kids are Jewish people who are

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Speaker 1: heavily involved in these protests and in calls to do

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Speaker 1: a very extreme crackdown and investigations. It's hard to see

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Speaker 1: how that's not just like calling for for our government

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Speaker 1: to like further further oppressed these Jewish people who don't

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Speaker 1: like agree with one side's opinion on something.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you see it.

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Speaker 5: You know, in the most kind of ironic twist of

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Speaker 5: history in Germany, where you know, the state was once

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Speaker 5: in Nazi state, is enforcing some of the most brutal

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Speaker 5: crackdowns on the Palestine solidarity speech, and Jews are disproportionately

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Speaker 5: represented among the crackdown there. And so you have you know,

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Speaker 5: German police pulling people with pipos and arresting them, you know,

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Speaker 5: shutting down events with Jewish speakers, right so it's really

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Speaker 5: like literally policing Jewish thought, right like. We know, there's

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Speaker 5: over a century of Jewish opposition to Zionism and Jewish

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Speaker 5: solidarity with Palestinians, and from the very beginnings of the

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Speaker 5: Zionist movement, which was originally a Christian movement in Christian

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Speaker 5: Europe by the way, you know, and we've always had

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Speaker 5: long traditions of Jews who have resisted it. And so

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Speaker 5: when the state is legislating saying only like a certain

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Speaker 5: expression of Jewish identity is valid, that's also anti Semitism,

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Speaker 5: right like.

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Speaker 4: And we see it, you know, not only from Trump, right.

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Speaker 5: Trump will always say, oh, Jews who are democrats, Jews

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Speaker 5: who are quote unqute disloyal to Israel are problematic. You

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Speaker 5: also see it from Biden who says, you know, without Israel,

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Speaker 5: there's not a Jew in the world who's saved right.

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Speaker 5: So I think, you know, Jews who descend on Israel

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Speaker 5: are rapidly becoming enemies in a way of the right,

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Speaker 5: you know, and of forces align with it, right, And

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Speaker 5: I think that's an aspect of of anti Semitism that's

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Speaker 5: not talked about enough today.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's a lot of examples of this too.

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Speaker 3: During the Labor Party controversy around Corbin and anti Semitism,

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Speaker 3: it was Jewish members who are overwhelmingly expelled from the party.

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Speaker 3: I think it's almost like a dozen times more likely

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Speaker 3: to face kind of consequences there, right, So, like those

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Speaker 3: ended up being the centerpiece of it. But I think

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Speaker 3: even when you when you broaden out, this ends up

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Speaker 3: being the case. And we kind of talk about this

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Speaker 3: as like a good Jew bad Jew distinction, where like

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Speaker 3: anti Semitism ends up being mobilized against whatever kind of

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Speaker 3: the culture decides is a bad Jew or whatever the

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Speaker 3: organization decides it's the bad version of a Jew, the

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Speaker 3: kind of Jew that they don't want to actually deal with.

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Speaker 3: And this happens in this pro Israel consensus whereby Laku Nyahu,

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Speaker 3: basically the far right coalition running Israel right now builds

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Speaker 3: alliances that they need around the world, with far right

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Speaker 3: parties in Hungary, in South Asia, Indian with the Hindian

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Speaker 3: Nationalism with other places, and then those movements are pretty

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Speaker 3: explicitly anti Semitic, therefore making Jews in various countries around

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Speaker 3: the diaspora less and less safe right and so this

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Speaker 3: sort of model of making Israel the bottom line on

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Speaker 3: defending against anti Semitism is one that strengthened the right,

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Speaker 3: helped to build up Christian nationalism domestically, and then that

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Speaker 3: creates this kind of general culture of unsafety for Jews

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Speaker 3: where the only Jewish voices that are then held up

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Speaker 3: are the ones that justify Christian nationalism on the one hand,

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Speaker 3: like you'll see at the National Conservatism Conference, or ones

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Speaker 3: who are so aggressively pro Israel that they're totally willing

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Speaker 3: to partner with Christian science groups or the far right

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Speaker 3: wing of the Republican Party or National conservative parties in Europe.

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Speaker 3: And so this ends up as a situation where like

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Speaker 3: increasing number of Jews, particularly in the US, or Jews

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Speaker 3: around the left, which again is still disproportionally Jewish, feel

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Speaker 3: increasingly targeted by the political consensus, and at the same

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Speaker 3: time this pro Israel rhetoric ends up being with the

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Speaker 3: fact of measure by which anyone's kind of set to.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I did.

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Speaker 1: Like there was this part in the book where you

427
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Speaker 1: were talking about the good Jew bad Jew binary, specifically

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Speaker 1: on the left, where there's like a minority of Jews

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Speaker 1: who identify as anti or non Zionist who are very

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Speaker 1: like celebrated, sometimes maybe even in like a tokenizing kind

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Speaker 1: of way, while the rest of jewsh people who do

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Speaker 1: not identify as such are belittled as unworthy or like untrustworthy,

433
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,480
Speaker 1: where their opinions are dismissed or seen as morally compromised

434
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 1: on like an inherent level. And this can also be

435
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:45,680
Speaker 1: coupled with this assumption that like every Jew is a

436
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:48,800
Speaker 1: secret Zionist until proven otherwise, and you have to like

437
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,840
Speaker 1: get every new Jewish person you meet to like prove

438
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,440
Speaker 1: to you that they're not secretly a Zionist, which is,

439
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: you know, very antisemitic. And we also do have this

440
00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: good Jew bad Jew binary mirrored in like an inverted

441
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:04,440
Speaker 1: form on the right, with Zionist Jews, you know, being

442
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:07,920
Speaker 1: seen as the good ones, and anti Zionist Jews have

443
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 1: their like jewishness questioned or are seen as like untrustworthy

444
00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:14,880
Speaker 1: or inherently evil, and I do believe it is worth

445
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 1: discussing kind of the flip side of this, And I

446
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 1: think of avoiding talking about actual anti semitism on the left,

447
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: I think only serves to harm all of us, and

448
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:28,360
Speaker 1: I because it is something that I think is happening

449
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 1: and I think should be talked about, even if it

450
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:33,119
Speaker 1: makes people like uncomfortable. And I think it's a it

451
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 1: is a mistake to assume that just because you're on

452
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 1: the left, that you're like somehow immune to antisemitic thinking,

453
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:42,440
Speaker 1: whether purposeful or not. Like like both of you mentioned, like,

454
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: we live in a society that has a great degree

455
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,480
Speaker 1: of structural anti semitism, and a lot of these people,

456
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 1: I think, who might be attending some of these protests

457
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:53,800
Speaker 1: or might just be posting online who knows, might not

458
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:56,959
Speaker 1: even be intentionally spreading antisemitism, right, but in action, that's

459
00:23:57,040 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: kind of what they're invoking through like ideas of like

460
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: you know, the Zionist cabal that secretly controls all of

461
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:05,040
Speaker 1: the media, all all of all of the government. You know,

462
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 1: those types of things we're starting to like invoke these

463
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 1: like larger secretive organizations that are that are pre planning

464
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and like just to some degree from

465
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: a lot of the discourse that you see, I feel

466
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:20,119
Speaker 1: like some people think they can just like control f

467
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:24,440
Speaker 1: Jews to Zionists, and like, if you're able to control

468
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 1: f Jews to Zionists and the sentence still works, that

469
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: means that you're doing it wrong. That means that you're

470
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:33,880
Speaker 1: you're probably approaching this from a problematic standpoint. And there's

471
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of aspects about the sort of thing

472
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:37,760
Speaker 1: that you do talk about in the book, like you know,

473
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: including identifying Judaism with Zionism and how that also only

474
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 1: hurts all of us, including this like weird uptick in

475
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 1: like Jewish race science that you're starting to see more

476
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,120
Speaker 1: and more of claiming that like all modern Jewish people

477
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:57,119
Speaker 1: only come from Europe. And it's like there's just a

478
00:24:57,160 --> 00:24:59,119
Speaker 1: whole bunch of this kind of stuff that we're all

479
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 1: kind of pushing to this. But I do believe it

480
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 1: is like worth talking about in some degree because this

481
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: is going to not only harm people who are calling

482
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 1: for an end to the genocide in Gaza, I think

483
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 1: it does like strengthen this notion that a lot of

484
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 1: the Zionist project is built on, which is saying that

485
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: we need Israel as a way to secure.

486
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 2: Safety for Jewish people around the world.

487
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think we talk about this, you know, we

488
00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 3: have a couple of chapters that talk kind of explicitly

489
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 3: about this at different points in history. But I think

490
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 3: there's a tendency and I kind of get where this

491
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 3: comes from, to basically see any ally or any kind

492
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 3: of voice in support of a movement as like a partner,

493
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 3: particularly when you're trying to build like mass support against

494
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 3: something that basically has kind of mass opposition on the

495
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 3: other side, like liberating Palestine. But what you see oftentimes

496
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:49,160
Speaker 3: when you see a mohoment grow really dramatically, really quickly,

497
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 3: is that there's just not a kind of like common

498
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 3: baseline understanding always of that, and conspiracy theories are a

499
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 3: great way to fill the gap on them. Yeah, and

500
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 3: that's true of really any movement. It's just that, in particular,

501
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:02,879
Speaker 3: in this case, we have this long history of antisemitic

502
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 3: conspiracy theories about Jewish power in particular, and then we're

503
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,240
Speaker 3: talking about sort of like powerful political actors on the

504
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 3: other and so making clear distinctions is just not there

505
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 3: necessarily so you know, we talked with lots of folks

506
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 3: that have been sort of litmus tested when entering kind

507
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:20,680
Speaker 3: of less spaces about zientism. I talked to folks where

508
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 3: other organizers asked to see their passport before they're allowed

509
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 3: to come to Meetia's crazy, It's it's wild, and you

510
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:29,240
Speaker 3: think in most of the cases people we kind of

511
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 3: identify that as being kind of wild. We make a

512
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 3: lot of distinctions. We talk about, like the sort of

513
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 3: difference between talking about a Israel lobby organization like APEC

514
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 3: and its power or kind of a vague diffuse Israel

515
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,719
Speaker 3: lobby that you know, control controls Western politics, that kind

516
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 3: of thing.

517
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 2: Like a like a this is predeceas Israel lobby.

518
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, and instead talking about like why would we

519
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 3: understand Israel is part of kind of a Western imperial

520
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 3: project rather than the flip side, this kind of small

521
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:59,399
Speaker 3: country controlling Western foreign policy that kind of thing, and

522
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 3: make a lot of those clear distinctions. And again, I

523
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 3: think it's been sort of suggested like these ideas, anti

524
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 3: semetic ideas are a part of the culture. And you know,

525
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 3: I've been around the left long enough to see like

526
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 3: virulent transphobic ideas show up to see, like queer phobic

527
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 3: ideas in general be very very present. There's no reason

528
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,400
Speaker 3: to believe that anti Semitism wouldn't show up here either,

529
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 3: where folks are sort of like consumed by anger. What

530
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 3: people are looking for clear answers, what people are trying

531
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 3: to identify that? And I think the easy answer is

532
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 3: often the paper over it. And I think what we

533
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 3: talk about here is that that exactly is what sort

534
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 3: of pro Israel voices want in this case is to

535
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 3: know that the left isn't good to deal with it.

536
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 3: And so the alternative to that is to both like

537
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 3: create like a sense of like how would we confront

538
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 3: antisemitic institutions and where structural anti semitism comes from, and

539
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 3: then also how do we deal with that internally? And

540
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 3: we talk with a bunch of social movements that have

541
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 3: done that. Right. Anti fascists are actually pretty used to

542
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 3: talking about anti semitism when it shows up on the left,

543
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 3: that's pretty common. Jewish Left has talked about this historically,

544
00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 3: there's other voices, so bringing that back and sort of

545
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 3: making a safe place to confront and then then figure

546
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 3: out then where is it, like you know, just a

547
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 3: bad idea that you deal with, and you talk about

548
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 3: you have like education, and where do you draw lines

549
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 3: where like you know, this is now not a person

550
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 3: that's not allowed in or these are voices that we

551
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 3: can't partner with that kind of thing. I think that's

552
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 3: something people work out on the ground.

553
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 1: No, And you make a really good comparison in the

554
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: book about how like anti smdic conspiracy theories inhibit a

555
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: actual understanding of like the mechanisms of capital right, like

556
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 1: it makes you unable to actually like analyze how capitalism operates.

557
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: And similarly, having like an antisemitic conspiratorial view of like Antizionism,

558
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: that also will mask the root cause of Palestinian oppression

559
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: by distracting from like the like the very like real

560
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: like geopolitical mechanisms that have caused this situation to take place,

561
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: and distracting from that with like these tales of like

562
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 1: you describe it as like innate Jewish wickedness or a

563
00:28:57,440 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: global Zionist power. And I think that's a really good

564
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: understand it because people often, like I think, have a

565
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 1: general idea that like, yeah, anti Semitism is like in

566
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: a lot of ways used as a way to not

567
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 1: fully confront like the mechanisms of capitalism and realizing how

568
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of it's kind of like a

569
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: similar situation with Palestine. Is a way for people to

570
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: understand that a little bit easier and to like reiterate

571
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: the point about how you know you're not immune to

572
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: anti Semitism just because you're on the left right. Something

573
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: else you also bring up in the book is like

574
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 1: Marxist Leninism has a very mixed history with their relationship

575
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: to anti Semitism, and I think you do see this

576
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: with with with the degree of the discourse on this issue.

577
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: You know, if you compare you know, anarchist viewpoints on

578
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: like statism and anti Zionism to a whole bunch of

579
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 1: Marxist Leninists talking about this issue, I do believe there

580
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: is you know, generally maybe more anti Semitic undertones among

581
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: some of the more like statist communists. And I think

582
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: you talk about like the Soviet Union's own oppression of

583
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: Jewish people and kind of the continued programs that happened

584
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: even after the end of World War Two.

585
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,719
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd say like in the history of the nineteenth

586
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 5: and the twentieth century, left I think the record of

587
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,719
Speaker 5: both camps has been fairly mixed. I mean, I think

588
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 5: it was anarchist like you know Bakunen who maybe like

589
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 5: the ins and yeah, totally and you know, like I

590
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 5: guess I have to also have to say, you know,

591
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 5: the the with the nineteen seventeen October Revolution, and that

592
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 5: was like probably one of the first times that it

593
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 5: left led society did pass you know, laws out long

594
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 5: anty sentaitism, and then like they did, you know, defeat

595
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 5: the Nazis, so that I have to give them some

596
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 5: credit where it's due.

597
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 4: But yes, there's also like a very mixed you know.

598
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 5: Record, especially in the thirties and in the forties and beyond,

599
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 5: and certainly yeah, today I would completely agree with you

600
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 5: that like the more statist camps on the left are

601
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 5: the most kind of aligned with conspiratorial.

602
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 4: Thinking with campus and yeah, I really like the way

603
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 4: that you.

604
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 5: Broke down just how these conspiracy theory can distract us

605
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 5: from the root causes of power. And that's really I

606
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 5: think where if you want to develop like a structural

607
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 5: understanding of anti Semitism and how it connects to capitalism

608
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 5: and all the other systems of oppression, that's where you

609
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 5: got to go, right, Seeing how especially if in times

610
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 5: of crisis and mass discontent like today, with the rise

611
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 5: of nationalism, with you know, widespread alienation, that's when anti

612
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 5: Semitism really rises and is mobilized by authoritarian and nationalists,

613
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 5: you know, leaders, When there's millions of people who are

614
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 5: are fed up that they don't have a job, they

615
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 5: don't have any savings, they know the media is lying

616
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 5: to them, they know that politicians don't represent them. That's

617
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 5: when these conspiracy theories, you know, really take root on

618
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 5: the right and on the left. And that's why you

619
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 5: have you know, Trump and Steve Bannon and the rest

620
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 5: of them, you know, saying, oh, go look at the globalists,

621
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 5: Go look at.

622
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 4: George Soros, you go look at cultural Marxists, right.

623
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 5: And I think the more that you know, the left

624
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 5: can advance our own and understanding of why the world

625
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 5: is so fucked up in how to make it better,

626
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 5: then we can really undercut the root causes of anti

627
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 5: Semitism and move more people into our coalitions.

628
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's really key. I think I have two.

629
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: Examples I like to kind of bring up as ways

630
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: to like springboard discussions and like how we can actually

631
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: like handle this going forward, whether that be you know,

632
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: if you hear someone say something at a protest that

633
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: makes you think it's a little questionable, or as ways

634
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: to like actually just like continue like your own like

635
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: active participation in calls for ceasefire and ending the genocide

636
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: in Palestine and whatever justice in Palestine might look like.

637
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: So a few months ago I was at the Emory

638
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: University campus occupation and maybe like a week in or so,

639
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: Enemy of the Pod Jackson showed up in person along

640
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: with Hawes and a few of those kind of like cronies. Right,

641
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: these are people who are like conservative communists, mega communists.

642
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: They're basically like Duganists or like third positionists, and they

643
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: basically become influencers that monetize the genocide and gaza for

644
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: their own like personal political profile. So this guy showed

645
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: up one night and no one really knew what exactly

646
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: to do, Like people knew who he was. There was

647
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: people talking with organizers, and like organizers tried to talk

648
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: with him and be like, hey, can you like not

649
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: be here and he's like, well, no, I want to

650
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: be here because blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

651
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: and you know, certain people would try to get into

652
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: like political arguments with him, which is I think is

653
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: completely useless. And it was. It was kind of a

654
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: weird situation. And then we learned that he was slated

655
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: to speak at an event the next day. Now it's

656
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 1: unclear if he was kind of hijacking this event or

657
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: if he was actually invited to speak, but regardless, he

658
00:33:57,440 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: was going to show up and make some kind of

659
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: speech at an event later that next day. So some

660
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: people put together this flyer kind of going through Hinkle's politics,

661
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 1: his history of anti semitism, rabid queer phobia, racism, all

662
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: these things that explain kind of who he actually is

663
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: as a person. And these flyers were distributed that morning,

664
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: like before he was slated to speak, around the venue.

665
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 1: As he went up on stage, a decent number of

666
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: people in the audience who had these flyers protested to

667
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 1: be like no, like you can't be here. He was

668
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:32,720
Speaker 1: escorted out of the building and then he was escorted

669
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 1: off of campus. I think this was a very effective

670
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: way of handling a situation like this. It didn't give

671
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 1: him like an opportunity for like extra clicks. You know,

672
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 1: it wasn't a super volatile way to handle this was

673
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:48,360
Speaker 1: it was very simple. It was it was kind of elegant.

674
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: There was just no way for him to really like

675
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 1: weaponize this effectively. So we have something like that as

676
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: a way to like, you know, clamp down on people

677
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: who are either disingenuous or just actually antisemitic. We're trying

678
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: to like infiltrate or take over in some degree this

679
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 1: kind of general call to stop the genocide and gaza. Meanwhile,

680
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, there were protests in DC as

681
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: Netanyahu was speaking to Congress, and there was this video

682
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:18,439
Speaker 1: going around of people like graffitiing the fake liberty bell

683
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: with like just pro Palestine slogans and stuff, and like

684
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: everyone's freaking out about this.

685
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 2: Not everybody, you know, A.

686
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 1: Certain section of political people were freaking out about this.

687
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:28,359
Speaker 1: A whole bunch of other people were like, Okay, well

688
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: it's graffiti on a fake bell, who cares. But I

689
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: actually watched that whole video and after they look at

690
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 1: the liberty bell, it pans over to this other monument

691
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: nearby where in big red lettering is written Hamas is coming.

692
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 1: And I see this as a pretty bad way to

693
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: handle a situation like this, because from what I can

694
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 1: tell here, all that matters is just being like edgy

695
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: and freaking out libs, and it kind of destroys any

696
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 1: ability to cultivate forward momentum. It's like they're doing it

697
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 1: just so that Democrats will be pressured into condemning it

698
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 1: to reinforce like their own hopelessness performative spiral of doing

699
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 1: nothing but edgi graffiti's political praxis. And I see this

700
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 1: as kind of a general pattern of people trying to

701
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 1: establish themselves as like the most radical and using that

702
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: as a weapon against anyone else. And it's just like

703
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 1: a form of political posturing. It's hardly any different from

704
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,920
Speaker 1: posting a black square on Instagram. They don't want any

705
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 1: actual movement or any actual change. They want to be

706
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: the coolest, most correct people as the world ends. It's

707
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 1: kind of like a cowardly way out, because, as you

708
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 1: point out in the book, it's kind of hell to

709
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: actually have to deal with and work with people who

710
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 1: have some degree of like morally compromised politics, and that

711
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 1: actually requires like caring about the ends, But it's the

712
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 1: means that make you look cool. Things like this are

713
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 1: kind of bound to happen at any kind of protest

714
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 1: that has more than like, you know, fifty people, right,

715
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: there's going to be someone who does something that the

716
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: main protest is not aligned with. And on that note,

717
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: like what advice do would you have to people who

718
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: are attending these protests and you see someone who maybe

719
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: does something that's a little bit questionable, whether that be

720
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: you know, like harassing just a random like visibly Jewish person,

721
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: or you know, writing graffiti on a synagogue. Right, these

722
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 1: types of things that are like really not helpful and

723
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 1: actually kind of do display a degree of maybe like

724
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: like like coded anti Semitic motivation.

725
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think that's prepaid of Habas on the statue.

726
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 3: I think it's an interesting example because that was just

727
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:31,240
Speaker 3: brandished all over right wing media. You know, Tablet Magazine

728
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 3: did an article about how these folks should be deported

729
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 3: all their Instagram. It was like a trending thing on

730
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 3: Instagram and it did very little like protests wise. Right,

731
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 3: And actually at that same demonstration, there's a number of rabbis,

732
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 3: particularly kind of like movement elder rabbis, Lindahltzman other folks

733
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 3: that were arrested by cops, yeah, pretty brutally and then

734
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 3: detained right, So there actually was Plice attacking like a

735
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 3: Jewish contingent of like religious figures totally. I think also

736
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,280
Speaker 3: there's been a number of examples, I think where folks

737
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 3: really just aren't prepared for something, and I think this

738
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 3: is actually sort of a long conversation people should have

739
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:05,800
Speaker 3: on the left. I remember years ago I was with

740
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 3: a group that created sort of like an accountability document,

741
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 3: and the idea was is that if something happens in

742
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 3: an organization, it often just destroys the organization, if there's

743
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 3: interpersonal issues, if there's like interpersonal trauma or assault, things

744
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:20,800
Speaker 3: like that, and so getting out in front of it,

745
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 3: just like having a sense of like how you want

746
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 3: to deal with things, and like having had consensus amongst

747
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 3: folks with like this is like appropriate behavior, this is

748
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:28,880
Speaker 3: how we want to handle stuff. That's always a strong

749
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 3: thing to do. But at I think it was a

750
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 3: George Washington University campus at the end of April. Patrick Casey,

751
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 3: who's formerly of Identity Europa and the American Identity Movement,

752
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 3: showed up at the encampment and wanted to talk to people,

753
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 3: wanted to ask them questions and that kind of thing,

754
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 3: and people were totally obliged him. They were in photos

755
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:48,399
Speaker 3: with them, let him take video. It's because they didn't

756
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 3: know who he was.

757
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 2: Ye, right, In.

758
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:52,960
Speaker 3: Reality, he didn't actually find anyone that was going to

759
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 3: basically support his vision. He stopped people ask you know,

760
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 3: will you allow right wing anti Zionists here? They basically

761
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 3: said no. He did find one person with a hat

762
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 3: that said Israel did nine to eleven, who then told

763
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:06,399
Speaker 3: him that the Jews rejected Christ. But he was also

764
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 3: kind of on the edges of the encampment. Sure, the

765
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:11,799
Speaker 3: reality is what happened was a white nationalist came into

766
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 3: an encampment and took photos of Jews and posted them

767
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 3: on a white nationalist website. That's what happened, you know,

768
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 3: So there actually was anti semitism. It affected the Jews

769
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 3: of the encampment, but no one know who it was.

770
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 3: And I think the flip side of that is having

771
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 3: partners with groups that actually do know who Petrick Casey

772
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 3: is and being able to say, oh, that guy is

773
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:29,800
Speaker 3: not here, it's not legitimate. I think with someone like

774
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 3: Hinkle Maga communists, that's really confusing to people group. I mean,

775
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 3: that's why he does it like it's a dugonous and

776
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 3: kind of gray zone types and this kind of version

777
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 3: of authoritarian kind of like right leading, right coded so

778
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,320
Speaker 3: called communists. It's there literally to confuse people and to

779
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 3: bridge the gaps between the right and the left, and

780
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 3: so again pulling that base of people, talking to them,

781
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 3: having like internal trainings about how this stuff works and

782
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 3: like what these groups are. I think that's always going

783
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 3: to be a good thing. We talked with one organizer

784
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 3: who had an organization that had put together a training

785
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 3: for other groups on anti semitism and invited all these

786
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 3: groups to come and you know, wanted to get feedback

787
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 3: on the training. So they did the training and everyone

788
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 3: kind of like thanked them and then went on to

789
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 3: ask them questions, and the questions were exceedingly anti semitic.

790
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 3: It was things like, well, how do you talk about

791
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 3: the New York housing market when clearly Jews go oh no.

792
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 3: And these were major, major organizations and so basically they

793
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 3: had like a choice like are we going to deal

794
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 3: with this here? Are we going to cut these relationships?

795
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 3: And they basically were like, Okay, let's talk about this,

796
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 3: let's deal with it. Yeah, yeah, and then moved. The

797
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 3: organization is huge, Like they were like we don't want

798
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 3: to make these kind of decisions. We want to realize

799
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 3: where we've made mistakes. That's not true if everyone do

800
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 3: not be polyanna about it and assume it's always going

801
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:42,280
Speaker 3: to go over well. But I think we actually actually

802
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 3: attempt to make those changes. And the reason is is

803
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 3: that the left and building kind of left social movements

804
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 3: build on solidarity and equality. That's the only option we

805
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 3: have to do something about anti Semitism. The right has

806
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:58,240
Speaker 3: never made Jews safer. We have right now a system

807
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 3: where Israeli nationalism is supposed to the primary vessel for

808
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:02,800
Speaker 3: Jewish safety. I don't know about you, but when I

809
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 3: look at Israel, I don't think to myself what a

810
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:07,239
Speaker 3: tremendously aboves of safe Jews Like this, we have a

811
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 3: situation that I don't think the political solutions actually offer

812
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 3: Jewish safety and instead just create like more and more

813
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 3: social division and more and more social hierarchy. So we

814
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 3: have to kind of look at the left and how

815
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 3: to build a left that can confront anti Semitism, and

816
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:22,479
Speaker 3: that is really the only option we're being given.

817
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like avoiding this whole issue out of

818
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:29,279
Speaker 1: fears that like it, like it, like somehow like takes

819
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 1: away from other bad things that are happening in the world,

820
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 1: like it like somehow it takes away from the genocide

821
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 1: in Gaza. I think is so misplaced thinking, because I

822
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 1: view this as all part of the same struggle, and actual,

823
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: like active efforts to combat any any degree of anti

824
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 1: Semitism that is witnessed, I think will serve to only

825
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: like strengthen a general like overall united call to stop

826
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 1: what's going on. And I think like people have this

827
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 1: like inclination that maybe we shouldn't about it. Maybe she

828
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: was like could try to ignore it because it's uncomfortable

829
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: or it might like hurt the cause, And I think

830
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 1: that's just absolutely reversed. And I think, like you said,

831
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:12,839
Speaker 1: like making inroads with like anti fascist researchers to help

832
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:16,359
Speaker 1: like identify, you know, when these things are happening, who

833
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: bad actors might be, you know, people that might try

834
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: to trojan horse certain issues to kind of alter a

835
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: popular movement is all great ways to start. Ben, Did

836
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 1: you have any other other kind of thoughts on how

837
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: to handle this like unique political moment.

838
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:34,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I mean I've been around Palestine solidarity movements

839
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 5: for like, you know, over a decade. I remember, like

840
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 5: a decade ago, I was in a rally, and you know,

841
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 5: most of the signage there was like really inspiring and awesome,

842
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 5: but at one point I saw like a sign that

843
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 5: showed like kind of like a hook nose Israeli soldier

844
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:54,760
Speaker 5: who was like feasting on children's blood.

845
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 4: And it was like, okay, this is definitely like there's

846
00:42:59,160 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 4: an anti sententism.

847
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 5: And I actually like went up and like talked to

848
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 5: the person and they were like really nice, and you know,

849
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 5: I explained to them, like, you know, there's a thing

850
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 5: called a Blood Bible, which is an anti Semitic myth

851
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 5: that's harmed Jews for centuries that the Jews like feast

852
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 5: on Christian children's blood, and that like it seems like

853
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 5: that image of the Israeli soldier is like seems to

854
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 5: like have a big nose and that's kind of like

855
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 5: a hystereotype from Europe. And they were like, oh, I

856
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 5: didn't really like know these things. They took the sign

857
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 5: down and left feeling like it was a good conversation,

858
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:32,840
Speaker 5: and so like things like that. I think there's some

859
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 5: understandable fear like among Jewish people that you might see

860
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 5: signs like this at rallies, and when you do, I think,

861
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:42,799
Speaker 5: just like trying to have conversations, it doesn't always go well,

862
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 5: but often it does. And I just think, like you know,

863
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 5: for any marginalized group or form of oppression, the more

864
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 5: the people just deep in their understanding of like what

865
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 5: anti semitism is, how it shows up, what some of

866
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,919
Speaker 5: these these tropes are. Like, the more that it becomes normalized,

867
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:02,880
Speaker 5: the more that it will become second nature to people,

868
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 5: and people won't be as afraid to talk about it.

869
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 4: There won't be this kind of like weird silence around it,

870
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 4: and there's some decenditism in that silence.

871
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 5: To be clear, like for any any kind of oppression,

872
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 5: if you thought, oh, if people don't want to talk

873
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 5: about like anti black racism in the movement, that's that

874
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 5: itself is like is part of anti blackness, right, so

875
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 5: we should be clear. And I also think, like you're saying,

876
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 5: the fact that so often like agmuisations of anti semitism

877
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 5: are weaponized against our movements makes people not want to

878
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 5: talk about it, makes people think, oh, this is just

879
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 5: a right wing issue, or if we talk about it,

880
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 5: or we're just lending treadence to the right but I

881
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 5: think that's changing, especially with the growth of the Jewish

882
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 5: Left and with an understanding that anti Semitism is real

883
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 5: and needs to be tackled. And so I think, yeah,

884
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,359
Speaker 5: the more the things to keep changing, this conversation will

885
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 5: be a lot easier.

886
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, Is there any other thing that you would like

887
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: to mention kind of near the end of this piece,

888
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: you know, anything on like the Jewish Left, any other

889
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 1: kind of closing thoughts that didn't get brought up.

890
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 3: The only thing was I can say we spend a

891
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:04,920
Speaker 3: lot of time talking about the stake that non Jewish

892
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 3: folks have in this, and I think there's a couple

893
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 3: of things that are worth considering. Like we've sort of

894
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 3: talked about, you know, anti Semitism. One of the key

895
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 3: features of anti Semitism is that it's not true, Like

896
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 3: it's a bad actual analysis about power, state, empires, and

897
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 3: capitalism works. So if that is sort of steeping in,

898
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:23,359
Speaker 3: and this is true of conspiracy theories broadly, if that's

899
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 3: cp into politics, that's just a failure right there. And

900
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 3: so it's really incumbent on people to sort of try

901
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 3: and move past that and confront those things, because that's

902
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 3: the only way that like social movements can actually gain

903
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 3: kind of efficacy. And the other thing is that they're

904
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:38,359
Speaker 3: directly tied to other forms of oppression. If you look

905
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:40,759
Speaker 3: at like the all out assault on trans healthcare and

906
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:44,839
Speaker 3: transtitutions right now, it's overwhelming, using antisemitic conspiracy theories as

907
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 3: sort of the scaffold team to hold it together. Absolutely,

908
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 3: And this has been historically true about anti blackness in

909
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 3: the US and the other forms of oppression, and so

910
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 3: these things are intertwined. So I think it's important just

911
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 3: to acknowledge that, like anti Semitism is not like just

912
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 3: a Jewish problem or affecting Jewish people. It's really baked

913
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:02,840
Speaker 3: into these kind of interlocking system of oppressions. So we

914
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:06,439
Speaker 3: should see it as a way of confronting other things

915
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 3: as well. And to make that, can I give it

916
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 3: value or value to confront on its own terms?

917
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think this book came out really at

918
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 5: a moment when like these conversations are needed more than ever,

919
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:21,560
Speaker 5: and also at a moment when the Jewish left is

920
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 5: just growing by leaps and bounds. And I think to

921
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 5: end on a hopeful note, and that gives me a

922
00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 5: lot of hope along with the growth of the left,

923
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 5: you know, more broadly right surging to the streets in

924
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 5: support of Palestine. We're seeing like new generations and folks

925
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 5: across all generations and Jewish communities who are building new

926
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:45,759
Speaker 5: ritual modalities, new modes of Jewish identity, new politics, who

927
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 5: really questioning old ways of doing things, and really building

928
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 5: a Jewish future beyond nationalism and militarism, and connecting our

929
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 5: struggles with all other struggles as they've long been connected,

930
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 5: you know, like Jewish left has been around for a

931
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 5: long time.

932
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:04,839
Speaker 4: And so yeah, we're really living at a historic moment,

933
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,840
Speaker 4: both around this issue and around all of our movements

934
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:09,399
Speaker 4: in general. So that gives me a lot of both.

935
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 1: Thank you both so much for coming on to talk

936
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,399
Speaker 1: about these not very fun topics. I spent two hours

937
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 1: this morning reading through the book.

938
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 2: It was very good.

939
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 1: I strongly recommend people read it, especially considering everything that's

940
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,759
Speaker 1: happened like these past eight months. I think there's a

941
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: lot of very good insights in there. Where can people

942
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: find a copy of Safety through Solidarity?

943
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:31,800
Speaker 3: I think I think you can pick it up anywhere.

944
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 3: I appreciate the kind of words, I appreciate you having

945
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 3: us on to talk about it. We've been directing folks

946
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:40,120
Speaker 3: to sort of like movement bookstores and we've been partnering

947
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 3: with a bunch of them, you know, So I think

948
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:44,400
Speaker 3: like local read bookstores are always a great place. We

949
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 3: have to like actively sustain those places and be a

950
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:48,399
Speaker 3: part of them. So I think that's a great place

951
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:50,719
Speaker 3: to do it, and also kind of requesting them at

952
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 3: libraries sort of like pointing folks to both of those things.

953
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 3: So that's a great way to support the book.

954
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 2: Great.

955
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 5: I really appreciate you having us on Garrison has been

956
00:47:58,040 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 5: a great conversation and we appreciate all the work you do,

957
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 5: so we needed to be connected, all right, Thanks so much.

958
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.

959
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from the cool Zone Media, visit our

960
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 2: website coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the

961
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

962
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:18,800
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated

963
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,880
Speaker 1: monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.

964
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening,