Speaker 1: Also media, Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis,
Speaker 1: and today I'm joined with the authors Shane Burley and
Speaker 1: Ben Lorber, who have a new book out called A
Speaker 1: Safety Through Solidarity, A Radical Guide to Fighting Anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: Shane reached out to me to talk about both the
Speaker 1: book and a variety of issues revolving around this topic.
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming on, both of you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having us on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, thanks for having us So.
Speaker 1: A few months ago I put out an episode looking
Speaker 1: at a genuine uptick in anti Semitic incidents that have
Speaker 1: happened in the United States and Europe, and sometimes it
Speaker 1: feels kind of like a tricky thing to talk about.
Speaker 2: In some ways, it's.
Speaker 1: Like you're threading a very difficult needle. It's like you're
Speaker 1: caught between a rock and a hard place when discussing
Speaker 1: this topic, because if you point to an actual trend
Speaker 1: that you're seeing showing a genuine spike in anti Semitic incidents,
Speaker 1: there's like a subset of people who are very focused
Speaker 1: on the genocide in Gaza, very rightly so, but they
Speaker 1: might push back since claims of anti Semitism have been
Speaker 1: so conflated with any display of anti Zionist politics, or
Speaker 1: even worse, they might even question, why are you talking
Speaker 1: about this when there's this other horrible thing going on
Speaker 1: right the actual genocide in Gaza. Now, I think, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: if you avoid this as a lesser or a non issue,
Speaker 1: if if you don't talk about these things, I would
Speaker 1: argue that actually strengthens the Zionist political project of tying
Speaker 1: Jewish safety solely to the state of Israel. And in
Speaker 1: some ways, I think ignoring this entire issue legitimizes a
Speaker 1: degree of criticisms that are being leveled against these massive
Speaker 1: protests and calls for a ceasefire and justice in Palestine.
Speaker 1: So I guess, how long have you been putting together
Speaker 1: this book and how much did the war in Gaza
Speaker 1: this past year kind of change the scope of it
Speaker 1: as you were writing this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we started, I think Ben and I
Speaker 3: started talking about this and in the twenty nineteen beginning
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty, so it's a totally it was a
Speaker 3: totally different context when we started working on the book,
Speaker 3: and what we had been wanting was actually the sort
Speaker 3: of like drive a wedge into what you're talking about here.
Speaker 3: Which is like that there isn't really good discourse on
Speaker 3: what anti semitism actually is that takes it seriously, that
Speaker 3: doesn't just kind of deflect and project onto anti Zionism.
Speaker 3: Since Ben and I both come from like a history
Speaker 3: of organizing a Palestine solidarity movement, me with Students for
Speaker 3: Justice Palestine on campus, then the Jewish Voice for Peace,
Speaker 3: so we had seems to basically firsthand how accusations of
Speaker 3: anti Semitism basically leveled just constantly at Palastine solidarity protesters,
Speaker 3: and then also in research and covering the far right,
Speaker 3: seeing obviously the growth of anti Semitism in white nationalism
Speaker 3: both in the US and internationally, and that only increased
Speaker 3: increase over time. So we wanted to work on something
Speaker 3: that took that seriously and also sort of revive different
Speaker 3: traditions from the left that talk about anti semitism, whether
Speaker 3: it's anti fascism, are different kind of Marxist trends or
Speaker 3: the Jewish left kind of bring it to one place,
Speaker 3: talk to other folks who are also taking it seriously,
Speaker 3: and weave that together. All of that is different. And
Speaker 3: before October seventh, because we were turning in the draft
Speaker 3: or a book like a matter of days after October
Speaker 3: seventh happened.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, we went and talked.
Speaker 3: To the publisher. We're like, well, the whole world has changed.
Speaker 3: I mean, we have to we have to make changes
Speaker 3: about it. And so we've made some and basically, like
Speaker 3: I address some questions there, and I think you can
Speaker 3: kind of see the in the conclusion of like the
Speaker 3: very end of the book kind of where we cut
Speaker 3: it off in November December area and sort of have
Speaker 3: acknowledge that things are different here. But I think that
Speaker 3: there's also bigger questions that we're talking about now that
Speaker 3: like we're doing interviews and the writing articles and stuff
Speaker 3: afterwards about how that's changed. But a lot of this really,
Speaker 3: I think one thing that's important is that because we
Speaker 3: make very clear, like very incredibly clear, the anti Zionism
Speaker 3: not the same as anti Semitism in a way, that
Speaker 3: conversation is the same as before, because we're actually talking
Speaker 3: about where real anti Semitism lives. And if you look
Speaker 3: at the way that this course is now, particularly from
Speaker 3: groups like in the Defamation League, is it's basically built
Speaker 3: entirely around you know, attacking college protests, right, attacking these
Speaker 3: mass anti genocide demonstrations, right, And since that's so foundationally
Speaker 3: different than how we understand anti semitism, there's a way
Speaker 3: in which, like the conversation that has the book is
Speaker 3: sort of the same. And what do you think about this, Ben?
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I mean I agree that it really hasn't
Speaker 5: changed that much, even though it's just a lot bigger
Speaker 5: and more prominent. And the forces that are trying to
Speaker 5: attack the Movement for Justice and pasts that are stronger.
Speaker 5: They're trying to pass legislation taking away our free speech rights,
Speaker 5: they're trying to restrict academic freedom, they're trying to go
Speaker 5: after the irs status of justice organizations.
Speaker 4: So the stakes are really high.
Speaker 5: I think the intervention that we've always been wanting to
Speaker 5: make is to really put the conversation backward alongs like
Speaker 5: on the rise of the far right, on the rise
Speaker 5: of white Christian nationalism. Right, anti Semitism is part of
Speaker 5: the right wing worldview. It's just like the other systems
Speaker 5: of oppression like anti blackness, anti LGBTQ, biggest true Islamophobia,
Speaker 5: anti integrant xenophobia, anti Semitism.
Speaker 4: Is deeply connected.
Speaker 5: Right, These George Soros conspiracies are being used by authoritarian.
Speaker 4: Leaders like Donald Trump and JB.
Speaker 5: Vance and the rest of them to build up the
Speaker 5: MAGA base and to attack the foundations of our multi
Speaker 5: racial democracy. And we've seen it have deadly results for
Speaker 5: Jews and for other groups. You know, white nationalists, you know,
Speaker 5: mass shooters who are motivated by anti Semitic conspiracy theories,
Speaker 5: have attacked synagogues, have attacked Latin X communities, have a
Speaker 5: Black communities, and so yeah, anti Semitism is part of
Speaker 5: that machinery of oppression. And so our book tries to
Speaker 5: reframe the conversation and give Justice Organizer a way to
Speaker 5: take back the conversation away from the right.
Speaker 1: Would one of you be willing to give like a
Speaker 1: workable definition of anti Semitism because this is a word
Speaker 1: that's certainly been used a lot, but I think it's
Speaker 1: a word that signifies possibly a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: And I guess what is the definition of antisemitism that
Speaker 1: you are using in your book.
Speaker 5: Yes, Sott, we really see anti Semitism as a form
Speaker 5: of conspiracy theory thinking that developed out of Christianity in
Speaker 5: Christian Europe and that essentially sees Jews as the root
Speaker 5: cause of evil or the root cause of the world's
Speaker 5: problems kind of behind the scenes. It trades in images
Speaker 5: of a cabal lurking behind either government or the media
Speaker 5: or the economy. And these conspiracy theories are core to
Speaker 5: an authoritarian and nationalists worldview that mobilize, you know, millions
Speaker 5: really away from examining and confronting the root causes of
Speaker 5: oppression and convinces them to chase, you know, kind of
Speaker 5: illusory shadows instead.
Speaker 1: Why do we have like a harder time kind of
Speaker 1: pinning down this term? You know, I think people have
Speaker 1: a general idea and a pretty easy way to like see, like,
Speaker 1: you know, what's like islamophobic?
Speaker 2: Right, what's racist?
Speaker 1: There's a few points in your book that you talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, instances of people maybe unintentionally spreading anti Semitism
Speaker 1: that if they were instead talking about like Muslims or
Speaker 1: like trans people or like black people, they would like
Speaker 1: easily identify as like, Oh, this is very clearly a
Speaker 1: form of like xenophobia. This is very clearly like based
Speaker 1: on some kind of like conspiratorial discrimination.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few reasons for this,
Speaker 3: and we talk about this in the book. I Mean
Speaker 3: one of them is that the way the anti Semitism
Speaker 3: has operated is generally a narrative about punching up against power,
Speaker 3: versus a lot of narratives of oppression, which are basically
Speaker 3: about how various groups are subhuman or lesser than dominant population.
Speaker 3: That's slightly different with Jews, though that has been a
Speaker 3: component of some pieces of it historically. Is basically a
Speaker 3: narrative that people who feel disempowered then use to sort
Speaker 3: of like reclaim a sort of kind of populous energy,
Speaker 3: and a lot of ways it ends up being a
Speaker 3: place where folks are directed by people in power to
Speaker 3: put their class aang or away from the actual ruling class.
Speaker 3: So I think in a way, when people see anti Semitism,
Speaker 3: they also recognize that there's legitimate class anchor legitimate like disenfranchisement,
Speaker 3: and I think that's actually troubling to sort of people
Speaker 3: don't want to undermine that feeling always necessarily. I think
Speaker 3: there's also just the complexity of Jewish identity that's shifted
Speaker 3: over time, different populations, different communities, different politics, sometimes religious,
Speaker 3: sometimes more cultural, sometimes more ethnic. That can make it confusing.
Speaker 3: So it's hard to use one model for understanding impression
Speaker 3: than projected onto this and so in a lot of ways,
Speaker 3: you kind of have to come at this question distinctly
Speaker 3: from kind of other forms of oppression. That's actually true
Speaker 3: of most forms of opression. They have a lot of distinctiveness,
Speaker 3: but I think you have to kind of learn about
Speaker 3: those contours. And again, I think part of it is
Speaker 3: also that this hasn't been a big part of the
Speaker 3: left conversation in the last twenty or thirty years. It
Speaker 3: is to be more frequent that this would be like
Speaker 3: you know, maybe trainings and left spaces where people would
Speaker 3: talk about that. It just simply hasn't been the case
Speaker 3: that much recently, and so I think there's actually a
Speaker 3: big lack of just understanding of how to notice those
Speaker 3: things and talk about them. And then I think weaponization
Speaker 3: has become such it's not just such an overwhelming part
Speaker 3: of it. It's actually the dominating conversation on anti semitism,
Speaker 3: particularly in the US. So when you hear about anti semitism,
Speaker 3: it's overwhelmingly going to be directed by the center or
Speaker 3: the right, or for institutions directed at Palestine solidarity movements.
Speaker 3: And again, people get heartened skin to that that they
Speaker 3: don't want to give an inch on those sorts of things,
Speaker 3: and I totally understand why, and so I think that
Speaker 3: also has created that boundary of where examination would normally
Speaker 3: take place.
Speaker 1: It is interesting looking at like how much the right
Speaker 1: wing has been able to weaponize claims of anti semitism
Speaker 1: against the left. I think the term that you use
Speaker 1: in the book is selective outrage on anti semitism, because
Speaker 1: I mean, I was just at the RNC and you're
Speaker 1: hearing Marjorie Taylor Green talk about how there's like antisemitic
Speaker 1: protests happening around the country, and you're like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you're the Jewish space laser person, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: And I think it was Dysantis who just called all
Speaker 1: university protesters hamas, right, not saying that they're like amas,
Speaker 1: but just literally saying like these people are like are Hamas,
Speaker 1: Like hamas took over university protests. And meanwhile, you would
Speaker 1: be hard pressed to find anybody on this camp talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, this strong degree, especially considering DeSantis, the strong
Speaker 1: degree of anti Semitic people either involved in their own
Speaker 1: campaigns or like their actual supporters. It was just a
Speaker 1: year ago where DeSantis's campaign staff released a video of
Speaker 1: him with the sonnet rat it's like Kamad buddy. So
Speaker 1: it is interesting how how they've been able to try
Speaker 1: to weaponize those claims while completely ignoring like the structural
Speaker 1: anti semitism like baked into this new wave of nationalist
Speaker 1: politics that we're seeing in the United States.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, it's totally. The example of Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 5: is so striking. I mean, she, I believe, in the
Speaker 5: same day once she called the protesters on a college
Speaker 5: campus of anti Semitic and then she said that they
Speaker 5: were funded by George Soros, right, and she's using them
Speaker 5: both through the same purpose. And it's not only the Santists,
Speaker 5: and they're right, I mean in Jonathan green Black, that
Speaker 5: head of the d L, I remember, like a few
Speaker 5: months ago, said that students of college campuses were Iranian proxies.
Speaker 5: And when you use that language, you're basically authorizing military
Speaker 5: counterinsurgency against protesters. It's just it really puts Jews in danger,
Speaker 5: you know, not to mention Palestinians, the Muslims, you know,
Speaker 5: basically all groups, right, because sure there's occasionally a stray
Speaker 5: anti Semitic comment that shows up at protests, because anti
Speaker 5: Semitism is part of our world. There's anti blackness injustice movements,
Speaker 5: antiolgo guts pistory, and anti Semitism. I'm sure, but that's
Speaker 5: no comparison to when you have like Elon Musk, the
Speaker 5: richest person in the world, one of the most powerful
Speaker 5: people in the world, saying that Jews are engaged in
Speaker 5: patrid against whites. Right, there's no comparisons in terms of
Speaker 5: power and threat level. So it's really making Jews less safe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we also talk about the fact that because
Speaker 3: antisemitic conspiracy theories are such a foundational part of the
Speaker 3: right's form of populism, it's sort of how they explain
Speaker 3: of class, anger and energy from the base that there's
Speaker 3: really no way to detach it, and so it ends
Speaker 3: up being this foundational piece that even when they talk
Speaker 3: about Israel consistently, the way that they've built a connection
Speaker 3: with their base is by trumping up towards Soros or
Speaker 3: Rothschild's conspiracy theories or basically presenting kind of us in
Speaker 3: them populous narrative around theories about globalists and things like that.
Speaker 3: So there's really no comparison that we're talking about anti
Speaker 3: simpatism when it shows up on the left versus the
Speaker 3: really deeply inlaid way that it exists on the right.
Speaker 3: And like Ben was saying, right now, we have a
Speaker 3: situation where the right is overwhelmingly united in support of
Speaker 3: Israel and using that as their evidence of support for
Speaker 3: Jews and then pushing sure great replacement theory claims which
Speaker 3: are inherently anti Semitic on the one hand, or really
Speaker 3: kind of mobilizing use in their rhetoric for their own
Speaker 3: kind of geopolitical aims, which again is not based out
Speaker 3: of like a deeply held love for Jews. It's either
Speaker 3: built on sort of a Christian Zionist eschatology or just
Speaker 3: simply an opportunistic use of this minority group to sort
Speaker 3: of push their other political values, which itself is kind
Speaker 3: of a deeply held antisemitic way of treating the Jewish community.
Speaker 3: And so when we're looking at this, we can't let
Speaker 3: the rhetoric that's become to dominate actually stand for how
Speaker 3: we understand anti Semitism because it's been so politically motivated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, as a researcher has it has been
Speaker 1: quite frustrating because I've used to you know, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people used to be able to rely on
Speaker 1: some degree on like data aggorates like the ADL and
Speaker 1: putting together like lists of incidents like maps. And as
Speaker 1: I was putting together my piece looking at this opparticularity
Speaker 1: semitism a few months ago, I was, you know, looking
Speaker 1: through this ADL map and the amount of like equivocation
Speaker 1: between just a standard pro Palestine protest protests that I
Speaker 1: was present at, and I was like, this was a
Speaker 1: Jewish led protest and having that be equivocated with acts
Speaker 1: of like actual like neo Nazi terrorism as well as
Speaker 1: acts of like genuine antisemitism from people on the left.
Speaker 1: Basically it's resulting in like data poisoning, which makes it
Speaker 1: really hard to actually unpack some of these like larger
Speaker 1: issues that are that are facing both like Jewish people,
Speaker 1: people who are very concerned about Palestine and people who
Speaker 1: take like the threat of like you know, you know,
Speaker 1: far right nationalism quite seriously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I went through all of the ADLs twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three anti semitism data with like this project with Jewish currents,
Speaker 3: and the reality is is that the standard they use
Speaker 3: on sort of like left oriented Palestine protests is to
Speaker 3: have almost any measure of support for Palestinians or any
Speaker 3: kind of global call for justice in Palestine that is
Speaker 3: to facto anti semitism, and like you said, it then
Speaker 3: overwhelms the data sort of sort of shuts out other things.
Speaker 3: And the way that they even set up the reporting
Speaker 3: system just privileges those kind of protests, so people it teaches,
Speaker 3: for example, they'll partner with the organizations and show people
Speaker 3: how to report, and so they'll end up mass reporting
Speaker 3: these protest events and then under reporting white nationalist incidents
Speaker 3: or like violent incidents. So what you end up seeing
Speaker 3: in their data is that they've actually undercoded white nationalist
Speaker 3: events because of the way that they kind of set
Speaker 3: up the data, and they don't really track things like
Speaker 3: housing discrimination, workplace discrimination, and ex Jews, those kind of
Speaker 3: things really don't fit into their models. So what you
Speaker 3: end up with is this kind of map that just
Speaker 3: privileges people saying from the River to the Sea is
Speaker 3: like this inherently anti Semitic meme, and then undercounts like
Speaker 3: what often Jews will report as what makes them feeling unsafe,
Speaker 3: comments of work, or actual pressures when buying homes. Things
Speaker 3: like that like that doesn't really show up. You've experiences
Speaker 3: of Jews in prison, those don't show up, So you
Speaker 3: end up with this really skewed image on what it is,
Speaker 3: where you assume that the left is overwhelming the responsible party,
Speaker 3: and then it actually invisible a pretty growing force on
Speaker 3: the right and even institutionally just like in structures of
Speaker 3: kind of like American culture. So it's really hard then
Speaker 3: to say, like, well, how do I know what's actually
Speaker 3: happening here? The ADL's the largest organization. Every organization then
Speaker 3: uses their data where am I going? It leads you
Speaker 3: in a really big kind of a gap in how
Speaker 3: to understand this happening. So we can look at pretty
Speaker 3: clear evidence that there's a rise in anti Semitism by
Speaker 3: looking at things like street attacks or by looking at
Speaker 3: the rhetoric on the right, but it's hard to get
Speaker 3: like a clear picture of it because every organization is
Speaker 3: that's oriented looking at the left.
Speaker 5: Like I was just going to say, like this goes
Speaker 5: way back to the ADL. Like you know, in our book,
Speaker 5: we talk about how even in the nineteen seventies and
Speaker 5: the eighties, the eight I was like spying on left
Speaker 5: wing activists as part of their pivot towards seeing the
Speaker 5: most important side of anti Semitism on what they call
Speaker 5: the radical left right. In the nineteen seventies, as global
Speaker 5: criticism of Israel's occupation mounted after the nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 5: you know, Six Day Wars, the ABL like really pivoted
Speaker 5: further from whatever original mission they may have had about
Speaker 5: like genuinely countering bigotry to really becoming like Israel defense organizations.
Speaker 5: And so in the seventies and eighties, like you saw
Speaker 5: them spying on anti apartheid activists, You saw them attacking
Speaker 5: Arab American you know, professors at universities. You saw them
Speaker 5: spying on ACTA, even left in Jewish groups like New
Speaker 5: Jewish Agenda, you know. And so it's not only Jonathan Greenblatt.
Speaker 5: It's not only since October seventh. The BBL has been
Speaker 5: playing this role for a long time, along with a
Speaker 5: whole lot of Christian Zionists and both sides of the
Speaker 5: US political establishment. And yeah, the career saying like the
Speaker 5: stakes are extremely high. The right and the center are
Speaker 5: trying to legislate their definition of anti semitism, to destroy
Speaker 5: free speech and to protect Israel's genocide.
Speaker 4: So the stakes are very high about this right now.
Speaker 1: I think one of the most troubling notions about you
Speaker 1: know how those groups like the ADL and others that
Speaker 1: are kind of like, like you said, like lobbying for
Speaker 1: legislation and trying to encourage like extreme crackdowns on human
Speaker 1: rights protests and and anti genoside protests, is that this
Speaker 1: is also like materially harms a whole bunch of Jewish
Speaker 1: people who are involved in these protests and in organizing.
Speaker 1: You're you're trying to get the FBI to investigate Jewish
Speaker 1: people who are protesting against the genocide. And we saw
Speaker 1: this with the with the campus university protests. You saw this,
Speaker 1: you know, especially at Columbia of like a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of these kids are Jewish people who are
Speaker 1: heavily involved in these protests and in calls to do
Speaker 1: a very extreme crackdown and investigations. It's hard to see
Speaker 1: how that's not just like calling for for our government
Speaker 1: to like further further oppressed these Jewish people who don't
Speaker 1: like agree with one side's opinion on something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you see it.
Speaker 5: You know, in the most kind of ironic twist of
Speaker 5: history in Germany, where you know, the state was once
Speaker 5: in Nazi state, is enforcing some of the most brutal
Speaker 5: crackdowns on the Palestine solidarity speech, and Jews are disproportionately
Speaker 5: represented among the crackdown there. And so you have you know,
Speaker 5: German police pulling people with pipos and arresting them, you know,
Speaker 5: shutting down events with Jewish speakers, right so it's really
Speaker 5: like literally policing Jewish thought, right like. We know, there's
Speaker 5: over a century of Jewish opposition to Zionism and Jewish
Speaker 5: solidarity with Palestinians, and from the very beginnings of the
Speaker 5: Zionist movement, which was originally a Christian movement in Christian
Speaker 5: Europe by the way, you know, and we've always had
Speaker 5: long traditions of Jews who have resisted it. And so
Speaker 5: when the state is legislating saying only like a certain
Speaker 5: expression of Jewish identity is valid, that's also anti Semitism,
Speaker 5: right like.
Speaker 4: And we see it, you know, not only from Trump, right.
Speaker 5: Trump will always say, oh, Jews who are democrats, Jews
Speaker 5: who are quote unqute disloyal to Israel are problematic. You
Speaker 5: also see it from Biden who says, you know, without Israel,
Speaker 5: there's not a Jew in the world who's saved right.
Speaker 5: So I think, you know, Jews who descend on Israel
Speaker 5: are rapidly becoming enemies in a way of the right,
Speaker 5: you know, and of forces align with it, right, And
Speaker 5: I think that's an aspect of of anti Semitism that's
Speaker 5: not talked about enough today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's a lot of examples of this too.
Speaker 3: During the Labor Party controversy around Corbin and anti Semitism,
Speaker 3: it was Jewish members who are overwhelmingly expelled from the party.
Speaker 3: I think it's almost like a dozen times more likely
Speaker 3: to face kind of consequences there, right, So, like those
Speaker 3: ended up being the centerpiece of it. But I think
Speaker 3: even when you when you broaden out, this ends up
Speaker 3: being the case. And we kind of talk about this
Speaker 3: as like a good Jew bad Jew distinction, where like
Speaker 3: anti Semitism ends up being mobilized against whatever kind of
Speaker 3: the culture decides is a bad Jew or whatever the
Speaker 3: organization decides it's the bad version of a Jew, the
Speaker 3: kind of Jew that they don't want to actually deal with.
Speaker 3: And this happens in this pro Israel consensus whereby Laku Nyahu,
Speaker 3: basically the far right coalition running Israel right now builds
Speaker 3: alliances that they need around the world, with far right
Speaker 3: parties in Hungary, in South Asia, Indian with the Hindian
Speaker 3: Nationalism with other places, and then those movements are pretty
Speaker 3: explicitly anti Semitic, therefore making Jews in various countries around
Speaker 3: the diaspora less and less safe right and so this
Speaker 3: sort of model of making Israel the bottom line on
Speaker 3: defending against anti Semitism is one that strengthened the right,
Speaker 3: helped to build up Christian nationalism domestically, and then that
Speaker 3: creates this kind of general culture of unsafety for Jews
Speaker 3: where the only Jewish voices that are then held up
Speaker 3: are the ones that justify Christian nationalism on the one hand,
Speaker 3: like you'll see at the National Conservatism Conference, or ones
Speaker 3: who are so aggressively pro Israel that they're totally willing
Speaker 3: to partner with Christian science groups or the far right
Speaker 3: wing of the Republican Party or National conservative parties in Europe.
Speaker 3: And so this ends up as a situation where like
Speaker 3: increasing number of Jews, particularly in the US, or Jews
Speaker 3: around the left, which again is still disproportionally Jewish, feel
Speaker 3: increasingly targeted by the political consensus, and at the same
Speaker 3: time this pro Israel rhetoric ends up being with the
Speaker 3: fact of measure by which anyone's kind of set to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: Like there was this part in the book where you
Speaker 1: were talking about the good Jew bad Jew binary, specifically
Speaker 1: on the left, where there's like a minority of Jews
Speaker 1: who identify as anti or non Zionist who are very
Speaker 1: like celebrated, sometimes maybe even in like a tokenizing kind
Speaker 1: of way, while the rest of jewsh people who do
Speaker 1: not identify as such are belittled as unworthy or like untrustworthy,
Speaker 1: where their opinions are dismissed or seen as morally compromised
Speaker 1: on like an inherent level. And this can also be
Speaker 1: coupled with this assumption that like every Jew is a
Speaker 1: secret Zionist until proven otherwise, and you have to like
Speaker 1: get every new Jewish person you meet to like prove
Speaker 1: to you that they're not secretly a Zionist, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, very antisemitic. And we also do have this
Speaker 1: good Jew bad Jew binary mirrored in like an inverted
Speaker 1: form on the right, with Zionist Jews, you know, being
Speaker 1: seen as the good ones, and anti Zionist Jews have
Speaker 1: their like jewishness questioned or are seen as like untrustworthy
Speaker 1: or inherently evil, and I do believe it is worth
Speaker 1: discussing kind of the flip side of this, And I
Speaker 1: think of avoiding talking about actual anti semitism on the left,
Speaker 1: I think only serves to harm all of us, and
Speaker 1: I because it is something that I think is happening
Speaker 1: and I think should be talked about, even if it
Speaker 1: makes people like uncomfortable. And I think it's a it
Speaker 1: is a mistake to assume that just because you're on
Speaker 1: the left, that you're like somehow immune to antisemitic thinking,
Speaker 1: whether purposeful or not. Like like both of you mentioned, like,
Speaker 1: we live in a society that has a great degree
Speaker 1: of structural anti semitism, and a lot of these people,
Speaker 1: I think, who might be attending some of these protests
Speaker 1: or might just be posting online who knows, might not
Speaker 1: even be intentionally spreading antisemitism, right, but in action, that's
Speaker 1: kind of what they're invoking through like ideas of like
Speaker 1: you know, the Zionist cabal that secretly controls all of
Speaker 1: the media, all all of all of the government. You know,
Speaker 1: those types of things we're starting to like invoke these
Speaker 1: like larger secretive organizations that are that are pre planning
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and like just to some degree from
Speaker 1: a lot of the discourse that you see, I feel
Speaker 1: like some people think they can just like control f
Speaker 1: Jews to Zionists, and like, if you're able to control
Speaker 1: f Jews to Zionists and the sentence still works, that
Speaker 1: means that you're doing it wrong. That means that you're
Speaker 1: you're probably approaching this from a problematic standpoint. And there's
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of aspects about the sort of thing
Speaker 1: that you do talk about in the book, like you know,
Speaker 1: including identifying Judaism with Zionism and how that also only
Speaker 1: hurts all of us, including this like weird uptick in
Speaker 1: like Jewish race science that you're starting to see more
Speaker 1: and more of claiming that like all modern Jewish people
Speaker 1: only come from Europe. And it's like there's just a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of this kind of stuff that we're all
Speaker 1: kind of pushing to this. But I do believe it
Speaker 1: is like worth talking about in some degree because this
Speaker 1: is going to not only harm people who are calling
Speaker 1: for an end to the genocide in Gaza, I think
Speaker 1: it does like strengthen this notion that a lot of
Speaker 1: the Zionist project is built on, which is saying that
Speaker 1: we need Israel as a way to secure.
Speaker 2: Safety for Jewish people around the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think we talk about this, you know, we
Speaker 3: have a couple of chapters that talk kind of explicitly
Speaker 3: about this at different points in history. But I think
Speaker 3: there's a tendency and I kind of get where this
Speaker 3: comes from, to basically see any ally or any kind
Speaker 3: of voice in support of a movement as like a partner,
Speaker 3: particularly when you're trying to build like mass support against
Speaker 3: something that basically has kind of mass opposition on the
Speaker 3: other side, like liberating Palestine. But what you see oftentimes
Speaker 3: when you see a mohoment grow really dramatically, really quickly,
Speaker 3: is that there's just not a kind of like common
Speaker 3: baseline understanding always of that, and conspiracy theories are a
Speaker 3: great way to fill the gap on them. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: that's true of really any movement. It's just that, in particular,
Speaker 3: in this case, we have this long history of antisemitic
Speaker 3: conspiracy theories about Jewish power in particular, and then we're
Speaker 3: talking about sort of like powerful political actors on the
Speaker 3: other and so making clear distinctions is just not there
Speaker 3: necessarily so you know, we talked with lots of folks
Speaker 3: that have been sort of litmus tested when entering kind
Speaker 3: of less spaces about zientism. I talked to folks where
Speaker 3: other organizers asked to see their passport before they're allowed
Speaker 3: to come to Meetia's crazy, It's it's wild, and you
Speaker 3: think in most of the cases people we kind of
Speaker 3: identify that as being kind of wild. We make a
Speaker 3: lot of distinctions. We talk about, like the sort of
Speaker 3: difference between talking about a Israel lobby organization like APEC
Speaker 3: and its power or kind of a vague diffuse Israel
Speaker 3: lobby that you know, control controls Western politics, that kind
Speaker 3: of thing.
Speaker 2: Like a like a this is predeceas Israel lobby.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, and instead talking about like why would we
Speaker 3: understand Israel is part of kind of a Western imperial
Speaker 3: project rather than the flip side, this kind of small
Speaker 3: country controlling Western foreign policy that kind of thing, and
Speaker 3: make a lot of those clear distinctions. And again, I
Speaker 3: think it's been sort of suggested like these ideas, anti
Speaker 3: semetic ideas are a part of the culture. And you know,
Speaker 3: I've been around the left long enough to see like
Speaker 3: virulent transphobic ideas show up to see, like queer phobic
Speaker 3: ideas in general be very very present. There's no reason
Speaker 3: to believe that anti Semitism wouldn't show up here either,
Speaker 3: where folks are sort of like consumed by anger. What
Speaker 3: people are looking for clear answers, what people are trying
Speaker 3: to identify that? And I think the easy answer is
Speaker 3: often the paper over it. And I think what we
Speaker 3: talk about here is that that exactly is what sort
Speaker 3: of pro Israel voices want in this case is to
Speaker 3: know that the left isn't good to deal with it.
Speaker 3: And so the alternative to that is to both like
Speaker 3: create like a sense of like how would we confront
Speaker 3: antisemitic institutions and where structural anti semitism comes from, and
Speaker 3: then also how do we deal with that internally? And
Speaker 3: we talk with a bunch of social movements that have
Speaker 3: done that. Right. Anti fascists are actually pretty used to
Speaker 3: talking about anti semitism when it shows up on the left,
Speaker 3: that's pretty common. Jewish Left has talked about this historically,
Speaker 3: there's other voices, so bringing that back and sort of
Speaker 3: making a safe place to confront and then then figure
Speaker 3: out then where is it, like you know, just a
Speaker 3: bad idea that you deal with, and you talk about
Speaker 3: you have like education, and where do you draw lines
Speaker 3: where like you know, this is now not a person
Speaker 3: that's not allowed in or these are voices that we
Speaker 3: can't partner with that kind of thing. I think that's
Speaker 3: something people work out on the ground.
Speaker 1: No, And you make a really good comparison in the
Speaker 1: book about how like anti smdic conspiracy theories inhibit a
Speaker 1: actual understanding of like the mechanisms of capital right, like
Speaker 1: it makes you unable to actually like analyze how capitalism operates.
Speaker 1: And similarly, having like an antisemitic conspiratorial view of like Antizionism,
Speaker 1: that also will mask the root cause of Palestinian oppression
Speaker 1: by distracting from like the like the very like real
Speaker 1: like geopolitical mechanisms that have caused this situation to take place,
Speaker 1: and distracting from that with like these tales of like
Speaker 1: you describe it as like innate Jewish wickedness or a
Speaker 1: global Zionist power. And I think that's a really good
Speaker 1: understand it because people often, like I think, have a
Speaker 1: general idea that like, yeah, anti Semitism is like in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways used as a way to not
Speaker 1: fully confront like the mechanisms of capitalism and realizing how
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: similar situation with Palestine. Is a way for people to
Speaker 1: understand that a little bit easier and to like reiterate
Speaker 1: the point about how you know you're not immune to
Speaker 1: anti Semitism just because you're on the left right. Something
Speaker 1: else you also bring up in the book is like
Speaker 1: Marxist Leninism has a very mixed history with their relationship
Speaker 1: to anti Semitism, and I think you do see this
Speaker 1: with with with the degree of the discourse on this issue.
Speaker 1: You know, if you compare you know, anarchist viewpoints on
Speaker 1: like statism and anti Zionism to a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: Marxist Leninists talking about this issue, I do believe there
Speaker 1: is you know, generally maybe more anti Semitic undertones among
Speaker 1: some of the more like statist communists. And I think
Speaker 1: you talk about like the Soviet Union's own oppression of
Speaker 1: Jewish people and kind of the continued programs that happened
Speaker 1: even after the end of World War Two.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd say like in the history of the nineteenth
Speaker 5: and the twentieth century, left I think the record of
Speaker 5: both camps has been fairly mixed. I mean, I think
Speaker 5: it was anarchist like you know Bakunen who maybe like
Speaker 5: the ins and yeah, totally and you know, like I
Speaker 5: guess I have to also have to say, you know,
Speaker 5: the the with the nineteen seventeen October Revolution, and that
Speaker 5: was like probably one of the first times that it
Speaker 5: left led society did pass you know, laws out long
Speaker 5: anty sentaitism, and then like they did, you know, defeat
Speaker 5: the Nazis, so that I have to give them some
Speaker 5: credit where it's due.
Speaker 4: But yes, there's also like a very mixed you know.
Speaker 5: Record, especially in the thirties and in the forties and beyond,
Speaker 5: and certainly yeah, today I would completely agree with you
Speaker 5: that like the more statist camps on the left are
Speaker 5: the most kind of aligned with conspiratorial.
Speaker 4: Thinking with campus and yeah, I really like the way
Speaker 4: that you.
Speaker 5: Broke down just how these conspiracy theory can distract us
Speaker 5: from the root causes of power. And that's really I
Speaker 5: think where if you want to develop like a structural
Speaker 5: understanding of anti Semitism and how it connects to capitalism
Speaker 5: and all the other systems of oppression, that's where you
Speaker 5: got to go, right, Seeing how especially if in times
Speaker 5: of crisis and mass discontent like today, with the rise
Speaker 5: of nationalism, with you know, widespread alienation, that's when anti
Speaker 5: Semitism really rises and is mobilized by authoritarian and nationalists,
Speaker 5: you know, leaders, When there's millions of people who are
Speaker 5: are fed up that they don't have a job, they
Speaker 5: don't have any savings, they know the media is lying
Speaker 5: to them, they know that politicians don't represent them. That's
Speaker 5: when these conspiracy theories, you know, really take root on
Speaker 5: the right and on the left. And that's why you
Speaker 5: have you know, Trump and Steve Bannon and the rest
Speaker 5: of them, you know, saying, oh, go look at the globalists,
Speaker 5: Go look at.
Speaker 4: George Soros, you go look at cultural Marxists, right.
Speaker 5: And I think the more that you know, the left
Speaker 5: can advance our own and understanding of why the world
Speaker 5: is so fucked up in how to make it better,
Speaker 5: then we can really undercut the root causes of anti
Speaker 5: Semitism and move more people into our coalitions.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's really key. I think I have two.
Speaker 1: Examples I like to kind of bring up as ways
Speaker 1: to like springboard discussions and like how we can actually
Speaker 1: like handle this going forward, whether that be you know,
Speaker 1: if you hear someone say something at a protest that
Speaker 1: makes you think it's a little questionable, or as ways
Speaker 1: to like actually just like continue like your own like
Speaker 1: active participation in calls for ceasefire and ending the genocide
Speaker 1: in Palestine and whatever justice in Palestine might look like.
Speaker 1: So a few months ago I was at the Emory
Speaker 1: University campus occupation and maybe like a week in or so,
Speaker 1: Enemy of the Pod Jackson showed up in person along
Speaker 1: with Hawes and a few of those kind of like cronies. Right,
Speaker 1: these are people who are like conservative communists, mega communists.
Speaker 1: They're basically like Duganists or like third positionists, and they
Speaker 1: basically become influencers that monetize the genocide and gaza for
Speaker 1: their own like personal political profile. So this guy showed
Speaker 1: up one night and no one really knew what exactly
Speaker 1: to do, Like people knew who he was. There was
Speaker 1: people talking with organizers, and like organizers tried to talk
Speaker 1: with him and be like, hey, can you like not
Speaker 1: be here and he's like, well, no, I want to
Speaker 1: be here because blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Speaker 1: and you know, certain people would try to get into
Speaker 1: like political arguments with him, which is I think is
Speaker 1: completely useless. And it was. It was kind of a
Speaker 1: weird situation. And then we learned that he was slated
Speaker 1: to speak at an event the next day. Now it's
Speaker 1: unclear if he was kind of hijacking this event or
Speaker 1: if he was actually invited to speak, but regardless, he
Speaker 1: was going to show up and make some kind of
Speaker 1: speech at an event later that next day. So some
Speaker 1: people put together this flyer kind of going through Hinkle's politics,
Speaker 1: his history of anti semitism, rabid queer phobia, racism, all
Speaker 1: these things that explain kind of who he actually is
Speaker 1: as a person. And these flyers were distributed that morning,
Speaker 1: like before he was slated to speak, around the venue.
Speaker 1: As he went up on stage, a decent number of
Speaker 1: people in the audience who had these flyers protested to
Speaker 1: be like no, like you can't be here. He was
Speaker 1: escorted out of the building and then he was escorted
Speaker 1: off of campus. I think this was a very effective
Speaker 1: way of handling a situation like this. It didn't give
Speaker 1: him like an opportunity for like extra clicks. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a super volatile way to handle this was
Speaker 1: it was very simple. It was it was kind of elegant.
Speaker 1: There was just no way for him to really like
Speaker 1: weaponize this effectively. So we have something like that as
Speaker 1: a way to like, you know, clamp down on people
Speaker 1: who are either disingenuous or just actually antisemitic. We're trying
Speaker 1: to like infiltrate or take over in some degree this
Speaker 1: kind of general call to stop the genocide and gaza. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, there were protests in DC as
Speaker 1: Netanyahu was speaking to Congress, and there was this video
Speaker 1: going around of people like graffitiing the fake liberty bell
Speaker 1: with like just pro Palestine slogans and stuff, and like
Speaker 1: everyone's freaking out about this.
Speaker 2: Not everybody, you know, A.
Speaker 1: Certain section of political people were freaking out about this.
Speaker 1: A whole bunch of other people were like, Okay, well
Speaker 1: it's graffiti on a fake bell, who cares. But I
Speaker 1: actually watched that whole video and after they look at
Speaker 1: the liberty bell, it pans over to this other monument
Speaker 1: nearby where in big red lettering is written Hamas is coming.
Speaker 1: And I see this as a pretty bad way to
Speaker 1: handle a situation like this, because from what I can
Speaker 1: tell here, all that matters is just being like edgy
Speaker 1: and freaking out libs, and it kind of destroys any
Speaker 1: ability to cultivate forward momentum. It's like they're doing it
Speaker 1: just so that Democrats will be pressured into condemning it
Speaker 1: to reinforce like their own hopelessness performative spiral of doing
Speaker 1: nothing but edgi graffiti's political praxis. And I see this
Speaker 1: as kind of a general pattern of people trying to
Speaker 1: establish themselves as like the most radical and using that
Speaker 1: as a weapon against anyone else. And it's just like
Speaker 1: a form of political posturing. It's hardly any different from
Speaker 1: posting a black square on Instagram. They don't want any
Speaker 1: actual movement or any actual change. They want to be
Speaker 1: the coolest, most correct people as the world ends. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like a cowardly way out, because, as you
Speaker 1: point out in the book, it's kind of hell to
Speaker 1: actually have to deal with and work with people who
Speaker 1: have some degree of like morally compromised politics, and that
Speaker 1: actually requires like caring about the ends, But it's the
Speaker 1: means that make you look cool. Things like this are
Speaker 1: kind of bound to happen at any kind of protest
Speaker 1: that has more than like, you know, fifty people, right,
Speaker 1: there's going to be someone who does something that the
Speaker 1: main protest is not aligned with. And on that note,
Speaker 1: like what advice do would you have to people who
Speaker 1: are attending these protests and you see someone who maybe
Speaker 1: does something that's a little bit questionable, whether that be
Speaker 1: you know, like harassing just a random like visibly Jewish person,
Speaker 1: or you know, writing graffiti on a synagogue. Right, these
Speaker 1: types of things that are like really not helpful and
Speaker 1: actually kind of do display a degree of maybe like
Speaker 1: like like coded anti Semitic motivation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think that's prepaid of Habas on the statue.
Speaker 3: I think it's an interesting example because that was just
Speaker 3: brandished all over right wing media. You know, Tablet Magazine
Speaker 3: did an article about how these folks should be deported
Speaker 3: all their Instagram. It was like a trending thing on
Speaker 3: Instagram and it did very little like protests wise. Right,
Speaker 3: And actually at that same demonstration, there's a number of rabbis,
Speaker 3: particularly kind of like movement elder rabbis, Lindahltzman other folks
Speaker 3: that were arrested by cops, yeah, pretty brutally and then
Speaker 3: detained right, So there actually was Plice attacking like a
Speaker 3: Jewish contingent of like religious figures totally. I think also
Speaker 3: there's been a number of examples, I think where folks
Speaker 3: really just aren't prepared for something, and I think this
Speaker 3: is actually sort of a long conversation people should have
Speaker 3: on the left. I remember years ago I was with
Speaker 3: a group that created sort of like an accountability document,
Speaker 3: and the idea was is that if something happens in
Speaker 3: an organization, it often just destroys the organization, if there's
Speaker 3: interpersonal issues, if there's like interpersonal trauma or assault, things
Speaker 3: like that, and so getting out in front of it,
Speaker 3: just like having a sense of like how you want
Speaker 3: to deal with things, and like having had consensus amongst
Speaker 3: folks with like this is like appropriate behavior, this is
Speaker 3: how we want to handle stuff. That's always a strong
Speaker 3: thing to do. But at I think it was a
Speaker 3: George Washington University campus at the end of April. Patrick Casey,
Speaker 3: who's formerly of Identity Europa and the American Identity Movement,
Speaker 3: showed up at the encampment and wanted to talk to people,
Speaker 3: wanted to ask them questions and that kind of thing,
Speaker 3: and people were totally obliged him. They were in photos
Speaker 3: with them, let him take video. It's because they didn't
Speaker 3: know who he was.
Speaker 2: Ye, right, In.
Speaker 3: Reality, he didn't actually find anyone that was going to
Speaker 3: basically support his vision. He stopped people ask you know,
Speaker 3: will you allow right wing anti Zionists here? They basically
Speaker 3: said no. He did find one person with a hat
Speaker 3: that said Israel did nine to eleven, who then told
Speaker 3: him that the Jews rejected Christ. But he was also
Speaker 3: kind of on the edges of the encampment. Sure, the
Speaker 3: reality is what happened was a white nationalist came into
Speaker 3: an encampment and took photos of Jews and posted them
Speaker 3: on a white nationalist website. That's what happened, you know,
Speaker 3: So there actually was anti semitism. It affected the Jews
Speaker 3: of the encampment, but no one know who it was.
Speaker 3: And I think the flip side of that is having
Speaker 3: partners with groups that actually do know who Petrick Casey
Speaker 3: is and being able to say, oh, that guy is
Speaker 3: not here, it's not legitimate. I think with someone like
Speaker 3: Hinkle Maga communists, that's really confusing to people group. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's why he does it like it's a dugonous and
Speaker 3: kind of gray zone types and this kind of version
Speaker 3: of authoritarian kind of like right leading, right coded so
Speaker 3: called communists. It's there literally to confuse people and to
Speaker 3: bridge the gaps between the right and the left, and
Speaker 3: so again pulling that base of people, talking to them,
Speaker 3: having like internal trainings about how this stuff works and
Speaker 3: like what these groups are. I think that's always going
Speaker 3: to be a good thing. We talked with one organizer
Speaker 3: who had an organization that had put together a training
Speaker 3: for other groups on anti semitism and invited all these
Speaker 3: groups to come and you know, wanted to get feedback
Speaker 3: on the training. So they did the training and everyone
Speaker 3: kind of like thanked them and then went on to
Speaker 3: ask them questions, and the questions were exceedingly anti semitic.
Speaker 3: It was things like, well, how do you talk about
Speaker 3: the New York housing market when clearly Jews go oh no.
Speaker 3: And these were major, major organizations and so basically they
Speaker 3: had like a choice like are we going to deal
Speaker 3: with this here? Are we going to cut these relationships?
Speaker 3: And they basically were like, Okay, let's talk about this,
Speaker 3: let's deal with it. Yeah, yeah, and then moved. The
Speaker 3: organization is huge, Like they were like we don't want
Speaker 3: to make these kind of decisions. We want to realize
Speaker 3: where we've made mistakes. That's not true if everyone do
Speaker 3: not be polyanna about it and assume it's always going
Speaker 3: to go over well. But I think we actually actually
Speaker 3: attempt to make those changes. And the reason is is
Speaker 3: that the left and building kind of left social movements
Speaker 3: build on solidarity and equality. That's the only option we
Speaker 3: have to do something about anti Semitism. The right has
Speaker 3: never made Jews safer. We have right now a system
Speaker 3: where Israeli nationalism is supposed to the primary vessel for
Speaker 3: Jewish safety. I don't know about you, but when I
Speaker 3: look at Israel, I don't think to myself what a
Speaker 3: tremendously aboves of safe Jews Like this, we have a
Speaker 3: situation that I don't think the political solutions actually offer
Speaker 3: Jewish safety and instead just create like more and more
Speaker 3: social division and more and more social hierarchy. So we
Speaker 3: have to kind of look at the left and how
Speaker 3: to build a left that can confront anti Semitism, and
Speaker 3: that is really the only option we're being given.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like avoiding this whole issue out of
Speaker 1: fears that like it, like it, like somehow like takes
Speaker 1: away from other bad things that are happening in the world,
Speaker 1: like it like somehow it takes away from the genocide
Speaker 1: in Gaza. I think is so misplaced thinking, because I
Speaker 1: view this as all part of the same struggle, and actual,
Speaker 1: like active efforts to combat any any degree of anti
Speaker 1: Semitism that is witnessed, I think will serve to only
Speaker 1: like strengthen a general like overall united call to stop
Speaker 1: what's going on. And I think like people have this
Speaker 1: like inclination that maybe we shouldn't about it. Maybe she
Speaker 1: was like could try to ignore it because it's uncomfortable
Speaker 1: or it might like hurt the cause, And I think
Speaker 1: that's just absolutely reversed. And I think, like you said,
Speaker 1: like making inroads with like anti fascist researchers to help
Speaker 1: like identify, you know, when these things are happening, who
Speaker 1: bad actors might be, you know, people that might try
Speaker 1: to trojan horse certain issues to kind of alter a
Speaker 1: popular movement is all great ways to start. Ben, Did
Speaker 1: you have any other other kind of thoughts on how
Speaker 1: to handle this like unique political moment.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I mean I've been around Palestine solidarity movements
Speaker 5: for like, you know, over a decade. I remember, like
Speaker 5: a decade ago, I was in a rally, and you know,
Speaker 5: most of the signage there was like really inspiring and awesome,
Speaker 5: but at one point I saw like a sign that
Speaker 5: showed like kind of like a hook nose Israeli soldier
Speaker 5: who was like feasting on children's blood.
Speaker 4: And it was like, okay, this is definitely like there's
Speaker 4: an anti sententism.
Speaker 5: And I actually like went up and like talked to
Speaker 5: the person and they were like really nice, and you know,
Speaker 5: I explained to them, like, you know, there's a thing
Speaker 5: called a Blood Bible, which is an anti Semitic myth
Speaker 5: that's harmed Jews for centuries that the Jews like feast
Speaker 5: on Christian children's blood, and that like it seems like
Speaker 5: that image of the Israeli soldier is like seems to
Speaker 5: like have a big nose and that's kind of like
Speaker 5: a hystereotype from Europe. And they were like, oh, I
Speaker 5: didn't really like know these things. They took the sign
Speaker 5: down and left feeling like it was a good conversation,
Speaker 5: and so like things like that. I think there's some
Speaker 5: understandable fear like among Jewish people that you might see
Speaker 5: signs like this at rallies, and when you do, I think,
Speaker 5: just like trying to have conversations, it doesn't always go well,
Speaker 5: but often it does. And I just think, like you know,
Speaker 5: for any marginalized group or form of oppression, the more
Speaker 5: the people just deep in their understanding of like what
Speaker 5: anti semitism is, how it shows up, what some of
Speaker 5: these these tropes are. Like, the more that it becomes normalized,
Speaker 5: the more that it will become second nature to people,
Speaker 5: and people won't be as afraid to talk about it.
Speaker 4: There won't be this kind of like weird silence around it,
Speaker 4: and there's some decenditism in that silence.
Speaker 5: To be clear, like for any any kind of oppression,
Speaker 5: if you thought, oh, if people don't want to talk
Speaker 5: about like anti black racism in the movement, that's that
Speaker 5: itself is like is part of anti blackness, right, so
Speaker 5: we should be clear. And I also think, like you're saying,
Speaker 5: the fact that so often like agmuisations of anti semitism
Speaker 5: are weaponized against our movements makes people not want to
Speaker 5: talk about it, makes people think, oh, this is just
Speaker 5: a right wing issue, or if we talk about it,
Speaker 5: or we're just lending treadence to the right but I
Speaker 5: think that's changing, especially with the growth of the Jewish
Speaker 5: Left and with an understanding that anti Semitism is real
Speaker 5: and needs to be tackled. And so I think, yeah,
Speaker 5: the more the things to keep changing, this conversation will
Speaker 5: be a lot easier.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Is there any other thing that you would like
Speaker 1: to mention kind of near the end of this piece,
Speaker 1: you know, anything on like the Jewish Left, any other
Speaker 1: kind of closing thoughts that didn't get brought up.
Speaker 3: The only thing was I can say we spend a
Speaker 3: lot of time talking about the stake that non Jewish
Speaker 3: folks have in this, and I think there's a couple
Speaker 3: of things that are worth considering. Like we've sort of
Speaker 3: talked about, you know, anti Semitism. One of the key
Speaker 3: features of anti Semitism is that it's not true, Like
Speaker 3: it's a bad actual analysis about power, state, empires, and
Speaker 3: capitalism works. So if that is sort of steeping in,
Speaker 3: and this is true of conspiracy theories broadly, if that's
Speaker 3: cp into politics, that's just a failure right there. And
Speaker 3: so it's really incumbent on people to sort of try
Speaker 3: and move past that and confront those things, because that's
Speaker 3: the only way that like social movements can actually gain
Speaker 3: kind of efficacy. And the other thing is that they're
Speaker 3: directly tied to other forms of oppression. If you look
Speaker 3: at like the all out assault on trans healthcare and
Speaker 3: transtitutions right now, it's overwhelming, using antisemitic conspiracy theories as
Speaker 3: sort of the scaffold team to hold it together. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: And this has been historically true about anti blackness in
Speaker 3: the US and the other forms of oppression, and so
Speaker 3: these things are intertwined. So I think it's important just
Speaker 3: to acknowledge that, like anti Semitism is not like just
Speaker 3: a Jewish problem or affecting Jewish people. It's really baked
Speaker 3: into these kind of interlocking system of oppressions. So we
Speaker 3: should see it as a way of confronting other things
Speaker 3: as well. And to make that, can I give it
Speaker 3: value or value to confront on its own terms?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think this book came out really at
Speaker 5: a moment when like these conversations are needed more than ever,
Speaker 5: and also at a moment when the Jewish left is
Speaker 5: just growing by leaps and bounds. And I think to
Speaker 5: end on a hopeful note, and that gives me a
Speaker 5: lot of hope along with the growth of the left,
Speaker 5: you know, more broadly right surging to the streets in
Speaker 5: support of Palestine. We're seeing like new generations and folks
Speaker 5: across all generations and Jewish communities who are building new
Speaker 5: ritual modalities, new modes of Jewish identity, new politics, who
Speaker 5: really questioning old ways of doing things, and really building
Speaker 5: a Jewish future beyond nationalism and militarism, and connecting our
Speaker 5: struggles with all other struggles as they've long been connected,
Speaker 5: you know, like Jewish left has been around for a
Speaker 5: long time.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, we're really living at a historic moment,
Speaker 4: both around this issue and around all of our movements
Speaker 4: in general. So that gives me a lot of both.
Speaker 1: Thank you both so much for coming on to talk
Speaker 1: about these not very fun topics. I spent two hours
Speaker 1: this morning reading through the book.
Speaker 2: It was very good.
Speaker 1: I strongly recommend people read it, especially considering everything that's
Speaker 1: happened like these past eight months. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of very good insights in there. Where can people
Speaker 1: find a copy of Safety through Solidarity?
Speaker 3: I think I think you can pick it up anywhere.
Speaker 3: I appreciate the kind of words, I appreciate you having
Speaker 3: us on to talk about it. We've been directing folks
Speaker 3: to sort of like movement bookstores and we've been partnering
Speaker 3: with a bunch of them, you know, So I think
Speaker 3: like local read bookstores are always a great place. We
Speaker 3: have to like actively sustain those places and be a
Speaker 3: part of them. So I think that's a great place
Speaker 3: to do it, and also kind of requesting them at
Speaker 3: libraries sort of like pointing folks to both of those things.
Speaker 3: So that's a great way to support the book.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 5: I really appreciate you having us on Garrison has been
Speaker 5: a great conversation and we appreciate all the work you do,
Speaker 5: so we needed to be connected, all right, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from the cool Zone Media, visit our
Speaker 2: website coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening,