On the Nose

On Friday, June 13th, just days before the sixth scheduled round of US–Iran talks over the country's nuclear energy program, Israel carried out a series of punishing airstrikes in many different parts of Iran. The bombings were unprecedented in targeting Iran's nuclear energy infrastructure, and have since expanded to target Iranian state television, the energy industry, and high-rise apartment buildings. Israel's bombing campaign has so far killed over 240 people, and has scuttled US–Iran nuclear diplomacy—at least for now. In response, Iran has launched drones and missiles at Israel, killing over 20 Israelis. Now, the escalating conflict, which has prompted thousands of Iranians to flee their homes and brought Israelis into bomb shelters, threatens to grow even deadlier as news outlets report that the Trump administration is weighing a US strike on Iran.In this episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane assesses Israel's war with Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project, and Ellie Geranmayeh, the Deputy Director for the European Council on Foreign Relation's Middle East and North Africa program. They discuss the Trump administration's position on the conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war goals, and where the region might be heading in the wake of this bombing campaign.Articles Mentioned and Further Reading“Israel Built Its Case for War With Iran on New Intelligence. The U.S. Didn't Buy It,” Alexander Ward, Lara Seligman, and Dustin Volz, The Wall Street Journal“How Trump Shifted on Iran Under Pressure From Israel,” Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Mark Mazzetti, and Ronen Bergman, The New York Times“America First or Israel First? Will Trump Join Netanyahu's War on Iran?” Daniel Levy, Zeteo“Europe must act now to prevent a major war between Israel and Iran,” Ellie Geranmayeh, European Council on Foreign Relations“Unpacking the Rift Between Trump and Netanyahu,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents“

This episode of On the Nose comes from a live Zoom conversation between associate editor Mari Cohen and Rabbi Andrue Kahn in February, in which they discussed the anti-nationalist tradition of the American Reform movement and the American Council for Judaism (ACJ), the anti-Zionist organization created by Reform rabbis in 1942. Kahn, the executive director of a newly revived ACJ, answers questions about the Reform movement's roots in German Jewish emancipation, its attempts to offer a religious paradigm appealing to American Jews, and why early leaders eschewed Zionism. They also discuss early Reform anti-Zionists' racial politics, how some ACJ leaders developed a concern for Palestinian rights, and what a revived ACJ might offer American Jews today, in a world where official Reform Judaism has long been Zionist. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned “The Pittsburgh Platform” “The Columbus Platform” “Declaration Adopted by the Biltmore Conference” “Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and the American Racial Order,” Matthew Berkman, American Jewish History Our Palestine Question by Geoffrey LevinThe Threshold of Dissent by Marjorie Feld“A Conversation with Professor Matt Berkman,” American Council for Judaism “A Reconstructionist Reckoning,” Shane Burley, Jewish Currents

Last year saw the release of Kneecap, a fictionalized account of the real-life West Belfast-based Irish language rap group of the same name. The group is know for their bombastic, irreverent take on politics in the North of Ireland and their advocacy for the Irish language, which faced centuries of suppression under British colonial rule. Longtime advocates for Palestine, Kneecap has made headlines recently for their on-stage statements at Coachella in support of Gaza. Last week, UK prosecutors charged band member Mo Chara with a terrorism-related offense for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a show and chanting in support of Hezbollah and Hamas—part of a global trend in which pro-Palestinian speech is conflated with material support for terror. (The band has released a series of statements distancing themselves from calls for violence against civilians and redirecting attention to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.) This episode of On the Nose, hosted by contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, uses the Kneecap film as a jumping-off point for discussing the relationship between language reclamation, nationalism, and resistance. Joining her is scholar of Sephardic studies and Ladino speaker Devin Naar, and Yiddish-language musicians and culture workers Isabel Frey and Ira Temple. They discuss Kneecap's advocacy for speaking Irish, the place of music and language in both national and decolonial movements, and the connections between such movements and Jewish efforts to preserve Ladino and Yiddish. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Articles and Social Media Posts MentionedDi fliendeke pave, Isabel FreyIra TempleYa Ghorbati, Laura Elkeslassy“Zog nit keyn mol,” Yiddish partisan songKneecap speaking out on anti-immigrant riots in Belfast“How Irish diplomats reacted to Bernadette Devlin's 1969 US tour,” Melissa Baird, RTEKneecap on sectarianism

On Wednesday night, two Israeli embassy aides—30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky and 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim—were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting an event for young diplomats. The suspect, 30-year-old Chicago resident Elias Rodriguez, was immediately arrested. Upon being taken into custody, he chanted “free Palestine,” according to video of the scene; elsewhere, in a manifesto attributed to him, he allegedly wrote “The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification.” Immediately, politicians from across the political spectrum and mainstream Jewish groups responded by condemning the killings as a specifically antisemitic act, with some blaming the Palestine solidarity movement for inciting violence. In a rapid response podcast, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel discussed the shootings with assistant editor Mari Cohen, senior reporter Alex Kane, and contributing editor and historian Ben Ratskoff. They parsed the media consensus that this was primarily an antisemitic attack, the response from Israeli politicians, the history of diplomat assassinations, and more.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Articles and Social Media Posts MentionedX post from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez“The Israel Embassy Shooter Manifesto,” Ken Klippenstein, Substack“Capital Jewish Museum shooting suspect killed 2 ‘for Gaza.' His victims were peace advocates,” Louis Keene, The Forward “Israel fires 'warning shots' near diplomats in West Bank,” Adam Durbin, BBC News“How to Oppose Pro-Palestinian Antisemitism,” Peter Beinart, The Beinart Notebook “Far-right ministers blame Yair Golan for shooting of Israeli embassy staffers,” Sam Sokol, Times of Israel“How a Jewish Teenager Went From Refugee to Assassin to Puppet of Nazi Propaganda,” Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian“Recentering Palestine, reclaiming the movement,” Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition, Columbia Daily Spectator “Argov denounces war on Lebanon,” JTAX post by Israeli opposition leader Yair Golan Segment on soccer riots in Amsterdam, Democracy Now

In April, Israel's Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir toured the United States in his first-ever trip to the country as a government official. Many Jewish groups refused to meet with Ben-Gvir, a follower of Meir Kahane whose extremism stands out even in an Israeli political scene awash in anti-Palestinian racism. But Ben-Gvir was welcomed by Chabad rabbis at Yale in New Haven, in South Florida, as well as at 770 Eastern Parkway, the Chabad headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The latter appearance sparked protests outside 770, which were met with violence by Chabadniks. In particular, a mob chanting “Death to Arabs” chased a female passerby for several blocks, kicking, spitting, and throwing objects at her. Other videos showed Chabadniks lighting a keffiyeh on fire, shoving and kicking members of the Hasidic anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta, and bloodying a female protester (herself a Jewish Israeli). To discuss Chabad's alignment with Ben-Gvir, its long-standing antipathy to leftist movements, and its uneasy relations within Crown Heights, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel spoke with Jewish studies scholars Shaul Magid and Hadas Binyamini. They discuss Chabad's historic anti-Zionism, the quasi-Zionist cultural shifts that have solidified after October 7th, and the tensions the movement is currently navigating between its outreach orientation and its increasingly exclusionary politics.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, David Berger“Israel's Class War Conservatives,” Joshua Leifer, Jewish Currents “The three-decade saga that led to the Crown Heights tunnels,” Chananya Groner, The Guardian“The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin,” Ben Schreckinger, PoliticoLetter to Hitler from the German Free Association for the Interests of Orthodox Jewry, 1933“Lubavitcher Hassidim Oppose Public Demonstrations on Behalf of Soviet Jews,” JTA“The New Heimish Populism,” Joshua Leifer, Jewish CurrentsRace and Reli­gion Among the Cho­sen...

In September 2024, an Israeli sniper shot and killed Turkish American human rights activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi outside of Nablus in the northern West Bank. Her murder was a devastating example of a sharp uptick in military and settler violence against both Palestinian residents and the international and Israeli activists who work with them. For years, solidarity activists such as Eygi have responded to the violent reality in the West Bank by physically accompanying Palestininans in the hopes that their “protective presence” will serve as a buffer to prevent attacks. This strategy has received heightened attention thanks to the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which features Palestinians resisting colonialism in the villages of Masafer Yatta, and Israelis engaging in protective presence with them. For those engaged in solidarity work in the West Bank, this moment of increased violence has amplified ever-present moral questions: What is my responsibility to intervene when someone else is in danger? How much risk must I take upon myself to try and protect my Palestinian comrades? And to what extent must I recruit others to join me in taking that risk? In this chevruta, Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein explores these quandaries with Jewish Currents assistant editor Maya Rosen. As a long-time protective presence activist, Rosen is regularly weighing the danger that she and the activists she recruits will take on in the course of their work: How can she adequately prepare people without scaring them off? And how can she communicate the rewards of the work alongside the risks? Bernstein and Rosen discuss these questions through the lens of three texts—two Talmudic texts, and one Holocaust-era responsum—with the aim of helping those who are attempting to share the burden of serious risk find pathways to greater collective courage.This podcast is part of our chevruta column, named for the traditional method of Jewish study, in which a pair of students analyzes a religious text together. In each installment, Jewish Currents matches leftist thinkers and organizers with a rabbi or Torah scholar. The activists bring an urgent question that arises in their own work; the Torah scholar leads them in exploring their question through Jewish text. By routing contemporary political questions through traditional religious sources, we aim to address the most urgent ethical and spiritual problems confronting the left. Each column includes a written conversation, podcast, and study guide. You can find the column based on this conversation here, and a study guide here.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Articles Mentioned:All Jewish sources are cited in the study guide, linked above“

From the ICE arrest and detention of pro-Palestinian organizers to the mass revocation of student visas to the deportation of hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador, the Trump administration's assault on noncitizens has been as headline-grabbing as it has been brutal. But even though the sheer speed and spectacle of the offensive makes it appear new, many of the legal and enforcement tools at play are old, with the administration drawing on Cold War-era laws, War on Terror-era agencies, and Obama- and Biden-era precedents. In this episode of On the Nose, we speak with the deportation defense lawyer Sophia Elena Gurulé and immigration reporter Tanvi Misra about the ongoing clampdowns, where they are following precedents and where they are setting them, and the stakes of understanding these historical continuities.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:“Mapping Who Lives in Border Patrol's ‘100-Mile Zone,'” Tanvi Misra, Bloomberg“The Origins of American Immigration Detention,” Tanvi Misra, Bloomberg“Civil War-Era Parallels to the Sanctuary City Movement,” Tanvi Misra, Bloomberg“If You Build It, ICE Will Fill It: The Link Between Detention Capacity and ICE Arrests,” Detention Watch“Trump says he wants to deport US citizens to El Salvador,” Gaby Del Valle, The VergeBorder and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha WaliaUnbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition by Silky Shah

In October 2024, Zohran Mamdani launched his New York City mayoral campaign in relative obscurity. Half a year later, excitement about the state assemblymember from Queens is palpable. Mamdani, whose campaign is focused on housing justice and transit affordability, is the first in the race to hit its fundraising cap, raising $8 million dollars from more than 17,000 donors. A member of the Democratic Socialist of America, he boasts over 15,000 volunteer canvassers. Mamadani is now polling in second place, behind Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor who resigned in disgrace following sexual harassment allegations. Meanwhile, Cuomo, who began a lackluster second act in Israel advocacy following his resignation from office, is attempting to make Israel and antisemitism central issues in the campaign. In a speech earlier this month at a Modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan's Upper West Side, he blasted Mamdani, as well as fellow competitors Brad Lander and Adrienne Adams, for being insufficiently supportive of Israel, while asserting that anti-Zionism is unequivocally antisemitism. He also zeroed in on Mamdani's “Not On Our Dime” legislation, which targets charities funding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Mamdani has continued to stress an adherence to international law, and a commitment to the principle of the equality of all human life. As the mayoral race enters its final months, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart interviewed Mamdani in a conversation that first appeared in the Beinart Notebook on Substack. They discussed how Israel/Palestine is making its way into New York politics, how Mamdani would stand up to President Trump, and his detailed plan for public safety. Jewish Currents is a non-profit organization and does not endorse candidates for office. We hope that our listeners in New York City will vote in the primary on June 24th.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” FURTHER READING: “Cuomo's ‘most important issue,'” Jeff Coltin, Nick Reisman, and Emily Ngo, Politico“Cuomo and Mamdani gain ground as Democratic primary turns into two-person race,” Adam Daly, amNY“Socialist Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani Wants to End Columbia and NYU's Tax-Exempt Status,” Sarah Wexler, Jacobin“Feds seized $80 million in FEMA funds given to NYC to house migrants, city comptroller says,” Jennifer...

In a recent article in Jewish Currents, Jon Danforth-Appell proposes that the Jewish left is operating under a paradigm of what he calls “Zionist realism.” This idea draws on theorist Mark Fisher's notion of “capitalist realism,” which describes the way capitalism makes it impossible to imagine alternative world structures; Zionist realism, in Danforth-Appell's conception, similarly makes it difficult for Jews to separate from a received sense of Jewish collectivity, and imagine alternative futures. Danforth-Appell writes that particularist Jewish organizing, typified by the slogan “Not in Our Name,” reinforces a picture of Jews as a monolith, while contributing to an overemphasis on Jewish culpability for Israel's actions. This approach may underemphasize “material processes of capital and geopolitics,” like the weapons industry's bottom line and American interests in the Middle East. “What ultimately matters is not an abstract notion of Zionism as a totalizing spiritual contaminant upon the Jewish people,” he writes, “but the ways in which American Jews, alongside all other Americans, hold multiple kinds of material relationships to Israel.”In the episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and associate editor Mari Cohen talk with Danforth-Appell about his article and the questions it raises. Even given the diversity among Jews, can we abandon collective complicity while so many Jews materially support Zionism? Why aren't we seeing more mass anti-war organizing, where people can show up as Americans? And what are the limits of a Jewish politics of collective complicity? Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:“Against Zionist Realism,” Jon Danforth-Appell, Jewish CurrentsCapitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher“Canary Mission's Newest Funders,” Alex Kane, Jewish CurrentsThe Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sarah Ahmed“Can Genocide Studies Survive a Genocide in Gaza?,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents

Last week, Columbia capitulated to Trump's extensive demands on the university, in hopes of recovering $400 million in government funding that was revoked by the Trump administration. Almost a week later, there is still no indication that Columbia will get the money back. The university has agreed to a long list of changes, among them the creation of a new 36-officer campus police force with the power to arrest students; the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism; broad commitments to disciplinary action for student protesters; and even the advancement of Columbia's Tel Aviv Center. Strikingly, the university has placed the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department into what the Trump administration is referring to as “receivership,” appointing a new senior vice provost to exert control over the teaching of Israel/Palestine in particular, starting with the Center for Palestine Studies. Meanwhile, the university committed to “the expansion of intellectual diversity among faculty,” indicating that they are going to hire more Zionists to teach in the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and in the School for International and Public Affairs. All of this follows the targeting and abduction of Columbia students, including Palestinian green card holder and student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in ICE detention, and Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student who was not significantly involved in protests and who fled to Canada to avoid detention after her visa was revoked. It's hard to overstate the significance of Columbia's surrender, at a moment when the US appears to be in democratic freefall, and when academic freedom and the fundamental right to free speech hangs in the balance. Editor-at-large Peter Beinart and Columbia professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, who also serves as the co-director of the Center for Palestine Studies, spoke just hours before this shocking development, but their conversation probes what's been happening at Columbia and Barnard, and what's at stake—both for the study of Israel/Palestine and for the future of higher ed. This conversation first appeared in the Beinart Notebook on Substack.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” ARTICLES MENTIONED AND FURTHER READING: “‘Mahmoud Is Not Safe,'” Nadia Abu El-Haj, New York Review of Books“The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters,” Natasha Lennard and Akela Lacy, The InterceptLetter from Mahmoud Khalil from ICE detention in Louisiana“The Perils of Universities' Unscholarly Antisemitism Reports,” Peter Beinart, Jewish Currents“

On March 8th, federal immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Palestinian student activist at Columbia University, in his New York home and moved him to a detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil, a recent graduate from Columbia's public affairs masters program and a prominent leader in the school's movement to pressure the university to divest from companies complicit in Israel's genocide, is a legal permanent resident, and is not accused of any crime. The Trump administration has pointed to his political activism as the reason for why he should be deported, invoking a rarely-used Cold War-era law to argue that Khalil's presence in the US is contrary to US foreign policy interests. Jewish American organizations are split over the administration's reactions: The Anti-Defamation League has praised it, other mainstream groups have remained silent, and liberal Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish organizations have sharply condemned it.On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, associate editor Mari Cohen, and senior reporter Alex Kane discuss the Jewish political reaction to the arrest and detention of Khalil. They talk about how the mainstream Jewish establishment paved the way for this authoritarian act, whether liberal Jewish opposition to the arrest could portend new political alignments, and the rise of new reactionary Jewish groups such as Betar and Mothers Against College Antisemitism. Note: When this podcast was recorded, the American Jewish Committee had not yet made a statement on Khalil. On March 12th, the AJC released a statement condemning Khalil's political speech but calling for “due process” in deportation proceedings against him. Articles Mentioned and Further Reading“A growing number of Jewish groups are condemning Mahmoud Khalil's arrest,” Ben Sales, Jewish Telegraphic Agency “The Push to ‘Deactivate' Students for Justice in Palestine,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents“Why the ADL is encouraging Jews to invest in Tesla,” Arno Rosenfeld, The Forward“Elon Musk, the Jews, and the ADL,” Know Your Enemy podcast“Campus protest crackdowns claim to be about antisemitism – but they're part of a rightwing plan,” Arielle Angel, The Guardian“The Boomerang Comes Back,” Noura Erakat, Boston Review“In leaked messages, members of ‘Columbia Alumni for Israel' group chat work to identify, punish pro-Palestinian protesters,” Sarah Huddleston, Columbia...

On February 4th, President Donald Trump said that all Palestinians in Gaza should leave the coastal enclave and go to other Arab countries such as Egypt or Jordan—a move that, if actualized, would mark a drastic chapter in the Palestinians' history of being ethnically cleansed. Israel immediately embraced the idea, with the country's war minister ordering the military to draft plans to facilitate a mass exodus of Palestinians from Gaza. Palestinian groups as well as Egypt, Jordan, and many other countries have roundly rejected the idea, but Trump and his foreign policy team continue to insist that they will carry out the plan which would end in a US takeover of Gaza.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane spoke to Mouin Rabbani, a co-editor of Jadaliyya, and Tariq Kenney-Shawa, US policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, about situating this moment in the long history of Palestinians displacement, whether and how a Trump ethnic cleansing plan is likely to unfold, and how it will impact the ceasefire in Gaza.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Further Reading“With No Buy-in From Egypt or Jordan, Trump Appears to Back Away From His Gaza Plan,” Michael Shear, The New York Times“‘Trump Gaza is finally here!': US president promotes Gaza plan in AI video,” Mick Krever and Mostafa Salem, CNN“Palestinians in Paraguay,” Hadeel Assali, London Review of Books“Trump Revives Biden's Failed Proposal To Remove Palestinians From Gaza,” Matthew Petti, Reason“Netanyahu's Goal for Gaza: ‘Thin' Population ‘to a Minimum,'” Ryan Grim, The Intercept“WikiLeaks: Israel Intentionally Kept Gaza on Brink of Economic Collapse,” Joshua Norman, CBS News“​​Exclusive: Egypt's alternative to Trump's 'Gaza Riviera' aims to sideline Hamas,” Andrew Mills, Reuters“Trump wants Palestinians out of Gaza. Here are Egypt's plans to keep them there,” Aya Batrawy, NPR “Israel has cut off all supplies to Gaza. Here's what that means,” Cara Anna, Associated Press

Brady Corbet's epic Academy Award-nominated film, The Brutalist, traces the career and personal life of fictional architect and Holocaust survivor László Toth, played by Adrien Brody, as he seeks to find his place in the United States after World War II. In this episode of On the Nose, contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, associate editor Mari Cohen, contributing editor Siddhartha Mahanta, and contributor Noah Kulwin unpack the film's symbolic use of Israel and Zionism as an apparent solution to the racialized antisemitism faced by its Jewish characters upon their arrival in the US. The conversation delves into the film's explorations of post-Holocaust Jewish life and American racialized white supremacy, as well as the contrast between its clear artistic vision and ambiguous politics. This episode includes spoilers for the film and discussions of its onscreen depictions of sexual violence.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:“About the Destination: The Brutalist and Israel,” Noah Kulwin, Screen Slate“Adrien Brody Addresses Backlash Over Halle Berry Oscars Kiss—but Stops Short Of Apologizing,” Kelby Vera, Huffington Post“The Suppressed Lineage of American Jewish Dissent on Israel,” Emma Saltzberg, Jewish CurrentsThe Tribes of America by Paul Cowan

Israeli warplanes have stopped dropping bombs on Gaza, at least for now, but there's no ceasefire in the occupied West Bank. Since October 2023, and especially since this January, the intensity of Israeli military operations in the West Bank has escalated to a degree unseen since the Second Intifada. On January 21st, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “Operation Iron Wall”—a bombing campaign and ground invasion centered on the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank. Jenin houses a large Palestinian refugee camp populated by families expelled by Israeli forces in 1948. As such, it has long been an epicenter of Palestinian militancy, and has faced waves of Israeli ground invasions and sieges for decades. Now, Israel's defense minister has said that the army is returning to Jenin to apply the “lessons” it learned in Gaza—which have included the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, the siege of a hospital, and, in a particularly brazen act, the simultaneous blowing up of 23 buildings on February 2nd. To discuss Israel's application of the “Gaza model” in the West Bank and its impact on Palestinians, Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane spoke with journalist Azmat Khan and analyst Tahani Mustafa. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Articles Mentioned and Further Reading“Israeli military operation turns Jenin refugee camp into 'ghost town,'” Ali Sawafta, Reuters“Demolitions in Jenin signal Israel's new approach in the West Bank,” Marcus Walker, The Wall Street Journal“In West Bank raids, Palestinians see echoes of Israel's Gaza war,” Raja Abdulrahim and Azmat Khan, The New York Times“Two young children were getting ready for school. An IDF drone killed them,” Hagar Shezaf, Haaretz“The civilian casualty files,” The New York Times“Palestinian Authority's raid on Jenin appeals to Israeli, Western interests,” Mat Nashed, Al Jazeera English“Palestinian gunman kills Israeli soldiers as UN warns over W Bank operation,” David Gritten, BBC News“The settler strategy accelerating Palestinian dispossession,” Dalia Hatuqa, Jewish Currents

On Sunday, Israel and Hamas entered into the first phase of what could become a permanent ceasefire. Under the agreement that led to the pause, Israel will release hundreds of Palestinians, many held without charge or trial, from its prisons in exchange for the release of 98 Israeli hostages by Palestinian militants in Gaza. The deal also allows Palestinians forcibly displaced from the north of Gaza to return to that area, promises a surge in humanitarian aid to a Palestinian population that was starving as a result of Israel's siege, and leaves open the door for further negotiations resulting in a permanent ceasefire. But significant questions remain about the deal—foremost of which is whether it will lead to the permanent end of Israel's bombardment and hermetic siege of Gaza, an assault experts have termed a genocide. To discuss why Israel agreed to stop its bombing after 15 months, whether the ceasefire is likely to last, and the future of Gaza's governance, Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane spoke to analysts Yousef Munayyer and Zaha Hassan.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Further Reading“A long-awaited ceasefire has finally begun in Gaza. Here's what we know,” Sophie Tanno, Lauren Kent and Christian Edwards, CNN“Jared Kushner says Gaza's ‘waterfront property could be very valuable,'” Patrick Wintour, The Guardian“Ben Gvir says he repeatedly foiled hostage deals, urges Smotrich to help him stop this one,” Times of Israel staff, Times of Israel“UNRWA said preparing to shutter Gaza, West Bank operations ahead of Israeli ban,” Times of Israel staff, Times of Israel“Gangs looting Gaza aid operate in areas under Israeli control, aid groups say,” Claire Parker, Loveday Morris, Hajar Harb, Miriam Berger and Hazem Balousha, The Washington Post“The Pro-Israel Donor With a $100 Million Plan to Elect Trump,” Theodore Schleifer, The New York Times

On this episode of On the Nose—a recording of an online event for Jewish Currents members, co-sponsored by the Beinart Notebook—editor-at-large Peter Beinart speaks with Mahmoud Muna, Matthew Teller, and Juliette Touma, three of the editors of the new anthology Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture. This volume includes nearly 100 stories from people in Gaza, recorded both before and amidst Israel's ongoing assault. In this conversation, the editors discuss the collection and the process of compiling it, and read some of the powerful testimonies it contains.Thanks to Daniel Kaufman and Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).Texts Mentioned and Further Reading:Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture, ed. Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller with Juliette Touma and Jayyab Abusafia“Letter from Gaza” by Ghassan Kanafani, Marxists Internet Archive“The Only Refuge I Could Offer” by Anonymous, Jewish Currents“Exile from Gaza” by Zak Hania, Safa Al-Majdalawi, Amal Al-Majdalawi, and Mohammed Ghalayni (as told to Jonathan Shamir), Jewish Currents“The Scenes in Rafah Are Straight From a Nightmare” by Zak Hania, Ahmed Totah, and Sameera Wafi (as told to Jonathan Shamir), Jewish Currents“Even as We Are Trying to Help, We Are Being Attacked” by Jameel, Juliette Touma, and Mohammed Al Khatib (as told to Jonathan Shamir and Aparna Gopalan), Jewish Currents“We Have Lost the Ability to Provide True Care” by Hammam Alloh, Yousef Al-Akkad, and Reda Abu Assi (as told to Maya Rosen), Jewish Currents“Dispatches from Gaza” by Mohammed Zraiy, Khalil Abuy Yahia, and Rania Hussein (as told to Alain Alameddine, Maya Rosen, and Julia), Jewish Currents

Since October 2023, Palestine solidarity activists have faced a climate of McCarthyist repression, and all signs point to the incoming Trump administration escalating that campaign to silence the anti-genocide movement. Trump's cabinet appointees and supporters have embraced plans to revoke visas of pro-Palestine student organizers, sue colleges to ensure they crack down on protesters, subject anti-Zionist students to FBI questioning, and more—all in the name of fighting antisemitism. In this episode, associate editor Mari Cohen and senior reporter Alex Kane join Emma Saltzberg, US strategic campaigns director for Diaspora Alliance, and Dylan Saba, a staff attorney at Palestine Legal and a contributing writer at Jewish Currents, to discuss the possible shape of the Trump repression regime. We discuss the use of civil rights law to quash student protest, the Heritage Foundation's unnerving “Project Esther” blueprint for suppressing the Palestine solidarity movement, and Congressional attempts to attack the nonprofit status of anti-Zionist groups. We also analyze the multiple right-wing approaches at play—including the distinct but sometimes overlapping “anti-discrimination” and “anti-terrorism” paradigms—and consider possibilities for mobilizing a broader liberal-left coalition to oppose these strategies. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:“Trump DOJ civil rights pick blasted campus protests, opposed Antisemitism Awareness Act,” Marc Rod, Jewish Insider “The Biden-Harris administration has failed to combat campus antisemitism,” Jonathan Pidluzny, America First Policy Institute“Trump attorney general pick Pam Bondi: 5 things Jews should know,” Lauren Markoe, Forward “The civil rights law shutting down pro-Palestine speech,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents“Linda McMahon meets with Senators, addresses approach to fighting antisemitism,” Emily Jacobs, Jewish Insider“Project Esther,” The Heritage Foundation “Evangelical Christians are politicizing the Jewish story of Esther,” Jane Eisner, The Washington Post“Congressional Republicans launch 'fishing expedition' against progressive, Jewish, and Palestinian nonprofits,” Matthew Petti, Reason“Virginia judge denies pro-Palestinian group's bid to limit attorney general's...

A Real Pain is a film starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Kulkin as two American Jewish cousins who take a trip to Poland to visit the childhood home of their grandmother. In this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, contributing editor Maia Ipp, and author Menachem Kaiser—all of whom are grandchildren of Holocaust survivors—dissect the movie's depiction of millennial neuroses, its relationship to other Holocaust films, and its grappling with the question of how to make meaning out of inherited memory. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:“Selling the Holocaust,” Arielle Angel, Menachem Kaiser, and Maia Ipp, Jewish Currents“(Re)Writing Remembrance,” Arielle Angel and Maia Ipp, Jewish CurrentsPlunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure, Menachem Kaiser“If I were a Zionist, I'd be Z: How Generations of Jews have Abandoned their Children to Face the Reckoning Alone,” Natasha Gill, SubstackBetween the Temples

On this episode of On the Nose—recorded at an online event on October 30th—editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with author Naomi Klein and writer and clinical psychologist Hala Alyan about the place of feelings and affect in the movement for Palestinian liberation. They discuss the role of grief and rage, how movements can accommodate affective diversity, and what it means to channel emotions politically. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:“How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war,” Naomi Klein, The GuardianThe Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust by Marianne HirschProsthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture by Alison Landsberg “‘Chronic traumatic stress disorder': the Palestinian psychiatrist challenging western definitions of trauma,” Bethan McKernan, The Guardian“Can the Palestinian Mourn?,” Abdaljawad Omar, Rusted Radishes“‘Resistance Through a Realist Lens,'” Arielle Angel in conversation with Abdaljawad Omar, Jewish Currents“Mourning and Melancholia,” Sigmund FreudThe Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein“One Year,” Palestinian Youth Movement, The New Inquiry (originally published in The New York War Crimes)Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative by Isabella Hammad“A Surge in American Jewish Left Organizing,” On the Nose, Jewish Currents“Gaza and the Coming Age of the ‘Warrior,'” Ghassan Hage, Allegra“One Year,” Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents newsletterThe Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist by Emile Habibi“Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Walter Benjamin

On this special episode of On the Nose—recorded live on November 4th at McNally Jackson Books in Manhattan—Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane hosts a discussion about foreign policy and the 2024 presidential election. Historian Stephen Wertheim, Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry, and national security reporter Spencer Ackerman discuss Donald Trump's and Kamala Harris's foreign policy visions, regional war in the Middle East, and the bipartisan consensus on upholding US empire. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).Further Reading:“Some Muslim Americans moving to Jill Stein in potential blow to Kamala Harris,” Andrea Shalal, Reuters“New Poll Finds Arab American Voters Evenly Divided in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Arab American InstituteReign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump by Spencer Ackerman“How Kamala Harris Should Put America First — for Real,” Stephen Werheim, The New York Times“America's Foreign Policy Inertia,” Stephen Wertheim and Christopher S. Chivvis, Foreign Affairs

In 2003, a group of Indian Americans established the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), an organization explicitly modeled on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in a bid to address anti-Hindu discrimination in the US. Just as the ADL has long insisted that fighting American antisemitism requires bolstering support for Israel, the HAF committed itself to lobbying for India's Hindu nationalist movement in the name of protecting Hindu Americans' civil rights, an approach that has garnered significant success. The HAF is not the only organization that has drawn inspiration from the ADL. In 2021, the Asian American Foundation (TAAF) was formed in direct partnership with the ADL as a way to address growing anti-Asian racism. While lacking connection to a single ethnonationalist movement, TAAF nevertheless drew on the ADL's and HAF's approaches in positioning anti-Asian racism as a unique problem requiring carceral solutions instead of solidaristic organizing. As such, TAAF debuted with ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt as the only non-Asian person on its board, and Hindu nationalist Sonal Shah as its founding president. The HAF and TAAF's use of the ADL model has thus far helped them achieve significant support and legitimacy. However, as the ADL itself faces an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy in the wake of October 7th, affiliation with it now risks becoming a liability. For instance, following members' criticism over its ties to an increasingly repressive Greenblatt, TAAF removed him from his board this July (while still affirming its “strategic relationship” with the ADL). As dissent continues to grow in Asian and South Asian American communities—with reporters and activists questioning ties of anti-racist groups in the US to injustices abroad—it is not just ties to the ADL but the power of the ADL model of antiracism that stands to come into question. To discuss these developments, Jewish Currents news editor Aparna Gopalan spoke to associate editor Mari Cohen, New Yorker contributing writer E. Tammy Kim, and Savera coalition activist Prachi Patankar about the similarities and differences between the ADL, the HAF, and TAAF; their embrace of a “hate crimes” approach to anti-racism and what it leaves out; their ties to supremacist movements; and their shifting fortunes in the wake of the pressures over the past year. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).Texts Mentioned and Further Reading:“How the ADL's Israel Advocacy Undermines Its Civil Rights Work,” Alex Kane and Jacob Hutt, Jewish Currents “ADL Staffers Dissented After CEO Compared Palestinian...

Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of the most celebrated American political writers of our time, devotes much of his new book, The Message, to a withering and deeply personal critique of Israel's oppression of Palestinians. On this bonus episode of On the Nose—a recording of an online event for Jewish Currents members, co-sponsored by the Beinart Notebook and the Foundation for Middle East Peace—editor-at-large Peter Beinart speaks with Coates about his time in Israel and the West Bank, the silencing of Palestinians in American media, and what it means when nationalism's victims become its adherents.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).Texts Mentioned and Further Reading:The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” Martin Luther King, Jr.Our American Israel by Amy KaplanThe Riot Report, directed by Michelle Ferrari“The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic“One Year of War in the Middle East,” Pod Save the WorldThe Yellow Wind by David Grossman“Obama on his criticism of Israeli settlements: ‘I'm basically a liberal Jew,'” Avery Anopol, The Hill“US media talks a lot about Palestinians—just without Palestinians,” Maha Nassar, +972 MagazineTa-Nehisi Coates interview on CBSBlack Panther graphic novels by Ta-Nehisi CoatesMakdisi Street podcast“Ta-Nehisi Coates: I Was Told Palestine Was Complicated. Visiting Revealed a Simple, Brutal Truth,” Democracy Now!

On this episode of On the Nose—recorded live at Jewish Currents's daylong event on September 15th—editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with a panel of authors, scholars, and activists about the movement for Palestinian freedom in the wake of Israel's genocide. Noura Erakat, Fadi Quran, Dana El Kurd, Amjad Iraqi, and Ahmed Moor discuss the challenge of Palestinian unity under Israel's program of fragmentation, the resurgence of the two-state solution and decline of the coexistence paradigm, American Jews' role in organizing their communities against Zionism, and the task of imagining a liberated future.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).Texts Mentioned and Further Reading:Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine by Dana El KurdJustice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura ErakatAfter Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine, edited by Anthony Loewenstein and Ahmed MoorHamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance by Tareq BaconiPolling by Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research“Zionism Killed the Jewish-Muslim World,” Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, JacobinProtocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions1968 Palestinian National Charter“How Durham, North Carolina, became the first US city to ban police exchanges with Israel,” Zaina Alsous and Sammy Hanf, Scalawag

For this live taping of the literary podcast Between the Covers—recorded at Jewish Currents's daylong event on September 15th and presented in partnership with On the Nose—host David Naimon convened a conversation with renowned writers Dionne Brand and Adania Shibli about contesting colonial narratives. Rooted in their long-standing literary practice and in the demands of this moment of genocide, they discuss the vexed meanings of home, how to recover the everydayness of life erased by empire, and what it means to imagine togetherness beyond the nation-state.This episode was produced by David Naimon, with music by Alicia Jo Rabins. Thanks also to Jesse Brenneman for additional editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).Texts Mentioned and Additional Resources:Minor Detail by Adania ShibliA Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging by Dionne BrandCivil Service by Claire SchwartzThe Blue Clerk by Dionne BrandAdania Shibli in conversation with Hisham Matar at the 2024 Hay FestivalAdania Shibli in conversation with Madeleine Thien and Layli Long Soldier at the Barnard Center for Research on Women“Writing Against Tyranny and Toward Liberation,” Dionne Brand“Dionne Brand: Nomenclature — New and Collected Poems,” Between the Covers“Adania Shibli: Minor Detail,” Between the Covers“prologue for now - Gaza,” Dionne Brand, Jewish Currents“Duty,” Daniel Mendelsohn, New York Review of Books“A Lesson in Arabic Grammar by Toni Morrison,” Adania Shibli, Jewish CurrentsInventory by Dionne BrandRecognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative by Isabella Hammad“Isabella Hammad: Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative,” Between the...

In this live taping of Jacobin's podcast The Dig—recorded at Jewish Currents's recent daylong event and presented in partnership with On the Nose—host Daniel Denvir convened a conversation with scholars Aslı Bâli and Aziz Rana on the past and present of left internationalism. Placing the current eruption of solidarity with Palestine in the context of the rise and fall of Third Worldism, they discuss the history and legacy of that project, the lasting structures of neocolonialism, and the challenge of contesting empire from the heart of empire.This episode was produced by Alex Lewis and Jackson Roach, with music by Jeffrey Brodsky. Thanks also to Jesse Brenneman for additional editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).Texts Mentioned and Further Reading:“Left Internationalism in the Heart of Empire,” Aziz Rana, Dissent“Reviving the Language of Empire,” Aziz Rana in conversation with Nora Caplan-Bricker, Jewish Currents“The Disastrous Relationship Among Israel, Palestinians and the U.N.,” Aslı Bâli on The Ezra Klein Show, The New York TimesNeo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah“What We Did: How the Jewish Communist Left Failed the Palestinian Cause,” Dorothy M. Zellner, Jewish CurrentsEmpire As a Way of Life by William Appleman WilliamsDiscourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire“From Minneapolis to Jerusalem,” Hannah Black, Jewish Currents“Charging Israel with Genocide,” On the Nose, Jewish Currents

Recently, far-right figures like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have hitched their anti-Israel politics to blatant antisemitism, platforming Holocaust denial and using decontextualized passages from religious texts like the Talmud to argue for the fundamental immorality of Judaism; in some cases their rhetoric has migrated beyond the right-wing echo chamber. Meanwhile, following a cheeky tweet by conspiracy-minded Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal that attributed the congressional losses of Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush to the “Zionist occupied government,” or “ZOG,” debates raged online about the supposed accuracy or usefulness of the term, which has clear origins in the neo-Nazi movement. In this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel interviews Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, authors of the new book Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, about these trends and how we confront them. They examine the real difficulties of talking about antisemitism—and assessing actual risk—in an alarmist environment where antisemitism is frequently weaponized against Palestinians and their allies, and discuss what it means to build principled movements rooted in mutual self-interest and collective liberation.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Reading:Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism by Shane Burley and Ben Lorber“The Right's Anti-Israel Insurgents,” Ben Lorber, Jewish Currents “Examining the ADL's Antisemitism Audit,” Shane Burley and Jonah ben Avraham, Jewish CurrentsThe Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance by Shaul MagidZioness event about campus antisemitism“Jewish settlers stole my house. It's not my fault they're Jewish,” Mohammed El Kurd, MondoweissRafael Shimunov's thread about talking about antisemitism on the left“What Comes Next for the Palestinian Youth Movement,” Mohammed Nabulsi, Hammer & HopeDoppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi KleinStudy on the correlation between antisemitism and Israeli violence against Palestinians"

On July 31st, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's top political leader, was killed in Iran. Haniyeh came to the capital city of Tehran for the presidential inauguration; an explosive device went off in the guest house where he was staying. Just hours before, Haniyeh had met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel hasn't taken responsibility for the attack, but they're widely believed to be responsible—especially given their history of targeted political assassinations. Indeed, Haniyeh's killing followed Israel assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Lebanon one day earlier. Haniyeh was killed in the middle of ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel. With the death toll in Gaza nearing 40,000, and the family members of Israeli hostages desperately calling for a prisoner exchange, the pressure to come to an agreement has been mounting. But Haniyeh was a chief negotiator in those talks, and now, the chances of arriving at a deal seem further than ever.Meanwhile, Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel for the attack on their soil. As of Thursday, August 8th, that hasn't happened yet, but many now fear that tensions could lead to a wider regional war. In this collaboration between Unsettled Podcast and On the Nose, Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson interviews Tareq Baconi, author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, to make sense of these developments and what Haniyeh's assassination means for the future of the region. This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson with Emily Bell. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Further Reading:“Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance,” Tareq Baconi“Hamas: Gaza (Ep 3),” Unsettled Podcast“Tareq Baconi: ‘There's no going back,'” Unsettled Podcast“Regional War: An Explainer,” Alex Kane and Jonathan Shamir, Jewish Currents

Since October 7th, a low-grade regional war has played out across the Middle East, pitting Israel and its Western allies against various Iran-backed forces. The Yemeni Houthi faction has targeted ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel's war on Gaza, prompting a wave of US and British airstrikes on Yemen. Meanwhile, Iraqi militias have repeatedly fired rockets at US forces in their country. Hezbollah and Israel have also traded deadly fire on the Lebanon–Israel border, leading to mass displacement on both sides.Now, with Israel's recent assassinations of a senior Hezbollah commander in a Beirut suburb, and of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, these relatively-limited conflicts threaten to turn into a far-bloodier conflagration. On this episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane interviews regional expert Trita Parsi and scholar Karim Makdisi about these assassinations, the strategies and interests of Iran and Hezbollah, and the Biden administration's response to the prospect of a full-scale regional war.Thanks to guest producer Will Smith and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”ARTICLES MENTIONED AND FURTHER READING“Regional War: An Explainer,” Alex Kane and Jonathan Shamir, Jewish Currents“The Middle East Is Inching Toward Another War,” Trita Parsi, TIME“Biden Warns Netanyahu Against Escalation As Risk Of Regional War Grows,” Barak Ravid, Axios“Bomb Smuggled Into Tehran Guesthouse Months Ago Killed Hamas Leader,” Ronen Bergman, Mark Mazzetti, and Farnaz Fassihi, The New York Times

Should leftists vote for the Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential election? Many have balked at supporting an administration that has funded and armed Israel's genocidal war on Gaza: Some are refusing to vote outright, while others are conditioning their vote on a dramatic shift in policy. Although President Joe Biden has now dropped out of the race, and will almost certainly be replaced by his vice president, Kamala Harris, this question remains live for many. American leftists have long debated our relationship to electoral politics, and to the Democratic Party in particular. Do we choose the lesser of two evils, hold our nose, and “vote blue no matter who” in order to avert the catastrophes that would result from a Republican presidency? Or are there acts that are too morally outrageous to permit such a utilitarian calculus? And regardless of what we choose, are there ways to think about the meaning of voting that go beyond the pieties of mainstream liberal discourse?In this episode, Jewish Currents contributing writer Raphael Magarik explores these questions with Rania Batrice, a first-generation Palestinian American and political strategist who has devoted her career to electoral work, including as Bernie Sanders's 2016 deputy campaign manager. The conversation—recorded while Biden was still running—examines a legal responsum by Rabbi Menashe Klein, the spiritual leader of the Ungvar Hasidic community in Brooklyn, about whether one is responsible for the actions of a candidate one votes for. Through engagement with Klein's responsum, Magarik and Batrice turn over their own ambivalences, grappling with competing ways of thinking about voting.This podcast is part of our chevruta column, named for the traditional method of Jewish study, in which a pair of students analyzes a religious text together. In each installment, Jewish Currents matches leftist thinkers and organizers with a rabbi or Torah scholar. The activists bring an urgent question that arises in their own work; the Torah scholar leads them in exploring their question through Jewish text. By routing contemporary political questions through traditional religious sources, we aim to address the most urgent ethical and spiritual problems confronting the left. Each column includes a written conversation, podcast, and study guide. You can find the column based on this conversation and a study guide here. Thanks to Ilana Levinson for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Donald Trump's decision to tap Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate marks the culmination of a Republican foreign policy transformation. While some aspects of Trump's foreign policy choices in his first term alienated neoconservatives, other elements aligned with their views—and his previous vice presidential pick, Mike Pence, hailed from the interventionist wing of the party. By contrast, Vance has stridently denounced the Iraq War and criticized US funding for Ukraine. His selection suggests that a second Trump term could represent a sharper break from GOP orthodoxy on foreign policy and heralds the rise of a realist nationalist vision for how the US should conduct itself around the world. On this episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane speaks with historian Suzanne Schneider and political analyst Matt Duss about the ideology driving Vance's agenda, his argument that “America First” foreign policy must include US support for Israel, and how a second Trump administration would differ from the Biden administration on international affairs. Thanks to guest producer Will Smith and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Articles Mentioned and Further Reading:“Light Among The Nations,” Suzanne Schneider, Jewish Currents“Vance on Iran: ‘If You're Going to Punch the Iranians, You Punch Them Hard,'” Matthew Kassel, Jewish InsiderVance's Keynote Speech at Quincy Institute/The American Conservative Conference“Trump taps Vance as Running Mate, Anointing Ideological Successor,” Matthew Kassel, Jewish Insider"Leaked Memo Shows J.D. Vance's Anti-Woke Ideology on Foreign Affairs," John Hudson, The Washington Post“Harris Candidacy Gives Democrats a Chance to Pivot on Gaza,” Matt Duss, Foreign Policy

Until 1948, around 800,000 Jews lived as an organic and inseparable part of the Arab Middle East and North Africa. But political shifts in the mid-20th century upended this reality. The violent creation of the State of Israel, and the rise of an increasingly exclusivist Arab nationalism, fueled anti-Jewish hostility that led to the exodus of all but a few thousand Jews from the region. The rich Arab-Jewish life that had characterized prior centuries was lost, and the vast majority of Arab Jews ended up in Israel, becoming active participants in the country's regime of domination over Palestinians. But neither Mizrahi Jews' enthusiastic embrace of Zionism nor the collapse of Jewish life in the broader Middle East were historical inevitabilities—and these processes did not go unchallenged. Instead, Arab-Jewish thinkers throughout the 20th century drew on their own experiences to offer alternatives to Zionism as well as other kinds of ethnonationalism.In June, Jewish Currents fellow Jonathan Shamir attended a first-of-its-kind retreat for Arab Jews organized by activist Hadar Cohen and historian Avi Shlaim, where contemporary thinkers came together to figure out how to build on these past efforts. In the latest episode of On the Nose, Shamir speaks with three scholars from the retreat—Hana Morgenstern, who studies Middle Eastern literature; Yaël Mizrahi-Arnaud, a co-founder of the diaspora anti-Zionist group Shoresh; and Moshe Behar, a senior lecturer in Israel/Palestine studies and co-founder of the Mizrahi Civic Collective—about the history of Arab-Jewish political thought and organizing, and its possibilities and limits for our time.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Reading and Listening:On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements: Selected Writings by Ella ShohatThe Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity by Yehouda ShenhavModern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, & Culture, 1893-1958, edited by Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor BeniteThree Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew by Avi ShlaimIraqi Jewish Writers (Banipal Magazine of Modern Arab Literature), Shimon Ballas, Sami Michael, Samir Naqqash, et al. "An Archive of Literary Reconstruction after the Palestinian Nakba," Hana Morgenstern, MERIP“Were There—and Can There Be—Arab Jews? (With Afterthoughts on the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism and Palestinian Jews),” Moshe Behar“Weeping for Babylon,” Zvi Ben-Dor Benite and Avi Shlaim, Jewish Currents“Toward a Democratic State in Palestine,” Palestine National Liberation Movement"The 'Friends of the IDF' Gala Was Like a Rich Kid's Bar Mitzvah—Until the Protest Started," Sophie Hurwitz, The Nation“A Democratic Mizrahi Vision,” the Mizrahi Civic Collective

On June 25th, New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman lost his primary election to George Latimer, a longtime Democratic Westchester County politician. The race attracted national attention because of the unprecedented role played by the Israel-advocacy group AIPAC: The lobby's super PAC spent $14.5 million on television ads attacking Bowman, while AIPAC donors contributed about $2.5 million to Latimer's campaign. Bowman's loss marked a blow for the project of electing leftists to federal office, and the result particularly stung for the pro-Palestine movement; one of the most outspoken Democratic critics of Israel's war on Gaza will now be replaced by someone who won't even rebuke Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which puts him well to the right of Joe Biden. On this episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane is joined by Intercept DC bureau chief Ryan Grim and former Justice Democrats spokesperson Waleed Shahid to discuss the meaning of Bowman's loss, AIPAC's electoral strategy, and the future of the movement to elect leftist Democrats.Articles Mentioned and Further Reading:“The Road Not Taken: Hard Truths about Jamaal Bowman's Loss,” Micah Sifry, The Connector“What the Left Can Learn From Jamaal Bowman's Loss,” Waleed Shahid, The Nation“A Trip to Israel Changed Jamaal Bowman's Worldview—And Could Cost Him His Re-election,” Calder McHugh, Politico

In May 2021, Palestinian American poet, physician, translator, and essayist Fady Joudah wrote two poems engaged with the violence of Israeli apartheid. Reflecting on the conundrum of where and how to publish them, he explained: “I've long been aware of the crushing weight that reduces Palestine in English to a product with limited features . . . This sickening delimitation mimics physical entrapment. The silken compassion toward Palestinians in mainstream English thinks the language of the oppressed is brilliant mostly when it teaches us about surviving massacres and enduring the degradation of checkpoints.” His sixth collection of poetry, [...], written between October and December 2023, and published in March, indicts precisely such forms of entrapment. In these lucid yet idiosyncratic poems, Joudah turns his attention to that which exceeds the narrow place of the Western gaze, spurning the market forces that reward the performance of perpetual Palestinian victimhood.On this episode of On the Nose, culture editor Claire Schwartz speaks with Joudah about publishing [...] in this long moment of anti-Palestinian racism, the dangerous desires of denying our own not-knowing, and the generative capacities of silence.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned, and Further Reading and Listening: “My Palestinian Poem that ‘The New Yorker' Wouldn't Publish,” Fady Joudah, Los Angeles Review of Books“A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation,” Fady Joudah, Lit Hub “Fady Joudah: The poet on how the war in Gaza changed his work,” Aria Aber, The Yale Review“‘Unspeakable': Dr. Fady Joudah Grieves 50+ Family Members Killed in Gaza & Slams U.S. Media Coverage,” Democracy Now!“Aesthetics of Return: Palestinian Poetry with Fady Joudah,” Jadaliyya“Habibi Yamma,” Fady Joudah, Protean “Dear [...],” Fady Joudah, Prairie Schooner“[...],” Fady Joudah, Lit Hub“[...],” Fady Joudah, Jewish Currents“Maqam for a Green Silence,” Fady Joudah, Jewish Currents

Since October 7th, American Jews have been sharply divided over Israel's war on Gaza—a fracture that has been manifest within all manner of institutions, including synagogues. Many leftist Jews do not participate in synagogue life at all, in part because most congregations are explicitly or tacitly Zionist. But for those who are affiliated with a synagogue community that doesn't completely align with their politics, this moment has raised or reasserted pressing and difficult questions: Should we do political work within these institutions, and if so, how? What is gained and lost by organizing in these spaces, or by withdrawing from them? What kinds of communities can we ethically be part of? On this episode of On the Nose, managing editor Nathan Goldman, managing director Cynthia Friedman, contributing writer Raphael Magarik, and contributor Devin E. Naar discuss their varying approaches to synagogue life in this moment.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Texts Mentioned and Further Reading:“Jewish Americans in 2020,” Pew Research Center“Statement on Israel/Palestine by Scholars of Jewish Studies and Israel Studies” from 2021“How a Leading Definition of Antisemitism Has Been Weaponized Against Israel's Critics,” Jonathan Hafetz and Sahar Aziz, The NationMaking Mensches“Ale Brider,” Yiddish folk song“Hayim Katsman's Vision of Struggle,” Hayim Katsman, Jewish CurrentsOttoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early 20th Century Palestine by Michelle U. CamposOriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine by Abigail Jacobson and Moshe Naor“A Democratic Mizrahi Vision,” the Mizrahi Civic Collective

On March 29th, Jewish Currents began publishing a short commentary on the parshah—the portion of the Torah that Jews traditionally read each week—in the Shabbat Reading List newsletter. A note introducing this new feature situated it in the context of mainstream Jewish communal support for Israel's war on Gaza: “While it might seem strange for a historically secular magazine to embark on such a project . . . we are trying this now because many in our community have expressed an unprecedented alienation from most Jewish institutions, alongside an urgent need for spiritual fortification.” While many readers have written in to express their gratitude and enthusiasm for the series, some people with long histories of close involvement with Jewish Currents have been upset by the inclusion of religious content. The range of reactions highlights an enduring dispute over the place of religion at Jewish Currents. The magazine was founded by a stridently secularist American Jewish left, which was forged in opposition to the reactionary constraints of religion and in alignment with the Communist Party. But this has given way to a movement that's more interested in religious texts and ritual as generative elements of Jewish identity, and as politically meaningful tools. On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, managing editor Nathan Goldman, JC councilmember Judee Rosenbaum, and contributing writer Mitch Abidor argue about the parshah commentaries, the meaning of secularism at Jewish Currents, and the evolving role of religion on the Jewish left. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Articles Mentioned and Further Reading:“Complex Inheritances,” Joy Ladin, Jewish Currents“Yiddish Anarchists' Break Over Palestine,” introduced and translated by Eyshe Beirich, Jewish Currents“Camp Kinderland at 100,” On the Nose, Jewish Currents“Zhitlovsky: Philosopher of Jewish Secularism,” Max Rosenfeld, Cultural and Secular Jewish Organization (previously in Jewish Currents)“Secularism,” Daniel May, SourcesLetter to the editor on religious coverage at Jewish Currents, with editors' response“Secular Jewish Education, A Critique,” Bennett Muraskin, Jewish Currents“Why I'm Not a Jewish Secularist,” Mitch Abidor, Jewish Currents“Why I'm Not a Jewish Secularist: A Response to the Responses,”

On April 7th, Larry David's sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm—which debuted in 2000 and ran on and off for 24 years—concluded its twelfth and final season. For many critics, the finale marked not only the completion of a beloved show that sometimes seemed like it would run forever, but also the end of an era of American Jewish comedy, embodied by David and other comics of his generation. Curb follows the everyday antics of a fictionalized version of David, living a posh life in Los Angeles following the success of the iconic '90s sitcom Seinfeld, which he co-created with Jerry Seinfeld. David's avatar is an over-the-top archetype of a Brooklyn Jew raised in the mid-century, and the show is animated by the character's dry affect and hyperbolic intransigence, which often put him at odds with reigning social mores, fueling absurd interactions with strangers, friends, and foes. Over the course of Curb's long run, it's had a profound impact on the shape of modern American comedy, while the caricature at its core has emerged as one of the defining representations of American Jewishness.On this episode of On the Nose, managing editor Nathan Goldman, executive editor Nora Caplan-Bricker, contributing editor Ari M. Brostoff, and contributing writer Rebecca Pierce discuss Curb's depictions of Jewishness, Blackness—and, in one famous episode, Palestinianness—and share their thoughts on the show's final season and David's comedic legacy.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Articles, Episodes, and Films Mentioned:“The Ski Lift,” Curb Your Enthusiasm“The End,” Curb Your Enthusiasm“American Jewish Comedy Sings a Swan Song,” P.E. Moskowitz, Vulture“Meet the Blacks,” Curb Your EnthusiasmA Serious Man, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen“Atlanta,” Curb Your Enthusiasm“The Lawn Jockey,” Curb Your Enthusiasm“The N Word,” Curb Your Enthusiasm“Palestinian Chicken,” Curb Your Enthusiasm“No Lessons Learned,” Curb Your Enthusiasm“The Finale,” Seinfeld“Jerry Seinfeld Admits He ‘Sometimes' Regrets the Seinfeld Finale,” Corinna Burford, Vulture

The recent wave of anti-Zionist Gaza solidarity protest encampments on college campuses has reignited a longstanding public debate over how to define “Zionist.” On May 8th, a week after the Columbia University encampment was dismantled by the NYPD, more than 500 Jewish students at the school who identify as Zionists published an open letter in which they laid out their perspective. “A large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism, and consequently does not understand the essence of the Jewish People,” they argued, positing that Zionism and Judaism are fundamentally intertwined. The claims echoed a common mainstream Jewish talking point, that the student movement's stance against Zionism and its adherents is a de facto rejection of Jews—a discourse that plays out against the backdrop of a yearslong Israel advocacy effort to redefine Zionism not as a political ideology but as a protected ethnic identity under US civil rights law. Yet anti-Zionists, Jewish and otherwise, maintain that their position is simply a rejection of the political structure of Jewish supremacy that undergirds the State of Israel. On this episode, Jewish Currents staff members discuss how they describe their politics in relation to the term “Zionist” and why. They reflect on the comparative advantages and limits of using the labels “anti-Zionist,” “non-Zionist,” and “cultural Zionist” to articulate opposition to a state project of Jewish supremacy and support of Palestinian liberation and right of return, and consider how those identifications impact relationships within the Jewish community and with the broader solidarity movement. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” BOOKS AND ARTICLES MENTIONED AND FURTHER READING: Excerpt from “Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims,” Edward Said 2021 Study of Jewish LA “How ‘Zionist' became a slur on the US left,” Jonathan Guyer, The Guardian“A plan to save Israel — by getting rid of Zionism,” Emily Tamkin, The Forward, on Shaul Magid's new book exploring a “counter-Zionist” futureHaifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israel, Omri BoehmAddress by Max Nordau at the First Zionist Congress, 1897“The Suppressed Lineage of American Jewish Dissent on Zionism,” Emma Saltzberg, Jewish Currents, on the historical evolution of the meaning of the term “Zionism”

Last fall, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco put out an open call for artists to apply for the California Jewish Open. Some of the artists that were accepted into the show identified themselves openly in the application as anti-Zionist, and submitted work that contained content that straightforwardly advocated for Palestinian liberation. But in April, seven of the artists withdrew from the show. A statement released by a group calling themselves California Artists for Palestine cited an “inability to meet artists' demands, including transparency around funding and a commitment to BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions].” The artists demanded to be able to have final say on wall text about the works, and to be able to pull or alter their works at any time. They were also concerned about potential “curatorial both-sidesism,” referring to an email they received on March 22nd which asked artists to sign off on the fact that their work would be “presented in proximity to artwork(s) by other Jewish artists which may convey views and beliefs that conflict with [their] own.” The museum has decided to leave blank the wall space designated for this work, “to honor the perspective that would have been shared through these works, and to authentically reflect the struggle for dialogue that is illustrated by the artists' decisions to withdraw.”This week, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks to two anti-Zionist multidisciplinary artists who made divergent decisions about whether to stay in the group show: Amy Trachtenberg, who opted to remain, and Liat Berdugo, who has pulled out. The trio discuss the perils and possibility of Jewish institutional life—in the art world and beyond—at this moment, the applicability of BDS in this case, and the uses and limitations of “dialogue.”Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” ARTICLES MENTIONED AND FURTHER READING: “Jewish Anti-Zionist Artists Withdraw From Contemporary Jewish Museum Show,” Matt Stromberg, Hyperallergic“Anti-Zionist Jewish artists pull out of CJM exhibit when demands are not met,” Andrew Esensten, J Weekly“CJM visitors wonder: Does the Palestinian flag belong on the museum's walls?,” Andrew Esensten, J WeeklyPalestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) guidelines“Campus Politics Takes the Stage in The Ally,” On the Nose, Jewish CurrentsJewish Voice for Peace/IfNotNow Passover Campaign“Biting the Hand,” The Editors, e-flux“

Chevruta is a column named for the traditional method of Jewish study, in which a pair of students analyzes a religious text together. In each installment, Jewish Currents will match leftist thinkers and organizers with a rabbi or Torah scholar. The activists will bring an urgent question that arises in their own work; the Torah scholar will lead them in exploring their question through Jewish text. By routing contemporary political questions through traditional religious sources, we aim to address the most urgent ethical and spiritual problems confronting the left. Each column will include a column, podcast, and study guide.On February 25th, Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty member of the US Air Force, self-immolated outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” Bushnell said in a livestreamed video, broadcasting what he declared an “an extreme act of protest”—though, he added, “compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it's not extreme at all.” Bushnell, who was dressed in his army uniform, then doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire, shouting “Free Palestine” until he collapsed. He died later that day. While some were quick to dismiss Bushnell's action as a manifestation of mental illness, many on the left expressed admiration for his sacrifice—which, as intended, drew global attention to US complicity in Israel's brutal, ongoing assault on Gaza.In this chevruta, Rabbi Lexi Botzum and Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel engage with Jewish texts that examine the concepts of martyrdom, sacrifice, and public spectacle, considering how our tradition might help us to engage with Aaron Bushnell's act, and the question of how much we must sacrifice for justice.You can find the column based on this conversation and a study guide here. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Articles Mentioned:All Jewish sources are cited in the study guide, linked above“Aaron Bushnell's Act of Political Despair,” Masha Gessen, The New Yorker“The Work of the Witness,” Sarah Aziza, Jewish Currents“The Nature of Mass Demonstrations,” John Berger, International Socialism“Burnt Offerings,” Erik Baker, n+1

Last week, the NYPD—called in by Columbia University President Minouche Shafik—arrested 108 Columbia and Barnard students, who had set up a Gaza solidarity encampment on a lawn in the center of campus. The group of students was subsequently suspended, and those at Barnard were evicted from campus housing. Over the following days, others reestablished the encampment—continuing the call for the university to disclose their investments and divest from Israeli companies, to boycott Israeli academic institutions, and to keep cops off campus, among other demands.In the week since the encampment was established—as the tactic spreads to campuses around the country—the movement has been maligned as a threat to Jewish students, and lawmakers like Sens. Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley as well as Jewish communal leaders like Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt have called for bringing in the National Guard. Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel spoke to three Jewish student organizers arrested at the original encampments—Izzy Lapidus, Sarah Borus, and Lea Salim—about their experiences over the past week and what Palestine solidarity organizing has looked like on their campuses since October 7th.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Further Reading:"Evidence of torture as nearly 400 bodies found in Gaza mass graves," Al Jazeera“Statement on Columbia's Gaza Solidarity Protest Community Values,” Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)“Republican Senators Demand Biden Use National Guard to Suppress Columbia Protests,” Nikki McCann Ramirez, Rolling StoneJonathan Greenblatt of the ADL calling for NYPD and the National Guard to be brought onto campus on XPassover seder at the Columbia encampment"NYPD Investigating 'Skunk' Chemical Attack at Columbia U," Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed“Republicans Wanted a Crackdown on Israel's Critics. Columbia Obliged,” Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times

In recent months, a buzzy new pair of articles on the specter of rising “Israel-related” antisemitism have arrived in The Atlantic. One, by Franklin Foer, heralds the end of the “golden age of American Jews,” while another, by Theo Baker, details the current climate on Stanford's campus. Though similar stories have circulated in Jewish communal outlets for years, these two longform pieces demonstrate how the subject has also taken center-stage in liberal media since October 7th, against a backdrop of increased scrutiny on college campuses. The media handwringing has been accompanied by political and legal crackdowns: The ADL and the Brandeis Center have filed a lawsuit against Ohio State, the House Committee on Education has launched an investigation into Columbia, and Harvard President Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill have both been pushed out of their positions due to their handling of tensions around campus antisemitism. But is this really all about antisemitism? What do these narratives leave out of frame?In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, editor-at-large Peter Beinart, associate editor Mari Cohen, and publisher Daniel May dissect the common features of these campus antisemitism narratives—and consider what ends they serve. They discuss the difference between antisemitism and political ostracism, the need for more accurate reporting on campus dynamics, the confluence between the anti-antisemitism and the anti-DEI crusade, and the ways that the campus antisemitism panic can result in crackdowns on—rather than protection of—liberal freedoms.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Articles Mentioned and Further Reading:“The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending,” Franklin Foer, The Atlantic“The War at Stanford,” Theo Baker, The Atlantic“The New Antisemitism,” Noah Feldman, Time Magazine“‘Pro-Israel' Pundits Don't Talk About Israel,” Peter Beinart, Jewish Currents“Toward a Sober Assessment of Campus Antisemitism,” Ben Lorber, Jewish Currents“Homeland Violence and Diaspora Insecurity: An Analysis of Israel and American Jewry,” Ayal Feinberg, Politics and Religion (and similar studies from Belgium and

In The Ally—a new play at the Public Theater by Itamar Moses—an Israeli American adjunct professor is forced to confront the limits of his solidarity when his decision to support a Black student seeking justice for the police murder of a cousin becomes entangled with questions of Israel and Palestine. Though set before October 7th, the play is undoubtedly “ripped from the headlines,” taking up questions of campus antisemitism and liberal Jewish discomfort with left politics, and giving every “side” in the argument—hardline Zionists, Palestinians, young Jewish leftists, Black activists, and Jewish liberals—a chance to state its case. But does the play actually push liberal audiences beyond their preconceived biases, or does it allow them to remain in a state of comfortable ambivalence? In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, contributing writer Alisa Solomon, and artist-in-residence Fargo Nissim Tbakhi discuss what The Ally reveals about liberal America's view of the left, and the opportunities and limitations of theater in spurring action. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Plays Mentioned and Further Reading:The Ally by Itamar Moses at The Public TheaterDisgraced by Ayad Akhtar“Who Is Tom Stoppard's “Jewish Play” For?,” On the Nose, Jewish Currents “Jewish Groups Condemn Black Lives Matter Platform for Accusing ‘Apartheid' Israel of ‘Genocide,'” Sam Kestenbaum, Haaretz

In the public sphere, the discursive battle over Israel and Palestine often comes down to language, with one's willingness to use individual words and phrases like “apartheid” and “settler colonialism,” or “the right to exist” and “human shields,” usually offering a pretty reliable indication of their worldview. Since October 7th, mainstream and independent media alike have been faced with endless choices about how to represent the unfolding events: Which words are used to describe the Hamas attacks and which ones are used to describe those of the Israeli military, for example, and what does it say about the perceived humanity of each group of victims? What should reporters do with words like “genocide” or “war crimes,” which will take some time to adjudicate legally, but which also serve a function in naming unfolding events? This isn't just a question about words, but also grammar and syntax: In a pattern reminiscent of reporting on police attacks on Black Americans, headlines often employ the passive voice when dealing with Israeli military action, obscuring the culpability of those responsible for attacks on Palestinians. In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel talks to Intercept senior editor Ali Gharib, independent journalist Dalia Hatuqa, and former New York Times Magazine writer Jazmine Hughes about the decisions that newsrooms are making regarding the language they use to discuss Israel/Palestine, and what these decisions mean about the state of journalism today.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Articles Mentioned and Further Reading:“Coverage of Gaza War in the New York Times and Other Major Newspapers Heavily Favored Israel, Analysis Shows,” Adam Johnson and Othman Ali, The Intercept“CNN Runs Gaza Coverage Past Jerusalem Team Operating Under Shadow of IDF Censor,” Daniel Boguslaw, The Intercept“Between the Hammer and the Anvil: The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé,” Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, and Daniel Boguslaw, The Intercept “In Internal Meeting, Christiane Amanpour Confronts CNN Brass About ‘Double Standards' on Israel Coverage,” Daniel Boguslaw and Prem Thakker, The Intercept“This War Did Not Start a Month Ago,” Dalia Hatuqa, The New York TimesJazmine Hughes on Democracy Now“‘There Has Never Been Less Tolerance for This': Inside a New York Times Magazine Writer's Exit Over Gaza Letter,” Charlotte Klein, Vanity FairWords About War guide“A Poetry of Proximity,” Solmaz...

On January 22nd, India's far-right prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram Mandir, a gargantuan new temple dedicated to the Hindu god Ram, in an event that marked the most consequential victory for the Hindu nationalist movement in its 100-year history. The temple has been erected in the exact spot where a centuries-old mosque, the Babri Masjid, stood until Hindutva supporters violently destroyed it in 1992. The attack on the Masjid catalyzed anti-Muslim mass violence across the country, and in the years since, Hindu nationalist, or Hindutva, groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—a Nazi-inspired paramilitary of which Modi is a member—have used the campaign to construct a new temple on the site of the demolished mosque as a rallying cry in their efforts to transform India from a secular democracy to a Hindu supremacist nation. That ambition appeared to have been fulfilled at the Ram Mandir opening ceremony, with Modi declaring that “this temple is not just a temple to a god. This is a temple of India's vision . . . Ram is the faith of India.” The temple's inauguration comes months before national elections in which Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears certain to emerge victorious. Over the course of its two terms in office, the BJP has already entrenched India's annexation of the Muslim-majority of Kashmir, presided over anti-minority riots across India, and ratcheted up state-sponsored Islamophobia to such a pitch that experts warn that India's 200 million Muslims are at risk of facing a genocide. With the completion of the Ram Mandir, this anti-minority fervor seems set only to intensify further. On this episode of On the Nose, news editor Aparna Gopalan speaks to writer Siddhartha Deb, scholar Angana Chatterji, and activist Safa Ahmed about the Hindutva movement's epochal win, how it was achieved, and what comes next for India's minorities. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Articles Mentioned and Further Reading:“The Idol and the Mosque,” Siddhartha Deb, Tablet “Ayodhya: Once There Was A Mosque,” The Wire“Recasting Ram,” Sagar, The Caravan“Bulldozer Injustice in India,” Amnesty International“How the Hindu Right Triumphed in India,” Isaac Chotiner and Mukul Kesavan, The New Yorker“

In recent years, religious Jewish communities around the world have turned increasingly toward the right. In Israel, the overwhelmingly right-wing ideology of Religious Zionism is on the rise, and it's often seen as unusual to be both religious and left-wing. But there's also a growing movement of observant Jews offering an alternative vision for religious life that centers Jewish values of justice, compassion, and freedom. In this episode of On the Nose, Israel/Palestine fellow Maya Rosen speaks with Mikhael Manekin, Nechumi Yaffe, and Dvir Warshavsky, three activists with the new Israeli religious left-wing group Smol HaEmuni (the Faithful Left), about the experience of the religious left in Israel after October 7th, their work in the West Bank city of Hebron, and the movement's future.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Texts Mentioned and Further Reading:End of Days: Ethics, Tradition, and Power in Israel by Mikhael Manekin “Can religious Zionism overcome its addiction to state power?,” Shaul Magid, +972 Magazine“The far right is ‘taking over' the Israeli army—with leftists in its crosshairs,” Oren Ziv, +972 Magazine“‘Not Our Judaism': Israel's Religious Left Takes a Stand Against Netanyahu Government,” Judy Maltz, Haaretz“There Are No Lights in War: We Need a Different Religious Language,” Ariel Schwartz, The Lehrhaus

On January 26th, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an interim ruling on South Africa's charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The ICJ found South Africa's argument to be “plausible”—meaning it will allow the case to go forward and will fully examine the merits of South Africa's case. While the court's final ruling may take years, it ordered a series of immediate provisional measures, including that Israel must prevent violations of the Genocide Convention and punish incitement to genocide, though it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.On this episode of On the Nose, associate editor Mari Cohen speaks to human rights attorney and scholar Noura Erakat, legal scholar Darryl Li, and journalist Tony Karon about the meaning of the ICJ's ruling.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Further Reading and Resources:“The Charge of Genocide,” Darryl Li, Dissent“South Africa's ICJ Case Against Israel Is a Call to Break Free From the Imperial West,” Tony Karon, The Nation“South Africa's Genocide Case Is a Devastating Indictment of Israel's War on Gaza,” Noura Erakat and John Reynolds, Jacobin“Quick thoughts on ICJ decision,” Noura Erakat, Instagram

The US labor movement has had an exciting few years. Labor unions are gaining popularity among the general public as workers organize at new shops from Amazon to Starbucks to Harvard. Perhaps most critically, legacy unions are experiencing a democratic upsurge, with both the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers (UAW) recently electing militant leaders. This revival has also been expanding labor's purview, with unions increasingly taking on demands that exceed “bread-and-butter” concerns about wages and benefits. But the renaissance in labor is now being tested, as rank-and-file workers begin to demand that their unions break long-standing ties with Israel and materially support Palestinian liberation. This challenge is particularly stark in unions like the UAW, which represent workers producing the weapons being used to kill Palestinians. On this episode of On The Nose, news editor Aparna Gopalan speaks to historian Jeff Schuhrke, organizer Zaina Alsous, and journalist Alex Press about the labor movement's deep imbrication in Zionism and militarism, the rank-and-file efforts that have challenged this status quo over the decades, and what's at stake in labor embracing an anti-imperialist politics. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Articles Mentioned and Further Reading“The Problem of the Unionized War Machine,” Jeff Schuhrke, Jewish Currents “US Labor Has Long Been a Stalwart Backer of Israel. That's Starting to Change,” Jeff Schuhrke, Jacobin “The UAW Has Had a Big Year. They're Preparing for an Even Bigger One,” Alex Press, Jacobin“A Night at the Movies With Brandon Mancilla,” Alex Press, The Nation“A Working-Class Foreign Policy Is Coming,” Spencer Ackerman, The Nation“Respecting the BDS Picket Line,” Labor for Palestine“Stop Arming Israel. End All Complicity,” Workers in Palestine

Many months ago, we solicited questions from you, our listeners, for our first-ever mailbag episode. The result was a wide-ranging conversation that wandered from the serious (Torah study) to the relatively frivolous (HBO's Girls). We planned to release the episode in early October, but shelved it in the wake of Hamas's attack on Israel and amid Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza. We're sharing it now as a piece of bonus holiday content because many of your questions still feel relevant—even if we might have answered them differently from within this moment. In this episode, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, executive editor Nora Caplan-Bricker, managing editor Nathan Goldman, and associate editor Mari Cohen discuss, among other things, how to deal with right-wing family members and what we say when people ask us why we care about Jewishness.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” And many thanks to everyone who sent us such thoughtful questions.Articles Mentioned and Further Reading:JewBusDaf Yomi“A ufologist claims to show 2 alien corpses to Mexico's Congress,” Eyder Peralta, NPR“In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO?,” Jon Hilkevitch, Chicago Tribune “Former Israeli space security chief says aliens exist, humanity not ready,” Aaron Reich, The Jerusalem PostHBO's Girls “Old Loves (feat. Rebecca Alter),” Girls Room“On Loving Jews,” Arielle Angel, Jewish CurrentsHora Haslama!, Habiluim

In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart speaks with two political analysts from Gaza living abroad, Khalil Sayegh and Muhammad Shehada. Sayegh and Shehada discuss what it was like growing up under Hamas rule, how Hamas governs, the motivations behind the October 7th attack, and what's next for Hamas in Palestinian politics.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Links and Further Reading:Khalil Sayegh and Muhammad Shehada on XThe Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research poll

In late October, we received a letter: “In almost every conversation I have with young Jews on the left, I find that we are all currently struggling with the same question: What do we do with our families? How do we relate to our parents and grandparents or relatives who are supportive of and complicit in pogroms and genocide? These conversations are feeling fruitless. I'm going home this weekend to visit my family and don't know what I'll do.” Around Thanksgiving, we asked listeners to call in and tell us about how they're navigating conversations with their families, friends, and communities in this moment. What has worked in getting through to loved ones who are attached to a destructive Zionist politics, and what hasn't? We wanted to know how people are managing these relationships or coping with their feelings about them. On this episode—a collaboration between On the Nose and Unsettled—editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, associate editor Mari Cohen, and Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson listen to clips from callers describing the ruptures in their families, their attempts to repair relationships while sticking to their values, and their strategies for getting through to stubborn loved ones. We explore questions of when it is our obligation to keep arguing, and when it's better to take a break—or give up completely. And we zoom out to think about what this moment says about the future of Jewish American institutional life. Thanks to Max Freedman, Ilana Levinson, and Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

In her new book, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World, leftist public intellectual Naomi Klein argues that the phenomenon of “doubling”—of the self or a collective, whether adopted or imposed—shapes the politics of our time. Klein's frequent confusion with the feminist-writer-turned-Covid-conspiracy-theorist Naomi Wolf provides the jumping-off point for a journey through internet culture, vaccine conspiracism, the wellness world, eugenics, and contemporary dynamics around settler colonial denialism, as she explores the way that “doubling” structures what we see and don't want to see, what we project and what we hide. The book culminates in an extended discussion of Israel/Palestine, which Klein reveals to be a potent site of such “doppelganger politics,” as the scholar Caroline Rooney has put it, in which Israel has created its own “double” of the European nationalism that has oppressed so many Jews, and which allows it to project everything it cannot bear to see about itself onto the Palestinian Other.In this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Klein about her book and its relation to the present crisis: How can the figure of the doppelganger help us understand the long history that is erupting in the present—both the Holocaust and the Nakba—in ways that can move us toward justice and solidarity? And how can the left adequately respond to this moment—on campus, on the page, and in the streets? Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” To leave a voicemail for our upcoming episode about talking to your families in this moment, please call 347-878-1359.Books, Films, and Articles Mentioned and Further Reading: Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi KleinDiscourse on Colonialism by Aimé CésaireThey Do Not Exist, 1974 film by Mustafa Abu AliRepression of Students for Justice in Palestine at Brandeis and Columbia and in the state of Florida“Light Among the Nations,” Suzanne Schneider, Jewish Currents