SpeechCast

In this episode of Jewish Contrarians David and Brandy discusses the book by Dmitri Shufutinsky - Jew Jitsu: Turning Our Enemies' Arguments Against Them

David and Brandy discussed the decline in education standards, the politicization of schools, the potential harm of certain teaching methods, and the infiltration of radical ideologies into the education system. They discussed the importance of educating parents and teachers about these ideologies and the need for long-term effort to reverse the current dynamics.

As we prepare to send our kids back to school, we know that they will likely face continuing antisemitism. Join us as we discuss what has been happening in K12 districts and teacher unions over the summer and find out how we can prepare for the upcoming school year.

Jewish Contrarians this week will be joined by Chuong Nguyen, who will discuss his intellectual journey and how a Vietnamese kid ended up hosting a podcast and reading publications such as Tablet and Sapir. ------------------------------Show Notes------------------------------ Podcast: Unlicensed Philosophy with Chuong Nguyen | https://musicallyspeaking.substack.com/ Immigration and American Values (David Bernstein, March 3, 2001) https://jilv.org/immigration-and-american-values-david-bernstein-march-3-2001/

David Bernstein and Bar Ilan University professor of English literature William Kolbrener discuss Kolbrener's PhD alma mater, Columbia, and other subjects.

David and Brandy delve into the vital work carried out by the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values on the ground, emphasizing the tangible impact JILV has in various communities. They address the experiences of Jewish parents across the country who experience antisemitism launched in an ideological curriculum.

David and Brandy are back after a short hiatus traveling. They are joined by JILV's Director of Partnership Development, Rabbi Mark Cohn, to discuss whether guests who actively oppose the existence of Israel would disrupt the purpose of the Seder or enhance it.

Fern Oppenheim, cofounder of the Brand Israel Group, joins David and Brandy about her recent analysis of data pertaining to young people's attitudes toward Israel and Hamas.

David and Brandy discuss how many Jews feel unrepresented by the traditional Jewish community organizations. They explore how many Jews feel underrepresented by traditional communal bodies and discuss the critical need for these organizations to reassess their alignment with progressive politics.

The podcast speaks with Rabbi Jeff Salkin the author of "Tikkun Ha'am / Repairing Our People: Israel and the Crisis of Liberal Judaism." We discuss the role of faith in challenging society and the reframing needed in our Liberal Jewish institutions.

On the heels of the genocide case brought by South Africa in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) we discuss with Josephine Gon, the Vice President of JCRC of Palm Beach County in Flordia and Sara Gon, Head of Strategic Engagement at Institute of Race Relations in Johannesburg, South Africa to discuss SA domestic Jewish relations as well as relations internationally with Israel.

Kara Jesella will join us this week. She recently published an article for Quillette that detailed the history of feminist theory and activism from the 1960s to the present and argues that it has become increasingly hostile to Jews and Israel, adopting a queer anti-Zionist stance that celebrates violence and demonizes Jewish women.

The Black-Jewish alliance in the civil rights movement has been challenged by the rise of Black Power and the black leadership's attitudes toward Israel.

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week, we will discuss the current state of affairs in the American rabbinate with JILV's Rabbinic Liaison and newly appointed Director of Leadership Development, Rabbi Mark Cohn.

JILV's Social Media manager, Christina Buttons, discusses her recent Quillette article covering how pro-Hamas propaganda on Instagram influences young social media users to support terrorism in the name of social justice.

A recent report from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) claims that a sizable portion of the funds were donated by authoritarian regimes around the globe, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China, and the UAE. The huge windfall of cited money was not recorded with the US Department of Education between 2014 and 2019. Carnegie Mellon University received the most from foreign entities in that time span at $1.47 billion while Cornell University scooped up $1.29 billion, Harvard University notched $894 million, and MIT collected $859 million, according to the report. The authors of the report, Lee Jussim and Joel Finkelstein say that it “raises the sobering possibility that international actors are using undisclosed channels to funnel large amounts of money into college campuses (including elite institutions that often have outsized influence on American culture and politics) for purposes harmful to the democratic norms of pluralism, tolerance, and freedom.”

Show notes: Poison Ivy League | Jewish Journal A long-term plan to address the roots of campus hate and antisemitism will benefit not just the Jews, but America. https://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/366280/poison-ivy-league/

David Bernstein and Professor William Kolbrener discuss, after the now-expired/violated cease-fire, the concept of how Jewish Unity is the determination in the face of death. 

Protests have delayed the Thanksgiving parade, disturbed Christmas tree lighting, and stopped Hilary Clinton's class at Columbia.

Is Decolonial Ideology "woke"? Does being “woke” imply agreement with the most radical forms of decolonial ideology? Are there degrees of being an ideologue or are they all the same?- ---- Show notes ----- The Atlantic - The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False | https://jilv.org/31w0 Tablet Magazine: The Cult of ‘Antizionism' | Izabella Tabarovsky | https://jilv.org/sndv NYT, David Brooks: Universities Are Failing at Inclusion | https://jilv.org/gznh

With the surge in antisemitism over the weeks following October 7th, Jewish students have experienced a rise in incidents such as professors praising the Hamas attack, physical assaults on Jewish students, and equivocation by university administrators. It is a tinderbox that we saw coming, but could we have expected it to cascade with such force and so fast?

Brandy and David tackle the tension between two core values in our universities and colleges. The value of Freedom of speech/freedom of expression and the value of equal protection. Even if we believe that Jewish sensitivities around antisemitism are not treated the same as other campus groups and not afforded the same protections should we be advocating for that? Or should we be arguing for sustaining, preserving, and promulgating a free speech environment on campus because that serves our long-term interests and benefits the interests of an academic environment?  Show notes: SJP Still Deserves Freedom of Speech | Nadine Strossen & Kenneth Stern | https://jilv.org/2y2v SJP Does Not Belong on Campus | Jacob Baime | https://jilv.org/sdwb

How do we simultaneously protect people's right to say hateful things and ensure the safety of Jewish students amidst pro-terrorist activity on campus? What is the role of administration during this rising tide of Jew hatred seen at many universities nationwide? Listen to our discussion about this timely issue with three panelists: Stanley Dubinsky, Professor of Linguistics and Founding Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of South Carolina, Dr. T. Lee, former DEI officer and Director of the Coalition for Empowered Education, and Rebecca Roiphe, Distinguished Professor of Law at New York Law School. The program is moderated by JILV's Director of Academic Affairs, Marcy Braverman Goldstein, Ph.D.

Again, David Bernstein and Professor William Kolbrener reflect on what the attacks on Israel mean for the Jewish people in Israel and abroad.

For the past two and a half years, we've been warning American Jews that a certain ideology that begins with the letter W has been fanning the flames of antisemitism. Some said we were doing "harm." Maybe we were right? -----------------------Show Notes:---------------------- Woke Antisemitism: A Reckoning - Quillette | David Bernstein https://quillette.com/2023/10/16/woke-antisemitism-a-reckoning/On Israel, Progressive Jews Feel Abandoned by Their Left-Wing Allies - New York Times | Jennifer Medina and Lisa Lerer https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/us/politics/progressive-jews-united-states.html I was a DEI director — DEI drives campus antisemitism- New York Post | Tabia Lee https://nypost.com/2023/10/18/i-was-a-dei-director-dei-drives-campus-antisemitism/Identity politics is a game Jews can't win- Washington Post | Jason Willick https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/17/identity-politics-game-jews-cannot-win/ The Deep Roots of the Left's Deafening Silence on Hamas- Persuasion | Yascha Mounkhttps://www.persuasion.community/p/yascha-the-deep-roots-of-the-lefts?publication_id=61579 Hamas, the Jews, and the Illiberal Left The schism on the left is not just about the Middle East- New York Magazine | Jonathan Chait, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/hamas-jews-illiberal-left-progressive-israel-terrorism.htmlWe've Lost So Much. Let's Not Lose Our Damn Minds- Ikar | Rabbi Sharon Brous https://ikar.org/sermons/lets-not-lose-our-minds-rabbi-sharon-brous/

David Bernstein and Professor William Kolbrener reflect on what the attacks on Israel mean for the Jewish people, and to what degree must we--especially Israelis facing war--live in the present moment and to what degree can we, should we, at the same time think about the Jewish and Israeli future.

As always, an honest and open conversation. When a company states they want you to bring your 'whole self' to work, they say they want you to feel like you belong. In that belonging, employees ideally give full of themselves to collaborate and accomplish work-specific goals or tasks. The theory goes that this creates a workplace culture where everyone feels welcome and is highly productive. Why is this not a good idea?

As always, an honest and open conversation. To what degree have the liberal Jewish denominations lived up to their own liberal values, namely in promoting viewpoint diversity? What is the role of the rabbi in upholding the free exchange of ideas and setting the culture of Jewish institutions? Jewish Contrarians podcast welcomes the newest Contrarian (who doesn't see himself this way!) Rabbi Mark Cohn, who is JILV's new Rabbinical Liaison. Rabbi's Statement: https://jilv.org/rabbistatement The New Ideological Gatekeepers of American Judaism: https://jilv.org/fc5i Power of 49 class registration: https://jilv.org/power-of-49-registration/

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week, David Bernstein will speak with David Hazony, an award-winning editor, translator, and author. He is the former editor-in-chief of the journal Azure and was the founding editor of TheTower.org. Hazony will speak about his newest edited compilation, "Jewish Priorities." The recently released book offers a wide-ranging, ambitious, and genuinely “pan-Jewish” conversation with 60+ thinkers. Each contributor provides a different priority for the Jewish people.

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week we will speak about the new brazen effort to create and legitimize a new field called 'Critical Zionist Studies.'

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week David is speaking with Moms for Liberty activist Brooke Weiss. Weiss is Moms for Liberty chapter chair for Mecklenburg County in North Carolina, Vice Chair of the North Carolina Legislative Committee, and the Moms for Liberty 2023 National Summit Business Development Manager.

As always, an honest and open conversation. The Florida Board of Education approved a new set of standards for how Black history should be taught in the state's public schools, sparking criticism from education and civil rights advocates. Among the many criticisms, most notably by Vice President Kamala Harris, was the assertion that slaves learned skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.” --- Show Notes --- New York Times One Sentence Does Not Define a Curriculum John McWhorter https://jilv.org/7ui4 The Bulwark Sorting Out the Florida Teaching-About-Slavery Mess Cathy Young https://jilv.org/fl0g AP African American Studies https://jilv.org/yzmr Flordia State Academic Standards Social Studies https://jilv.org/sf46

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week we will discuss viewpoint diversity in the academy with Marcy Braverman Goldstein, JILV's newly appointed Director of Academic Affairs. Show Notes: ___________ The Harvard Crimson: More Than Three-Quarters of Surveyed Harvard Faculty Identify As Liberalhttps://jilv.org/zgi7 Cambridge University Press: The Nature and Consequences of Ideological Hegemony in American Political Sciencehttps://jilv.org/vhvx The Washinton Examiner: COVID-19 and 'woke' culture drive enrollment increases at conservative religious colleges https://jilv.org/l6f5 The Bulwark: Sorting Out the Florida Teaching-About-Slavery Mess by Cathy Younghttps://plus.thebulwark.com/p/sorting-out-florida-teaching-about-slavery-mess

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week we will discuss when something or someone should be branded antisemitic. Show Notes: The Bernstein Antisemitism Test Is there an underlying ideology that provides a permission structure for antisemitism? Do the actions or remarks implicitly draw on antisemitic tropes? Do the actions or remarks explicitly and/or intentionally use antisemitic tropes? Are the actions or remarks so explicit that the person can reasonably be viewed as an antisemite? Is the person a repeat offender? Has the person apologized and taken action that demonstrates contrition? George Soros is portrayed as a puppetmaster: https://images.app.goo.gl/rrCdqM19qLYx64aB7 https://images.app.goo.gl/Guy73TJgtFTXCoV36 Moms for Liberty newsletter quoting Hitler: https://images.app.goo.gl/7c2naqjVe5h54txD6 Marco Rubio's Tweet about George Soros: https://tinyurl.com/yvspzjbp Rep. Pramila Jayapal calls Israel a racist state at Netroots Nation event : https://tinyurl.com/mrxuap9c Rep Pramila Jayapal statement after many in her party rebuked her: https://images.app.goo.gl/XG7i3iD4S7P5m7X27

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week we will review the Supreme Court striking down decades of legal precedent that allowed colleges and universities to consider race as a factor in admissions. ----- show notes---- Coleman Hughes Substack: 10 Notes on the End of Affirmative Action - https://jilv.org/mfzt AOC Tweet: https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1674447137877397505

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week we will examine the term "woke," which has a long history and varied meanings. Should David and Brandy strike the word from their vocabularies? Is it ok to use if you use air quotes? Should they even be having this podcast?

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week we will examine a number of items in the news: Starbucks' race-related $25 million settlement, Arkansas Univeristy dissolving DEI,, the testimony before Congress on gender-affirming care, and the UK decision to ban puberty blockers. David and Brandy weekly explore on the podcast the possibility of a middle ground even if extreme voices in the culture wars insist that they pick sides.

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week we will examine the newly released White House strategy to combat antisemitism. David and Brandy weekly explore on the podcast the possibility of a middle ground even if extreme voices in the culture wars insist that they pick sides. Show notes: The White House National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism https://jilv.org/kmh6 David Bernstein's Jewish Journal oped: Do Jews Get to Define Antisemitism? Yes and No. https://jilv.org/P7wG

As always, an honest and open conversation. David and Brandy explore on the podcast the possibility of a middle ground even if extreme voices in the culture wars insist that they pick sides. This week we will not broadcast on Friday due to the observance of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. In this episode, we will look at the current issues that comprise the concern of a social breakdown in Israeli society, such as judicial reform, economic inequality, political polarization, and ethnic tensions.

As always, an honest and open conversation. This week we will Look at the antisemitism that stems from the Right and the emergence of it on the Left. David and Brandy weekly explore on the podcast the possibility of a middle ground even if extreme voices in the culture wars insist that they pick sides.

Brandy and David invite David E. Bernstein, professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law and author of "Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America," to the podcast. We will discuss the proposed new 'Middle Eastern and North African' (MENA) classification to be included in the US Census pushed by Arab American groups. What would this mean for the American Jewish community? Will Israeli Americans be considered part of a new MENA classification? Can Mizrahi Jews claim this distinction? What of Ashkenazi Jews who may feel closer to their Middle Eastern heritage than to a European one? And how could this new classification play out for those seeking a legal victim status?

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs have often promoted “groupthink," dogma, and exclusion at many colleges and universities. Some state legislatures are trying to pair back these programs or outright ban them. Is such a move warranted, or does it interfere with academic freedom?

Matt Fernández Konigsberg spoke about the current state of the Latino-American/ American-Jewish relationship and how the clash of different ideological approaches (including classical liberalism and far-left ideology) create tension within and between the communities. Matt believes honest, well-informed discussion of ideas and freedom of expression is the key to progress and true liberalism. Matt is concerned with the anti-Latino sentiment, and the alarming rise of antisemitism, as well as supporting the decolonization of (and Congressional investment in) the island of Puerto Rico and its 3 million U.S. citizens.

Due to a technical glitch, we previously uploaded the incorrect episode as Episode 4. As always, an honest and open conversation. This week we will dive into the layered nuance of Micro-cancellation and Micro-aggression. David and Brandy weekly explore on the podcast the possibility of a middle ground even if extreme voices in the culture wars insist that they pick sides. Show notes: Journal of Free Black Thought The B.E.S.T. Microaggression Training You've Never Heard Of https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/the-best-microaggression-training University of Minnesota Examples of Racial Microaggressions https://www.sph.umn.edu/site/docs/hewg/microaggressions.pdf

As always, an honest and open conversation on today's tortured gender identity debate. David Bernstein, Founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, and Brandy Shufutinsky, Director of Education and Outreach for JILV explore the possibility of a middle ground even if extreme voices in the culture wars insist that they pick sides.

This week David Bernstein, Founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, and Brandy Shufutinsky, Director of Education and Outreach for JILV will discuss: "Should Jews of Color be a separate category?" Show Notes: eJewish Philanthropy: In light of the new Pew Study, it's time for Jewish leaders to make amends by David Bernstein https://bit.ly/3mwuyNJ Jewish Journal: Out of Exile, Jews Are Not a Color-Centric Binary by Brandy Shufutinsky https://bit.ly/3JvrIBS

Slides shared on the podcast: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11DknOhV7hEgVLx7wc7ARFw79LX4AStsD/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110837794775776372833&rtpof=true&sd=true Article David referred to in the podcast: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/patriotism-unity/high-school-students-are-being-indoctrinated-in-white-supremacy-culture In this weekly podcast, David Bernstein, Founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, and Brandy Shufutinsky, Director of Education and Outreach for JILV, discuss (and occasionally debate) current issues in the culture wars, antisemitism in its various forms, cancel culture (not ok except when it is) and what we Jewish (and non-Jewish) contrarians, thought criminals, and gadflies can do about it all. Join us weekly except when one of our kids needs to be picked up from school.

Panel discussion with David BenMoshe, Shekhiynah Larks, Chaya Lev, Dmitri Shufutinsky, Noah Shufutinsky, and Tyler Samuels, who discuss ongoing tensions between Black and Jewish communities, exploring how these tensions impact Black Jews. Frequently uninvited to these conversations, JILV decided to hold our own.

A panel discussion on how social justice movements have manifested for our neighbors to the north, exploring how Canadians are managing the ideological influences and their unique impact on the Jewish community. Panel participants were Ellie Avishai from the Mill Center. Avishai is a strategist, teacher, and non-profit leader who has worked in education for more than 20 years, and Jonathan Kay was born in Montreal, Quebec, to an anglophone Jewish family and now lives in Toronto. He is a Quillette editor, podcaster, and advisor to The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.

A special Shine-A-Light evening. Our expert panel discussed the recent Jewish Institute for Liberal values commissioned poll that highlights the dangers of this political ideology to Asian Americans and Jews. The panel included Nathan Klein, a pollster from OnMessage Public Strategies; David Bernstein Founder, CEO, and Author, Wai Wah an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the founding president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York, and Dr. Lizzie Wahab, a leader in transnational education.

David L. Bernstein, Founder and CEO of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, authored the forthcoming book “Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews,” with a Foreword by the great Natan Sharansky. Woke Antisemitism is a firsthand account from a long-time Jewish leader about how woke ideology shuts down discourse, corrupts Jewish values, and spawns a virulent new strain of antisemitism.