On the Nose
Jewish Currents
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On the Nose is a biweekly podcast by Jewish Currents, a magazine of the Jewish left founded in 1946. The editorial staff discusses the politics, culture, and questions that animate today’s Jewish left.
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Sep 14, 2023
Trans Halakha
Earlier this year, the Trans Halakha Project—an initiative of SVARA, a queer and trans yeshiva—published a series of teshuvot, or answers to questions about halakha (Jewish religious law). These pieces speak to questions of Jewish life and practice for trans people, from who is obligated to undergo circumcision or to follow the prescriptions around menstruation, to whether it’s permissible to wear a chest binder when immersing in the mikveh (a ritual bath that traditionally requires nudity). While there have been some previous efforts to apply halakha to specific questions of trans life, almost none of this work has been produced by trans people themselves until now. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, managing editor Nathan Goldman speaks with three members of the yeshiva’s Teshuva-Writing Collective: Laynie Soloman, Alyx Bernstein, and Rabbi Xava de Cordova. They discuss why the collective took up these particular questions, how they understand the nature of religious authority in Judaism, and what it means to reimagine halakha for trans flourishing.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Texts, Events, and Further Reading:
Trans Halakha Project
The Teshuva-Writing Collective's teshuvot
Beit Yosef by Rabbi Joseph Karo
The Talmud
“An Unrecognizable Jewish Future: A Queer Talmudic Take,” Rabbi Benay Lappe, ELI Talks
“Euphoric Halakhah,” Laynie Soloman, Evolve
Shulchan Aruch by Rabbi Joseph Karo
“Are Trans Women Obligated in Niddah? How Can That Obligation Be Fulfilled?,” Rabbi Xava de Cordova, Trans Halakha Project
“Embracing Halakhah That Was Not Addressed to You,” Rabbi Xava de Cordova, Evolve
“The Androgynos in the Laws of Milah & Niddah: A Potential Approach to Trans Halakha,” Alyx Bernstein, Trans Halakha Project
“A Created Being of Its Own: Toward a Jewish Liberation Theology for Men, Women and Everyone Else,” Rabbi Elliot Kukla, TransTorah
Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature by Max K. Strassfeld
“The Talmud and Other Trans Archives” event with Max K. Strassfeld, Joy Ladin, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Ari Brostoff, Jewish Currents
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Aug 31, 2023
Nosegate
Two weeks ago, a trailer was released for the new Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro. Immediately, controversy surfaced about Bradley Cooper—the director of the film who also stars as Bernstein—wearing a prosthetic nose, intended to resemble Bernstein’s own formidable schnoz. Because Cooper is not Jewish, this also revived a conversation about so-called Jewface, a term that has, over the last several years, become a buzzword in conversations about non-Jews being cast as Jews in dramatic roles. In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel talks to contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, author and theater critic Alisa Solomon, and writer and collector of “Jewface” artifacts Jody Rosen about the controversy—exploring the long history of “Jewface” performances and what’s really underneath these repeated dust-ups over Jewish representation.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Articles, podcasts, and further reading:
Trailer for Maestro, directed by Bradley Cooper
“The Politics of ‘Jewface,’” Rebecca Pierce, Jewish Currents
Jewface: ‘Yiddish’ Dialect Songs of Tin Pan Alley, YIVO exhibition
Jody Rosen discusses “Jewface” on PBS
“A ‘Merchant of Venice’ That Doubles Down on Pain,” Alexis Soloski, The New York Times
“Fables and Lies,” On the Nose podcast about Armageddon Time and The Fabelmans
“On the Nose,” inaugural On the Nose podcast, discussing our Spring 2021 Nose cover
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Aug 17, 2023
The Jewishness of “Oppenheimer”
Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed new biopic about the physicist who oversaw the invention of the atomic bomb, is the rare mass-market feature film that depicts the complexities of the US left during and after World War II. As the movie shows, J. Robert Oppenheimer was closely affiliated with Communists in his early life; his forays into left-wing politics included sending funds to the Spanish Republicans through the Communist Party. These relationships and activities eventually led to Oppenheimer losing his security clearance during the second Red Scare, and the hearing where this occurs is central to the film. Throughout the narrative, Oppenheimer explores its subject’s Jewishness, which shapes his position in relation to both Communism and Nazism. Nolan also exhibits the Jewishness of Oppenheimer’s political and intellectual milieu—which includes Lewis Strauss, the conservative Jewish politician who foments the physicist’s downfall.
On this week’s episode of On the Nose, presented in partnership with The Nation’s podcast The Time of Monsters, Jewish Currents associate editor Mari Cohen speaks with contributing editor David Klion, contributing writer Raphael Magarik, and The Nation national affairs correspondent Jeet Heer about the ways Oppenheimer illuminates and obfuscates the history it examines.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Texts and Films Mentioned:
“Oppenheimer Is an Uncomfortably Timely Tale of Destruction,” David Klion, The New Republic
Reds, directed by Warren Beaty
Amadeus, directed by Miloš Forman
Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda
“Nolan’s Oppenheimer treats New Mexico as a blank canvas,” Kelsey D. Atherton, Source NM
American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig
“Holy Sonnet XIV” by John Donne
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Aug 3, 2023
Camp Kinderland at 100
In 1923, Jewish union activists affiliated with the Workmen’s Circle bought a plot of land in Hopewell Junction, New York, aiming to provide working-class children with an escape from the city. The camp, which was founded with a commitment to Yiddish and to instilling leftist values, broke with the socialist Workmen’s Circle several years later, as it came to be affiliated with the Communist Party. Over the years, everything that touched the left made its mark on the camp—from the Spanish Civil War to McCarthyism to the emergence of the New Left. In honor of Kinderland’s centennial, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel spoke with longtime Kinderlanders (and JC councilmembers) Judee Rosenbaum and Mitchell Silver about the legacy of Communism in camp, the difference between education and indoctrination, what’s changed at camp in the last 100 years, and why it’s survived this long. For more information on the Camp Kinderland Centennial, click 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 and further reading:
Camp Kinderland Centennial Anniversary
“What We Did: How the Jewish Communist Left Failed the Palestinian Cause” by Dorothy Zellner, Jewish Currents
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Jul 20, 2023
Chevruta: Be Fruitful and Multiply?
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 be accompanied by a podcast and a study guide (linked below).
In our second Chevruta podcast, Laynie Soloman, associate rosh yeshiva of the queer and trans yeshiva SVARA, speaks with feminist theorist Sophie Lewis, author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family and Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, about the famous biblical injunction to “be fruitful and multiply.” Though this has traditionally been regarded as a foundational commandment, the rabbis were strikingly ambivalent about it—in part because of their profound love of Torah, and of each other. In this Chevruta, Soloman and Lewis explore a Talmudic text from tractate Yevamot that confronts a rabbinic figure who has declined to have children. Through his example, the rabbis normalize a discomfort with this seemingly essential practice of biological reproduction, and offer a way to complicate—and potentially subvert—the status of procreation in the rabbinic mind and in our world.
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).”
Artworks and texts mentioned and further reading:
Talmud: Yevamot 63b and 64a
Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family by Sophie Lewis
Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin by Donna Haraway
We the Parasites by A. V. Marraccini
“How Mierle Laderman Ukeles Turned Maintenance Work into Art” by Jillian Steinhauer
Peninei Halakhah: Simchat Habayit U'Virkhato 5:2
“Don’t Hurt Yourself” by Beyoncé
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Jul 6, 2023
What Indian Ethnonationalists Learned From Israel Advocates
For decades, diaspora Hindus have looked to American Jews as role models for attaining political power in the United States. Hindu Americans have established political groups fashioned after AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Jewish Committee; these organizations have worked to advance India’s economic and security interests much as their Jewish counterparts have protected Israel’s.
Now, as India draws scrutiny for its worsening human rights record under far-right Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalist groups in the US are once again looking to their Jewish allies. This time, they’re modeling their efforts on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which casts certain criticism of Israel as anti-Jewish hatred. A new investigation by Jewish Currents news editor Aparna Gopalan shows how Hindu nationalists are promulgating a concept of “Hinduphobia” that equates opposition to Hindu nationalism with anti-Hindu bigotry. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, Gopalan speaks with Jewish Currents executive editor Nora Caplan-Bricker and Middle East Eye senior reporter Azad Essa about Hinduphobia, the India–Israel alliance, and the potential for the hasbara playbook to be followed by ethnonationalist movements worldwide.
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 Hindu Nationalists Using the Pro-Israel Playbook,” Aparna Gopalan, Jewish Currents
“The US Rolls Out the Red Carpet For Modi,” Aparna Gopalan, Jewish Currents
“How Modi uses yoga to whitewash India’s crimes,” Azad Essa, Middle East Eye
Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel by Azad Essa
“The Settler-Colonialist Alliance of India and Israel,” Deeksha Udupa, The Nation
“How the Hindus Became Jews: American Racism After 9/11,” Vijay Prashad, South Atlantic Quarterly
“What FBI data about anti-Hindu hate crimes in the US reveals about fears of ‘Hinduphobia,’” Raju Rajagopal, Scroll.in
“A Gandhi statue is toppled in Queens, but was it a hate crime?” Arun Venugopal, Gothamist
Diasporic Desires: Making Hindus & the Cultivation of Longing in the United States and Beyond by Shana Sippy (forthcoming from New York
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Jun 22, 2023
The Struggle to Stop Cop City
In September 2021, the Atlanta City Council approved a proposal to lease 381 acres of the Weelaunee Forest—stolen Muscogee land surrounded by majority-Black neighborhoods—to the Atlanta Police Foundation to build the largest militarized police training center in the US. In response, a decentralized movement has risen up to halt the destruction of the forest and the construction of what has come to be known as “Cop City.” As the Stop Cop City movement has grown, the state has employed increasingly draconian methods of repression. In January of this year, police killed Manuel “Tortuguita” Téran, a 26-year old Indigenous Venezuelan forest defender. Dozens of people have been arrested for protesting, including a legal observer with the Southern Poverty Law Center, and more than 40 have been charged with domestic terrorism. Last month, a heavily armed joint task force raided a community center and arrested three bail fund organizers living there under tenuous allegations of “money laundering” and “charity fraud.” And despite widespread opposition, the Atlanta City Council recently authorized an additional $30 million contribution to the construction of Cop City, bringing the city’s pledged total to $67 million. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, culture editor Claire Schwartz is joined by three guests in Atlanta deeply engaged with Stop Cop City—Micah Herskind, a community organizer and writer; Keyanna Jones, a reverend and organizer; and Josie Duffy Rice, a writer who covers criminal justice—to discuss the movement’s roots and tactics, and what the militarization of Atlanta can teach us about the economic underpinnings of fascism.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Transcript forthcoming.
Further Reading and Listening:
“The Fight Against Cop City,” Amna Akbar, Dissent
“Shmita Means Total Destroy,” Fayer Collective, Jewish Currents
“This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City,” Micah Herskind, Scalawag
“Atlanta Is Trying to Crush the Opposition to ‘Cop City’ by Any Means Necessary,” Hannah Riley, The Nation
“Targeting bail funds and Stop Cop City activists is an old tactic,” Say Burgin and Jeanne Theoharis, Washington Post
“‘Multiple Grammars of Struggle’...
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Jun 8, 2023
The Plight of Masafer Yatta
In May 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition against the forced transfer of more than 1,000 Palestinians who live in Masafer Yatta, a region of rural hamlets in the south of the occupied West Bank. Israel had previously designated a large swath of Masafer Yatta as a military “firing zone,” and argued to the court that it needed to forcibly displace these residents because they were illegally living in a military training area. As a result of the ruling, Israel’s army can move forward with their plans at any time. But for now, Masafer Yatta’s residents remain, even in the face of an escalated campaign of military demolitions, training exercises, and harassment. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane speaks with Basel Adra, a Palestinian journalist and activist from the Masafer Yatta village of al-Tuwani, about life in the region, Israel’s campaign of violence against its residents, and what might stop the state from following through on its plans of mass displacement.
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:
“Classified document reveals IDF ‘firing zones’ built to give land to settlers,” Yuval Abraham, +972 Magazine
“I filmed a settler pogrom. Now the Israeli media is smearing me,” Basel Adraa, +972 Magazine
“Largest Palestinian displacement in decades looms after Israeli court ruling,” Henriette Chacar, Reuters
“They Want To Kick Us Out of This Land,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents
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May 25, 2023
The Agony and the Ecstasy of "Jewish Matchmaking"
Netflix’s new reality show Jewish Matchmaking, a follow-up to its hit series Indian Matchmaking, follows Orthodox matchmaker Aleeza Ben Shalom as she helps Jewish singles find their beshert, or soulmate. While Indian Matchmaking documents contemporary approaches to an ancient custom, Jewish Matchmaking finds Aleeza applying the principles of an age-old tradition to modern courtship with a cohort of mostly non-Orthodox Jews. The show includes a wide variety of Jewish traditions and practices: Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Mizrahi; secular, “flexidox,” and observant. But there are also notable limits to the diversity—particularly on the question of Zionism—and the show’s picture of Jewish life is strikingly insubstantial. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, managing editor Nathan Goldman, associate editor Mari Cohen, and news editor Aparna Gopalan discuss the questions Jewish Matchmaking raises about contemporary Jewishness, dating, and the relationship between endogamy and ethnonationalism.
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 Podcast Episodes Mentioned:
“Two Paths for the Jewish Bachelor Contestant,” On the Nose
“Is He Jewish?,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents
“What We Talk About When We Talk About ‘Intermarriage,’” Jewish Currents
“Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match,” Hannah Jackson, The Cut
“It was the million-selling novel that shaped a generation of Jews — does anyone still read it?,” Jenny Singer, The Forward
“Couples Therapy,” On the Nose
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May 11, 2023
Still No Justice for Shireen Abu Akleh
One year ago, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. To this day, no Israeli soldier has been indicted for the killing. Now, a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) finds that the lack of accountability for Abu Akleh is part of a pattern: Though the Israeli army has killed 20 journalists since 2001, no Israeli soldier has ever been charged. Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane discusses the report with CPJ’s Sherif Mansour—and also talks about the life and death of Abu Akleh with writer and attorney Jennifer Zacharia, Abu Akleh’s first cousin.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Articles, Reports and Statements Mentioned
“Deadly Pattern: 20 journalists died by Israeli military fire in 22 years. No one has been held accountable,” Committee to Protect Journalists
“Final Conclusions of Shireen Abu Akleh Investigation,” Israel Defense Forces
“FBI opens investigation into killing of Palestinian American Shireen Abu Akleh,” Barak Ravid, Axios
“Statement on Shireen Abu Akleh,” Senator Patrick Leahy
“‘They were shooting directly at the journalists’: New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces,” Zeena Saifi, Eliza Mackintosh, Celine Alkhaldi, Kareem Khadder, Katie Polglase, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Abeer Salman, CNN
“How Shireen Abu Akleh was killed,” Sarah Cahlan, Meg Kelly and Steve Hendrix, The Washington Post
"The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh: Tracing a Bullet to an Israeli Convoy," Raja Abdulrahim, Patrick Kingsley, Christian Triebert, and Hiba Yazbek, The New York Times
"Shireen Abu Akleh: The Extrajudicial Killing of a Journalist,” Forensic Architecture
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Apr 27, 2023
Fighting Anti-Trans Legislation in Missouri
Trans youth are under severe attack around the country. Sixteen states have enacted laws restricting access to gender-affirming care for young people. At least 15 others are considering similar laws. Missouri is one of those states: State Republicans are pushing legislation that would ban transition-related surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormone therapy for young people, though unlike other states, the bill passed by the state senate allows those already undergoing treatment to continue receiving such care. Last week, the attack on trans people in Missouri escalated when the attorney general proposed new rules that would restrict gender-affirming healthcare for not only young people but adults as well. Rori Picker Neiss—the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St Louis and the mother of a trans son—is one of the people fighting back against Missouri’s anti-trans legislation. Over the last several years, her family’s life has been upended by repeated trips to the…
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Apr 13, 2023
The Politics of "The Last of Us"
Despite the progressive politics of early zombie films like George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, modern narratives about zombies are often strikingly conservative, displaying a world that rewards rugged individualism and presents a pessimistic view of human nature. The recent HBO drama The Last of Us, based on the acclaimed 2013 video game of the same name, exemplifies this tendency. The show takes place two decades after an outbreak of a zombifying fungal infection triggers global societal collapse. In this post-apocalyptic world, a fascist government violently maintains order within walled-off “quarantine zones,” while a brutal resistance group called the Fireflies strives to overthrow them. The Last of Us follows the cynical smuggler Joel (Pedro Pascal) and a teenager named Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who is immune to the fungus, on their treacherous journey to meet up with a team of Fireflies who believe they can use her to create a vaccine. As Joel and Ellie bond against the…
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Mar 30, 2023
Unpacking Israel’s Political Crisis
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed his defense minister for calling for a halt to government plans to gut the power of Israel’s judiciary, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets, participating in spontaneous mass protests and setting bonfires in the street. The next day, after a general strike brought the economy to a halt, Netanyahu backtracked, announcing the Knesset would not vote on the first part of his government’s judicial overhaul plan and that he would instead engage in negotiations with the opposition to forge consensus. To discuss these developments, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel spoke with senior reporter Alex Kane, contributing editor Joshua Leifer, and contributing writer Elisheva Goldberg. They talked about how anti-occupation activists are relating to the mass protests, why the Israeli right is so intent on curbing judicial power, and the future of Netanyahu’s coalition.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing…
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Mar 23, 2023
Two Paths for the Jewish Bachelor Contestant
On episode 8, season 27 of The Bachelor, contestant Ariel Frenkel, who hails from a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant family in New York, is seen leading all-American Bachelor Zach Shallcross around New York City, feeding him cow tongue sandwiches and gefilte fish from Sarge’s Deli and telling him her family’s story of fleeing the Soviet Union. Such overt references to Jewishness are unprecedented on the franchise; though the show has featured a few Jewish leads, it tends to downplay contestants’ references to their minority identities and center stories of people using their Christian values to guide them toward love. On this episode of On the Nose, associate editor Mari Cohen and fellow Dahlia Krutkovich join Hannah Srajer, an organizer and PhD candidate in history at Yale University, and Xandra Ellin, a producer at Pineapple Street Studios, to talk about Frenkel’s improbable run on the show. They discuss how the portrayal of Frenkel’s as an exotic other illuminates the show’s i…
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Mar 9, 2023
The Trouble with Germany, Part II
In recent years, German state officials and media outlets have cracked down on Palestinian speech and activism. In 2019, the German parliament passed a nonbinding resolution declaring the global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement antisemitic, and comparing it to Nazi boycotts of Jewish businesses. Early last year, a state-funded news outlet fired seven Arab and Muslim journalists for “antisemitism” that mostly amounted to criticism of Israel. And last May, Berlin banned several protests planned to mark Nakba Day, which commemorates the 1947–1949 expulsion of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians at the hands of Zionist militias. To discuss Palestine solidarity in Germany, the state’s intensifying assault on Palestinian speech, and the connections between the country’s targeting of Palestine activism and its post-Holocaust “memory culture,” contributing editor Joshua Leifer talks to Germany-based Palestinian American journalist Hebh Jamal and Palestinian German lawy…
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Feb 23, 2023
Representation and Exclusion at Israel’s Anti-Government Protests
Since early January, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have participated in weekly protests against the right-wing Israeli government’s proposals to weaken the power of Israel’s Supreme Court. The protesters have framed their efforts as a bid to save “Israeli democracy”—rhetoric that has alienated Palestinian citizens of Israel, who say Israel was never a democracy to begin with due to its repressive system of control over Palestinians. Senior reporter Alex Kane hosts a discussion with Palestinian activist Sally Abed of Standing Together and Iranian Israeli activist Orly Noy of B’Tselem and the newly formed Mizrahi Civic Collective about who is participating in these protests—and who is sitting them out.
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:
“A Mizrahi Democratic Vision: No to the Constitutional Revolution and No to the Old Order,” Mizrahi Civic C…
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Feb 9, 2023
You People
A new Netflix-produced romcom by Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris tells the story of Ezra, a white Jew, and Amira, a Black Muslim, whose love affair is challenged by the patronizing, casual racism of Ezra’s progressive mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and the antisemitism and militant separatism of Amira’s Farrakhan-loving father (Eddie Murphy). Jewish commentators across the political spectrum have responded overwhelmingly negatively, accusing the film of everything from perpetuating harmful stereotypes of Jewish women, to trafficking in conspiracy theories, to inciting violence against Jews. Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, JC contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, critic and essayist Jasmine Sanders, and writer and Know Your Enemy co-host Sam Adler-Bell discuss these over-the-top critiques and explore why similarly cringe and stereotypical depictions of the Black family did not raise alarms among Black or Jewish critics.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan S…
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Jan 26, 2023
Fables and Lies
Last month saw the release of two autobiographical films, now both Oscar nominees, about young artists growing up in complicated, 20th-century American Jewish families. In The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg follows a precocious child filmmaker, Sammy Fabelman, as he turns his camera on his fracturing family. In Armageddon Time, James Gray meditates on Queens in 1980, where the intersections of school, family, and the police destroy a friendship between two boys, one Black and one Jewish. Do these movies have something new to say about the drama of upwardly mobile Jewish family life, or are they simply retreading familiar territory? Jewish Currents contributing writer Rebecca Pierce joined editors Arielle Angel, Ari Brostoff, and Mari Cohen on this week’s On the Nose to discuss the latest in Jewish film.
MOVIES AND TV EPISODES MENTIONED:
8 ½, dir. Federico Fellini
Pain and Glory, dir. Pedro Almodóvar
Cinema Paradiso, dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Lincoln, dir. Steven Spielberg
Star W…
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Jan 11, 2023
Chevruta: Debt
Chevruta is a new 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 be accompanied by a podcast and a study guide (linked below).
In our debut Chevruta podcast, rabbinical student Allen Lipson explores debt’s moral implications with Sparky Abraham and Eleni Schirmer—organizers from the Debt Collective, the nation’s first debtors’ union. Lipson chose a rabbinic responsum from 14th-century Spain by Rabbi Isaac bar Sheshet Perfet, generally known as the Rivash, on…
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Dec 21, 2022
Who Is Tom Stoppard’s “Jewish Play” For?
Tom Stoppard, perhaps the most famous living British playwright, learned only in his fifties that his mother’s family was Jewish and that nearly all her relatives were killed in the Holocaust—a fate his own immediate family narrowly escaped. Now in his eighties, Stoppard has turned these revelations into the material of his play Leopoldstadt, which tells the story of a bourgeois Viennese Jewish clan inspired by his own Czech family, and an assimilated British grandson’s discovery of their fate at the hands of the Nazis. The play, now a Broadway hit, has drawn accolades, but left several of us at and around Jewish Currents distinctly underwhelmed. Why is theater still treating the Holocaust as an object of dramatic irony? What are audiences looking for in stories of this kind? Where does Leopoldstadt fit in the long history of anti-Nazi theater, and what are its politics around Zionism? Alisa Solomon, who reviewed the play for Jewish Currents, and dramaturg Gabrielle Hoyt joined J…
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Dec 8, 2022
The Meaning of Apartheid
In the last two years, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have begun using the word “apartheid” to describe Israeli rule over Palestinians, marking a significant shift within the human rights establishment. But Palestinian intellectuals have been critiquing Israeli apartheid for decades—albeit in a different fashion. As scholars of international law Noura Erakat and John Reynolds wrote in an essay published in the summer issue of Jewish Currents, a rich archive of Palestinian writing from the 1960s and ’70s frames apartheid as “an inevitable outcome of Israeli settler colonialism,” and a key “vehicle for its continuance.” Erakat and Reynolds argue that if we understand apartheid as a tool of settler colonialism, it appears to “require the same remedies as other manifestations of colonial rule and foreign occupation: collective liberation and land restitution.” By contrast, the human rights organizations have advanced a more legalistic understanding of apar…
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Nov 23, 2022
“The Jews”
Dave Chappelle’s controversial monologue on the November 12th episode of Saturday Night Live, which found much to laugh at in Kanye West’s and Kyrie Irving’s recent antisemitic remarks, set off a new round of discourse about blackness, Jewishness, power, and the entertainment industry. Chappelle’s monologue, which some viewers accused of propagating antisemitic tropes itself, also revealed that part of what is at stake in the current contretemps is comedy—specifically, the nexus of Black and Jewish comedy, where an American idiom of humor about insiders and outsiders, envy and identification, privilege and suffering was born. What makes us keep returning to this well of humor, and what happens when the laughter stops? Jewish Currents senior editor Ari Brostoff, JC contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, critic and essayist Jasmine Sanders, and writer and Know Your Enemy co-host Sam Adler-Bell discuss.
Articles, Books, Films, Tweets, and Clips Mentioned:
Hebrews to Negroes:…
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Nov 8, 2022
Victory for Netanyahu’s Far-Right Alliance
In last Tuesday’s Knesset elections, the Israeli electorate delivered a big win to Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition in the fifth Israeli election since 2019. The right-wing bloc won 64 Knesset seats, which will likely give Netanayhu and allied parties enough votes to form a stable and ideologically coherent coalition government. Netanyahu’s probable return to power is thanks to the strength of the Religious Zionism coalition, consisting of three of the most extreme parties in Israeli politics. The coalition won 14 seats, the most it has ever gotten.
Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane spoke to editor-at-large Peter Beinart, contributing editor Joshua Leifer, and contributing writer Elisheva Goldberg about the rise of the Religious Zionism coalition, the commonalities between that coalition and the Israeli center-left, and how these elections might affect the US-Israel relationship.
Articles Mentioned:
“Kahanism’s Raucous Return,” Joshua Leifer, Jew…
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Oct 20, 2022
Ye
In the last week and a half, Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, has appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, been photographed with far-right provocateur Candace Owens wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt, and tweeted that he was going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” (which landed him in social media jail). Redacted footage from the Fox interview revealed that Ye made a number of antisemitic comments there too, referring to Hannukah as a vehicle for “financial engineering” and casting Black people as the real Jews, with non-Black Jews as imposters. In the wake of these comments, Jewish organizations have raised the alarm about worsening antisemitism; meanwhile, tensions have been rising online between some Black and Jewish people, playing out familiar grievances about acknowledgement and allyship. What, if anything, can we learn from this instance of high-profile antisemitism and this latest round of Black–Jewish discourse? And is there any path to solida…
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Oct 13, 2022
Gaza Under Blockade
For 15 years, Israel has imposed an air, land, and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, barring most Palestinians in the coastal enclave from leaving the area under any circumstances. Fishermen who venture out past an Israeli-imposed limit are shot at and arrested, while Palestinian farmers have been killed by soldiers for working land that lies near the boundary fence. Israel also tightly controls the entry and exit of goods, and its restrictive policies have devastated the Gazan economy and led to an unemployment rate of about 50%. In the same period, Israel has waged five military assaults on Gaza, killing thousands of Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians. To discuss Israel’s severe restrictions on Palestinian movement from Gaza and what it’s like to live under blockade and bombardment, Jewish Currents staff reporter Alex Kane interviewed Kholoud Balata, a lecturer, poet, and writer from Gaza and a contributor to Jewish Currents, and Miriam Marmur, the director of public…
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Sep 29, 2022
Yeshiva Education
In the wake of the recent extensive New York Times investigation into Hasidic yeshivas, a fierce and often acrimonious debate has emerged about the ethics of covering the Hasidic world from the outside, how private institutions that receive government funds are accountable to the broader public, and religious minority communities’ right to insist on their way of life, even when it brings them into conflict with the state. On this episode, Jewish Currents Contributing Editor Joshua Leifer hosts a conversation between Naftuli Moster, executive director of Young Advocates for Fair Education (YAFFED), and Frieda Vizel, a writer and tour guide of Hasidic Brooklyn. Moster and Vizel—who both grew up in, and later left, Hasidic communities—draw on their own educational experiences to offer very different perspectives on the Times article and reactions to it, on the best way to advocate for change in the Hasidic world, and on what’s at stake in the fight over secular education.
Article…
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Sep 15, 2022
Mom Save America
On this episode, Jewish Currents Editor-in-Chief Arielle Angel talks with her mother, Jeri Cohen, co-founder of the Women’s Emergency Network, the first abortion fund in South Florida. Cohen, who spent 28 years as a judge in child abuse and dependency court, retired two years ago and has since gotten back into the struggle for reproductive justice. But the movement has changed since the peak of her involvement in the ’70s and ’80s, rooting itself in different political frameworks and organizing cultures, and she now finds herself a fish out of water—a committed liberal on the cusp of 70, learning the mores of the contemporary left. Cohen discusses the process of reacquainting herself with the struggle that defined her young adulthood and which has subsequently transformed.
If you liked this podcast, please donate to the Women’s Emergency Network, an abortion fund serving women in South Florida.
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Aug 25, 2022
Documenting the Struggle
On this episode, Jewish Currents Contributing Editor Joshua Leifer talks with Oren Ziv—co-founder of the award-winning photojournalist collective Activestills and reporter for +972 Magazine and its Hebrew sister site, Local Call—about Oren’s decade-plus experience documenting protest and resistance in Israel/Palestine. Since the Activestills collective’s founding in 2005, Ziv and the group have captured some of the most iconic, and often painful, images of social and political struggle: from the demonstrations against the Israeli separation barrier in the late 2000s, to the campaign for African asylum seekers’ rights in the 2010s, to the opposition to gentrification in the Mizrahi neighborhood of Givat Amal, and much more. Ziv’s own dogged reporting has made him one of the most perceptive journalists in the field; through his camera, Ziv has opened up the injustices of the occupation to the world. Ziv discusses his journalistic method and the experience of documenting the v…
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Aug 11, 2022
The Scream Clarifies an Elsewhere
Last week, Graywolf Press released Civil Service, the debut poetry collection by Jewish Currents Culture Editor Claire Schwartz. The book is a daring study of the violence woven into our world, from everyday encounters to the material of language itself. The poems unfold in three main sequences: a quartet of lyric lectures, a fragmentary narrative that follows a cast of archetypal figures named for the coordinates of their complicities with power—the Dictator, the Curator, the Accountant, and so on—and a series of interrogation scenes centered on a spectral, fugitive figure named Amira, who gives us a glimpse of another world. To celebrate the release of Civil Service, Schwartz spoke with Managing Editor Nathan Goldman and the book’s editor at Graywolf Press, Chantz Erolin, about the book, as well as poems by Paul Celan and Edmond Jabès that deeply informed it. They discussed dispersed responsibility for state violence, thinking as feeling, and the political possibilities of poe…
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Jul 28, 2022
The Trouble with Germany, Part 1
On this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with two Germany-based writers and organizers, Emily Dische-Becker and Michael Sappir, about the bizarre and worrisome ways that Germany’s understandably zealous Holocaust memory culture is playing out among Jews, Palestinians, and other Germans in contemporary Germany. An anti-BDS resolution passed in the Bundestag in 2019 has led to draconian repression of speech across German society, much of it directed not only at Palestinian Germans, but also at some critical Israeli Jews, upward of 10,000 of whom live in Germany. These politics are complicated further by the prevalence on the left of an “anti-Deutsche” tendency, characterized by strong support for the state of Israel as part of a nominally antifascist politics, and also by high numbers of German converts to Judaism who sometimes bring different assumptions about Jewishness to the table when weighing in on questions of communal concern.
Recently, Disch…
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Jul 14, 2022
¡Inquilinos Unidos, Jamás Serán Vencidos!
Late last month, the Autonomous Tenants Union Network—a collaboration of tenant unions from cities across North America—held its first-ever in-person convention in Los Angeles. ATUN formed in 2018 to consolidate the energies of a movement that has exploded in scope in response to a deepening crisis for tenants. Over the course of the weekend, members of 20 tenant unions from Eugene, Oregon to Houston, Texas held strategy sessions on everything from organizing around climate disaster to mutual aid to political education. On this episode, senior editor Ari Brostoff—who attended the conference as a member of the Crown Heights Tenants Union in Brooklyn—spoke with Kenia Alcocer, of the Los Angeles Tenants Union; Claire Spiehler, of the Houston Tenants Union; and Danya Martinez-Spider, of the West River Tenants Union in South Dakota.
Thanks to Sophia Steinert-Evoy for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
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Jun 30, 2022
The Mapping Project
In early June, an anonymous collective of Boston-area activists published “The Mapping Project,” an interactive map listing various institutions in Massachusetts and descriptions of their complicity in Zionism or US imperialism. The list includes universities, foundations, nonprofits, schools, and police departments. The group said they set out to deepen activist “understanding of local institutional support for the colonization of Palestine,” as well as how Israel’s colonization of Palestine is connected to US policing, US foreign policy, and the displacement of local communities. Mainstream Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League reacted to the map with outrage, claiming that listing Jewish foundations, nonprofits, and the like—alongside their addresses—could incite antisemitic violence. Jewish establishment groups were particularly incensed at The Mapping Project’s call to “dismantle” and “disrupt” the institutions listed. Dozens of congressional law…
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Jun 16, 2022
The Age of No Revolutions
A broad spectrum of the American left agrees that the existing political system is not working—that it is dysfunctional, corrupt, anti-majoritarian, and utterly unable to address the serious economic, social, and ecological crises confronting the public. But despite pervasive exhaustion with the status quo, and despite omnipresent warnings about a looming constitutional threat from the radical right, there have been few signs of mobilization for a full-scale left-wing revolution since the 2020 uprisings against racism and police violence after the murder of George Floyd. Today, America’s most liberal cities have largely doubled down on carceralism, and the right has far more insurgent energy than the left. To discuss the dog that isn’t barking, David Klion spoke with Mike Duncan—the creator of the popular podcast Revolutions, which examines the history of ten historical upheavals in great detail—about what makes America in 2022 different from France in 1789 or Russia in 1917,…
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May 26, 2022
The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
The killing of the beloved Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot by Israeli forces while covering an IDF raid of occupied Jenin on May 11th, has sparked massive outcry in Palestine and widespread condemnation from the international community—as did the subsequent attack on her funeral procession by Israeli police. Though Abu Akleh, a veteran correspondent for Al Jazeera, was a singular figure, her death is only the latest reminder that Israel has routinely targeted journalists and civilians, sustaining its impunity through obfuscation in the media and the routine dehumanization of Palestinians. Jewish Currents fellow Dylan Saba speaks with political scientist Dana El Kurd and activist Fadi Quran about Israeli media strategy, shifting public opinion outside the region, and the discursive and strategic challenges faced by the Palestine solidarity movement.
Topics Mentioned:
“New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces…
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May 5, 2022
Campus Wars
Since the launch of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and the collapse of the Oslo Peace Process in the early aughts, the college campus has been a locus of American political conflict over Israel/Palestine. As student Palestine solidarity activists have attempted to introduce BDS resolutions across the country, Israel advocacy organizations have responded by building a vast organizing infrastructure to intervene in student debates about Israel, painting campuses as threatening and hostile places for Jewish students and pushing for greater restrictions on pro-Palestine student speech. In only the latest example, members of the NYU law school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter—half of them Jewish—are facing media defamation for a statement the group sent to the law school listserv. How does it transform campus activism and the experience of individual students when outside organizations and media commentators get involved? I…
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Apr 20, 2022
A Surge of Violence in Israel/Palestine
Life in Israel/Palestine is always characterized by a high level of violence; for instance, Israel’s control of millions of stateless Palestinians in the West Bank who live without due process under military law is inherently violent. But recent weeks have seen a surge in violence: Palestinians from both the West Bank and Israel proper have attacked and in some cases killed Israeli civilians and soldiers, and Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers have attacked and in some cases killed Palestinian civilians. With the unusual confluence of the holidays of Ramadan, Easter, and Passover, many worry that the violence will grow, and even spiral into the kind of massive bloodshed that unfolded last spring. (Since this episode was recorded on April 13th, tensions have escalated further as Israeli police attacked worshipers at the Al-Aqsa mosque, and Israel bombed Gaza in response to a Hamas rocket.) On this episode, Editor-at-Large Peter Beinart speaks with political scientist Dana El Kurd an…
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Apr 1, 2022
Volodymyr Zelensky and Post-Soviet Jewishness
In the month since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become a global icon. Zelensky, who was elected in 2019 and chose to remain in his country during the assault, is Ukraine’s first Jewish president. His Jewishness, already notable given the nation’s history of antisemitism, has taken on new symbolic importance in light of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that the assault is justified by its goal of “denazification.” Many Jews around the world, some of whose ancestors once lived in Ukraine, have come to identify with Zelensky, who embodies many of the contradictions of post-Soviet Jewishness, and whose attempts to lobby on behalf of his nation—including in a recent speech before the Israeli Knesset—have highlighted questions about the politics of post-Soviet Holocaust memory. On today’s episode, Newsletter Editor David Klion speaks with a panel of writers and contributors to the new Soviet Issue of Jewish Currents—Juli…
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Mar 17, 2022
The Assault on Trans and Reproductive Rights
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a new wave of executive and legislative attacks on trans people and abortion rights across the country. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott issued a directive for the state to treat gender-affirming care for trans youth as child abuse; Idaho passed a six-week abortion ban, and a bill prohibiting gender-affirming care for trans children passed in the House before being killed in the Senate; a proposed bill in Missouri attempts to prevent people from seeking abortions in other states. The growing anti-trans movement seems to be drawing from the same playbook as the anti-abortion movement, as the American right is forcefully pushing both agendas. To understand these alarming developments, Senior Editor Ari M. Brostoff speaks with scholar Jules Gill-Peterson (author of Histories of the Transgender Child), journalist Meaghan Winter (author of All Politics Is Local), and reproductive justice advocate Laurie Bertram Roberts (executive director of the Yellowham…
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Mar 3, 2022
I Want to Believe
In January, n+1 Books released Missing Time, the debut essay collection by Senior Editor Ari M. Brostoff, which includes pieces originally published in Jewish Currents, n+1, and elsewhere. The titular essay reads Brostoff’s preteen passion for the supernatural police procedural The X-Files alongside their nascent political consciousness, as they became a young communist (and then ex-communist). Tracing the relationship between the original run and the 2016 and 2018 reboots, the piece considers the gap between two recent historical epochs, when history seemed to stall and then sputter back to life. In the years since the essay’s initial publication and the show’s conclusion, more and more evidence of real-life UFOs has come to light, with the US government admitting last year that it can’t account for these phenomena—or rule out extraterrestrial explanations. To celebrate the release of their book, Brostoff spoke with Editor-in-Chief Arielle Angel and Managing Editor Nathan Go…
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Feb 17, 2022
The Black-Jewish Relations Industrial Complex
A number of recent incidents—from a fracas over Whoopi Goldberg’s comments about the role of race in the Holocaust to a smear campaign launched against Tema Smith, the Anti-Defamation League’s new Director of Jewish Outreach—have highlighted the continued prevalence of anti-Black racism in the American Jewish community and its ongoing exclusion of Black Jews. In this episode, Contributing Writer Rebecca Pierce brought together Black Jewish artists and activists—Yiddish-language performer Anthony Russell, visual artist and organizer Reuben Telushkin, and kohenet and social worker Shoshana Brown—to discuss the policing of Jewish communal space, racism and labor in Jewish organizations, and alternative visions for Black Jewish politics and worlds.
PROJECTS MENTIONED:
My Own Personal Robeson/The House We Live In, Anthony Russell
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Feb 3, 2022
Whose West Side Story?
Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s recent remake of West Side Story sought to bring the musical into the 21st century by updating its flat, stereotypical depictions of Puerto Ricans. In response, Puerto Rican critics have revived a long-running discussion about the musical’s enduring shadow, which some argue has harmed the community as a primary site of "Puerto Rican" representation, written and directed by white men. This time, however, filmmaker, writer, and scholar Frances Negrón-Muntaner, who has been at the forefront of this conversation for decades, found herself accused of antisemitism for daring to criticize the classic musical. What was going on? As the theater historian Brian E. Herrera has observed, West Side Story has two “parallel histories”: as “masterpiece musical and racializing performance.” That parallel also emerges in the different relationships that Jews and Latinx people bring to the work: West Side Story was the work of four gay Jews—Leonard Berns…
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Jan 20, 2022
After Colleyville
On Saturday, January 15th, a British national named Malik Faisal Akram entered Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, and held Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three congregants hostage at gunpoint. Akram demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year prison sentence for allegedly shooting at US FBI agents and army personnel. Akram released one hostage after six hours, and the nearly 12-hour crisis finally ended when the remaining hostages escaped and FBI agents and police entered the synagogue and killed Akram. This disturbing incident activated many American Jews’ feelings of vulnerability—especially heightened since the 2018 attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh—while also provoking Islamophobic responses and reigniting an ongoing debate about synagogue security. In this episode, recorded the Tuesday after the Colleyville attack, Editor-in-Chief Arielle Angel, Managing Editor Nathan Goldman, Senior Reporter Alex Kane,…
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Dec 16, 2021
Jamaal Bowman and DSA
On December 2nd, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)’s National Political Committee declined to expel New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman from the socialist organization. This decision capped a weeks-long debate within DSA over how to respond to Bowman’s “yes” vote on funding Israel’s anti-rocket Iron Dome system and his participation in a recent J Street trip to Israel/Palestine. Beyond the specific issue of how DSA should respond to Bowman’s divergence from the group’s line on Israel/Palestine, the controversy highlighted broader ideological and strategic questions: What’s the relationship between electoralism and the struggle for Palestinian rights? How should the left should relate to liberal Zionist groups like J Street? In this episode, Senior Reporter Alex Kane, Editor-in-Chief Arielle Angel, Assistant Editor Mari Cohen, and Fellow Dylan Saba discuss the Bowman debate and the questions it raises for the left.
Articles Mentioned:
“Jamaal Bowman’s Tri…
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Dec 2, 2021
What Does the Record Show?
In May, writer and activist Sarah Schulman published Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993, to widespread acclaim. In a review for the Fall issue of Jewish Currents, Vicky Osterweil argued that the book, despite offering invaluable insight into the history of AIDS activism, is marred by structural elisions—especially of trans people—and is ultimately hagiographic rather than appropriately critical of the movement it chronicles. While Schulman’s response to the review provoked a controversy, Osterweil’s critique also ignited a discussion about the book itself, sometimes tied to broader disagreements about the theory and practice of both queer history and movement strategy. In a letter to the editor, writer and organizer Kay Gabriel contested Osterweil’s assessment of the book, arguing that it stands as a sober account of what took place. In this episode, Culture Editor Ari M. Brostoff convenes a discussion between Osterweil and Gabriel about Le…
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Nov 18, 2021
Israel's Attack on Palestinian Civil Society
In October, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz declared six Palestinian human rights organizations to be “terrorist” groups. The targeted groups form the backbone of Palestinian civil society. Collectively, the organizations document Israeli human rights abuses and offer direct aid to Palestinians crushed by the Israeli occupation, whether it’s farmers facing Israeli settler land theft or children detained in Israel’s military court system. Gantz’s declaration placed the organizations at severe risk, making their employees potentially subject to arrest for working in a banned organization.
To learn more about what’s behind Israel’s moves and what it means for the future of Palestinian civil society, Senior Reporter Alex Kane interviews Palestinian American analyst Yousef Munayyer and Sarit Michaeli, International Advocacy Officer for B’Tselem, the leading Israeli human rights organization.
Articles Mentioned:
“Secret Israeli Document Offers No Proof to Justify…
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Nov 4, 2021
Sunrise, Sunset
Two weeks ago, Sunrise DC—a chapter of the climate action group Sunrise Movement—announced it would not participate in a voting rights rally because of the involvement of Zionist organizations, specifically naming three Jewish groups: the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. This decision prompted immediate backlash and provoked a heated discussion: Some critics accused Sunrise of antisemitism for singling out Jewish groups without remarking on the Israel politics of non-Jewish groups associated with the rally, while others argued that the move was not antisemitic but simply unstrategic. Five days later, Sunrise DC put out a new statement apologizing for having “fueled antisemitism,” while also reaffirming a commitment to anti-Zionism and Palestine solidarity. In this episode, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, culture editor Ari M. Brostoff, assistant editor Mari Cohen, and Jewish Currents fellow…
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Oct 22, 2021
West Bank Politics
The past months have been tumultuous in the occupied West Bank. In April, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled parliamentary and presidential elections; in May, during protests following Israel’s assault on Gaza, Israeli soldiers killed dozens of Palestinians; in June, Palestinian Authority security forces killed Nizar Banat, a vocal critic of Abbas, setting off protests against the PA leader. To explore some of the recent developments in the region as well as their broader political context, Senior Reporter Alex Kane speaks with Jewish Currents contributor Dalia Hatuqa and activist and analyst Fadi Quran.
Articles Mentioned:
“A Prison Break Liberates the Palestinian Political Imagination” by Dalia Hatuqa
“Poll finds nearly 80% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign” by Joseph Krauss
Thanks to Santiago Helou Quintero for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
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Oct 8, 2021
The Use and Abuse of “Jewish Peoplehood”
We recently published two pieces—”On Loving Jews” by editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and “Reclaiming the Covenant of Fate” by editor-at-large Peter Beinart—investigating what, if anything, Jews owe one another, especially across fundamental political divides such as disputes over Zionism and Palestinian freedom. This episode features two conversations digging deeper into the question of Jewish solidarity. In the first, Angel and Beinart explore the places their pieces overlap and diverge; in the second, Angel speaks with contributing writer Rebecca Pierce about how she thinks about “Jewish peoplehood,” communal obligations, and organizing as a Jew of color.
Articles, Threads, and Films Mentioned:
“On Loving Jews” by Arielle Angel
“Reclaiming the Covenant of Fate” by Peter Beinart
“Listen, My Beloved Knocks” by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik
Raphael Magarik’s letter about “On Loving Jews”
Yair Wallach’s thread on “Jewish peoplehood”
No Man’s Lan…
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Aug 10, 2021
Political Depression
As climate change-induced flooding and wildfires wreak havoc across the globe, and the Delta variant brings us into another perilous phase of the pandemic, the Jewish Currents staff is thinking about political depression—and how to cope with it. What does it mean to bring political feelings into therapy? Editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, publisher Jacob Plitman, culture editor Ari M. Brostoff, and contributing editor Joshua Leifer discuss the relationship between melancholia and the left, the difficulties of reconciling the therapeutic subject with the social collective of movement politics, and how therapy might be radicalized.
Listen to On the Nose and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Articles and Podcasts Mentioned:
“Beautiful Losers” by Sam Adler-Bell
“How to Be Depressed” from Know Your Enemy
“Feel Tank” by Lauren Berlant
“The Family Romance of American Communism” by Ari M. Brostoff
“I Feel Better No…
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Jul 27, 2021
Rallies, Surveys, and Ice Cream
It’s been a rough few weeks for the “pro-Israel” establishment, from a pitiful showing at the “No Fear” rally against antisemitism (whose “big tent” excluded non-Zionists), to the release of a Jewish Electorate Institute survey of American Jewish voters showing surprisingly prevelant left-wing attitudes about Israel, to last week’s announcement that Ben & Jerry’s will stop selling ice cream in the occupied Palestinian territories. Editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, culture editor Ari M. Brostoff, assistant editor Mari Cohen, and contributing editor Joshua Leifer discuss these developments, what they suggest about evolving public opinion among American Jews, and what questions they raise about Jewish institutional engagement and political education.
Articles Mentioned:
Jewish Electorate Institute’s “July 2021 National Survey of Jewish Voters”
“I helped organize the Washington rally against antisemitism. It wasn’t perfect, but it was necessary” by Elisha Wies…
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Jul 13, 2021
Couples Therapy
The recent Jewish Currents staff roundtable on “intermarriage,” “Jewish continuity,” and the fraught institutional discourse on these topics occasioned a wide variety of responses, including the question: How might the conversation look different if it included non-Jewish partners of Jews? So we decided to find out! In the second episode of our new podcast, On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and her husband Michael M., managing editor Nathan Goldman and his wife Bridget Bergin, web editor Nora Caplan-Bricker and her husband Tom Stackpole, and culture editor Ari M. Brostoff and their roommate Daniel Drake reflect on the intermarriage roundtable and the questions it raised for them about what Jewishness means.
Articles and TV Episodes Mentioned:
“What We Talk About When We Talk About ‘Intermarriage’” by Jewish Currents editors
“The Yada Yada,” Seinfeld
Books Mentioned:
The Myth of the Shiksa and Other Essays by Edwin H. Friedman
Thanks to Santiago Helou…
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Jun 29, 2021
Jewish Feelings
Welcome to the first official episode of the Jewish Currents podcast, On the Nose. After a brief conversation about the show’s title, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, publisher Jacob Plitman, managing editor Nathan Goldman, and assistant editor Mari Cohen discuss the Anti-Defamation League’s recent survey of American Jews about their perceptions and understanding of antisemitism, in the wake of a reported “uptick in antisemitic incidents.” We discuss what it means that the survey suggests American Jews widely conflate anti-Zionism and certain criticisms of Israel with antisemitism. What’s the relationship between claims of antisemitism and feelings of discomfort? How does this misunderstanding relate to the left’s thinking about the authority of subjective experience and the politics of feelings? What can Jewish identity politics teach us about the power and limits of identity politics writ large?
Articles and Podcasts Mentioned:
“Survey of American Jews since Recent Viol…
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May 20, 2021
In This Moment & Tough Conversations
Is it worthwhile to focus our organizing on moving Jewish American public opinion on Israel/Palestine? How effective is it really in shifting the dynamics on the ground? Jewish Currents staff members discuss these questions.
Then, starting at 33:58, we discuss one of the main questions we’ve received in the last week: How do I talk to my family about what’s happening? We recount personal victories and failures, and explore how people actually change their mind.
Reading & Resources Mentioned in "In This Moment & Tough Conversations"
Are 95% of Jews Really Zionists? by Caroline Morganti
Jewish Americans in 2020 (Pew Study)
Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return by Peter Beinart
US media talks a lot about Palestinians — just without Palestinians by Maha Nassar
Responsa - How Not to Fight Antisemitism by Jewish Currents editors
A Guide to the Current Crisis in Israel/Palestine by Mari Cohen, Joshua Leifer, Alex Kane
The Palestinian Cause at a Moment of…
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Apr 9, 2021
On the Nose
The cover of the Spring 2021 issue of Jewish Currents features a photograph that has proven controversial, eliciting a wide array of reactions, from disgust to accusations of antisemitism to schnoz pride. Editor-in-Chief Arielle Angel, Publisher Jacob Plitman, and Managing Editor Nathan Goldman sat down with Rachel Stern, the artist behind the photograph, to discuss the image, the response, and what it all might mean.
Thanks to Santiago Helou Quintero for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song "VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed)."
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