B (6:10)

You know, in the past, when antisemites challenged Our story declared war on our story. Jews were emotionally resilient, were able to deal with outsiders hatred for our story. So for example, Christianity, until the Holocaust saw the Jewish story as illegitimate and we no longer belonged in our story. We had corrupted our story. Islam to a lesser extent had the same judgment. And the more hateful versions of antisemitism were based on obvious lies. We knew we didn't kill Christian children and use their blood for matzah. We knew we hadn't crucified Jesus. So antisemitism actually fortified our self image. The reaction of Jews was contempt for antisemites. If anything, it made us feel superior. How could you possibly believe such idiocy? Today things are more complicated and I'm speaking specifically about one form of threat against the Jewish people. I don't want to use the word antisemitism. It's a whole conversation, anti Zionism and as we've discussed before, irrelevant, at least for me. Whether anti Zionism is a form of antisemitism, whether it's a new permutation of hatred for Jews that deserves its own category, that's something that Adam Lewis Klein, who's one of the most thoughtful people out there writing about anti Zionism today, makes a very strong case for. And so anti Zionism is a direct assault on the Jewish story, on the core, one of the core elements of the Jewish story, the 4,000 year relationship of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, the centrality of the land of Israel in our identity, in our year cycle, in our rituals. And it is declaring that part of our identity not just illegitimate, but a crime. And for the first time, I think in the history of antisemitism, large numbers of Jews are confused.

A (8:36)

Can I just help to clarify what I think I heard you say, and I don't want to stop you, that at the first old antisemitism wanted to alienate us from their world. You're not part of me. Are you saying current antisemitism is trying to alienate us from our story?

B (8:56)

I think that's a great way to put it. It's not.

A (8:58)

Is that what you were saying?

B (8:59)

No, but I like that very much. What old antisemitism really tried to do in a way was also alienate us from our story. The Bible isn't ours anymore. The Hebrew Bible belongs to Christianity. The ancient Israelites are not us, it's them, it's the church.

A (9:18)

But you could remain a Jew. Now the anti Semitism is trying to change the nature of your Judaism.

B (9:25)

Now the anti Zionist assault.

A (9:27)

Let's say some of them are anti Semitists.

B (9:29)

But okay, okay. Is trying to. Well, it is a kind of conversion. Daniil. They are trying to convert us to this progressive worldview that forces us to repudiate a core element of our identity. But what makes this threat. We're talking about the hidden dangers of antisemitism. What makes this threat so dangerous is that growing numbers of young, especially Diaspora Jews, especially Diaspora Jews in the American Diaspora, are increasingly vulnerable to this. And there are good reasons for that. One is that we have power, and power means we're not innocent anymore. And so in the past, it was so clear that they were lying about our story. Today, you need discernment. I saw something today on social media. Some anti Zionist was tweeting about how we fought this war. And it was a long list of just one lie after another. We bound children's hands and then buried them alive. Just unbelievable atrocities. We beheaded pregnant women. But then he added, and they, the Zionists bombed hospitals. Now, that's true. We did bomb hospitals with a caveat. Hamas was turning these hospitals into operational centers. But when you mix into the big lie partial truths, it disorients you. In the past, when we confronted antisemitism, it was one unequivocal, absurd lie. Today, well, what's true? What's false? 1948, there was an expulsion. Yes, but you tried to destroy the state of Israel. We accepted partition. All of those arguments.

A (11:20)

Nobody's listening.

B (11:20)

All of those arguments. All of those arguments. And so this assault on our story is new because it's not entirely contrived. And the result of that is profound confusion among many Jews.

A (11:38)

Interesting. I still like the dimension of my analysis of you. And I appreciate that it's not dramatically new, but that there's a sense of. It's almost fighting from within side in a way that prior antisemitism didn't.

B (11:53)

Say more.

A (11:54)

When you're attacking the Jewish people's connection to Israel, it's not like you're attacking the Jewish people's connection to money. You're like, here it is. You are a money. Like Jews we know. It's like, it's not my story. You're building a world in which I.

B (12:11)

Wish it were mine.

A (12:12)

I'm building a world. And you're the perennial outsider.

B (12:15)

Right.

A (12:15)

This is not about outing the Jews. It's about separating the Jews from what many Jews are saying is an integral part of who I am. And they're saying, if you want to be that, then you're A pariah. And then Jews are challenged internally in ways that antisemitism in the past didn't challenge us.

B (12:33)

Yeah, except that I do think that this does fit an old pattern of we'll accept you if you give up your Jewishness now. Anti Zionism is not asking us to give up the totality of our church.

A (12:45)

That's the point that I'm making.

B (12:46)

Right, right.

A (12:47)

So, okay, thank you. I want to offer there'll be a family resemblance between them. And that is there's another dimension to the challenge of antisemitism today that I think is new. Not in the sense of the motivation of the antisemite and not even in the justification or the argument legitimizing their anti Semitic hatred, but in the fact that the Jewish people aren't the same Jewish people that we used to be. For most of Jewish history, when we encountered anti Semites, we were what's now known as Jews by birth, essentially, meaning we inherited our Jewish identity. It's who we were. We didn't choose it. In many ways we were prisoners, psychological prisoners. We could always leave. But there was a self evident connection.

B (13:46)

You could only leave by totally repudiating the whole identity.

A (13:50)

And that's not natural. That's not natural. The default was you started the conversation that you were a Jew, you knew who you were, you were a Jew. Today in this generation, for many Jews around the world, outside of Israel, in particular in liberal countries, liberal English speaking countries, but not only Jewish, identity is a choice that you have to make. The outside world could accept you without you having to deny every aspect of who you are. In essence, much of your identities are fluid. There's such fluidity in who we are and how we see ourselves. And Jews have to choose to opt in. They don't just have to choose to opt out. And when you're standing on that line of deciding, do I opt in or do I opt out, antisemitism hits you and affects you in a completely different way. See, if I'm in and I experience antisemitism, I hunker down. Maybe it, as you said, it revalidates, I create stronger group identity. But if I'm sitting on the ridge and there's a deep consumerist dimension to identity today where you ask, what are you giving me? What do I get from it? What are the deliverables that are being provided to me? And in that environment, when antisemitism hits you, you have to ask yourself a question.

B (15:28)

For what? For what?

A (15:30)

Like I could become a liberal American, I could become Maybe for those who are telling us on the right that you can't be an American, it has a feature of that, that you don't belong at all. But for so many, why do it like Jews today? Every experience, every Jewish institution has to compete. Synagogues have to compete, camps have to compete, observance has to compete. You have to compete for attention. Israel has to compete. And someone asks, why connect? When you add anti Semitism into a generation of Jews who are Jews by choice, not that they are converting, but Jews by choice, because that they have to opt in, the challenge of antisemitism is going to have a deep, profound impact on whether people are going to choose for what. It tips a scale. And as a result, even though there is a post October 7th surge, or what they call the October 8th Jews, conceptually, I'm certain of this within whatever frame of certainty that I have. And nothing is certain that it's not going to last.

B (16:43)

So I think you're raising a really important, an unspoken part of this conversation on antisemitism. And I think that going back to anti Zionism, it adds another element which reinforces your point. It's not only the need to protect oneself that's going to make me distance from Jewishness. There's also the question, well, what if the critique is right or partly right? What if this isn't such a good story? Is it worth it? Given everything I'm seeing on the news about the Jewish state, do I really want to be identified with it? So suddenly it's not only about opting out to protect. It's not only a selfish move. It has a moral dimension.

A (17:31)

It could. And it could even just be like, you know, I moved for 11 years to New York. I lived in New Jersey from 84 to 95. And in 84, the jets, the football team, they were phenomenal. 85, they had these two pass rushers. It was exciting. So I joined. I became a Jet fan.

B (17:54)

Like, what did I know?

A (17:55)

I came from Israel, I became a Jet fan. And then for decades now, it's like, really, I'm stuck with this forever. Like, I'm stuck. Like, and again, I hope I'm not insulting any Jet fans. God bless you. You and Met fans together. It's like your identity becomes the UN underdog for the paranoia. But, like, at one point, it's not even that they might be right. It's just, do I want to be part of this team? It's like, consumers pick consumers. Our loyalty is built on returns. Now in Jewish identity, consumerism was Such a marginal part historically, you know, we did things that we hated. It's just what Jews do. It's what our parents tradition. Now why asking that question why? And when you add antisemitism into that, why sometimes as you said, it's going to have, you know, is this story, right? Like that's your notion that maybe there's some truth here, but even not, you.

B (18:54)

Know, like, and that's why I think, that's why I think anti Zionism is such a threat to Jewish self system, right?

A (19:00)

But like when I want to go to campus, like I'm looking for my, like leave me alone.

B (19:03)

Yeah.

A (19:04)

And antisemitism is just a burden, just like anti Zionism is. That's why Israel and Judaism for consumerists, for Jews to Jews is going to pose a new challenge which we need to think about.

B (19:18)

So let's look at the counterargument. The most powerful example of Jews pushing back against antisemitism by embracing a Jewish identity that they knew almost nothing about was Soviet Jewry.

A (19:33)

Correct?

B (19:34)

And the fact that there are a million former Soviet Jews in Israel and half a million in the US and that so much of Jewish life has been enriched by this infusion from the former Soviet Union is really the story in large part of Dafka. Dafka is both a Yiddish and a borrowed Hebrew word. Or maybe Yiddish borrowed it from Hebrew and then Hebrew took it back from Yiddish. Dafka is kind of defiance, stubborn, stubbornness, stiff neck, you hate me, so I'm going to love me. You know, you don't want me to be a Jew, I'm going to be even more of a Jew. And that really is the story of the rebirth of Soviet Jewry. The parallel doesn't work with America because the Soviet Union both had an actively anti Semitic government and a heavily anti Semitic society, and America's neither. And most of the west or much of the west is not that. So the sense of reclaiming a lost Jewish identity in the face of overwhelming hatred doesn't apply.

A (20:45)

But the Russian example, they define Jews as a nationality. You weren't Russian, right?

B (20:53)

You were Jews, you were Jews and it appeared in your internal documents.

A (20:58)

So like then that's an example of you are Jewish, now we hate you, what are you going to do about it?

B (21:03)

That's right.

A (21:04)

Not do you want to be Jewish, we hate you now what choices do you want to make?

B (21:08)

Right? So at the same time, and here's. Let's look at the case for the emergence of Western Jewish defiance in the face of Anti Semitism, because there is a case to be made for that. If there's one thing that Jews, no matter how assimilated, really don't like, it's antisemitism.

A (21:31)

Right? And could we just stop at that profound, innovative. There's something about that. I was sitting here and saying, oh.

B (21:39)

And you can quote me on that, Daniil. And it's almost an aesthetic offense, you know, really, after everything, you still hate us. And here I want to factor in the Shoah because for American Jews, even assimilated American Jews, the Shoah is one of the last pieces of identity that they hold onto. And there's something profoundly offensive about antisemitism after the Holocaust. And that touches a nerve among many, many Jews. And I wouldn't underestimate.

A (22:21)

Fair enough, fair enough. Let's shift. Is there another feature of this current antisemitism that you think we need to put on the table to be aware of?

B (22:34)

So I'm concerned not only about the impact of anti Zionism on Jewish self esteem. I'm also concerned about an excessive preoccupation with threat. And I emphasize excessive and who knows how to measure what excessive is, but of focusing on antisemitism to the point where it's draining our capacity for creativity, for spiritual renewal. And we have really important questions on the Jewish agenda. One of those questions, for me, in some ways the most important Jewish question of my life from the beginning, when I first started thinking about these questions, is what does it mean to be a Jew after, after the Holocaust, after the creation of Israel, after the emergence of the freest and most self confident Diaspora in Jewish history? What does it mean to live after the greatest Jewish nightmares and the greatest Jewish dreams were all fulfilled just before we were born? What do I do with that? How do I translate that into a Jewish identity, into my religiosity? This for me is the determining question of our generation. If we shift the focus and make the determining question antisemitism, I feel we're going back. We're going back and we're deferring to the next generation. The need to start coming up with interesting answers. Because I have to tell you, Danille, and this for me is so important, despite the antisemitism, I don't think there has ever been a more interesting time to be a Jewish than now. Maybe in the Exodus and the receiving of the Torah. But really aside from that, looking at 4,000 years, this for me is the most fascinating precisely because we are living at the time after the fulfillment of our worst nightmares. And greatest dreams. What do we do with that? And so, yes, we're living at a time when antisemitism has gone global, and it's never been global before because there was never the mechanism for that. Social media has enabled antisemitism to happen everywhere simultaneously. So we must deal with this. We have to deal with the severity of that threat, but not at the expense of avoiding the really deep questions we have to ask about who we are.

A (25:19)

You know, it's very beautiful, as I heard you. This is your version of my father's Auschwitzer Sinai.

B (25:25)

Right.

A (25:25)

But very different. Very different completely, because it's not. It's for you. Auschwitz demands a Sinai.

B (25:31)

Yes, yes, it's Auschwitz. And Sinai.

A (25:34)

And Sinai. Of course it's an and, but it also. It's because we survived it.

B (25:39)

Yes.

A (25:39)

So beautiful. Thank you. I want to get myself into trouble.

B (25:43)

Okay.

A (25:44)

I don't know.

B (25:45)

It won't be the first time.

A (25:46)

I don't know if I can get myself in trouble with you. But I want to put a term on the table, which is another challenge that I'm deeply concerned about. And I know the minute I put the word on the table, I'm going to aggravate people because this term itself is being used to attack the Jews. And I don't want to do it in that way. So bear with me for just a minute. I want to talk about the weaponizing of antisemitism.

B (26:14)

You're right, it aggravates it.

A (26:16)

And I know that the term weaponizing antisemitism has been weaponized by people who want to limit the ability of the Jewish people to criticize them, to criticize antisemitism itself, to push back. To push back to defend ourselves. And so, you know, I'm not interested in that. Like, you know, those who are trying to justify antisemitism by claiming that the Jewish critique of antisemitism is weaponizing antisemitism. That's not me. But I'm here speaking as an Israeli, and my experiences of the antisemitism discourse is very different than a Jew living outside of Israel, wherever it might be. And when a Jew experiences antisemitism and calls it antisemitism and someone just sort of wants to cancel you by saying you're weaponizing it, it has a profound destabilizing experience. Even though. And look, notice you yourself, how careful you were in our subject of anti Semitism the first half, you just used the word anti Zionism, which is interesting, because you want to be more careful in your language. But there is a weaponization of anti Semitism taking place in Israel that is of profound concern. And I believe it's a huge challenge for our society. In our tradition, there is no possibility of moral growth. There's no possibility of overcoming the inherent capacity of the human being for mediocrity. Unless you have people on the outside who watch you, who critique you, and who you see their criticism as essential to your moral and spiritual growth. When you live in a spiritual intellectual ghetto, mediocrity will prevail. There's so many hundreds of remarkable stories of how the outsider is an essential part of who we are. We just finished the portion of the week Jethro Moses needed Jethro from the outside to come and say, moses, this is not the way you run people. This is an amateurish little thing. You think everybody's going to come to you. You need a government in Israel. We are weaponizing anti Semitism to silence any, any criticism of Israel. It's not that we're silencing them. We're silencing it as an internal factor. It's not that we're having an impact on anybody. We're not using it to try to attack them. This is an inner Jewish, Israeli conversation which says, anybody who takes a stand against this government even is an anti Semite, you Yossi, you're anti Bibi. If you were outside of Israel, even if you're Jewish, doesn't matter, because Jews could be. From the perspective, any type of conversation that we've been having on an ongoing basis here, when it comes, is anti Semitic. And I love this country. I love it, and I think it's a great country. But we need mirrors. We need people talking to us. We need an open conversation. And when we shut it down by telling, this is what we do, we tell basically all Israelis. Anybody who doesn't agree with us. And Prime Minister Netanyahu literally said this word for word. All of it is all antisemitism. And the weaponization of antisemitism as an internal limitation, not on conversation, but on what we feel we have to listen to is a new challenge. And since antisemitism is now all over, we're on the bandwagon. We're just on the bandwagon. And as a result, we can be and do. And nobody, nobody could say anything to us at all.

B (30:24)

So I think that it's an important conversation. We need a different language for it. Because when you invoke the term weaponizing antisemitism, it has a very specific connotation in the discourse outside of Israel. And I'm thinking, for example, of how the New York Times defines Mayor Mamdani's attitudes toward Israel. They call him a critic of Israel or sometimes a critic of Israeli policies, which is technically true given that Israel's main policy is survival, and he's against our survival. So. But this notion of conflating criticism of Israel's policies with denial of its right to exist is the weaponization of anti antisemitism correct.

A (31:12)

So I gave you that from the beginning.

B (31:14)

You did, you did. So we need a different language for that. I certainly agree with you that that's what this government has tried to do. I don't think they've done it very successfully because at least half this country is against them.

A (31:28)

No, right, that's true.

B (31:30)

But what they have done, they've activated their base.

A (31:33)

They've activated their base, but they've insulated us from anybody on the outside of Israel. There is nothing outside of Israel that an Israeli has to listen to and ask, oh, what does that mean? You spoke about our creativity. So much of our creativity is in conversation with the world. And we have business creativity, but moral, spiritual creativity. We're just shutting them down. So maybe I shouldn't call it weaponizing. Maybe I should call it abuse of antisemitism as a tool not to shut down our critics, but to shut down our obligation to hear whatever term you want. We have to open that up. So I'm not married to any term. It's just. That's a term. Maybe I got it. That's where I feel it. I see them doing it. We could critique on the inside. And by the way, they do the same thing inside. But they don't call you an anti Semite. What do they call you? They call you a traitor or a leftist. A leftist. So. And that is the internal version of I don't have to listen to you.

B (32:40)

That's right.

A (32:41)

It's like. So you don't use the term for, you know, Israeli Jews calling them that, but anybody else, it's just. So that move is a danger, especially in the context of this larger onslaught against Jews, which gives legitimacy to that language, which then shuts down your ability and obligations.

B (33:03)

We need to be sensitive to two kinds of abuse. Abuse from the outside, which would deny us our ability to protect ourselves, and abuse from the inside, which is abusing the right of self defense or abusing.

A (33:22)

Our legitimate concern for antisemitism. So here it is. It's a new time. It's an old foe. It's been around forever, but it's meeting a different Jewish people. It's meeting Jews who have to choose who they want to be. It's meeting a Jewish community in which the largest concentration of Jews are living with power and sovereignty. And as it meets us, whatever form it takes is going to impact us in brand new ways, which our job today is not to come up with strategies. But if this is correct, then these ideas have to serve as a blueprint for beginning to think about how do we go from here. Last thoughts.

B (34:09)

Yossi. For me, the most interesting question of antisemitism is what it says about Jewish identity. What does it say about who we are as a people? The fact that not only is Jewish survival an extraordinary story, but so is the parallel story, our shadow story, which is the survival of antisemitism for 2,500 years. Why are we the most consistently hated people in history? And I'm not interested in the sociological reasons for that. I'm interested in the spiritual reasons. I'm interested in what does it say about who we are as a people. Now, it's too big a conversation, and I don't mean to open it up. I'm only raising it because I think it needs to be part of the mix. When we talk about antisemitism, we shouldn't neglect this piece of there's something really strange about the Jews. And this belonging to the most consistently hated people in history is a very complicated identity. And again, for me, ultimately the most important question is is what it says about who we are, ourselves.

A (35:27)

That's another story. I don't know what to do with that yet.

B (35:30)

We'll keep it hidden for now.

A (35:31)

We'll keep it hidden for now. It's a Torah that you're working on and I think you have to teach. I don't know what it is I like to think about what does anti Semitism say about the anti Semite? But you're saying, is there another feature that might be a source of strength, not necessarily of challenges of strength? Yossi, it's a pleasure talking with you about antisemitism.

B (35:54)

It always is.

A (35:56)

Thank you.

C (35:58)

What are we supposed to do and say and be during this time?

A (36:02)

Judaism has so much complexity to it and so many layers to it that no one layer stands by itself. What you have is Jews who for the very first time feel like their.

C (36:12)

Value system is out of sync with the broader sector. I'm your host, Alana Steinhein. Welcome to Texting IRL where we wrestle with the dilemmas of Jewish life through the lens of classical and modern Torah texts. I am so fortunate that I have a friend and a colleague who I can talk to Jacob Feinsman, Diana Ginsberg, Dalia Lithwick, helping us think through these big questions.

A (36:32)

Why are you guys part of this? What calls you personally to it?

B (36:35)

What are some of the other things.

A (36:37)

That you work on? What's at stake for you?

B (36:39)

I think one of the challenges is to figure out how much failed development.

C (36:43)

Democracy we as Jews can tolerate.

A (36:45)

We have to find opportunities to make enemies into friends.

C (36:50)

The model is so majestic in this text.

A (36:54)

Listen now to Texting irl, a podcast from the Shalom Hartman Institute, available wherever.

C (36:59)

You get your podcasts. Welcome to the beauty of Jewish interpretation.

A (37:02)

Exactly.

D (37:06)

Here are some other things that are happening at the Sholom Hartman Institute over the past few weeks, the Institute in Jerusalem has been buzzing with North American learners. Fifteen Jewish professionals from communities across Canada concluded over a year of learning with Hartman's courageous Leadership Canada program that strengthens the richness of Jewish life across the entire country. The eighth Cohort of the Rabbinic Leadership Initiative spent a week focusing on Jewish holidays from an ethical lens. And this past weekend, students from a variety of gap year programs across Israel spent Shabbat together building community across difference and engaging deeply with some of the biggest ideas animating Jewish life today. You can join the learning in Israel this summer, leaders, philanthropists and learners from around the world will gather for our Community Leadership Program. Rabbis and cantors will convene at our Rabbinic Torah Seminar, and Jewish educators will study at the Wellspring Summit. For educators to learn more and apply, click the link in the Show Notes. We hope to see you there.

E (38:04)

For Heaven's Sake is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute and ARC Media. It is produced by me, Daniel Goodman, with help from Miriam Jacobs, Adar Taylor Schechter and Aviva Katmanaur, and studio support from Go Live Media. Our episode was edited by Seth Stein, Meital Friedman is our executive producer and our music was composed by Yuval Sama. Past episodes can be found@arcmedia.org where you can explore more of Arc Media's podcasts. You can watch the video version of our episodes on our YouTube channel. Follow the YouTube link in the Show Notes. Also, to receive updates on new episodes, please follow the link to arcmedia.org and subscribe to Arc Media's weekly newsletter. For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute, visit our website@shalomhartman.org.