The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Episode: Don't Eat That Friday-Night Brisket!
Date: November 7, 2025
Panel: John Podhoretz (host), Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, Eliana Johnson, Christine Rosen

Overview:

This episode dives deep into the recent surge of antisemitism on both the American right and left, spurred in part by events at the Heritage Foundation and public figures like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. The hosts dissect the meaning and implications of cultural exchanges—specifically the controversy over inviting non-Jews to Shabbat dinners for the sake of “outreach”—and how these seemingly benign gestures have become lightning rods for animosity. They further discuss generational trends, political party challenges, historical echoes from the Buchanan era, as well as looming questions about how Jewish Americans should respond to rising hostility both within and outside traditional political homes.

Main Themes & Discussion Points

1. The Shabbat Dinner Controversy—Symbolism and Backlash

• Background: Heritage Foundation’s proposal for staffers to attend Friday night Shabbat dinners (04:00), intended as outreach against antisemitism, was met with resistance and even conspiracy-tinged objections from some young, religious staffers.
  • John: “This is Shabbat dinner. Just for people who don’t—is not a religious service. It is a Friday night dinner at which three or four different prayers are said... It’s not a service. It’s... like saying grace.” (04:14)
• Viral Response: Social media erupted with comments, many overtly antisemitic, after a staffer refused to attend, citing religious discomfort about Friday observance post-Jesus’ death.
  • John: “How dare you force this kid to go to dinner at your house, you effing Jew boy?… Now let me say something incredibly anti Semitic in response to this.” (09:28)
• Panel’s Take: Outreach efforts risk unleashing further bigotry; well-intentioned gestures like inviting non-Jews to Shabbat dinners are now met with suspicion or open hostility.

2. Shabbat as Outreach: Experience vs. Expectation

• Seth: The idea of Shabbat dinners as outreach misunderstands their purpose—they’re warm, communal meals, not advocacy events or conversion opportunities (11:00).
  • Seth: “It’s literally just having a home cooked meal on a Friday night… it wasn’t intended to be… outreach.” (11:11)
• Food Follies: Lively banter about gefilte fish and its “hazards”—should Jews serve unfamiliar or divisive foods to guests as part of cultural hospitality?
  • Abe: “If there were a food that I was going to put before gentiles… it would not be gefilte fish.” (13:26)

3. Is Antisemitism on the Right an Enduring Trend or a Passing Fad?

• Generational Worries: Eliana cautions against overinterpreting youth remarks but notes a real pipeline of radicalism could bring such views to prominence (17:00).
  • Eliana: “We see obvious intellectual trends among young people and they change over time... the question to me is, like, do these kids grow up and grow out of this?” (18:05)
• Mirror to the Left: Abe compares this debate to past dismissals of radical campus activism on the left; concern that, as with the left, extremist ideas may not simply “fade away.” (19:00)
• Christine’s Theory: Suggests antisemitism has become for the young right what trans activism is for the left—a tribal, identity-defining transgression.
  • Christine: “The young right antisemitism is... that generation’s, that right wing generation’s trans. It’s their crazy runaway idea that gives them meaning.” (20:25)

4. Political Institutions, Gatekeeping, and the Heritage–Tucker Nexus

• Heritage & Tucker: Ongoing controversy as Heritage is entangled in a sponsorship/non-disparagement quagmire with Tucker Carlson, who has platformed Nick Fuentes—an explicit antisemite (24:00).
  • John: “You don’t sign a NDA and non disparage with somebody that you’re paying money to.” (27:09)
• Panel calls out: The apparent lack of principled leadership and compares to past conservative gatekeeping, notably Buckley’s public break with Pat Buchanan over antisemitism.

5. Activism as Social Gatekeeping: Lessons from the Left (and Now the Right)

• Left Gatekeeping: Activist circles on the left use Israel-Palestine as a litmus test for broader political engagement—even shifting into unrelated causes (29:00).
  • John: “Greta Thunberg, you start out by saying save the whales, and you end up on a ship to Gaza.” (30:20)
• Right Gatekeeping? Does antisemitism become a similar threshold for belonging on the far right? Panel ponders what this faddishness “gates in”—deep-seated hate or only surface culture-war rebellion? (32:00)

6. Fuentes, Carlson, and the Anti-Establishment Right

• No Positive Agenda: Analysis of what, if anything, the Fuentes/Tucker wing stands for besides opposition, isolationism, and “anti-establishment” posturing. (35:00)
  • John: “What does Nick Fuentes want? …I don’t see any positive agenda items on the Tucker Fuentes front.” (34:01)
• Foreign Policy Rift: Eliana notes their vision is more isolationist than Trump’s, specifically antagonistic to muscular, pro-Israel Republican foreign policy. (36:48)
• Threats and Power: These figures try to co-opt or intimidate more mainstream conservatives, exemplified by attacks on JD Vance and insinuations against other Republican figures. (40:21)

7. How Big Is the Antisemitic Faction? Should You Try to Win Them?

• Numbers Game: The panel debates whether Fuentes’ claimed millions of followers represent real political risk or just internet “noise.” (42:05)
  • Eliana: “The people who believe these things… are not people who want to engage in intellectual debate that you can persuade out of these views.” (44:28)
• Failed Outreach Historical Lessons: John recounts the Buchanan 1992 campaign, the dangers of “bringing extremists into the tent,” and Buckley’s National Review denunciation, arguing that appeasement of this faction always backfires. (49:37, 58:09)

8. The Current Stakes: Jewish Americans and the Horseshoe Trap

• Political Homelessness: Panel fears Jews might lose a political home in both parties if the right doesn’t squash its antisemites and the left continues radical drift.
  • John: “We can't associate with them. And there’s the Democratic Party, which is already making clear that we can’t associate with them either.” (56:35)
  • Abe: “There isn’t a Buckley we can… that factors into it also, that comment by Buchanan triggered the conservative movement’s gatekeeper at the time.” (58:47)
• Balance of Power: John notes establishment figures are still in charge—Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader, ‘most Zionist president’ Biden—but the battle is fierce at the fringes. (59:29)

9. Political Futures: Vance, Newsom, and the Road to 2028

• JD Vance: Seen as the right’s ‘Obama’—talented, vague, and lacking a clear record, making him a cipher and a test case for the party’s future.
  • Seth: “This is the right’s Obama… We don’t know how he feels about the radicals…” (62:04)
• Gavin Newsom & AOC: Panelists discuss Newsom's concrete record-setting him apart for 2028, as well as AOC’s possible sustained appeal due to grassroots energy. (65:09)
  • Eliana: “I thought Gavin Newsom was a top tier Democratic candidate before Tuesday. I think that afterwards… there’s a lot of energy behind [AOC].” (65:34)

Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On the Shabbat dinner proposal:
  “This is Shabbat dinner… it’s like saying grace. Like if I went to a Christian household and somebody said grace, I would close my eyes… say amen at the end.” – John (04:14)

• On social media backlash to Jewish outreach:
  “How dare you force this kid to go to dinner at your house, you effing Jew boy?... Now let me say something incredibly anti Semitic…” – John (09:28)

• Shabbat as experience, not strategy:
  “It’s literally just having a home cooked meal on a Friday night… not really intended to be outreach.” – Seth (11:11)

• Food as a stumbling block:
  “If there were a food that I was going to put before gentiles… it would not be gefilte fish.” – Abe (13:26)

• Antisemitism as generational rebellion:
  “The young right antisemitism is... that generation’s, that right wing generation’s trans…” – Christine (20:25)

• On the Heritage-Tucker arrangement:
  “You don’t sign a NDA and non disparage with somebody that you’re paying money to.” – John (27:09)

• Internet numbers ≠ electoral influence:
  “There is a transference problem… people see numbers and say those are voters. …That number of viewers is plumped up by all sorts of things… bots, algorithms…” – Seth (53:28)

• On political homelessness and defensive posture:
  “We can't associate with them. And there’s the Democratic Party, which is already making clear that we can’t associate with them either.” – John (56:35)

Pop Culture Segment

• Seth’s Recommendation:
  “Since we now finally have our first look teaser and some photos of The Night Manager Season 2... I want to recommend The Night Manager, the miniseries that you can get on Amazon Prime... arguably the best adaptation [of John le Carré]...” (67:47)

• John’s Caveat:
  Acknowledges John le Carré’s personal antisemitism even while conceding the talent and value of adaptations for viewers (70:34).

This episode provides a candid—and often darkly humorous—look at the relationship between American Jews, cultural outreach, and both the real and performative antisemitism shaping contemporary politics. Through the prism of Shabbat dinner, the panelers draw a line from the current online furor to historic analogues, ultimately raising hard questions for listeners about political engagement, institutional responsibility, and the future of American Jewish identity.