Yadid: I have these existing Jewish values and by showing up as a representative of this entire community, I feel more inclined to show up with those values and to show up as someone who’s doing good things in good places. Anna: We’re representing ourself, and the school, and the entirety of the Jewish people. Don’t make a chilul hashem, don’t make the Jewish people look bad. Sami: Some people don’t like us because we’re Jewish, but other people like have these stereotypes of Jews as super smart, know how to make money, whatever else. And I don’t, I don’t wanna feed into that either. Elana: We shouldn’t be looking for antisemitism, but when Jewish organizations are summarily boycotted by people who don’t boycott other organizations. You gotta take a second look at that. Yadid: Hi. Welcome to Future Tense, a show that puts today’s biggest Jewish questions in the hands of the leaders of tomorrow. I’m Yadid Orlow. When my brother and I were growing up, after a long day of attending our insular Jewish private school, we met up with our Jewish friends to play basketball at the nearby public basketball court. In that space, I found myself interacting with people of a wide range of religions, cultures, and home lives. On the basketball court, I started noticing three distinct ways that we, as the Jewish kids, engage with the non-Jewish world around us. First, there were the ambassadors, the kids who held themselves to a higher standard, as they felt they were representing the greater Jewish community. These were the kids who said “good game” after we won, constantly repeated “thank you,” lived by their “excuse me-s,” and made sure to address everyone with the utmost respect. It was almost as though the burden of our nation was on their shoulders. Then there were the rebels, the kids who rejected these expectations, embracing their independence and acting like fools in direct defiance of the possible negative impressions on our people that this could leave. These were the ones who’d grab onto anything they could to get a rise out of strangers, living and breathing by the trash talk they could come up with, whether it be someone’s shoes, jump shot, or even their simplest mannerisms. Everything was on the table. Then there were the apathetic characters who didn’t care to accept or reject this weight. Instead, these kids would put their heads down, listen to the occasional spits of anti-Semitic remarks and poorly targeted trash talk, and absolutely destroy a basketball. Truth be told, there was something awesome about diving headfirst into the apathetic camp. Ripping rebounds out of people’s hands and setting up plays that left our opponents wondering how some Jewish kids could possibly shoot. But that strategy only took us so far because the game always ended. And when it did, I hear the voice of my camp counselors echoing the same pre-field trip speech again and again: “Remember in this space, you’re representing yourself, your family, and the entire Jewish community.” And without fail, I would turn to our opponents and say, good game. This was formative in my experience of interacting with non-Jews, but others’ experiences may vary. So turning to Sami and Anna, thank you both for joining me today. Sami: Hey, happy to be here. Anna: Thank you. Yadid: I’m wondering, how do you think that we as a Jewish community ought to be facing outwards? Sami: That’s a good question and a tough one, ’cause I, I don’t know if everyone in the community needs to act the same or feels like they should act the same. I think the way I grew up was certainly, I think, similar to you, and I felt like I had to be an ambassador, you know, using your language that I, I got a lot of explicit lessons from my parents and from family and other adults that, you know, like you said, like we will be perceived as Jews when we’re out in the world. And if a Jew does something that’s bad, that’s gonna look bad for all Jews, and if a Jew does something that’s good, we should call it out, because it’s gonna look good for all of us. And I think that’s true for us at large. But I also grew up as someone who was never, or in my day-to-day life, not outwardly dressing Jewish. I didn’t necessarily look or, or was perceived as Jewish if I didn’t want to be. And I have felt and continue to feel a bit averse to that sort of motivation of wanting to act based off how I’m perceived by others. I think it’s, it’s a bit of a, you know, it restricts us. And I, I really want to be able to just act based off my personality as it is, and maybe it’s informed by my Jewish values. But I really think it’s, it’s, I dunno, it’s unfortunate that we feel like we have to act positively or like good people simply because it’s gonna look good for us, as opposed to, because it’s how my Jewish values, you know, impact me. Anna: Yeah, I had similar experiences growing up at like Jewish Day school and Jewish camps, Being like six, seven years old going to museums with my class and being told, liby our teachers, like we’re representing ourself and the school and the entirety of the Jewish people. Don’t make a chilul hashem, don’t make the Jewish people look bad. We wanna be good saying this to six and seven year olds and having. Memories of like boys in my class, like running around or being loud or causing problems, being disrespectful—it would stress me out so much. When I was in these spaces, like throughout my life. Those things and those thoughts turned into being at like a Simchat Torah event a few years ago in New York City. People excitedly like dancing in the, in the middle, you know, like in the street in like a closed off area that was for a celebration in the middle of apartments. And I remember being like, wow, this must be so annoying. I get why people are anti-Semitic because this is, this is so loud and disrespectful. And that was a horrible passing thought, but it came from like that base fear of like, we always have to be perfectly like, together and quiet and respectful, even if that means like restricting who we are. And I found that to be very overwhelming. Yadid: I mean, it’s fascinating that you guys are using like, Sami used language of like restricting and like, and it sounds like it was like a very like constricting experience and like almost like anxiety-inducing. Which feels like the opposite of what I’ve been going through, where, as someone that wears a kippah, like yarmulke in public spaces and whose name is Yadid, it’s not exactly like a simple task to be secretly Jewish, nor is that my goal. And I actually find that, whereas it sounds like a lot of this is a fear inducing experience for many people, for me personally, it’s actually been very motivating because I have these existing Jewish values and by showing up as a representative of this entire community, I feel more inclined to show up with those values and to show up as someone who’s doing good things in good places. Sami: So like what’s an example of, of somewhere where you feel like you sort of act in a, in a better way because of, you know, how you outwardly present? Yadid: I mean, the one that I was thinking about recently was that I was at home and my brother and I were walking on Saturday and this woman was asked us if we could help her with carrying her groceries into her house. And in a heartbeat, I was like, yes. And I think that I would’ve said yes, whether or not I was wearing a kippah. I think that the fact that I was wearing a kippah actually made it so that there was no world where I could say no. There was no world where I’d be like, actually, right now, I’m really tired, or my arms hurt, or I just wanna go home and eat dinner. It was just, I’m going to help right now, ’cause that’s what we do as people. Sami: Yeah. You know, I, I think that’s a, a tough thing and I, I, I think it’s very noble and that’s, the outcomes are good, but I don’t like that we feel like we have to be good. I mean, you know, you said you, you’d help them either way, but I’m sure there are people who would only help in certain circumstances because they feel that pressure. And I think, one, that’s a bit, I don’t know, it’s disingenuous in a way, but also, you know, I think it leads to some of the other perceptions that we have as Jews or I think any minority faces, which is like this philo-Semitism, like, some people don’t like us because we’re Jewish, but other people like have these stereotypes of Jews as super smart, know how to make money, whatever else. And I don’t, I don’t wanna feed into that either. Anna: Can you quickly just define what philosemitism is? Yadid: Yeah. Or actually Yadid, I think you, you explained it to me earlier. Maybe you want to? Yadid: Yeah, it’s like the fetishization of Jewish traits or Judaism as a whole. Sami: Like, do you think that it’s a damaging thing to also sort of perpetuate those stereotypes in a way? Anna: I don’t think it’s necessarily damaging, but again, it just feels controlling and it feels like. There’s a lot of pressure and a lot less autonomy, like over what we can do and over what’s expected of us. I also think a lot of the time, like in our, like being Jewish, like in our political landscape, there’s similar levels of pressure of like, you need to have an opinion and you need to know what’s going on. You need to be able to educate about what’s going on in the Middle East. Like sometimes I tell people that I’m Jewish and the first thing that they ask me is my stance on Israel. It feels very, like, reductive of who I am and it puts a lot of pressure on me to have like a finite, well-put, summarized opinion that just doesn’t exist for me because of understanding the complexity of what’s going on. A lot of people don’t. And I find that that could be like really frustrating. And I wish a lot more, Sami, you were talking about this earlier, instead of people asking what your opinion is, are people asking you how you are and how you’ve been? And I would appreciate that so much more, someone asking like, how’s your family? How’s your mental health? As opposed to, what do you think? ’cause it’s been very stressful and it’s been very emotionally draining. And I don’t feel that level of care from people outside of the Jewish community, even sometimes within the Jewish community, but it’s mostly people outside of the Jewish community, just like you need to have an opinion, not how are you doing? Sami: Yeah. You know, I honestly, I, I think that’s, that’s very beautiful and I’m glad that sort you want to be able to have those interactions where people wanna know how you’re, you’re doing. But I honestly feel a bit uncomfortable even with that type of engagement, because of course, I, I, I also feel similarly frustrated when people just wanna know my opinion on Israel-Palestine, whatever, when they find out I’m Jewish. But also, I think that we’re in a, a point in time because Jewish issues are sort of at the forefront of media and everything in the US and in the world, that there’s a hypersensitivity from the people who aren’t, you know, either antisemites or philo-Semites, just like your general person in the world who’s not Jewish, feels like a, a, hypersensitivity towards Jews and what we’re experiencing, and they’re feel like, oh, it’s like mysterious. Like what are they going through? I wanna know how to interact with them. I think similar to sort of how, you know, people of color were, I think also treated in this sort of like hypersensitive way in 2020, 2021, you know, all the protests around race and, and how people of color are targeted by police. And I think I, I, I don’t want to also feel like there’s a barrier between me and a person who I want to have an intimate social or, or sort of emotional relationship with, but they feel like they don’t wanna be anti-Semitic. They wanna make sure that I’m, like, not perceiving them in a weird way, so they’re gonna like step on eggshells around me. Anna: Yeah, I feel like that can build a wall. I think it could also build, like there’s a way to approach these conversations and questions in a way that’s like respectful and because of like friends in my life who are not Jewish, who I feel very close and comfortable with, who like, told a story about like my roommate, who, when Pesach was coming up, they very happily signed a contract and bought my Chametz off of me. Like they also will help combat when people are openly anti-Semitic. They’re also a person that is like outwardly, like, anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. But because of the conversations that we can have, they’re able to build a better understanding of me and my background and why different people have different views and opinions on it, They’re also very good at making sure that people aren’t crossing the line from like anti-Israel rhetoric straightened to anti-Semitism. And so it is a kind of allyship that comes with like, respect and also like critiques, but it, it can be done in a respectful, thoughtful way. Yadid: This feels like a great point to actually invite in, our guest scholar, Elana Stein Hain, Elana Stein Hain is the Rosh Beit Midrash, and a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America as a leading thinker, teacher, and as the host of TEXTing, another podcast from the Shalom Hartman Institute. Elana’s work centers Rabbinic thought as a resource for responding to the challenges of contemporary Jewish life. So thank you for joining us today. Elana: My pleasure. Great hearing your kind of spectrum of views on this issue. Yadid: Actually I’m gonna pass this to Sami ’cause I think he has a really great question to segue here. Sami: Sure. So I think, we’ve spoken a bit about how there’s, you know, how we are perceived by, and how we perceive Jews versus non-Jews. And sort of, I think, touched on maybe three categories of interactions that we have, either with people who have a negative perception of, of Jews stereotypically and you an antisemitic way or a philo-Semitic way and, you know, alternative, or maybe this third category that I sort of perceive, which is everyone else that is kind of just sensitive to Jews and, and don’t know how to talk to us about certain topics or sidestep certain topics. But I also think there’s an interesting set of people that I interact with very frequently as a secular Jew, who, I think, can empathize with a lot of things that secular Jews feel. And I think in some ways I feel that my friends and sort of close colleagues and people who I see in this category, I do feel like I can get emotionally intimate with them and talk to ’em about things and don’t feel like there is much of a boundary at all. And so I’m curious, you know, what you think that that breaking down of boundaries or assumptions between this set of, of Jews and non-Jews maybe says about… if there really should be these strong boundaries in, in our conversation when we talk about Jews versus those people who are not Jews. And there’s like a strict distinction between us. Elana: So look, you can, you can go back to even the way that the rabbis treat Abraham’s three friends. Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre. If you’re not familiar with those names, I don’t blame you, but they’re his three friends and his three allies. Right. And then you go to Jethro and he’s Moses’ father-in-law. And then you go to Ruth and she’s got a Jewish mother-in-law. There have been Jewish-adjacent people forever. It’s and, and not just as family members, not just as political alliances, just as friends, as neighbors, right. And I think that’s incredibly positive. As somebody who travels a lot for work, I find it so meaningful when I meet someone and you’re not, it’s not a deep relationship like what you’re talking about, but when I meet someone who just expresses some sense of empathy, like I get it, you know? Or somebody who’s wearing the hostage dog tags and says, I’m not Jewish. I just support that cause. Like there’s something to it that just feels like, whew. Thank you, that that feels really good. Sami: Do you think that there’s any concern that we should have if there are a large number of American Jews who are sort of in this category where many of their friends are not Jewish, but you know, very relatable in many ways, and maybe that community of people are being pulled away from the rest of the Jewish world because they relate more to secular world in general? Elana: I’m intrigued by you saying, I feel more of a kinship or a relatability to people who are outside the Jewish community than to those who are inside. Sami: In that specific facet, at least. Elana: Yeah, the more our multiple identities become important to us, multiply not just a primary and a secondary, but multiply, and the more integrated we are in all these different ways, the harder it is to say to people, well, actually there is a value to having a sense of kinship to other Jews, even if you don’t agree with them, even if they’re far from you geographically, politically, socially. And what is that value? So I think in some ways you’re like hitting on the $64,000 question, you know, well, isn’t it just easier to hang out with the people I relate to? And my, my retort would be we need to educate ourselves as Jews to be willing to relate to each other. Not because we naturally always do, but because there’s something important that we share both in terms of past, present, and future. And I think that’s not easy. Anna: Yeah, I think I will also say, within the Jewish community there’s been so much division. I mean there always has been division, but especially now politically. And I feel like that has also impacted like, kinship, and feeling closer to people that exist more in your space or in similar spaces to you. And it can be hard, like of course it can be hard, but it can be very hard to build that same sense of connection Yadid: Respectfully pushing back, Anna, like I wonder if this is actually a novel sensation or experience, like, the idea of division internally isn’t necessarily novel. I wonder if it’s getting supercharged by a global sensation of like, people abandoning religion as a whole. Anna: I feel like it’s both. I think it’s part of like a big shift away from religion or viewing religion as bad, or as ancient. That could be part of it. I think also a big part of it is the current political landscape is just put on blast. We are the front of everything, specifically Israel-Palestine. Like we’re either at the front of pro-Palestine protests, or the front of pro-Israel protest, and both ways we’re kind of being, used as pawns, or like, tokenized in our identities. And it’s just so much more visible and talked about, and it’s a lot easier to put yourself into echo chambers and be with just the people you agree with. And I feel like that has more of a role to play in the current division. It’s not novel. It’s just a lot, I think, louder and more in our faces than it has been in the past because of the presence of media and such. Elana: I just think also American Jewry, we were very much about unity post-Holocaust. It was like, let’s create all these programs to bring Jews together, da, da, da, da. Then… we’re now Americans, just, more so, you know, meaning polarization is the name of the game. So people don’t ask you, how are you doing? They ask you, what do you think about issue X? Right. They don’t ask you, hey, where’d you get that necklace? They’re like, what does that necklace mean? What do you, what are you trying to say with that?, Right, it’s all about… Anna: Pointing out my Hadaya necklace. Elana: I can’t even see it, to be honest, from here, but I’m saying it’s, it’s just, you know, it’s like Yadid was saying about his yarmulke, it’s like, hey, what does that mean, you think about da da duh, right? It’s… we’re a little bit dehumanizing each other in our efforts to be able to validate our own thoughts, wo I wanna make sure you’re not a threat to me before. I just see you as a tzelem elokim. I just see you as a person who is made in the divine image. Sami: Yeah, and maybe the fact that everything that we’re doing is so visible to the public makes it so most people don’t feel like they have the, like, you can’t have the patience with other people to actually have a conversation with them and make yourself vulnerable, because if you want to do that on a one-on-one, maybe it would work, but if there’s even like one person with a camera around or people you don’t know, how can you trust that they’re not gonna say, ah, like you were too nice to that person with the Israel necklace and, oh, you must be like too sympathetic or too normalizing war, or, you know, the vice versa. I think the media ecosystem that we’re in, I, I’m curious what you think as well. I think that’s also definitely exacerbating that issue and ability for us to, to move past our silos. Elana: Oh, it’s constant. All you have to do is be like sitting, watching something on a public. I mean, I spend a lot of time on college campus because of my spouse, but all you have to do is be watching something on like a common TV right? In a, in a common room somewhere or in a cafeteria on campus. And it’s like suddenly something about Israel or antisemitism or Islamophobia and you’re just sort of like, gulp like, what? I just wanted to eat lunch. Like I was just here to eat lunch. Right? There’s, there is something, there’s something to that. The constant, constant consumption, and blasting, really, I like that word of, of media. Constant. Anna: I feel like this is a really good segue into a question I have. So kind of starting with an experience I had, so, I am in a peer sex educator group at my school. And last year, the group I’m a part of on campus, we were planning to run an event with Hillel called Reproductive Justice Shabbat, which is spearheaded by the National Council of Jewish Women. The group that I’m in, we do this with Hillel every single year. And some members of the group are Jewish, but it’s not like a particularly Jewish group. So this event is just about Jewish values and reproductive health. And at the end of a meeting in which we discussed the upcoming event, a few peer educators in the group came forward to talk to me and our faculty advisor about how they didn’t feel comfortable working with Hillel and thought that maybe we shouldn’t work with Hillel as a group, because of their Zionist stance or support of Israel. And they were afraid people would feel uncomfortable coming to our group or they, like, didn’t agree with Hillel values. And in my opinion, not being able to work with Hillel, which is the main Jewish organization on campus, regardless of their politics, can translate to anti-Semitism. And I got really angry and emotional. And after they left I cried a bit. And I felt frustrated by like a few specific things. One was that like our job in this group is to provide education and resources and not decide who gets to have that info. And two is as someone with complex views that regularly engages with Hillel, it felt like a complete write off of students who have those complex view regarding Israel-Palestine. And also third, and to me, most importantly, what does it say to the school community about how our peer education group treats and thinks about Jewish groups and Jewish students on campus, if we were not gonna be willing to work with the main Jewish organization on campus? We ended up having the event. It was fine. But it leads me to a question, which is, in our political context, there are many students on campus who don’t wanna work with organizations or clubs that are publicly Zionist or supportive of Israel, financially or otherwise. And at the same time, many Jewish groups or many like centers of Jewish community on campus are somewhat Zionist organizations, are supportive of Israel. Is there a way to remedy that? Is there a way to have conversations with these people who are just like, I’m not willing to work with a group that has any kind of Zionist stance. Is there a way for these Jewish groups and organizations to try to, I dunno, make themselves more palatable? I don’t like that concept, but… Elana: Yeah, I hear you. I think I would say three things here. One is I think that what these other groups are experiencing is like conflicting commitments, right? Sometimes when you make alliances, even if it’s just for a program, you find yourself in a conflict of commitments, meaning it sounds like these people are committed to anti-Zionism or non Zionism on the one hand, and they’re committed to reproductive health on the other. And you’re basically saying, we wanna be able to, you know, help as many people on the reproductive health, on the reproductive health issues as we can. And they’re saying, yeah, but the anti-Zionism piece, like, or just not wanting to associate, that’s just like guilt by association maybe, right? Like maybe it’s a little less of a commitment and a little bit more of a, like a social, you know, outcast thing. I think that it’s worth actually asking people what happens when their commitments do conflict. Why is it that one is supposed to totally overshadow the other? So that’s one thing I would say. The second thing I would say is, they’re basically doing is they’re creating a pariah status for Jews on campus. And that’s antisemitism. And a pariah status for Jews on campus is something that no one should be allowed to create the same way. You wouldn’t be allowed, and you shouldn’t be allowed to create such a status for any other group on campus, regardless of its political views, especially if those political views are actually part and parcel for many of what that identity means. So I actually do think that it needs to be called out, that boycotting Hillel is actually antisemitic. The third thing I wanna say is, if there isn’t going to be a change, I think that at a certain point, Hillel students have to decide where are we willing to forego certain alliances and say, okay, we’ll go to your event, even if it’s no longer in our place. And where does Hillel have to say, not so dissimilar from situations where Jews were not allowed into certain clubs. Jews were not allowed into certain schools. Where do they say, well, if you won’t let us participate in your event, we’re gonna have our own event. We don’t need to come to your event with our tails between our legs, and we think the event matters. So those are really my three very honest responses to hearing that. Right. And I wonder what you think of that, Anna. Anna: Yeah, I mean I think, I do agree with like, calling it out, it’s part of me feels like it can be like a misguided… I mean, part of what frustrated me was talking about like, it will make us look bad. Which it doesn’t. It didn’t. I was the only person from my group that went anyway. Like, it wasn’t that that big of an issue. It usually isn’t. I think for me, very much so to the point you’re talking about, like, yes, making your own events, if people are not gonna include you, that doesn’t mean that they can’t happen. I think it’s a particularly difficult concept, right? When people are trying to make the distinction between anti-Israel action versus like anti-Semitic action. And for me, kind of like what you were saying is Hillel because it is one of those spaces where you can’t not, you can’t separate the two, but even if it’s because of one, the other kind of ends up being implied because it’s also… I think part of what frustrated me is working with Hillel, the continuous constant efforts to make sure that people feel as comfortable as possible, regardless of their political views. We have students who come to Hillel who are openly anti-Israel, who run, you know, JVP, and they come to Shabbat dinner every, every weekend because they recognize it’s, this is… Elana: It’s a place to be a Jew. It’s a place to be a Jew. Anna: Exactly. And we don’t really talk about politics that much unless like we’ll have events, that are like specifically about that. But I think that’s part of what frustrated me. It was like, you don’t go to this thing. You don’t know what’s going on. It makes me think of, similar to the Zionism episode where I talked about parents complaining about things happening on campus, it’s like, you’re not here and you don’t know what’s actually happening. Hillel International is one thing; the individual Hillel on our campus is part of that, but it’s not the exact same thing. And again, like kind of, it was just like completely writing off Jewish groups on campus. Elana: Right, meaning I think that’s really my concern, like this is a place for Jews. It’s not a place for politics. It’s a place for Jews. And if you can’t partner with a place for Jews, well.. Anna: That’s a problem. Elana: That’s a problem. Sami: Well, but. I mean, what, what if, and this is only a hypothetical, like I think what you described is anti-Semitic and problematic, but let’s say hypothetically that the Muslim Student association at a school put out a statement saying, we support our freedom fighters of October 7th, or something crazy like that, I wouldn’t blame someone for saying, I’m not gonna go, you know, partner with that organization. Even though it’s the only space for Muslims, like, I think say like a very blatant to, to give a pariah status to this establishment because it happens to be the only Jewish one. I don’t think that should be reason enough to say that it’s unjust and not not allowed. I mean, I do think that there is, at least, trying to sympathize with… Elana: Look, I, I think certainly if Hillel was making statements that were racist, Kahanist statements, certainly that’s something else. But presumably the fact that they have programs that are supportive of Israel, and that’s not gonna come into this conversation at all, then what you’re saying is, okay, some things happen in this building that I disagree with and therefore I can’t do anything in this building. That’s where, that’s where I think we have a problem. Sami: Well, but like for example, my Hillel. brought in Naftali Bennett to come. And I mean, I, I thought they shouldn’t have done it. I still went to the event. I thought it was very interesting. But I understood, at that point, where some students said, you brought in what they, you know, view as a war criminal—and we can have discussions about that—but I mean, it was a political figure who’s played a big role in, in wars and things, and they said, you brought in the speaker; I, for whatever reasons, feel unsafe now or uncomfortable there. I, I disagree with them not wanting to come back to Hillel, but I, I don’t think it’s antisemitic, you know? Elana: Yeah, I, I think we don’t have enough of a tolerance for people that we disagree with. I think we kind of look at everybody as either like a, you know, a terrorist or a saint, and I think Jews are, we do the same thing. I think there’s very limited space for Gray. I mean, Naftali Bennett started like the colors of Benetton, and I mean that as a pun, like the colors of Benetton government in Israel where you actually had Jews and Arabs in the government together, like that, that what I’m saying is like, it just lacks… it lacks critical thinking. And when we’ve moved to a place of lacking critical thinking and everything is painted with one shade, all good or all bad, I actually think varying into antisemitism is very easy there. Yadid: Is it? Meaning how much of that is like being supercharged by the fact that we’re Jewish or that Hillel is a Jewish organization, where like if we, if any on campus organization brought in any speaker that was contentious, like if the Mechanical Engineering Students Association brought in someone from Lockheed Martin. Maybe some students would be like, I don’t feel comfortable with this organization anymore. But would they boycott the entire organization? Sami: Right, they’re very quick, I guess, to boycott us. Elana: That’s a good question. Would they break out the organization? Anna: Probably not. Yeah, they’d probably just let it be. Elana: Or, or look, I, I just think we, I, I think we, as Jews, we, we shouldn’t be looking for antisemitism, but when Jewish organizations are summarily boycotted by people who don’t boycott other organizations, you gotta take a second look at that. We don’t have to be the most naive people on the block, you know. Yadid: Isn’t… meaning, there is a line to ride there though, meaning, in a post-Holocaust world where people are very anxious and like, feel like, I don’t wanna point out antisemitism if it’s not there, ’cause like the boy who cried wolf. But at the same time, if I don’t point it out no one else is going to. And so there’s like an anxiety that if we don’t point it out when it’s like brewing, there’s gonna be another Holocaust, which is extreme and might be hyperbolic, but I feel like is an underlying anxiety that’s occurring. Elana: Well, I, I think you’re right to identify… I guess there’s actually two elements here. One is antisemitism is… it’s very easy to slip into that claim and that charge for a people that has seen what it can do to Jews, right? Meaning it’s, it’s understandable that sometimes people may see it even when it’s not there, or there’s another kind of explanation. But I do think that just because, I would say it like this, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t after you, right? Meaning just because you go to that easily doesn’t mean that when it’s actually true, it’s not actually true. Right? So I think it’s trying to check ourselves and say, where am I making assumptions because of my background, or because I’m frustrated or because I feel uncomfortable, or da da da. Where am I saying, oh, there’s a structural problem here and it’s against Jews, and there needs to be something said about that. Right. And I, I think those are, I think those are different things. I think those are different things and I, I think you’re right. And it’s almost maybe a, a generational thing where your generation, it’s your default is, wait, that’s not antisemitic. The generation above me, the default is, it is antisemitic. And my generation in some ways we’re sort of like, well, we kind of remember the Crown Heights riots and we kind of remember the Gulf War and we kind of remember like there are all these things that we remember, but we didn’t experience antisemitism. But there’s things that we… so it makes us sort of, we’re like sitting on the, we’re like sitting on the seesaw a little bit. So I get it. I really get it. But I will say having, having seen progression of certain things, I have never seen this degree of boycotting of Jewish institutions on campus. And that’s after 25 years of being on one. Anna: Yeah, I was also gonna say, I think talking about like antisemitism or what is anti-Semitic? Something my friends and I have also experienced is,on our own, we’re like, I think that was anti-Semitic. And then we talked to our friend who’s not Jewish, and then they’re like, oh, that was definitely anti-Semitic. And then we feel validated in our concern. And it’s so interesting that it feels like, the fact that I, as a Jewish person, can’t say this was a thing that was anti-Semitic, and for people to believe me. And part of that, part of why people only believe me is maybe because sometimes I have more liberal or leftist views in general. Otherwise, I don’t think they would, they would listen to me or they would agree with me when I say something is anti-Semitic. And I’ve had that happen, where a friend of mine was talking to another, pointed something out that someone had posted and saying, that was anti-Semitic. And that person told their friend about it, and they’re like, yeah, it was ridiculous, lke she was being dramatic or it wasn’t really like that… Told me, and I was like, no, what he posted was anti-Semitic. And then they were like, oh, okay. Like, why am… can I be the only voice of reason? Or like, for my friend and I, it was like a friend who’s not Jewish who was validating us. And that was the only reason why we felt like… that, that, that was an issue. Elana: Yeah, I wanna be very clear, I think the goal in general is to try to move forward really constructively and to make as many alliances and continue relationships. And sometimes that means saying, hey, this feels wrong. Or, hey, maybe we can do this in a modified way. Right? I’m not saying, you know, take your toys outta the sandbox and leave every time you have like a…. have a conversation and see where it goes. But I do think seeing all three of those avenues of, do you think you could get past your anti-Zionist commitment in order to fulfill this other commitment, an avenue of, hey, that’s antisemitic and I’m not gonna take it, and an avenue of we’re gonna do our own program. Those are just… it’s just good to have arrows in your quiver for thinking about how you move forward and not to always go back to the same arrow, regardless of the context. Something like that. Yadid: So we’ve talked a lot so far about like antisemitism and how we feel seen as Jews by non-Jews. I’m wondering, I don’t know, Elana, if you’re familiar with the show “Nobody Wants This,” on Netflix. Elana: I haven’t watched it yet, but I, I hear it’s, it’s well regarded. Anna: So actually it’s really interesting, the show basically explores this woman, Joanne, who’s an agnostic sex podcaster and how she falls in love with this rabbi. And it explores their love life and the ebbs and flows of that. And it shows his Jewish mother as this very angry, cranky woman and, his Jewish father as this, like, old Russian dude who’s like a little bit flirty in way that you’re like, this might be problematic. And it’s actually written from the perspective of, it’s like a true story, which was written from the perspective of Joanne, the non-Jew. And I think that it’s really interesting. Elana: True. Yadid: And so, yeah, I guess I’m wondering in that like where is the line between like honest representation and harmful over exposure and like moreover, like how is the difference between what is portrayed about Jewish life and what we’re willing to explore internally? Like how is that dissonance really problematic? Elana: Oh my. I think that. I, I really like laughing. I really, I have a good sense of humor and I think sometimes like everything’s in play when you’re doing something humorous. And I actually think that’s important. Like I, I think you actually have to be able to have a sense of humor. I think you have to not take yourself too seriously. I think you have to be able to depict people’s idiosyncrasies no matter what background or minority they may be. You have to be able to depict their idiosyncrasies. They could be as mean as anybody else, or meaner. They could be as crooked as anybody else or more crooked. They could be as creepy as anybody else or more creepy. That actually doesn’t, that doesn’t trouble me. What I would say is if you find that those are the only portrayals, that’s where I have, I have, I have a problem, or if you find that there’s like a very clear line being drawn between negative traits, and I don’t mean negative traits, like a little nagging, I mean negative traits, like he’s a bad person, ’cause of their Jewishness. Then I think there’s, there’s something to critique there, right? So how you draw that line between. I mean, I think there are plenty of positive portrayals of Jews out there as well, and I think it’s important for people who wanna have those positive portrayals, not in like an advocacy kind of way, but just in like we’re humans like everybody else. Like there’s good Jews, there’s bad Jews, there’s mean Jews, there’s sweet Jews. Like we’re just human. Sami: But Yadid, I think your, your issue was, wasn’t necessarily with the, like, idiosyncrasies of the characters, but more so the like white saviory or like modern saviory aspect of the show. Right. The fact that like, Jews are portrayed as being saved from their own restrictive livelihoods. Anna: Give a spoiler. Yadid: It’s twofold. Elana: Spoilers. Are we… spoilers? Okay! Anna: It’s totally fair. It’s important for the sake of the question. Yadid: I guess first of all, I guess to counter what you were saying, Elana, briefly, like for every human I think that I see that’s like a human depiction of Jews, there’s like three goblins in Gringotts from like Harry Potter. That’s like a horrible, in my mind, like the apex of popular culture, villainizing and dehumanizing Jews. That’s a… but going back to the original question, ’cause. I wanted to say on point, in the last episode of the show, “Nobody Wants This,” there’s a point in which the rabbi has to choose between becoming the senior rabbi at his synagogue and getting this promotion and really leaning into his Judaism and being with this woman Joanne. And she leaves because she doesn’t wanna make him make that choice because she loves him and it’s very sweet. And then he follows her and chooses to follow the white, like agnostic woman, at the expense of his Judaism, and I think that was really troubling for me about this, was that it was like, almost like romanticizing an abandonment of this faith. Sami: And Unrthodox does that too. Elana: Can I do a, can I do a another spoiler? Y’all know the series Fleabag? Elana: So remember what happens there? It’s the opposite. Anna: Yes. Yes. She falls in love with the priest and she says, I love you. And he says it’ll pass, Elana: Right, meaning he stays with his faith. So I do think the paternalistic way that people treat faith in media today, I think is a problem generally. If I take those two examples, clearly the Jew got the paternalism and the Christian got the appreciation. Maybe, or maybe Fleabag was also casting him as being a little ridiculous, hard to know. But to me that’s, that’s in general, I’m not looking for antisemitism there as much as I’m just looking for people being paternal, like paternalistic and patronizing about faith as though that’s not something that’s real in the 21st century. Maybe it’s a form of, I, I might’ve been annoyed by it. I, I might’ve been annoyed by it if I had seen it. But I’m much more worried about subheadlines in newspapers that are depicting Jews as having no moral compass. I’m much more worried about those than I am about, you know, let’s save the religious Jew from their religion. You know, because I just, I guess I don’t, I I, I see the other as like incredibly current, and of the moment. Yadid: It’s almost like the difference between like a praising and romanticizing of secularism, and a villainizing of Judaism. Elana: Yeah, or even, not a villainizing, but like a oh, you poor thing. You poor thing. You’re stuck in your faith commitments. You poor thing. Right? It’s like, oh, puh-lease, right? But yeah, I think it is true that like you probably wouldn’t have a film depicting an imam doing that. There’s probably some more tiptoeing about Islam on this score, and maybe Christianity could go either way because it’s a majority faith in the culture, right. I’m not sure, but I’m, I’m much more worried about current events and the way they’re being reported and TikTok and all the others. Anna: So there’s obviously a lot to be worried about in the world, whether it comes to Jews and non-Jews and religion and secularism and the supercharged-ness of politics and everything else in between. And I’m certainly left after this discussion with a lot more questions than answers. Thank you, Elana, so much for joining me. And thank you Sami and Anna as well. Elana: My pleasure. Sami: Thank you. Anna: Thank you.