On the Nose

In 2021, famed Irish author Sally Rooney declined to publish her book in Israel because there was no BDS-compliant publisher. At the time, she said she would be “pleased and proud” to have her books translated into Hebrew, as long as it was done in a way that respected the principles of the boycott. Last week, Rooney announced that she was publishing a Hebrew translation of her latest book, Intermezzo, with November Books and +972 Magazine. The publishers had been vetted by PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and deemed BDS compliant. This means November Books does not operate in Israeli settlements, receives no state funding, and explicitly recognizes the Palestinian right of return. In The Guardian, Rooney said she “kept in touch with PACBI along the way to try to ensure that I was upholding both the letter and the spirit of the institutional boycott.”Immediately, there was backlash. Some Palestinian writers, including Mohammed El Kurd and Susan Abulhawa, questioned the decision to use this “loophole” in BDS guidelines to bring the book to Israeli audiences. Why now? And why this? Even if it adheres to the letter of the boycott, does it capture the spirit, as Rooney says? On this episode of On the Nose, Arielle Angel speaks with Ahmed Moor, a writer and fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace; Maya Rosen, assistant editor at Jewish Currents; and Muhammad Shehada, a writer from Gaza and a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, about this tempest in a teapot surrounding the Hebrew translation of Intermezzo. They discuss whether this action hit its strategic marks, and what the response says about the Palestine movement’s relationship to both the Israeli left and the prospect of changing Israeli society.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingBDS Guidelines“On +972 Magazine, Sally Rooney, and the centering of Israelis in an anti-colonial movement,” Susan Abulhawa, MondoweissThe Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé“

Over the last eight years, streamer and leftist political commentator Hasan Piker has built a following of millions on Twitch, where he streams seven to ten hours a day, discussing current events and interacting with followers in a rapid-fire chat. Lately, Piker, who has hit the campaign trail for Democratic candidates like Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, has become the object of a raging debate about the direction of the Democratic Party. For many progressives, establishment attacks on Piker and the candidates he supports are evidence that the party is out of touch with its base, especially young people. For the establishment, embrace of Piker by Israel-critical candidates is evidence that the party is becoming too radical. A recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by leaders of the centrist think tank Third Way labeled Piker a “Jew hater,” and urged Democrats to denounce him.The irony is that Piker, who appeals to exactly the sorts of young men who are being lured to the right in large numbers by the “manosphere,” is unique in how often he speaks about the principled fight against antisemitism. As figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes become more prominent in the pro-Palestine digital ecosystem, Piker may be one of the most important figures on the left countering a simplistic narrative of Jewish control and American innocence. On this episode of On the Nose, Arielle Angel speaks with Piker about keeping the nuance in a media environment that wants easy answers, using electoral politics to build class consciousness, and why he keeps talking about antisemitism.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingHasan Piker on Twitch“Hasan Piker Has a Few Choice Words for His Bad-Faith Critics,” Aaron Regunberg, The New Republic“<a href="https://jewishcurrents.org/the-right-is-capturing-the-online-palestine-conversation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_bla

On April 29th in London, an attacker stabbed a Muslim acquaintance before traveling to the largely Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green and stabbing two Jewish men at random. This was only the latest in a string of attacks on Jews, synagogues, or other communal infrastructure in the UK since mid-March; other instances have included arson attacks on three synagogues as well as Hatzola ambulances. The British Jewish community—already on edge since the Yom Kippur attack on a Manchester synagogue that killed two and injured three—is in a state of rising alarm. Predictably, Jewish communal leaders, politicians, and the police have baselessly sought to tie the attacks to the Palestine solidarity movement, justifying crackdowns in civil liberties and proposing increased police budgets.The backdrop to these attacks is a local election cycle in which the two major parties, Conservative and Labour, lost substantial ground to tertiary parties on their wings: Reform on the right, and the Green Party on the left. Though newly elected members of the Reform Party include avowed racists and Holocaust deniers, much of the media attention has been on candidates whom the Green P

Harriet Clark comes from a long line of radicals. Her ancestors were gun runners in Minsk. Her grandparents were active members of the Communist Party USA, and the family moved to Moscow for a time, where her grandfather wrote for the Daily Worker. Her mother is Judith Clark, a former member of the Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization, who was given a life sentence for her participation in the Brinks robbery in 1981 that killed three people. (Judith was paroled in 2019.)Harriet Clark’s debut novel, The Hill, tells the story of a girl who vows to visit her mother every week in the upstate New York prison where she is being held. In this episode of On the Nose, Arielle Angel speaks with Harriet about her stunning new book, what comes after failure in radical movements, and the heroism of trying to keep families affected by incarceration together.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingThe Hill by Harriet Clark“I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye,” Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic“Photos of the migrant caravan and the Trump military response tell different stories,” Johnny Simon, QuartzJoseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey“Judith Clark’s Radical Transformation,” Tom Robbins, The New York TimesHouse and Fire by Maria HummelHousekeeping by Marilynne Robinson“To a Student” by Diane Di Prima

After more than ten years as the rabbi of the anti-Zionist synagogue Tzedek Chicago, Rabbi Brant Rosen is stepping down. On this episode of On the Nose, Rosen speaks with editor-in-chief of Jewish Currents, Arielle Angel—who after eight years is also leaving her post—about what has changed in the building of anti-Zionist institutions over the last decade, what it means to do Jewish left communal work in a time of crisis for Judaism, and whether we must believe we will win.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingTzedek Chicago“We Need New Jewish Institutions,” Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents“Our Approach to Zionism,” Jewish Voice for PeaceMariame Kaba talking to Dean Spade about hope“Mailbag #3 — Live!,” On the Nose“Stay In,” Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents

On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, publisher Daniel May, editor-at-large Peter Beinart, and advisory board member Simone Zimmerman answered listener questions about what accountability looks like for US rabbinic leadership, how American Zionists will respond to Israel’s plummeting popularity, and more. For the very first time, this episode of On the Nose was recorded live in front of an audience, which gathered at Littlefield in Brooklyn.Thanks to the Littlefield staff for hosting and recording the event. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further Reading“J Street says Israel should fund its own defense,” Jacob Kornbluh, The Forward“Democratic Senators Face Pressure on Israel Arms Sales Vote,” Josh Nathan-Kazis, Jewish Currents“Democratic Presidential Contenders Are Turning on Israel. Will They Convince Progressives?,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents“A Majority of Voters Support Senate Resolutions To Block Bombs and Bulldozers To Israel,” Common Dreams“The Many Equivocations of Curt Mills,” Will Alden, Jewish CurrentsHere Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly CrabappleJFNA Survey of Jewish Life since October 7 – Zionism Findings“Rhetoric Without Reckoning,” Simone Zimmerman, Jewish Currents“At Synagogues, Tensions Are Boiling Over,” Eyal Press, The New Yorker“The Rabbinic Freak-Out Abou

As right-wing streamers like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have become more outspoken against Israel and against Zionist influence in American politics, their content has found new audiences online, even in a Palestine movement traditionally more associated with the left. Though the fracture on the right around Israel is a welcome development, the anti-Israel right’s racist, misogynist, anti-trans, anti-immigrant, and antisemitic views raise questions about how the left should relate to this development, and what it can offer instead.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Izz al-Din Mustafa, co-executive director of the Palestinian-led advocacy organization Adalah Justice Project, and Stefanie Fox, executive director at Jewish Voice for Peace, about whether the ubiquity of right-wing anti-Israel voices online was showing up in their face-to-face organizing. They discuss the perils and opportunities created by the growing popularity of conservative anti-Israel voices, the importance of IRL organizing, and how the left might reclaim the conversation.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingAdalah Justice ProjectJewish Voice for Peace“The Bondi Memo’s Quiet Rewriting of Domestic Terrorism Rules,” Thomas E. Brzozowski, Lawfare“Verified pro-Nazi X accounts flourish under Elon Musk,” David Ingram, NBC News“Meta’s Broken Promises: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content on Instagram and Facebook,” Human Rights Watch“Joe Kent’s Resignation Was Brave. His Analysis Was Faulty,” Peter Beinart, Jewish Currents“American Evangelicals’ Declining Support for Israel,” Jonathan Kuttab, Arab Center Washington DC<a href="https://christiansforafreepalestine.com/" rel=

The US and Israel began a joint strike on Iran on February 28th, with the US immediately striking a girls’ elementary school, killing more than 180, the vast majority of them children. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, was assassinated the very same day, and later replaced by his son Mojtaba; the US and Israel have continued to kill high-ranking figures in Iranian leadership. The human toll of this war is already being felt in Iran. Almost 1,500 Iranians have been killed since the war’s start, and more than three million have been displaced. On March 6th, Israel struck three oil depots around Tehran, destroying crucial infrastructure while sending noxious particulate into the sky that will do long-term damage to the health of the city’s inhabitants.Meanwhile, Iranians on the ground and in the diaspora are fracturing over US and Israeli actions. This war was preceded, in early January, by a grassroots uprising against the regime, which may have killed tens of thousands in crackdowns on the protests. This crackdown has been cited by opponents of the Iranian state as a justification for the war, and many in the diaspora have expressed support instead for the return of the monarchy, led by Reza Pahlavi, who has been living in exile since 1979, when his father, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was deposed. This argument between pro- and anti-war segments of the community has become deeply fraught—sometimes relationship-ending—as Iranians across the globe battle over the future of their community.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Narges Bajoghli, a professor at Johns Hopkins and the author of How Sanctions Work and Iran Reframed, and Manijeh Moradian, a professor at Barnard College and the author This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States about the fractures roiling the Iranian diaspora, the nuances of the anti-war position in the face of a repressive regime, and the need to build an anti-imperialism for the 21st century.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of hi

On March 12th, 41-year-old Ayman Ghazali rammed his car into the front of Temple Israel, a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan. He engaged in a shootout with synagogue security, injuring one guard before turning the gun on himself. Thankfully, no one else was injured. Earlier in the month, Ghazali’s two brothers, niece, and nephew had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Mashghara, Lebanon. (The Israeli military claimed that one of the brothers was affiliated with Hezbollah, but offered no proof to The New York Times; Hezbollah denied his affiliation.)After spending years insisting on the absolute intertwinement of Judaism and Zionism, the Anti-Defamation League and other mainstream agents of anti-antisemitism rushed to insist that American Jews must be separated from the actions of the Israeli government. Meanwhile, like many American synagogues, Temple Israel proudly advertised its support for the Jewish state: raising funds, sharing hasbara resources, sponsoring trips, and even featuring an Israeli flag in its logo.This event raises uncomfortable questions about the interrelationship between safety and complicity in the Jewish diaspora: How do we talk about the material relationships between American Jews and the State of Israel in the wake of attacks on Zionist institutions? And how do we on the Jewish left keep pushing for daylight between Judaism and Zionism given the conflation pushed by the anti-antisemitism machine—a conflation that endangers Jews all over the world? On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, publisher Daniel May, news director Josh Nathan-Kazis, and advisory board member Simone Zimmerman parse the Michigan attack and the missed opportunity for American Jewish reckoning.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further Reading“Suspect in Michigan synagogue attack had lost family in Israeli strike on Lebanon,” William Christou and Richard Luscombe, The Guardian“The Tangled Knot of Anti-Zionist Violence,” Daniel May, Jewish Currents“A Poll Muddles the Picture of What American Jews Think,” Josh Nathan-Kazis, Jewish Currents<a href="https://substack.com/@benlorber18/note/c-2273

In early February, clips began circulating from Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission hearing, where the former Miss California Carrie Prejean Boller challenged Jewish activists Yitzhak Frankel and Shabbos Kestenbaum about the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Notably, Prejean Boller framed her opposition to political Zionism in terms of her Catholicism: “I’m a Catholic and Catholics do not embrace Zionism,” she said. She raised the charge of deicide, reading the New Testament verse about the Jews killing Jesus and questioning a panelist about whether he would have tech platforms censor the Bible on account of antisemitism claims. And she challenged the theology undergirding evangelical support for Zionism, dispensationalism, which understands Jews as God’s chosen people that help fulfill the end times prophecy by settling in the land of Israel.A number of prominent “America First” isolationists are Catholic, including Pat Buchanan, one of the fathers of America First paleoconservatism who famously opposed the Iraq War. Vice President J.D. Vance, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, far-right strategist Steve Bannon, and columnist Sohrab Ahmari are all America Firsters skeptical of foreign intervention. Catholicism also appears dominant among a cohort of extremist Groyper-style figures infusing their anti-Israel worldview with classically antisemitic language and ideas, including streamers Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, the Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback, and now Prejean Boller, who has aligned herself with Owens in particular.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Matthew Cressler, author of the forthcoming Catholics and the Making of MAGA: How an Immigrant Church Became America’s Law and Order Faith, and Julie Schumacher Cohen, co-author with Jordan Denari Duffner of the forthcoming Palestine, Israel, and Catholic Social Teaching: A Guide. They discuss how we should understand this apparent connection between skepticism about American intervention abroad and Catholicism. Cressler and Schumacher Cohen explain what Catholic theology has to say about Judaism, Zionism, and the modern political state of Israel. They explore how some figures on the right are hearkening back to the earlier days of the Church—before the Second Vatican Council’s modernizing changes, which included a condemnation of antisemitism—and they dissect the

Last weekend, the United States and Israel started a war with Iran. The Trump administration has offered no real or convincing reason why they have dragged the country into war except “Israel was going to do it anyway,” and the president has no discernible war plan. Many have commented that this war seems to be an expression of pure power, undertaken by Trump largely because he can. Have we entered a new phase in malignant American foreign policy or is this just a striking “mask off” moment? In this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart speaks with Aslı Ü. Bâli, the Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about what the war in Iran signals about the kind of global power the US has become, whether it represents rupture or continuity in the history of US imperialism, and what it means for the stability of the Middle East and the world.This episode first appeared on the Beinart Notebook on Substack. Thanks to Daniel Kaufman for editing help and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Further Reading“The Path to the Trump Doctrine,” Aslı Ü. Bâli and Aziz Rana, Boston Review

Recently, the Jewish Federation of North America released a poll they conducted last year that shows that while 88% of respondents said they “believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state,” only 37% identified as “Zionist.” A small number identified as “anti-Zionist” and “non-Zionist,” 7% and 8% respectively, with a plurality answering “not sure” (18%) or “none of these” (30%). These numbers are confusing; they seem to indicate that while Zionist identification is waning—perhaps due to the stink of the term amid the genocide—the underlying commitment to a Jewish state, albeit one paradoxically imagined as “democratic,” is not.At the recent Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University, nearly every presentation discussed or confronted questions about the terms “Zionist” and “anti-Zionist,” and whether they had enough of an agreed-upon meaning within the community to be useful terms to organize around. On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Ari Lev Fornari, senior rabbi at Kol Tzedek in Philadelphia; Dove Kent, interim executive director of Diaspora Alliance and former executive director of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice; and Fadi Quran, the senior director at Avaaz and a Ramallah-based strategist and organizer. They try to make sense of the recent polling numbers and discuss different strategic considerations about using the Z-word in organizing contexts, including how to welcome newcomers to the Palestine liberation movement without coddling them.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingJFNA Survey of Jewish Life since October 7 – Zionism Findings“The ‘Zionism’ gap: What JFNA data really shows about Jews, Israel and Zionism today,” Mimi Kravetz, JTACombined Jewish Philanthropies’ 2025 Greater Boston Jewish Community Study“<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2022-10-26/ty-article-opinion/.highlight/do-american-jews-really-know-what-zionist-means/00000184-0f30-d

Recently, the Department of Justice released millions of files from disgraced financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Since their release, part of the discussion has revolved around the way Jewishness appears in the files. Epstein and his friends make clannish jokes about Jews and “goyim,” many of them simultaneously self-deprecating and chauvinistic. Epstein himself is extremely interested in genetics, sending out a number of DNA Kits to Jews and non-Jews alike, and referencing a natural Ashkenazi intelligence. The files also show close—and sometimes criminal—relationships to a number of prominent Jewish men. These details, along with information about Epstein’s role as fixer for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, have fueled conspiracy theories about Jewish power. But what do we do with a story whose real-life details are so fitted to antisemitic conspiracy? In this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with author, thinker, and activist Naomi Klein about how to make sense of the capitalist conspiracy outlined in the files, and the grave importance of holding our depraved elites accountable.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingDoppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi KleinHarsha Walia on Epstein and sexual violenceA collection of Epstein’s comments on “Jews” and “goyim” from Tikkun Olam“<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/01/eugenics-isnt-dea

In December, ICE agents began arriving in Minneapolis under the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge.” As of late January, 3,000 agents are on the ground in the city, outnumbering local police officers three-to-one, pursuing a campaign defined by its cruelty: ICE has abducted children as young as two, and agents have used those children as bait to draw out and arrest their families. To counter these efforts, locals have organized vast mutual aid and rapid response operations, with block-by-block networks mobilizing to deliver supplies and run errands for undocumented people who can’t leave their homes without fear of detention. These locals have been met with violence. On January 7th, Renee Good, a mother and poet, was shot in the face by an ICE agent while she attempted to turn her car around. On Saturday—one day after a general strike brought tens of thousands to the streets in subzero temperatures—Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, was murdered while observing ICE, with agents firing at least ten shots at close range.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with three organizers on the ground in Minneapolis: Lily Cooper from UNIDOS’s rapid response team, which has conducted legal observer trainings for almost 30,000 people across Minnesota; Kandace Montgomery, a local organizer, trainer, and movement strategist who co-founded Black Visions in 2017; and Jesse Meisenhelter, an organizer with Minneapolis Families for Public Schools, whose current campaign aims to build sanctuary school team

On Christmas, director Josh Safdie released his new film, Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet as a young table-tennis player bent on global recognition. Like Safdie’s previous film—Uncut Gems, co-directed with his brother Benny Safdie—Marty Supreme focuses on an American Jewish antihero and unfolds in a deeply Jewish milieu. But while Uncut Gems takes place in present-day New York, Marty Supreme transports us back to the Lower East Side of 1952, examining American Jewish ambition in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust and amid assimilation into whiteness. This mid-century setting is complicated by various anachronistic elements, including a soundtrack rooted in the ’80s and, perhaps most notably, Chalamet’s conspicuous lack of a period-accurate accent. On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, senior editor Nathan Goldman, contributing editor David Klion, and contributing writer Mitch Abidor discuss what, if anything, the film has to say about American Jewishness then and now.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingUncut Gems, dir. Josh and Benny Safdie“An Unserious Man,” Jewish Currents“Marty Supreme’s Megawatt Personality,” Richard Brody, The New YorkerWhat Makes Sammy Run? by Budd SchulbergErik Baker’s Letterboxd reviewMarie Antoinette, dir. Sofia CoppolaAnti-Semite and Jew by Jean-Paul Sartre“Marty Supreme Is the Moment, With Josh Safdie!,” The Big PictureTough Jews by Rich CohenMari Cohen on Sally Rooney’s <a href="https://mailchi.mp/9bf158d85950/shabbat-reading-list-6543975?e=bc6d8400bd" r

On Saturday, January 3rd, President Trump announced that a military raid on Caracas had captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and brought him back to the US to face drug charges. The operation followed months of deadly US strikes against boats purportedly ferrying drugs from Venezuela and a military buildup off its coast. But even after Maduro was seized, the administration still could not, or would not, clearly explain its intense interest in Venezuela any more than it could explain its plans for the country. And beyond the practicalities of “running” Venezuela, as Trump said the US would be doing, are even more disturbing questions about what comes next under the “Donroe doctrine”—the administration’s update of the 202-year-old Monroe Doctrine, which was used to justify generations of US interventions throughout the Western Hemisphere.This episode of On the Nose turns to a foremost expert on US interference in Latin America, Greg Grandin, to help us understand the historical context of Trump’s surge—and what it may suggest about his military adventures going forward. A Pulitzer Prize-winning history professor at Yale, Grandin has written several books on the tangled history of the US and Latin America, including his sweeping 2025 chronicle, America, América: A New History of the New World. Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart asks Grandin to break down the political situation in Venezuela and the history of its nationalized oil reserves—and to explain what Trump’s new doctrine of pure power may hold in store for the US and the Americas.This episode originally appeared on The Beinart Notebook on Substack. Thanks to Daniel Kaufman for editing help and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Books Mentioned and Further ReadingAmerica, América: A New History of the New World by Greg GrandinEmpire’s Workshop: Latin America, the Unite

On December 14th, two gunmen opened fire on a celebration marking the first night of Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, killing 15 and injuring more than 40. The gunmen, a father and son, have since been linked to the Islamic State. Immediately, as observers near and far were just beginning to process and mourn, bad actors rushed in to claim the narrative. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a rebuke of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, linking the antisemitic attack to Albanese’s call for a Palestinian state. Australian antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal similarly linked the attack to a peaceful August 3rd Palestine solidarity march over Harbour Bridge attended by 300,000. She used the opportunity to promote her controversial 20-point plan to combat antisemitism, which would necessitate the broad adoption of the flawed IHRA definition of antisemitism, mandate Trumpian funding cuts to universities, and crown herself arbiter of acceptable speech related to Israel/Palestine in the media. American politicians quickly weighed in to express solidarity with the state of Israel and link the violence to the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Some prominent American Jewish figures like New York Times columnist Bret Stephens and former US antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt claimed—without evidence and before anything was known about the shooters—that the attack was downstream from use of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a dig at New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani who chose not to condemn the phrase.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and senior editor Mari Cohen spoke with Sarah Schwartz, the Melbourne-based executive officer of the new progressive, independent Jewish organization the Jewish Council of Australia. They parsed the various responses, from Australia to the US to Israel; explored the folly of c

This year saw the release of two memoirs concerned with the Palestinian diasporic experience. Tareq Baconi’s Fire in Every Direction is a story of queer adolescent unrequited love, braided together with a family history of displacement from Haifa to Beirut to Amman. Sarah Aziza’s The Hollow Half is a story of surviving anorexia and the ways that the body holds the intergenerational grief of the ongoing Nakba. In this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Baconi and Aziza about what it means to claim Palestinianness as a political identity, not just a familial one, and the radical necessity of turning silence—around queerness, Gaza, the Nakba—into speech.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Books Mentioned and Further ReadingThe Hollow Half by Sarah AzizaFire in Every Direction by Tareq BaconiHamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance by Tareq Baconi“Al-Atlal, Now: On Language and Silence in Gaza’s Wake,” Sarah Aziza, Literary Hub“The Work of the Witness,” Sarah Aziza, Jewish Currents“The Trap of Palestinian Participation,” Tareq Baconi, Jewish CurrentsBlack Atlantic by Paul Gilroy“Selling the Holocaust,” Arielle Angel, Menachem Kaiser, and Maia Ipp, Jewish Currents

In spring 2023, journalist and filmmaker Antony Loewenstein published The Palestine Laboratory, a book tracing the way that Israeli military technology and weaponry, battle-tested on Palestinians, is exported around the world. Lowenstein argues that as Israel’s surveillance and combat technologies are sold far and wide, we can expect to see the forms of violence carried out in Gaza, for example, appear elsewhere in the world. Last month, Jewish Currents published an article by Rhys Machold called “The Myth of Israeli Innovation,” which takes a critical look at what Machold has termed “the laboratory thesis” and examines how it obscures Israel’s dependence on powerful allies, while doing PR for the overhyped Israeli tech sector.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel hosts Loewenstein and Machold for a comradely debate about the “laboratory thesis” and whether it serves a narrative of Zionist exceptionalism. The guests discuss how advanced Israeli weapons really are; how “Israeli” they are, given the role of Western governments and corporations in their development; and how much of Israel’s “innovation” should be considered technological as opposed to political. They also explore whether or not Israel is on the verge of collapse, and how to characterize the balance of power between Israel and the US.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 Media Mentioned and Further ReadingThe Palestine Laboratory by Antony LoewensteinThe Palestine Laboratory, documentary series by Antony Loewenstein on Al Jazeera“The Myth of Israeli Innovation,” Rhys Machold, Jewish Currents“Reconsidering the laboratory thesis: Palestine/Israel and the geopolitics of representation,” Rhys Machold, Political Geography“How Palan

“Real life conspiracies pose a certain challenge for political analysis,” wrote Jewish Currents contributors Noah Kulwin and Ari Brostoff in their 2019 piece on Jeffrey Epstein, the child sex trafficker, financier, and international rainmaker. As recently reported in a series of articles at Drop Site News, Epstein had close ties to the Israeli intelligence community, and frequently brokered meetings for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, including meetings that resulted in the establishment of security ties with Mongolia and the sale of mass surveillance infrastructure to Cote d’Ivoire’s authoritarian government. What do these revelations tell us about the flows of power and money across the billionaire class? And what do we do with the extent to which Epstein’s story reads like an antisemitic conspiracy come to life? To explore these questions, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel spoke with Kulwin, a co-host of Blowback, a podcast about US empire and interventionism, and Ryan Grim, co-founder of Drop Site News and the co-author of multiple recent reports about Epstein.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 Media Mentioned and Further ReadingDrop Site reporting on “Epstein and Israel” by Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussein“The Right Kind of Continuity,” Ari Brostoff and Noah Kulwin, Jewish Currents“The worst thing about Davos? The Masters of the Universe think they are do-gooders,” Hamilton Nolan, The GuardianSpyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence by James BamfordThe Power Elite by C. Wright MillsDoppleganger by Naomi KleinThe art of Marc Lombardi“<a href="https://jacobin.com/2025/11/epstein-barak-israel-elections-netanyahu" rel

On November 11th, Israeli soldiers who had admitted to raping a Palestinian detainee at the now infamous detention camp Sde Teiman were met with applause and a standing ovation as they entered an Israeli courtroom. The scene ricocheted around the world, the latest portrait of the depravity that has gripped Israeli society. Accounts of the torture taking place at Sde Teiman were among the first things to emerge from testimonies collected from soldiers by the Israeli group Breaking the Silence in the aftermath of October 7th. The 21-year-old group has long encouraged soldiers to speak candidly about what they have perpetrated during their service; for this, they have been vilified and discredited within Israeli society, which largely prefers to celebrate the soldiers as heroes—a narrative that can only be maintained through their silence.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Breaking the Silence executive director Nadav Weiman about the testimonies they have collected over the last two years of the Israeli army’s annihilatory campaign in Gaza. Breaking the Silence’s testimonies have uncovered clear evidence that contrary to official reports, many of the war crimes we have seen are not the result of rogue soldiers, but protocols that come straight from command. In this episode, Weiman details the dehumanizingly named “mosquito protocol,” in which soldiers used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza—a chilling echo of the Israeli government’s oft-repeated accusation about Hamas. Weiman paints a picture of the mindset of the average Israeli soldier, ensconced in a “bubble” of support. He also fields questions about what accountability might look like for those who have perpetrated the genocide in Gaza—not just for top brass but for foot soldiers—and what the deradicalization of Israeli society could entail.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 Media Mentioned and Further Reading“Abuse in Israeli jails caused deaths of more than 90 Palestinians,” Simon Speakman Cordall, Al Jazeera“Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center</a

Last week, the Holocaust-denying, white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes sat down with former Fox News host turned podcaster Tucker Carlson on The Tucker Carlson Show, where the two discussed Fuentes’s trajectory, the evolution of his “America First” ideology, and the ways his rejection of the neoconservative common sense on Israel put him at odds with parts of the right-wing establishment. For many, Carlson’s seeming embrace of Fuentes on his popular show signaled a shift, a recognition that what was once taboo on the right has arrived in the mainstream. Cementing the sense of a sea change, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank that has crafted many of Donald Trump’s most destructive policies, refused to disavow or scold Carlson, saying in a video that criticism of Israel is not antisemitism. He asserted that Americans should support Israel as long as Israel’s action are in American interests—and that there is no obligation to support Israel if they are not. (Since this taping, he has had to walk back this statement, particularly the use of the phrase “venomous coalition” to describe those trying to “cancel” Carlson over the interview with Fuentes.) That same week, far-right talk show host Candace Owens, dismissed from her Daily Wire post over antisemitism, sat down with left-wing former academic and Palestine advocate Norman Finkelstein. In a conversation laced with Owens’s many antisemitic conspiracy theories, they attempted to find common ground. In this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and publisher Daniel May are joined by Ben Lorber, researcher of antisemitism and white nationalism, and Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker writer who profiled Carlson last year. They discussed the uncomfortable resonances between right and left anti-Zionism in this moment, and the even more disturbing antisemitic, white and Christian nationalist divergences. 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 Media Mentioned and Further ReadingJD Vance is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v

Last week, a group calling itself The Jewish Majority published a “Rabbinic Call to Action” aimed at New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the last weeks of the campaign. “We cannot remain silent in the face of rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization throughout our nation,” the letter reads. Signed by over 1,100 rabbis, the letter quotes New York rabbis Ammiel Hirsch and Elliot Cosgrove, who had each issued their own anti-Zohran sermons and videos, insisting that Mamdani poses a danger to the safety of the city’s Jews and that Zionism is an inextricable part of Jewish identity.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, editor-at-large Peter Beinart, senior reporter Alex Kane, and advisory board member Simone Zimmerman discuss this rabbinic campaign, what it means for the sizable Jewish minority who supports Mamdani, and what it says about the priorities of institutional Judaism at a moment of profound political instability.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 Media Mentioned and Further ReadingRabbi Cosgrove’s sermon on MamdaniRabbi Ammiel Hirsch on Mamdani“Why Mamdani Frightens Jews Like Me,” Bret Stephens, The New York TimesThe Jewish Majority, “A Rabbinic Call to Action”“Brad Lander’s Campaign of Solidarity,” On the Nose“Tax the Rich” post on X by Maria DanziloHalachic Left High Holidays reader“Zohran Mamdani is not antisemitic, Satmar’s Brooklyn leadership says,” Jerusalem Post“<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/26/zohran-

For the second year in a row, Rabbis for Ceasefire held a Yizkor service on the streets of Brooklyn, using the traditional Yom Kippur memorial service as a means to mourn the dead in Gaza, to atone for American and Jewish communal participation in the genocide, and to refuse further complicity. After the Yizkor service—attended by 1,500 people and watched online by ten times that number—rabbis and others blocked the Brooklyn Bridge while performing the Ne’ilah service that closes the holy day; dozens were arrested. In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Rabbis for Ceasefire organizers Alissa Wise and Elliot Kukla about their experience planning and carrying out this ritual action, and what it revealed about the nature of the tradition itself. They also discuss the power of collective grief, and the difference and interrelation between Palestine solidarity work and the work of building a Judaism beyond Zionism. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Arthur Waskow. 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 ReadingRabbis for Ceasefire Yizkor service on Instagram“Jewish activist and leader Rabbi Arthur Waskow dies at 92,” Deena Prichep, NPR“‘Chronic traumatic stress disorder’: the Palestinian psychiatrist challenging western definitions of trauma,” Bethan McKernan, The Guardian“Can the Palestinian Mourn?,” Abdeljawad Omar, Rusted Radishes“‘They Destroyed What Was Inside Us’: Children with Disabilities Amid Israel’s Attacks on Gaza,” Human Rights Watch Report“The Right to Grieve,” Erik Baker, Jewish Currents“Synagogue Struggles,” On the Nose“We Need New Jewish institutions,” Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents

Last week, President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had reached a ceasefire deal. A series of momentous events followed the announcement: First, Israel halted its military assault on Gaza—widely considered by international legal experts to be a genocide. Then, 20 Israeli captives who had been held by Hamas for two years were returned to Israel, while Israeli authorities released around 2,000 Palestinians from prison, 1,700 of whom had been detained without charge or trial. The events led Trump to declare that the “war is over.”  But Israeli troops are still stationed deep in Gaza, controlling over half of the enclave, and many questions remain about the future of Gaza.In this episode, senior reporter Alex Kane talks to Middle East experts Khaled Elgindy and Daniel Levy about the ceasefire. They discuss why Trump forced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the ceasefire, why former President Biden failed to stop Israel’s bombardment, whether Hamas will disarm, and how the deal impacts efforts to hold Israeli officials accountable for genocide.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“How Fury Over Israel’s Qatar Attack Pushed Netanyahu on Gaza,”  Mark Mazzetti, Adam Rasgon, Katie Rogers and Luke Broadwater, The New York Times“Read Trump’s 20-point proposal to end the war in Gaza,” Associated Press“Why Hamas Agreed to Release the Hostages,” Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker“Arab Mediators Believe Hamas Could Be Open to Partially Disarming,” Adam Rasgon and Ronen Bergman, The New York Times

As media figures reacted to the assassination of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk last month, a movement to purge those critical of President Trump and his MAGA movement found success. The most prominent censorship case came when ABC, bowing to pressure from the head of the Federal Communications Commission, pulled late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air for his anti-MAGA remarks during his opening monologue. This clampdown on speech critical of Trump comes amid a broader attempt to reshape mainstream media in the right’s image. In this episode, senior reporter Alex Kane discusses the media’s right-wing turn with Karen Attiah—a journalist fired by the Washington Post for her comments following Kirk’s assassination—and Mehdi Hasan, a former MSNBC host and founder of independent news outlet Zeteo. They spoke about whether Kimmel’s removal signifies full-blown autocracy, the takeover of TikTok by pro-Trump and pro-Netanyahu billionaires, and the role of independent media in this moment. Articles Mentioned and Further Reading“The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced,” Karen Attiah, The Golden Hour Substack“Matthew Dowd’s firing begins flood of people facing consequences for their comments on Kirk’s death,” David Bauder and Ali Swenson, The Associated Press“Disney reportedly lost 1.7 million subscribers during Kimmel's suspension,” Amanda Yeo, Mashable“The Billionaire Trump Supporter Who Will Soon Own the News,” William Cohan, The New York Times“CBS Taps Conservative Policy Veteran for New Ombudsman Role,” Benjamin Mullin and Michael Grynbaum, The New York Times“Israel wins TikTok,” Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, Responsible StatecraftNet Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Evgeny Morozov<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/29/investing/electronics-arts-private-deal" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_bla

Charlie Kirk, influential right-wing commentator and founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated on September 10th. Since then, he has been made into a martyr on the right, and the Trump administration has vowed to crack down on the left, despite details about the shooter’s motivation remaining hazy. Among liberals, there has been a baffling rush to hold Kirk up as a paragon of democracy—despite his participation in the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election—and to demonstrate their own grief at his death. In this episode, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, contributing editor David Klion, assistant editor Maya Rosen, and contributor Ben Lorber, a researcher of antisemitism and white nationalism, discuss reactions to Kirk’s assassination across the political landscape, the mostly imagined specter of left violence versus the reality, the meaning of Kirk’s deification in Israel, and the ways reactions to his death have become a proxy for conversations about the genocide in Gaza. 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“Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way,” Ezra Klein, The New York Times“How to mourn in our polarized age,” Rachel Cohen Booth, Vox“Charlie Kirk’s Murder Is a Tragedy and a Disaster,” Ben Burgis and Meagan Day, Jacobin“JD Vance threatens crackdown on ‘far-left’ groups after Charlie Kirk shooting,” Rachel Leingang, The GuardianSarah Schulman on the sublimation of the Palestinian genocide into mourning for Charlie Kirk on X“Light Among the Nations,” Suzanne Schneider, Jewish Currents“The Group Forging a ‘Judeo-Christian’ Zionism for the New MAGA Age,” Ben Lorber, Jewish Currents“A Jewish clothing brand is making Charlie Kirk yarmulkes<

In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart interviews the philosopher, activist, author, and educator Angela Davis, whose writing and organizing have shaped Black liberation, feminist, queer, and prison abolitionist movements for more than 50 years. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two discuss how Jews shaped Davis’s formative years, analyze the Jewish role in the civil rights movement, compare the campus activism of the 1960s to today’s college protests, and explore why Palestine is central to the global left.This conversation first appeared in The Beinart Notebook on Substack.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingFreedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement, Angela DavisAngela Davis: An Autobiography, Angela Davis“How the 1960s Civil Rights and Black Power Movements Split on Israel,” Michael R. Fishbach, MondoweissThe Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon

In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, editor-at-large Peter Beinart, associate editor Mari Cohen, and senior editor Nathan Goldman answer reader questions. They discuss the challenge of sustaining Jewish social reproduction outside of Zionism; the attachment to putting out a print magazine; the difficulties of comparing genocides; the discomforts of subscribing to the free Jewish children’s book service PJ Library; and the perils of regarding Zionism as a singular, unparalleled evil. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further Reading“Reclaiming a Minor Literature,” Maya Rosen, Jewish Currents“We Need New Jewish Institutions,” Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents“What We Talk About When We Talk About ‘Intermarriage,’” Jewish Currents staff roundtable, Jewish CurrentsThe Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance by Shaul MagidThe No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto by Daniel Boyarin“Against Analogy,” Ben Ratskoff, Jewish Currents“The Law Cannot Let Itself See the Nakba,” Joshua Abramson Cohen’s interview with Rabea Eghbariah, Jewish Currents“Living with the Holocaust: The Journey of a Child of Holocaust Survivors,” Sara Roy, Institute for Palestine Studies“Can Genocide Studies Survive a Genocide in Gaza?”, Mari Cohen, Jewish CurrentsSammy Spider’s First Yom Kippur by Sylvia Rouss“Tell PJ Library: Zionism is Not Judaism!” petition“Rhetoric Without Reckoning,” Simone Zimmerman, Jewish Currents“History Lesson,” Laleh Khalili, Jewish Currents“<a href="h

In this episode, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with filmmaker Sarah Friedland and feminist scholar and activist Lynne Segal about aging through a feminist lens, on the occasion of the digital release of Friedland’s award-winning film Familiar Touch. The film follows cookbook author Ruth Goldman (Kathleen Chalfant) as she transitions to a memory care unit in an assisted living facility and struggles with a shifting sense of self and a different relationship to dependence and care.Friedland was inspired to tell this story by watching the fiercely independent women in her grandmother’s Jewish Communist milieu as they aged, as well as by Segal’s book Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing—particularly its description of how aging renders the elder at once “all ages and no age,” and capable of experiencing time in less linear ways. Angel, Friedland, and Segal discuss what it would mean to embrace, rather than fear, the experience of aging; to center a politics of care and interdependence over a neoliberal idea of self-sufficiency; and to allow for elder desire.  Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further ReadingOut of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing by Lynne SegalLean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care by Lynne Segal The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence by The Care Collective“How the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' Impacts Older Adults,” AARPThe Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie KatzenSarah Friedland’s speech about Gaza at the Venice Film Festival“Why We, 18 Elder Jewish Women, Chained Ourselves to the White House,” Jewish Voice for Peace“Exodus From Now,” Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents Transcript forthcoming.

In this episode, editor-at-large Peter Beinart speaks to children’s television star Rachel Griffin Accurso, better known to her fans as Ms. Rachel, about her advocacy for Palestinian children in Gaza, tens of thousands of whom have been maimed or killed by Israel over the last 22 months, with many more enduring a relentless campaign of starvation. Ms. Rachel, who has been called this generation’s Mister Rogers, began speaking out in May 2024, when she participated in a Save the Children fundraiser for kids in conflict zones, including Gaza. The backlash from the pro-Israel camp was so pronounced that Ms. Rachel soon posted a teary video discussing the bullying she was facing. The Zionist backlash has continued, with the doxxing outfit Stop Antisemitism formally requesting in April that the Department of Justice investigate Ms. Rachel to determine if she was “being remunerated to disseminate Hamas-aligned propaganda to her millions of followers.” But Ms. Rachel has not stopped insisting that Palestinian children, like all children, deserve safety and care. In May, she invited a three-year-old double amputee from Gaza named Rahaf onto her show. Beinart spoke to Ms. Rachel about her advocacy for Palestinian children and the pro-Israel backlash, the role faith and prayer have played in her decision to speak out, and why more celebrities haven’t followed suit.This conversation first appeared on The Beinart Notebook on Substack.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further Reading“Pro-Israel group asks DoJ to investigate Ms. Rachel over posts on Gaza children,” Joseph Gedeon, The Guardian“Ms. Rachel’s emotional plea for the lives of Palestinian children,” Christiane Amanpour, CNNMs. Rachel’s fundraising page at the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund“A year of tears: 12 months of war on children,” UNICEF Report

In 2020, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and University of Washington professor of Sephardic studies Devin Naar, both descendants of Ladino speakers from Salonica (Thessaloniki) in Greece, had a conversation about what meaningful Sephardic representation might look like in the wake of near-total erasure. In this week’s episode, Angel and Naar join community leader and singer of Arab Jewish music Laura Elkeslassy and professor of Hebrew literature and Mizrahi studies Oren Yirmiya to deepen the discussion about Sephardi and Mizrahi reclamation work. What are the practical entry points to this identity today? What is the use of catchall caucuses that bring together Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews from many different countries and linguistic lineages, and does this identity have to homogenize in order to survive? What does it mean to do this work amid the genocide in Gaza? And how do we make sure reclamation work is not only backward-looking, but responsive to the present?Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further Reading“Are We Post-Sepharadim?,” Arielle Angel in conversation with Devin Naar, Jewish CurrentsYa Ghorbati: Divas in Exile by Laura Elkeslassy, live in concert and the artist’s reflections in Ayin on the songs she performsShirei Yedidut, book of Moroccan piyyutim and bakashot Translations of the writings of Hayyim Ben-Kiki by Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite in Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, and Culture 1893–1958“Before the Law,” Franz Kafka“Going Out on a Limb: Joha,” Jane Mushabac The story about Djohá and the land can be found in Bewitched by Soli­ka and Oth­er Judeo-Span­ish Tales by François Azar.Devin Naar discusses Djohá in his introduction to the Moabet column in Ayin.

In May, a project called the Community Safety Campaign released a 134-page guide for Jewish organizers seeking to push their synagogues and communities towards an abolitionist approach to safety. The guide outlined a critique of the dominant “safety through surveillance” paradigm, in which Jewish communities rely on collaboration with police, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and private security forces to prevent violence and other threats. This approach is often tied in with these organizations’ embrace of the criminalization and repression of Palestine solidarity. As an alternative, the Community Safety Campaign guide offers a blueprint for Jewish organizations based on the Jewish left rallying cry of “safety through solidarity,” focused on creating trained community teams that provide safety at events and work closely with other religious and ethnic groups to share resources. Two Community Safety Campaign organizers, Nadav David and Erica Riddick, join associate editor Mari Cohen to discuss the political context that drove them to create the guide, the big players of the “safety through surveillance” paradigm, and existing successes in piloting community safety efforts across multiple synagogues in Boston. They also talk through approaching cases in which law enforcement has successfully combatted white supremacist violence and synagogue attacks, and consider how to draw the line between community safety and vigilante violence.  Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further ReadingCommunity Safety Campaign Guide“The Dismal Failure of Jewish Groups to Confront Trump,” Stephen Lurie, The New RepublicUnderstanding Antisemitism, JFREJ“Skin in the Game,” Erik Ward, Political Research Associates Safety Through Solidarity by Ben Lorber and Shane Burley “<a href="https://www.securecommunitynetwork.org/articles/in-letter-to-president-elect-trump-scn-calls-for-action-against-non-citizens-who-materially-support-terrorism-and-threaten-jewish-americans/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander—a longtime fixture of the city’s progressive Jewish life—got 11% of the vote in the Democratic mayoral primary, but his cross-endorsement of Zohran Mamdani helped propel the latter to victory. This partnership inspired many: In a race marred by Islamophobia and false accusations of antisemitism (even against Lander himself), the cooperation between a Muslim and Jewish candidate, focused squarely on beating disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo and making the city more affordable, was a breath of fresh air. On this episode of On the Nose, editor-at-large Peter Beinart talks to Lander about encountering Mamdani and Cuomo on the campaign trail, his cross-endorsement of Mamdani despite their differences on Israel, and what he’d like to see from New York Democrats who have been slow to support Mamdani. This conversation first appeared in the Beinart Notebook on Substack.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Related Videos and ArticlesLander curses Cuomo in YiddishLander and Mamdani’s cross-endorsement videoLander and Mamdani on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert“Brad Lander Is Having a Great Day,” Emily Leibert, The Cut

On Tuesday, Democratic New Yorkers went to the polls and elected a democratic socialist as their candidate for the November general election for mayor. Zohran Mamdani’s wide margin of victory—and the decisive defeat of Andrew Cuomo—shocked the political establishment and upended assumptions about who can win an election. In particular, Mamdani’s refusal to back away from his record as an unabashed pro-Palestine candidate proved that vocal opposition to Israel’s destruction of Gaza is not necessarily a political death knell, and in fact may be a political asset in some contexts. Jewish Currents staffers Peter Beinart, Arielle Angel, Mari Cohen, and Alex Kane gathered in the immediate aftermath of the election to discuss Mamdani’s victory and what it might mean for the issue of Israel in US electoral politics and the New York City Jewish vote. We discussed the Jewish reaction to the win, how Mamdani spoke about Palestine on the campaign trail, what his success  means for pro-Israel groups that focus on electoral politics, and the role that City Comptroller Brad Lander and groups like Jews for Racial and Economic Justice played in the election. 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 Videos Mentioned“The Most Detailed Map of the N.Y.C. Mayoral Primary,” Martín González Gómez, Saurabh Datar, Matthew Bloch, Andrew Fischer and Jon Huang, The New York Times“What Zohran’s Victory Means,” Peter Beinart, The Beinart Notebook“Zohran Mamdani’s Moral Stand,” Jewish Currents“Colbert Talks NYC Mayoral Race With Candidates Zohran Mamdani & Brad Lander,” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CBSAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez interview, Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, PBS“States Don’t Have a Right to Exist. People Do,” Peter Beinart, The New York Times“Escape from New York: Business Leaders Say They’ll Flee If Mamdani Wins,” Olivia Reingold, The Free Press<a href="https://x.com/RJ

On Friday, June 13th, just days before the sixth scheduled round of US–Iran talks over the country's nuclear energy program, Israel carried out a series of punishing airstrikes in many different parts of Iran. The bombings were unprecedented in targeting Iran’s nuclear energy infrastructure, and have since expanded to target Iranian state television, the energy industry, and high-rise apartment buildings. Israel’s bombing campaign has so far killed over 240 people, and has scuttled US–Iran nuclear diplomacy—at least for now. In response, Iran has launched drones and missiles at Israel, killing over 20 Israelis. Now, the escalating conflict, which has prompted thousands of Iranians to flee their homes and brought Israelis into bomb shelters, threatens to grow even deadlier as news outlets report that the Trump administration is weighing a US strike on Iran.In this episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane assesses Israel’s war with Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project, and Ellie Geranmayeh, the Deputy Director for the European Council on Foreign Relation’s Middle East and North Africa program. They discuss the Trump administration’s position on the conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war goals, and where the region might be heading in the wake of this bombing campaign.Articles Mentioned and Further Reading“Israel Built Its Case for War With Iran on New Intelligence. The U.S. Didn’t Buy It,” Alexander Ward, Lara Seligman, and Dustin Volz, The Wall Street Journal“How Trump Shifted on

This episode of On the Nose comes from a live Zoom conversation between associate editor Mari Cohen and Rabbi Andrue Kahn in February, in which they discussed the anti-nationalist tradition of the American Reform movement and the American Council for Judaism (ACJ), the anti-Zionist organization created by Reform rabbis in 1942. Kahn, the executive director of a newly revived ACJ, answers questions about the Reform movement’s roots in German Jewish emancipation, its attempts to offer a religious paradigm appealing to American Jews, and why early leaders eschewed Zionism. They also discuss early Reform anti-Zionists’ racial politics, how some ACJ leaders developed a concern for Palestinian rights, and what a revived ACJ might offer American Jews today, in a world where official Reform Judaism has long been Zionist. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned “The Pittsburgh Platform” “The Columbus Platform” “Declaration Adopted by the Biltmore Conference” “Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and the American Racial Order,” Matthew Berkman, American Jewish History Our Palestine Question by Geoffrey LevinThe Threshold of Dissent by Marjorie Feld“A Conversation with Professor Matt Berkman,” American Council for Judaism “A Reconstructionist Reckoning,” Shane Burley, Jewish Currents

Last year saw the release of Kneecap, a fictionalized account of the real-life West Belfast-based Irish language rap group of the same name. The group is know for their bombastic, irreverent take on politics in the North of Ireland and their advocacy for the Irish language, which faced centuries of suppression under British colonial rule. Longtime advocates for Palestine, Kneecap has made headlines recently for their on-stage statements at Coachella in support of Gaza. Last week, UK prosecutors charged band member Mo Chara with a terrorism-related offense for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a show and chanting in support of Hezbollah and Hamas—part of a global trend in which pro-Palestinian speech is conflated with material support for terror. (The band has released a series of statements distancing themselves from calls for violence against civilians and redirecting attention to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.) This episode of On the Nose, hosted by contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, uses the Kneecap film as a jumping-off point for discussing the relationship between language reclamation, nationalism, and resistance. Joining her is scholar of Sephardic studies and Ladino speaker Devin Naar, and Yiddish-language musicians and culture workers Isabel Frey and Ira Temple. They discuss Kneecap’s advocacy for speaking Irish, the place of music and language in both national and decolonial movements, and the connections between such movements and Jewish efforts to preserve Ladino and Yiddish. 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 Social Media Posts MentionedDi fliendeke pave, Isabel FreyIra TempleYa Ghorbati, Laura Elkeslassy“Zog nit keyn mol,” Yiddish partisan songKneecap <a href="https://www.tikto

On Wednesday night, two Israeli embassy aides—30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky and 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim—were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting an event for young diplomats.  The suspect, 30-year-old Chicago resident Elias Rodriguez, was immediately arrested. Upon being taken into custody, he chanted “free Palestine,” according to video of the scene; elsewhere, in a manifesto attributed to him, he allegedly wrote “The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification.” Immediately, politicians from across the political spectrum and mainstream Jewish groups responded by condemning the killings as a specifically antisemitic act, with some blaming the Palestine solidarity movement for inciting violence. In a rapid response podcast, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel discussed the shootings with assistant editor Mari Cohen, senior reporter Alex Kane, and contributing editor and historian Ben Ratskoff. They parsed the media consensus that this was primarily an antisemitic attack, the response from Israeli politicians, the history of diplomat assassinations, and more.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 Social Media Posts MentionedX post from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez“The Israel Embassy Shooter Manifesto,” Ken Klippenstein, Substack“Capital Jewish Museum shooting suspect killed 2 ‘for Gaza.’ His victims were peace advocates,” Louis Keene, The Forward “Israel fires 'warning shots' near diplomats in West Bank,” Adam Durbin, BBC News“How to Oppose Pro-Palestinian Antisemitism,” Peter Beinart, The Beinart Notebook “Far-right ministers blame Yair Golan for shooting of Israeli embassy staffers,” Sam Sokol, Times of Israel“<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-teenaged-jewish-boy-went-refugee-assassin-puppet-nazi-propaganda-180971204/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blan

In April, Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir toured the United States in his first-ever trip to the country as a government official. Many Jewish groups refused to meet with Ben-Gvir, a follower of Meir Kahane whose extremism stands out even in an Israeli political scene awash in anti-Palestinian racism. But Ben-Gvir was welcomed by Chabad rabbis at Yale in New Haven, in South Florida, as well as at 770 Eastern Parkway, the Chabad headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The latter appearance sparked protests outside 770, which were met with violence by Chabadniks. In particular, a mob chanting “Death to Arabs” chased a female passerby for several blocks, kicking, spitting, and throwing objects at her. Other videos showed Chabadniks lighting a keffiyeh on fire, shoving and kicking members of the Hasidic anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta, and bloodying a female protester (herself a Jewish Israeli). To discuss Chabad’s alignment with Ben-Gvir, its long-standing antipathy to leftist movements, and its uneasy relations within Crown Heights, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel spoke with Jewish studies scholars Shaul Magid and Hadas Binyamini. They discuss Chabad’s historic anti-Zionism, the quasi-Zionist cultural shifts that have solidified after October 7th, and the tensions the movement is currently navigating between its outreach orientation and its increasingly exclusionary politics.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, David Berger“Israel’s Class War Conservatives,” Joshua Leifer, Jewish Currents “The three-decade saga that led to the Crown Heights tunnels,” Chananya Groner, The Guardian“<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-h

In September 2024, an Israeli sniper shot and killed Turkish American human rights activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi outside of Nablus in the northern West Bank. Her murder was a devastating example of a sharp uptick in military and settler violence against both Palestinian residents and the international and Israeli activists who work with them. For years, solidarity activists such as Eygi have responded to the violent reality in the West Bank by physically accompanying Palestininans in the hopes that their “protective presence” will serve as a buffer to prevent attacks. This strategy has received heightened attention thanks to the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which features Palestinians resisting colonialism in the villages of Masafer Yatta, and Israelis engaging in protective presence with them. For those engaged in solidarity work in the West Bank, this moment of increased violence has amplified ever-present moral questions: What is my responsibility to intervene when someone else is in danger? How much risk must I take upon myself to try and protect my Palestinian comrades? And to what extent must I recruit others to join me in taking that risk? In this chevruta, Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein explores these quandaries with Jewish Currents assistant editor Maya Rosen. As a long-time protective presence activist, Rosen is regularly weighing the danger that she and the activists she recruits will take on in the course of their work: How can she adequately prepare people without scaring them off? And how can she communicate the rewards of the work alongside the risks? Bernstein and Rosen discuss these questions through the lens of three texts—two Talmudic texts, and one Holocaust-era responsum—with the aim of helping those who are attempting to share the burden of serious risk find pathways to greater collective courage.This podcast is part of our chevruta 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 matches leftist thinkers and organizers with a rabbi or Torah scholar. The activists bring an urgent question that

From the ICE arrest and detention of pro-Palestinian organizers to the mass revocation of student visas to the deportation of hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador, the Trump administration’s assault on noncitizens has been as headline-grabbing as it has been brutal. But even though the sheer speed and spectacle of the offensive makes it appear new, many of the legal and enforcement tools at play are old, with the administration drawing on Cold War-era laws, War on Terror-era agencies, and Obama- and Biden-era precedents. In this episode of On the Nose, we speak with the deportation defense lawyer Sophia Elena Gurulé and immigration reporter Tanvi Misra about the ongoing clampdowns, where they are following precedents and where they are setting them, and the stakes of understanding these historical continuities.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:“Mapping Who Lives in Border Patrol’s ‘100-Mile Zone,’” Tanvi Misra, Bloomberg“The Origins of American Immigration Detention,” Tanvi Misra, Bloomberg“Civil War-Era Parallels to the Sanctuary City Movement,” Tanvi Misra, Bloomberg“<a href="https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/reports/If%20You%20Build%20It%2C%20ICE%20Will%20Fill%20IT_Report_2022.pdf" re

In October 2024, Zohran Mamdani launched his New York City mayoral campaign in relative obscurity. Half a year later, excitement about the state assemblymember from Queens is palpable. Mamdani, whose campaign is focused on housing justice and transit affordability, is the first in the race to hit its fundraising cap, raising $8 million dollars from more than 17,000 donors. A member of the Democratic Socialist of America, he boasts over 15,000 volunteer canvassers. Mamadani is now polling in second place, behind Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor who resigned in disgrace following sexual harassment allegations. Meanwhile, Cuomo, who began a lackluster second act in Israel advocacy following his resignation from office, is attempting to make Israel and antisemitism central issues in the campaign. In a speech earlier this month at a Modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, he blasted Mamdani, as well as fellow competitors Brad Lander and Adrienne Adams, for being insufficiently supportive of Israel, while asserting that anti-Zionism is unequivocally antisemitism. He also zeroed in on Mamdani’s “Not On Our Dime” legislation, which targets charities funding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Mamdani has continued to stress an adherence to international law, and a commitment to the principle of the equality of all human life. As the mayoral race enters its final months, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart interviewed Mamdani in a conversation that first appeared in the Beinart Notebook on Substack. They discussed how Israel/Palestine is making its way into New York politics, how Mamdani would stand up to President Trump, and his detailed plan for public safety. Jewish Currents is a non-profit organization and does not endorse candidates for office. We hope that our listeners in New York City will vote in the primary on June 24th.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” FURTHER READING: “<a href="https://www.politico.com/newsl

In a recent article in Jewish Currents, Jon Danforth-Appell proposes that the Jewish left is operating under a paradigm of what he calls “Zionist realism.” This idea draws on theorist Mark Fisher’s notion of “capitalist realism,” which describes the way capitalism makes it impossible to imagine alternative world structures; Zionist realism, in Danforth-Appell’s conception, similarly makes it difficult for Jews to separate from a received sense of Jewish collectivity, and imagine alternative futures. Danforth-Appell writes that particularist Jewish organizing, typified by the slogan “Not in Our Name,” reinforces a picture of Jews as a monolith, while contributing to an overemphasis on Jewish culpability for Israel’s actions. This approach may underemphasize “material processes of capital and geopolitics,” like the weapons industry’s bottom line and American interests in the Middle East. “What ultimately matters is not an abstract notion of Zionism as a totalizing spiritual contaminant upon the Jewish people,” he writes, “but the ways in which American Jews, alongside all other Americans, hold multiple kinds of material relationships to Israel.”In the episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and associate editor Mari Cohen talk with Danforth-Appell about his article and the questions it raises. Even given the diversity among Jews, can we abandon collective complicity while so many Jews materially support Zionism? Why aren’t we seeing more mass anti-war organizing, where people can show up as Americans? And what are the limits of a Jewish politics of collective complicity? Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:“Against Zionist Realism,” Jon Danforth-Appell, Jewish CurrentsCapitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher“Canary Mission’s Newest Funders,” Alex Kane, Jewish CurrentsThe Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sarah Ahmed“Can Genocide Studies Survive a Genocide in Gaza?,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents

Last week, Columbia capitulated to Trump’s extensive demands on the university, in hopes of recovering $400 million in government funding that was revoked by the Trump administration. Almost a week later, there is still no indication that Columbia will get the money back. The university has agreed to a long list of changes, among them the creation of a new 36-officer campus police force with the power to arrest students; the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism; broad commitments to disciplinary action for student protesters; and even the advancement of Columbia’s Tel Aviv Center. Strikingly, the university has placed the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department into what the Trump administration is referring to as “receivership,” appointing a new senior vice provost to exert control over the teaching of Israel/Palestine in particular, starting with the Center for Palestine Studies. Meanwhile, the university committed to “the expansion of intellectual diversity among faculty,” indicating that they are going to hire more Zionists to teach in the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and in the School for International and Public Affairs. All of this follows the targeting and abduction of Columbia students, including Palestinian green card holder and student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in ICE detention, and Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student who was not significantly involved in protests and who fled to Canada to avoid detention after her visa was revoked. It’s hard to overstate the significance of Columbia’s surrender, at a moment when the US appears to be in democratic freefall, and when academic freedom and the fundamental right to free speech hangs in the balance. Editor-at-large Peter Beinart and Columbia professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, who also serves as the co-director of the Center for Palestine Studies, spoke just hours before this shocking development, but their conversation probes what’s been happening at Columbia and Barnard, and what’s at stake—both for the study of Israel/Palestine and for the future of higher ed. This conversation first appeared in the Beinart Notebook on Substack.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: “‘<a href="https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/03/15/mahmoud-khalil-is-not-safe/" rel="n

On March 8th, federal immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Palestinian student activist at Columbia University, in his New York home and moved him to a detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil, a recent graduate from Columbia’s public affairs masters program and a prominent leader in the school’s movement to pressure the university to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide, is a legal permanent resident, and is not accused of any crime. The Trump administration has pointed to his political activism as the reason for why he should be deported, invoking a rarely-used Cold War-era law to argue that Khalil’s presence in the US is contrary to US foreign policy interests. Jewish American organizations are split over the administration’s reactions: The Anti-Defamation League has praised it, other mainstream groups have remained silent, and liberal Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish organizations have sharply condemned it.On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, associate editor Mari Cohen, and senior reporter Alex Kane discuss the Jewish political reaction to the arrest and detention of Khalil. They talk about how the mainstream Jewish establishment paved the way for this authoritarian act, whether liberal Jewish opposition to the arrest could portend new political alignments, and the rise of new reactionary Jewish groups such as Betar and Mothers Against College Antisemitism. Note: When this podcast was recorded, the American Jewish Committee had not yet made a statement on Khalil. On March 12th, the AJC released a statement condemning Khalil’s political speech but calling for “due process” in deportation proceedings against him. Articles Mentioned and Further Reading“A growing number of Jewish groups are condemning Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest,” Ben Sales, Jewish Telegraphic Agency “The Push to ‘Deactivate’ Students for Justice in Palestine,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents“Why the ADL is encouraging Jews to invest in Tesla,” Arno Rosenfeld, The Forward<a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-elon-musk-adl/" rel="noopener noreferr

On February 4th, President Donald Trump said that all Palestinians in Gaza should leave the coastal enclave and go to other Arab countries such as Egypt or Jordan—a move that, if actualized, would mark a drastic chapter in the Palestinians’ history of being ethnically cleansed. Israel immediately embraced the idea, with the country’s war minister ordering the military to draft plans to facilitate a mass exodus of Palestinians from Gaza. Palestinian groups as well as Egypt, Jordan, and many other countries have roundly rejected the idea, but Trump and his foreign policy team continue to insist that they will carry out the plan which would end in a US takeover of Gaza.On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane spoke to Mouin Rabbani, a co-editor of Jadaliyya, and Tariq Kenney-Shawa, US policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, about situating this moment in the long history of Palestinians displacement, whether and how a Trump ethnic cleansing plan is likely to unfold, and how it will impact the ceasefire in Gaza.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Further Reading“With No Buy-in From Egypt or Jordan, Trump Appears to Back Away From His Gaza Plan,” Michael Shear, The New York Times“‘Trump Gaza is finally here!’: US president promotes Gaza plan in AI video,” Mick Krever and Mostafa Salem, CNN“Palestinians in Paraguay,” Hadeel Assali, London Review of Books“Trump Revives Biden's Failed Proposal To Remove Palestinians From Gaza,” Matthew Petti, Reason“Netanyahu’s Goal for Gaza: ‘Thin’ Population ‘to a Minimum,’” Ryan Grim, The Intercept“WikiLeaks: Israel Intentionally Kept Gaza on Brink of Economic Collapse,”

Brady Corbet’s epic Academy Award-nominated film, The Brutalist, traces the career and personal life of fictional architect and Holocaust survivor László Toth, played by Adrien Brody, as he seeks to find his place in the United States after World War II. In this episode of On the Nose, contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, associate editor Mari Cohen, contributing editor Siddhartha Mahanta, and contributor Noah Kulwin unpack the film’s symbolic use of Israel and Zionism as an apparent solution to the racialized antisemitism faced by its Jewish characters upon their arrival in the US. The conversation delves into the film’s explorations of post-Holocaust Jewish life and American racialized white supremacy, as well as the contrast between its clear artistic vision and ambiguous politics. This episode includes spoilers for the film and discussions of its onscreen depictions of sexual violence.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:“About the Destination: The Brutalist and Israel,” Noah Kulwin, Screen Slate“Adrien Brody Addresses Backlash Over Halle Berry Oscars Kiss—but Stops Short Of Apologizing,” Kelby Vera, Huffington Post“The Suppressed Lineage of American Jewish Dissent on Israel,” Emma Saltzberg, Jewish CurrentsThe Tribes of America by Paul Cowan

Israeli warplanes have stopped dropping bombs on Gaza, at least for now, but there’s no ceasefire in the occupied West Bank. Since October 2023, and especially since this January, the intensity of Israeli military operations in the West Bank has escalated to a degree unseen since the Second Intifada. On January 21st, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “Operation Iron Wall”—a bombing campaign and ground invasion centered on the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank. Jenin houses a large Palestinian refugee camp populated by families expelled by Israeli forces in 1948. As such, it has long been an epicenter of Palestinian militancy, and has faced waves of Israeli ground invasions and sieges for decades. Now, Israel’s defense minister has said that the army is returning to Jenin to apply the “lessons” it learned in Gaza—which have included the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, the siege of a hospital, and, in a particularly brazen act, the simultaneous blowing up of 23 buildings on February 2nd. To discuss Israel’s application of the “Gaza model” in the West Bank and its impact on Palestinians, Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane spoke with journalist Azmat Khan and analyst Tahani Mustafa. 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“Israeli military operation turns Jenin refugee camp into 'ghost town,'” Ali Sawafta, Reuters“Demolitions in Jenin signal Israel’s new approach in the West Bank,” Marcus Walker, The Wall Street Journal“In West Bank raids, Palestinians see echoes of Israel’s Gaza war,” Raja Abdulrahim and Azmat Khan, The New York Times“Two young children were getting ready for school. An IDF drone killed them,” Hagar Shezaf, Haaretz“The civilian casualty files,” The New York Times<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/12/30/the-pa-crackdown-on-palestinians-appeals-to-israeli-western-interest

On Sunday, Israel and Hamas entered into the first phase of what could become a permanent ceasefire. Under the agreement that led to the pause, Israel will release hundreds of Palestinians, many held without charge or trial, from its prisons in exchange for the release of 98 Israeli hostages by Palestinian militants in Gaza. The deal also allows Palestinians forcibly displaced from the north of Gaza to return to that area, promises a surge in humanitarian aid to a Palestinian population that was starving as a result of Israel’s siege, and leaves open the door for further negotiations resulting in a permanent ceasefire. But significant questions remain about the deal—foremost of which is whether it will lead to the permanent end of Israel’s bombardment and hermetic siege of Gaza, an assault experts have termed a genocide. To discuss why Israel agreed to stop its bombing after 15 months, whether the ceasefire is likely to last, and the future of Gaza’s governance, Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane spoke to analysts Yousef Munayyer and Zaha Hassan.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Further Reading“A long-awaited ceasefire has finally begun in Gaza. Here’s what we know,” Sophie Tanno, Lauren Kent and Christian Edwards, CNN“Jared Kushner says Gaza’s ‘waterfront property could be very valuable,’” Patrick Wintour, The Guardian“Ben Gvir says he repeatedly foiled hostage deals, urges Smotrich to help him stop this one,” Times of Israel staff, Times of Israel“UNRWA said preparing to shutter Gaza, West Bank operations ahead of Israeli ban,” Times of Israel staff, Times of Israel“Gangs looting Gaza aid operate in areas under Israeli control, aid groups say,” Claire Parker, Loveday Morris, Hajar Harb, Miriam Berger and Hazem Balousha, The Washington Post“The Pro-Israel Donor With a $100 Million Plan to Elect Trump,