Before I introduce our guest, I want to honor all those in Israel who were taken from us on 10/7. The atrocities Hamas brought on Israel, the Jewish people and many foreign nationals on 10/7 must be acknowledged for what they were: an insult to humanity. This attack, designed to eliminate Israel and exterminate Jews, must never be forgotten. The heart, honor and spirit of all those taken from us on 10/7 will echo through the ages and strengthen the Jewish people. Given all the dark we have been confronted with over the past few weeks, I felt the need to introduce some light, hence this conversation with Abe Baker-Butler.

Meet Abe, a junior at Yale studying Global Affairs and Global Health. Abe hails from Rye Brook, New York where he was his high school’s valedictorian. At Yale, Abe is a contributing reporter at the Yale Daily News, a Yale College Council senator, president of the Alexander Hamilton Society and a member of the Board of Trustees of Yale’s Slifka Center. Outside of Yale, Abe is the president of the American Jewish Committee's Campus Global Board.

In this episode we cover…

• What it was like on Yale’s campus on 10/7
• How the campus’ reaction was fueled by, in the words of Abe, “the growing problem of students putting ideology and dogma over facts and moral clarity”
• What Abe thinks are the goals of the students who chant Free Palestine
• The reaction of Yale’s leadership to 10/7
• How Yale as an institution has taken an illiberal turn over the past decade and what we identify as the consequences
  • As Abe said, “free thought and dialogue still exits on Yale’s campus, you just have to look for them”
• Hillel security and what some students perceive as the rationale for it (I found this story shocking)
• Abe’s response to whether or not he would feel comfortable wearing in class clothing with an Israeli flag on it
• The term Zionist and how it is interpreted on campus
• How Abe thinks about his Jewish identity
• And a Yale-inspired round of quick fire questions

Outro music: Benny Friedman - Am Yisrael Chai

The quote on liberalism from Andrew Sullivan:

"Liberalism is not just a set of rules. There’s a spirit to it. A spirit that believes that there are whole spheres of human life that lie beyond ideology — friendship, art, love, sex, scholarship, family. A spirit that seeks not to impose orthodoxy but to open up the possibilities of the human mind and soul. A spirit that seeks moral clarity but understands that this is very hard, that life and history are complex, and it is this complexity that a truly liberal society seeks to understand if it wants to advance. It is a spirit that deals with an argument — and not a person — and that counters that argument with logic, not abuse. It’s a spirit that allows for various ideas to clash and evolve, and treats citizens as equal, regardless of their race, rather than insisting on equity for designated racial groups. It’s a spirit that delights sometimes in being wrong because it offers an opportunity to figure out what’s right. And it’s generous, humorous, and graceful in its love of argument and debate. It gives you space to think and reflect and deliberate. Twitter, of course, is the antithesis of all this — and its mercy-free, moblike qualities when combined with a moral panic are, quite frankly, terrifying. We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values,” President Kennedy once said. “For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” Let’s keep that market open. Let’s not be intimidated by those who want it closed."