NEVER AGAIN IS NOW Podcast

Lesley Kleiff is a law and human rights professor at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK and Haifa University in Israel. She is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism -- https://www.jcajournal.com/ -- and has editorial roles at other academic journals on antisemitism. She is also an advisory board member at the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights under Law. In addition to teaching, editing and advising, she writes herself about contemporary antisemitism.

Moshe Dann is a historian, writer and journalist who is originally from New York and moved to Israel in the 1980s. There he is a research associate at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, a policy center devoted to promoting the shared values of Israel and the United States including Zionism. Moshe Dann is also a freelance columnist for the Jerusalem Post and writes op-eds  in various Jewish online magazines. Here is the Oct. 6, 2021, Jerusalem Post opinion piece to which he refers in this interview -- www.jpost.com/opinion/eu-and-plo-to-what-end-681226 -- "EU & PLO – to what end?"

Rabbi Andrew Baker is the director of international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee. In this position he engages with Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora and with their concerns. Rabbi Baker is also the personal representative of the chair-in-office on combating antisemitism of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. In these roles, Rabbi Baker has been a prominent figure in international efforts to combat antisemitism and in addressing Holocaust-era issues in Europe. In the United States, among other things, he served as president of the Washington Board of Rabbis and as president of the Interfaith Conference of Washington.

Aaron Webman, now the head of business development at a software company in Austin, Texas, is organizing individuals against antisemitism on the internet. He is a driving force behind the podcast JOE LONSDALE: AMERICAN OPTIMIST at www.americanoptimist.com

Alexa Smith gives presentations to high school students on how to speak up against antisemitism on college campuses inspired by her own antisemitic experiences at the University of Michigan and her efforts to speak up there.  Contact Alexa Smith at [email protected]  

From Alexa Smith as background information for the discussion of this podcast:  

The title of the mandatory talk was PENNY STAMPS SPEAKER SERIES: Emory Douglas: Designing Justice -- see https://stamps.umich.edu/events/emory-douglas    

 In October of 2018, my senior year at University of Michigan, I was forced to sit through an overtly antisemitic lecture as part of the Penny Stamps Speaker Series, which is a required course for all art students at the University of Michigan. The lecturer, Emory Douglas, projected an image of Adolf Hitler and the Prime Minister of Israel together with the caption “Guilty of Genocide” across their foreheads. In what world is it okay for a mandatory course to host a speaker who compares Adolf Hitler to the Prime Minister of Israel?  

As a Wolverine, I sat through this lecture horrified at the hatred and intolerance being spewed on our campus. As a Jew who is proud of my people and my homeland, I sat through this lecture feeling targeted and smeared to be as evil as the man who perpetuated the Holocaust and systematically murdered six million Jews.   

This experience was not unique. Two years prior I was forced to sit through another mandatory Stamps lecture in which the speaker, Joe Sacco, made references to Israel being a terrorist state and explicitly claimed that Israeli soldiers were unworthy of being represented as actual human beings in his artwork.   

This time in 2018 I decided I would no longer sit quietly and allow others to dehumanize my people and my community. I credit my brother Dan Smith with his tremendous help and guidance in my calling for actionable change from the university. I simply could not have done anything that I did without him.   

Unfortunately, three years later and the University of Michigan administration is repeatedly failing to forcefully respond to antisemitism, and so it comes back worse and worse each time. A line needs to be drawn and it needs to be drawn now.

Dr. Orli Peter, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and a clinical and neuropsychologist in Los Angeles, is a therapist, researcher and educator with trauma as one of her specialties.

Zachary Singerman is an 11th grader at a Jewish high school in Bethesda, Maryland, and the founder of the nonprofit Gen Z Jews: Fighting Anti-Semitism. https://www.genzjews.com/

Rachel de Vries, a Dutch Jew now living in Curacao in the Caribbean, is a personal fitness trainer in yoga, pilates, kickboxing and running. She uses social media to speak up against antisemitism.

Ben Freeman is a gay Jewish educator and the author of the 2021 book JEWISH PRIDE: REBUILDING A PEOPLE.

David Drimer is the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Ulster County, New York, and the co-founder of the National Holocaust Awareness Initiative -- www.nhaionline.org -- a nonprofit established to address the ignorance of the Holocaust among younger generations.