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 Mentioned

Di fliendeke pave, Isabel Frey

Ira Temple

Ya Ghorbati, Laura Elkeslassy

“Zog nit keyn mol,” Yiddish partisan song

Kneecap speaking out on anti-immigrant riots in Belfast

“How Irish diplomats reacted to Bernadette Devlin's 1969 US tour,” Melissa Baird, RTE

Kneecap on sectarianism

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 Mentioned

X 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

“How a Jewish Teenager Went From Refugee to Assassin to Puppet of Nazi Propaganda,” Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian

“Recentering Palestine, reclaiming the movement,” Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition, Columbia Daily Spectator 

“Argov denounces war on Lebanon,” JTA

X post by Israeli opposition leader Yair Golan  

Segment on soccer riots in Amsterdam, Democracy Now

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

“The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin,” Ben Schreckinger, Politico

Letter to Hitler from the German Free Association for the Interests of Orthodox Jewry, 1933

“Lubavitcher Hassidim Oppose Public Demonstrations on Behalf of Soviet Jews,” JTA

“The New Heimish Populism,” Joshua Leifer, Jewish Currents

Race and Reli­gion Among the Cho­sen Peo­ples of Crown Heights, Henry Goldschmidt

“The Passion of 964 Park Place,” Ari Brostoff, Jewish Currents

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 arises in their own work; the Torah scholar leads them in exploring their question through Jewish text. By routing contemporary political questions through traditional religious sources, we aim to address the most urgent ethical and spiritual problems confronting the left. Each column includes a written conversation, podcast, and study guide. You can find the column based on this conversation here, and a study guide here.

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:

All Jewish sources are cited in the study guide, linked above

“‘It was revenge for our movie’: Oscar winner says soldiers helped settlers attack him in West Bank,” Lorenzo Tondo, The Guardian

“Justice for Ayşenur Eygi: Family of U.S. Citizen Killed by Israel Meets with Blinken Demanding Probe,” Democracy Now!

“Shocking spike in use of unlawful lethal force by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank,” Amnesty International

“Co-Resistance at a Crossroads,” Maya Rosen, Jewish Currents

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

“If You Build It, ICE Will Fill It: The Link Between Detention Capacity and ICE Arrests,” Detention Watch

“Trump says he wants to deport US citizens to El Salvador,” Gaby Del Valle, The Verge

Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia

Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition by Silky Shah

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:

“Cuomo’s ‘most important issue,’” Jeff Coltin, Nick Reisman, and Emily Ngo, Politico

“Cuomo and Mamdani gain ground as Democratic primary turns into two-person race,” Adam Daly, amNY

“Socialist Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani Wants to End Columbia and NYU’s Tax-Exempt Status,” Sarah Wexler, Jacobin

“Feds seized $80 million in FEMA funds given to NYC to house migrants, city comptroller says,” Jennifer Bisram, CBS News

“Migrant family swept up by ICE allowed to return home,” Brian Mann, NPR

Zohran Mamdani’s public safety plan

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 Currents

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher

“Canary Mission’s Newest Funders,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents

The 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: 

“‘Mahmoud Is Not Safe,’” Nadia Abu El-Haj, New York Review of Books

“The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters,” Natasha Lennard and Akela Lacy, The Intercept

Letter from Mahmoud Khalil from ICE detention in Louisiana

“The Perils of Universities’ Unscholarly Antisemitism Reports,” Peter Beinart, Jewish Currents

“The new definition of antisemitism is transforming America – and serving a Christian nationalist plan,” Itamar Mann and Lihi Yona, The Guardian

“The Fight for the Future of Israel Studies,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents

“The Civil Rights Law Shutting Down Pro-Palestine Speech,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents

Letters from Columbia journalism alumni and from Columbia law faculty 

American Association of University Professors sues the Trump administration

Noor Abdalla, wife of Mahmoud Khalil, on NPR’s Morning Edition

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

“Elon Musk, the Jews, and the ADL,” Know Your Enemy podcast

“Campus protest crackdowns claim to be about antisemitism – but they’re part of a rightwing plan,” Arielle Angel, The Guardian

“The Boomerang Comes Back,” Noura Erakat, Boston Review

“In leaked messages, members of ‘Columbia Alumni for Israel’ group chat work to identify, punish pro-Palestinian protesters,” Sarah Huddleston, Columbia Spectator

“The Astroturf “Civil Rights” Groups Fueling Trump’s Deportation Attacks,” Emmaia Gelman, Academe

“Trump Administration Seeks to Expel a Green-Card Holder Over Student Protests,” Edward Wong, Charlie Savage, Hamed Aleaziz, and Luis Ferré-Sadurní, The New York Times

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,” Joshua Norman, CBS News

“​​Exclusive: Egypt's alternative to Trump's 'Gaza Riviera' aims to sideline Hamas,” Andrew Mills, Reuters

“Trump wants Palestinians out of Gaza. Here are Egypt's plans to keep them there,” Aya Batrawy, NPR 

“Israel has cut off all supplies to Gaza. Here’s what that means,” Cara Anna, Associated Press