On the Nose

Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed new biopic about the physicist who oversaw the invention of the atomic bomb, is the rare mass-market feature film that depicts the complexities of the US left during and after World War II. As the movie shows, J. Robert Oppenheimer was closely affiliated with Communists in his early life; his forays into left-wing politics included sending funds to the Spanish Republicans through the Communist Party. These relationships and activities eventually led to Oppenheimer losing his security clearance during the second Red Scare, and the hearing where this occurs is central to the film. Throughout the narrative, Oppenheimer explores its subject’s Jewishness, which shapes his position in relation to both Communism and Nazism. Nolan also exhibits the Jewishness of Oppenheimer’s political and intellectual milieu—which includes Lewis Strauss, the conservative Jewish politician who foments the physicist’s downfall.

On this week’s episode of On the Nose, presented in partnership with The Nation’s podcast The Time of Monsters, Jewish Currents associate editor Mari Cohen speaks with contributing editor David Klion, contributing writer Raphael Magarik, and The Nation national affairs correspondent Jeet Heer about the ways Oppenheimer illuminates and obfuscates the history it examines.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Texts and Films Mentioned:

“Oppenheimer Is an Uncomfortably Timely Tale of Destruction,” David Klion, The New Republic

Reds, directed by Warren Beaty

Amadeus, directed by Miloš Forman 

Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda

“Nolan’s Oppenheimer treats New Mexico as a blank canvas,” Kelsey D. Atherton, Source NM

American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig

“Holy Sonnet XIV” by John Donne

In 1923, Jewish union activists affiliated with the Workmen’s Circle bought a plot of land in Hopewell Junction, New York, aiming to provide working-class children with an escape from the city. The camp, which was founded with a commitment to Yiddish and to instilling leftist values, broke with the socialist Workmen’s Circle several years later, as it came to be affiliated with the Communist Party. Over the years, everything that touched the left made its mark on the camp—from the Spanish Civil War to McCarthyism to the emergence of the New Left. In honor of Kinderland’s centennial, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel spoke with longtime Kinderlanders (and JC councilmembers) Judee Rosenbaum and Mitchell Silver about the legacy of Communism in camp, the difference between education and indoctrination, what’s changed at camp in the last 100 years, and why it’s survived this long. For more information on the Camp Kinderland Centennial, click 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 and further reading:

Camp Kinderland Centennial Anniversary

“What We Did: How the Jewish Communist Left Failed the Palestinian Cause” by Dorothy Zellner, Jewish Currents

Chevruta is a 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 will match leftist thinkers and organizers with a rabbi or Torah scholar. The activists will bring an urgent question that arises in their own work; the Torah scholar will lead 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 will be accompanied by a podcast and a study guide (linked below).

In our second Chevruta podcast, Laynie Soloman, associate rosh yeshiva of the queer and trans yeshiva SVARA, speaks with feminist theorist Sophie Lewis, author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family and Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, about the famous biblical injunction to “be fruitful and multiply.” Though this has traditionally been regarded as a foundational commandment, the rabbis were strikingly ambivalent about it—in part because of their profound love of Torah, and of each other. In this Chevruta, Soloman and Lewis explore a Talmudic text from tractate Yevamot that confronts a rabbinic figure who has declined to have children. Through his example, the rabbis normalize a discomfort with this seemingly essential practice of biological reproduction, and offer a way to complicate—and potentially subvert—the status of procreation in the rabbinic mind and in our world.

You can find the column based on this conversation 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).”

Artworks and texts mentioned and further reading:

Talmud: Yevamot 63b and 64a

Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family by Sophie Lewis

Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin by Donna Haraway

We the Parasites by A. V. Marraccini

“How Mierle Laderman Ukeles Turned Maintenance Work into Art” by Jillian Steinhauer 

Peninei Halakhah: Simchat Habayit U'Virkhato 5:2

“Don’t Hurt Yourself” by Beyoncé

For decades, diaspora Hindus have looked to American Jews as role models for attaining political power in the United States. Hindu Americans have established political groups fashioned after AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Jewish Committee; these organizations have worked to advance India’s economic and security interests much as their Jewish counterparts have protected Israel’s. 

Now, as India draws scrutiny for its worsening human rights record under far-right Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalist groups in the US are once again looking to their Jewish allies. This time, they’re modeling their efforts on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which casts certain criticism of Israel as anti-Jewish hatred. A new investigation by Jewish Currents news editor Aparna Gopalan shows how Hindu nationalists are promulgating a concept of “Hinduphobia” that equates opposition to Hindu nationalism with anti-Hindu bigotry. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, Gopalan speaks with Jewish Currents executive editor Nora Caplan-Bricker and Middle East Eye senior reporter Azad Essa about Hinduphobia, the India–Israel alliance, and the potential for the hasbara playbook to be followed by ethnonationalist movements worldwide.

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

“The Hindu Nationalists Using the Pro-Israel Playbook,” Aparna Gopalan, Jewish Currents 

“The US Rolls Out the Red Carpet For Modi,” Aparna Gopalan, Jewish Currents

“How Modi uses yoga to whitewash India’s crimes,” Azad Essa, Middle East Eye

Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel by Azad Essa

“The Settler-Colonialist Alliance of India and Israel,” Deeksha Udupa, The Nation

“How the Hindus Became Jews: American Racism After 9/11,” Vijay Prashad, South Atlantic Quarterly

“What FBI data about anti-Hindu hate crimes in the US reveals about fears of ‘Hinduphobia,’” Raju Rajagopal, Scroll.in

“A Gandhi statue is toppled in Queens, but was it a hate crime?” Arun Venugopal, Gothamist

Diasporic Desires: Making Hindus & the Cultivation of Longing in the United States and Beyond by Shana Sippy (forthcoming from New York University Press)

In September 2021, the Atlanta City Council approved a proposal to lease 381 acres of the Weelaunee Forest—stolen Muscogee land surrounded by majority-Black neighborhoods—to the Atlanta Police Foundation to build the largest militarized police training center in the US. In response, a decentralized movement has risen up to halt the destruction of the forest and the construction of what has come to be known as “Cop City.” As the Stop Cop City movement has grown, the state has employed increasingly draconian methods of repression. In January of this year, police killed Manuel “Tortuguita” Téran, a 26-year old Indigenous Venezuelan forest defender. Dozens of people have been arrested for protesting, including a legal observer with the Southern Poverty Law Center, and more than 40 have been charged with domestic terrorism. Last month, a heavily armed joint task force raided a community center and arrested three bail fund organizers living there under tenuous allegations of “money laundering” and “charity fraud.” And despite widespread opposition, the Atlanta City Council recently authorized an additional $30 million contribution to the construction of Cop City, bringing the city’s pledged total to $67 million. ​​On this week’s episode of On the Nose, culture editor Claire Schwartz is joined by three guests in Atlanta deeply engaged with Stop Cop City—Micah Herskind, a community organizer and writer; Keyanna Jones, a reverend and organizer; and Josie Duffy Rice, a writer who covers criminal justice—to discuss the movement’s roots and tactics, and what the militarization of Atlanta can teach us about the economic underpinnings of fascism.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Transcript forthcoming.

Further Reading and Listening: 

“The Fight Against Cop City,” Amna Akbar, Dissent

“Shmita Means Total Destroy,” Fayer Collective, Jewish Currents

“This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City,” Micah Herskind, Scalawag

“Atlanta Is Trying to Crush the Opposition to ‘Cop City’ by Any Means Necessary,” Hannah Riley, The Nation 

“Targeting bail funds and Stop Cop City activists is an old tactic,” Say Burgin and Jeanne Theoharis, Washington Post

“‘Multiple Grammars of Struggle’ – To Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop Cop City,” Millennials are Killing Capitalism

“When protest is a crime,” Part 1 and Part 2, Outside In

In May 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition against the forced transfer of more than 1,000 Palestinians who live in Masafer Yatta, a region of rural hamlets in the south of the occupied West Bank. Israel had previously designated a large swath of Masafer Yatta as a military “firing zone,” and argued to the court that it needed to forcibly displace these residents because they were illegally living in a military training area. As a result of the ruling, Israel’s army can move forward with their plans at any time. But for now, Masafer Yatta’s residents remain, even in the face of an escalated campaign of military demolitions, training exercises, and harassment. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane speaks with Basel Adra, a Palestinian journalist and activist from the Masafer Yatta village of al-Tuwani, about life in the region, Israel’s campaign of violence against its residents, and what might stop the state from following through on its plans of mass displacement. 

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:

“Classified document reveals IDF ‘firing zones’ built to give land to settlers,” Yuval Abraham, +972 Magazine

“I filmed a settler pogrom. Now the Israeli media is smearing me,” Basel Adraa, +972 Magazine

“Largest Palestinian displacement in decades looms after Israeli court ruling,” Henriette Chacar, Reuters

“They Want To Kick Us Out of This Land,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents

Netflix’s new reality show Jewish Matchmaking, a follow-up to its hit series Indian Matchmaking, follows Orthodox matchmaker Aleeza Ben Shalom as she helps Jewish singles find their beshert, or soulmate. While Indian Matchmaking documents contemporary approaches to an ancient custom, Jewish Matchmaking finds Aleeza applying the principles of an age-old tradition to modern courtship with a cohort of mostly non-Orthodox Jews. The show includes a wide variety of Jewish traditions and practices: Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Mizrahi; secular, “flexidox,” and observant. But there are also notable limits to the diversity—particularly on the question of Zionism—and the show’s picture of Jewish life is strikingly insubstantial. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, managing editor Nathan Goldman, associate editor Mari Cohen, and news editor Aparna Gopalan discuss the questions Jewish Matchmaking raises about contemporary Jewishness, dating, and the relationship between endogamy and ethnonationalism.

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 Podcast Episodes Mentioned:

“Two Paths for the Jewish Bachelor Contestant,” On the Nose

“Is He Jewish?,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents

“What We Talk About When We Talk About ‘Intermarriage,’” Jewish Currents

“Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match,” Hannah Jackson, The Cut

“It was the million-selling novel that shaped a generation of Jews — does anyone still read it?,” Jenny Singer, The Forward

“Couples Therapy,” On the Nose

One year ago, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. To this day, no Israeli soldier has been indicted for the killing. Now, a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) finds that the lack of accountability for Abu Akleh is part of a pattern: Though the Israeli army has killed 20 journalists since 2001, no Israeli soldier has ever been charged. Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane discusses the report with CPJ’s Sherif Mansour—and also talks about the life and death of Abu Akleh with writer and attorney Jennifer Zacharia, Abu Akleh’s first cousin. 

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” 

Articles, Reports and Statements Mentioned

“Deadly Pattern: 20 journalists died by Israeli military fire in 22 years. No one has been held accountable,” Committee to Protect Journalists

“Final Conclusions of Shireen Abu Akleh Investigation,” Israel Defense Forces

“FBI opens investigation into killing of Palestinian American Shireen Abu Akleh,” Barak Ravid, Axios

“Statement on Shireen Abu Akleh,” Senator Patrick Leahy

“‘They were shooting directly at the journalists’: New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces,” Zeena Saifi, Eliza Mackintosh, Celine Alkhaldi, Kareem Khadder, Katie Polglase, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Abeer Salman, CNN

“How Shireen Abu Akleh was killed,” Sarah Cahlan, Meg Kelly and Steve Hendrix, The Washington Post

"The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh: Tracing a Bullet to an Israeli Convoy," Raja Abdulrahim, Patrick Kingsley, Christian Triebert, and Hiba Yazbek, The New York Times

"Shireen Abu Akleh: The Extrajudicial Killing of a Journalist,” Forensic Architecture

Trans youth are under severe attack around the country. Sixteen states have enacted laws restricting access to gender-affirming care for young people. At least 15 others are considering similar laws. Missouri is one of those states: State Republicans are pushing legislation that would ban transition-related surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormone therapy for young people, though unlike other states, the bill passed by the state senate allows those already undergoing treatment to continue receiving such care. Last week, the attack on trans people in Missouri escalated when the attorney general proposed new rules that would restrict gender-affirming healthcare for not only young people but adults as well. Rori Picker Neiss—the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St Louis and the mother of a trans son—is one of the people fighting back against Missouri’s anti-trans legislation. Over the last several years, her family’s life has been upended by repeated trips to the state capitol in Jefferson City to testify against such laws. Picker Neiss joined Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel to discuss the nationwide assault on trans rights, how her Jewish community has responded to such attacks, and what it’s like talking to legislators who are trying to harm her child.

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

“Everything That Happened in Anti-Trans Legislation This Week: April 15-21,” Trans Formations Project, THEM

“The Anti-Trans Lobby’s Real Agenda,” Jules Gill-Peterson, Jewish Currents

“When Parents Hear That Their Child ‘Is Not Normal and Should Not Exist,’” Megan K. Stack, The New York Times

Despite the progressive politics of early zombie films like George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, modern narratives about zombies are often strikingly conservative, displaying a world that rewards rugged individualism and presents a pessimistic view of human nature. The recent HBO drama The Last of Us, based on the acclaimed 2013 video game of the same name, exemplifies this tendency. The show takes place two decades after an outbreak of a zombifying fungal infection triggers global societal collapse. In this post-apocalyptic world, a fascist government violently maintains order within walled-off “quarantine zones,” while a brutal resistance group called the Fireflies strives to overthrow them. The Last of Us follows the cynical smuggler Joel (Pedro Pascal) and a teenager named Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who is immune to the fungus, on their treacherous journey to meet up with a team of Fireflies who believe they can use her to create a vaccine. As Joel and Ellie bond against the backdrop of a dog-eat-dog world where no one can be trusted, the show presents a largely right-wing vision in which the only path to redemption is through caring for one’s immediate kin. According to Neil Druckmann—the co-creator of the series as well as the game and its sequel, who spent his early childhood in a West Bank settlement—elements of The Last of Us are informed by the politics of Israel/Palestine. On this week’s episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, managing editor Nathan Goldman, fellow Dahlia Krutkovich, and contributor Hazem Fahmy discuss the politics of the show, its relationship to Israel/Palestine, and its evocations of the Holocaust.

Note that this episode includes spoilers for the HBO series, as well as the game and its sequel, which will form the basis of future seasons of the show.

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:

“‘The Last of Us’ Is a Very Conservative Show. Really,” Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times

“The Not So Hidden Israeli Politics of ‘The Last of Us Part II,’” Emanuel Maiberg, Vice

“The Evolution of Ellie,” Elise Favis, The Washington Post

“The Gray Zone,” Primo Levi (from The Drowned and the Saved)

“The Last of Us Is Not a Video-Game Adaptation,” Andrea Long Chu, Vulture