On the Nose

Should leftists vote for the Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential election? Many have balked at supporting an administration that has funded and armed Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza: Some are refusing to vote outright, while others are conditioning their vote on a dramatic shift in policy. Although President Joe Biden has now dropped out of the race, and will almost certainly be replaced by his vice president, Kamala Harris, this question remains live for many. 

American leftists have long debated our relationship to electoral politics, and to the Democratic Party in particular. Do we choose the lesser of two evils, hold our nose, and “vote blue no matter who” in order to avert the catastrophes that would result from a Republican presidency? Or are there acts that are too morally outrageous to permit such a utilitarian calculus? And regardless of what we choose, are there ways to think about the meaning of voting that go beyond the pieties of mainstream liberal discourse?

In this episode, Jewish Currents contributing writer Raphael Magarik explores these questions with Rania Batrice, a first-generation Palestinian American and political strategist who has devoted her career to electoral work, including as Bernie Sanders’s 2016 deputy campaign manager. The conversation—recorded while Biden was still running—examines a legal responsum by Rabbi Menashe Klein, the spiritual leader of the Ungvar Hasidic community in Brooklyn, about whether one is responsible for the actions of a candidate one votes for. Through engagement with Klein’s responsum, Magarik and Batrice turn over their own ambivalences, grappling with competing ways of thinking about voting.

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 and a study guide here. 

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

Donald Trump’s decision to tap Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate marks the culmination of a Republican foreign policy transformation. While some aspects of Trump’s foreign policy choices in his first term alienated neoconservatives, other elements aligned with their views—and his previous vice presidential pick, Mike Pence, hailed from the interventionist wing of the party. By contrast, Vance has stridently denounced the Iraq War and criticized US funding for Ukraine. His selection suggests that a second Trump term could represent a sharper break from GOP orthodoxy on foreign policy and heralds the rise of a realist nationalist vision for how the US should conduct itself around the world. 

On this episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane speaks with historian Suzanne Schneider and political analyst Matt Duss about the ideology driving Vance’s agenda, his argument that “America First” foreign policy must include US support for Israel, and how a second Trump administration would differ from the Biden administration on international affairs. 

Thanks to guest producer Will Smith and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Articles Mentioned and Further Reading:

“Light Among The Nations,” Suzanne Schneider, Jewish Currents

“Vance on Iran: ‘If You’re Going to Punch the Iranians, You Punch Them Hard,’” Matthew Kassel, Jewish Insider

Vance’s Keynote Speech at Quincy Institute/The American Conservative Conference

“Trump taps Vance as Running Mate, Anointing Ideological Successor,” Matthew Kassel, Jewish Insider

"Leaked Memo Shows J.D. Vance's Anti-Woke Ideology on Foreign Affairs," John Hudson, The Washington Post

“Harris Candidacy Gives Democrats a Chance to Pivot on Gaza,” Matt Duss, Foreign Policy

Until 1948, around 800,000 Jews lived as an organic and inseparable part of the Arab Middle East and North Africa. But political shifts in the mid-20th century upended this reality. The violent creation of the State of Israel, and the rise of an increasingly exclusivist Arab nationalism, fueled anti-Jewish hostility that led to the exodus of all but a few thousand Jews from the region. The rich Arab-Jewish life that had characterized prior centuries was lost, and the vast majority of Arab Jews ended up in Israel, becoming active participants in the country’s regime of domination over Palestinians. But neither Mizrahi Jews’ enthusiastic embrace of Zionism nor the collapse of Jewish life in the broader Middle East were historical inevitabilities—and these processes did not go unchallenged. Instead, Arab-Jewish thinkers throughout the 20th century drew on their own experiences to offer alternatives to Zionism as well as other kinds of ethnonationalism.

In June, Jewish Currents fellow Jonathan Shamir attended a first-of-its-kind retreat for Arab Jews organized by activist Hadar Cohen and historian Avi Shlaim, where contemporary thinkers came together to figure out how to build on these past efforts. In the latest episode of On the Nose, Shamir speaks with three scholars from the retreat—Hana Morgenstern, a professor of Middle Eastern literature; Yaël Mizrahi-Arnaud, a co-founder of the diaspora anti-Zionist group Shoresh; and Moshe Behar, a senior lecturer in Israel/Palestine studies and co-founder of the Mizrahi Civic Collective—about the history of Arab-Jewish political thought and organizing, and its possibilities and limits for our time.

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 Reading and Listening:

On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements: Selected Writings by Ella Shohat

The Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity by Yehouda Shenhav

Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, & Culture, 1893-1958, edited by Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite

Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew by Avi Shlaim

Iraqi Jewish Writers (Banipal Magazine of Modern Arab Literature), Shimon Ballas, Sami Michael, Samir Naqqash, et al. 

"An Archive of Literary Reconstruction after the Palestinian Nakba," Hana Morgenstern, MERIP

“Were There—and Can There Be—Arab Jews? (With Afterthoughts on the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism and Palestinian Jews),” Moshe Behar

“Weeping for Babylon,” Zvi Ben-Dor Benite and Avi Shlaim, Jewish Currents

“Toward a Democratic State in Palestine,” Palestine National Liberation Movement

"The 'Friends of the IDF' Gala Was Like a Rich Kid’s Bar Mitzvah—Until the Protest Started," Sophie Hurwitz, The Nation

“A Democratic Mizrahi Vision,” the Mizrahi Civic Collective

On June 25th, New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman lost his primary election to George Latimer, a longtime Democratic Westchester County politician. The race attracted national attention because of the unprecedented role played by the Israel-advocacy group AIPAC: The lobby’s super PAC spent $14.5 million on television ads attacking Bowman, while AIPAC donors contributed about $2.5 million to Latimer’s campaign. Bowman’s loss marked a blow for the project of electing leftists to federal office, and the result particularly stung for the pro-Palestine movement; one of the most outspoken Democratic critics of Israel’s war on Gaza will now be replaced by someone who won’t even rebuke Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which puts him well to the right of Joe Biden. 

On this episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane is joined by Intercept DC bureau chief Ryan Grim and former Justice Democrats spokesperson Waleed Shahid to discuss the meaning of Bowman’s loss, AIPAC’s electoral strategy, and the future of the movement to elect leftist Democrats.

Thanks to guest producer Will Smith and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Articles Mentioned and Further Reading:

“The Road Not Taken: Hard Truths about Jamaal Bowman’s Loss,” Micah Sifry, The Connector

“What the Left Can Learn From Jamaal Bowman’s Loss,” Waleed Shahid, The Nation

“A Trip to Israel Changed Jamaal Bowman’s Worldview—And Could Cost Him His Re-election,” Calder McHugh, Politico

In May 2021, Palestinian American poet, physician, translator, and essayist Fady Joudah wrote two poems engaged with the violence of Israeli apartheid. Reflecting on the conundrum of where and how to publish them, he explained: “I’ve long been aware of the crushing weight that reduces Palestine in English to a product with limited features . . . This sickening delimitation mimics physical entrapment. The silken compassion toward Palestinians in mainstream English thinks the language of the oppressed is brilliant mostly when it teaches us about surviving massacres and enduring the degradation of checkpoints.” His sixth collection of poetry, [...]—written in the first three months of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and published in March—indicts precisely such forms of entrapment. In these lucid yet idiosyncratic poems, Joudah turns his attention to that which exceeds the narrow place of the Western gaze, spurning the market forces that reward the performance of perpetual Palestinian victimhood.

On this episode of On the Nose, culture editor Claire Schwartz speaks with Joudah about publishing [...] in this long moment of anti-Palestinian racism, the dangerous desires of denying our own not-knowing, and the generative capacities of silence.

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 Reading and Listening: 

“My Palestinian Poem that ‘The New Yorker’ Wouldn’t Publish,” Fady Joudah, Los Angeles Review of Books

“A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation,” Fady Joudah, Lit Hub 

“Fady Joudah: The poet on how the war in Gaza changed his work,” Aria Aber, The Yale Review

“‘Unspeakable’: Dr. Fady Joudah Grieves 50+ Family Members Killed in Gaza & Slams U.S. Media Coverage,” Democracy Now!

“Aesthetics of Return: Palestinian Poetry with Fady Joudah,” Jadaliyya

“Habibi Yamma,” Fady Joudah, Protean 

“Dear [...],” Fady Joudah, Prairie Schooner

“[...],” Fady Joudah, Lit Hub

“[...],” Fady Joudah, Jewish Currents

“Maqam for a Green Silence,” Fady Joudah, Jewish Currents

Since October 7th, American Jews have been sharply divided over Israel’s war on Gaza—a fracture that has been manifest within all manner of institutions, including synagogues. Many leftist Jews do not participate in synagogue life at all, in part because most congregations are explicitly or tacitly Zionist. But for those who are affiliated with a synagogue community that doesn’t completely align with their politics, this moment has raised or reasserted pressing and difficult questions: Should we do political work within these institutions, and if so, how? What is gained and lost by organizing in these spaces, or by withdrawing from them? What kinds of communities can we ethically be part of? On this episode of On the Nose, managing editor Nathan Goldman, managing director Cynthia Friedman, contributing writer Raphael Magarik, and contributor Devin E. Naar discuss their varying approaches to synagogue life in this moment.

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 Reading:

“Jewish Americans in 2020,” Pew Research Center

“Statement on Israel/Palestine by Scholars of Jewish Studies and Israel Studies” from 2021

“How a Leading Definition of Antisemitism Has Been Weaponized Against Israel’s Critics,” Jonathan Hafetz and Sahar Aziz, The Nation

Making Mensches

“Ale Brider,” Yiddish folk song

“Hayim Katsman’s Vision of Struggle,” Hayim Katsman, Jewish Currents

Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early 20th Century Palestine by Michelle U. Campos

Oriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine by Abigail Jacobson and Moshe Naor

“A Democratic Mizrahi Vision,” the Mizrahi Civic Collective

On March 29th, Jewish Currents began publishing a short commentary on the parshah—the portion of the Torah that Jews traditionally read each week—in the Shabbat Reading List newsletter. A note introducing this new feature situated it in the context of mainstream Jewish communal support for Israel’s war on Gaza: “While it might seem strange for a historically secular magazine to embark on such a project . . . we are trying this now because many in our community have expressed an unprecedented alienation from most Jewish institutions, alongside an urgent need for spiritual fortification.” While many readers have written in to express their gratitude and enthusiasm for the series, some people with long histories of close involvement with Jewish Currents have been upset by the inclusion of religious content. The range of reactions highlights an enduring dispute over the place of religion at Jewish Currents. The magazine was founded by a stridently secularist American Jewish left, which was forged in opposition to the reactionary constraints of religion and in alignment with the Communist Party. But this has given way to a movement that’s more interested in religious texts and ritual as generative elements of Jewish identity, and as politically meaningful tools. 

On this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, managing editor Nathan Goldman, JC councilmember Judee Rosenbaum, and contributing writer Mitch Abidor argue about the parshah commentaries, the meaning of secularism at Jewish Currents, and the evolving role of religion on the Jewish left. 

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:

“Complex Inheritances,” Joy Ladin, Jewish Currents

“Yiddish Anarchists’ Break Over Palestine,” introduced and translated by Eyshe Beirich, Jewish Currents

“Camp Kinderland at 100,” On the Nose, Jewish Currents

“Zhitlovsky: Philosopher of Jewish Secularism,” Max Rosenfeld, Cultural and Secular Jewish Organization (previously in Jewish Currents)

“Secularism,” Daniel May, Sources

Letter to the editor on religious coverage at Jewish Currents, with editors’ response

“Secular Jewish Education, A Critique,” Bennett Muraskin, Jewish Currents

“Why I’m Not a Jewish Secularist,” Mitch Abidor, Jewish Currents

“Why I’m Not a Jewish Secularist: A Response to the Responses,” Mitch Abidor, Jewish Currents

“The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude,” Étienne de la Boétie

On April 7th, Larry David’s sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm—which debuted in 2000 and ran on and off for 24 years—concluded its twelfth and final season. For many critics, the finale marked not only the completion of a beloved show that sometimes seemed like it would run forever, but also the end of an era of American Jewish comedy, embodied by David and other comics of his generation. Curb follows the everyday antics of a fictionalized version of David, living a posh life in Los Angeles following the success of the iconic ’90s sitcom Seinfeld, which he co-created with Jerry Seinfeld. David’s avatar is an over-the-top archetype of a Brooklyn Jew raised in the mid-century, and the show is animated by the character’s dry affect and hyperbolic intransigence, which often put him at odds with reigning social mores, fueling absurd interactions with strangers, friends, and foes. Over the course of Curb’s long run, it’s had a profound impact on the shape of modern American comedy, while the caricature at its core has emerged as one of the defining representations of American Jewishness.

On this episode of On the Nose, managing editor Nathan Goldman, executive editor Nora Caplan-Bricker, contributing editor Ari M. Brostoff, and contributing writer Rebecca Pierce discuss Curb’s depictions of Jewishness, Blackness—and, in one famous episode, Palestinianness—and share their thoughts on the show’s final season and David’s comedic legacy.

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

Articles, Episodes, and Films Mentioned:

“The Ski Lift,” Curb Your Enthusiasm

“The End,” Curb Your Enthusiasm

“American Jewish Comedy Sings a Swan Song,” P.E. Moskowitz, Vulture

“Meet the Blacks,” Curb Your Enthusiasm

A Serious Man, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

“Atlanta,” Curb Your Enthusiasm

“The Lawn Jockey,” Curb Your Enthusiasm

“The N Word,” Curb Your Enthusiasm

“Palestinian Chicken,” Curb Your Enthusiasm

“No Lessons Learned,” Curb Your Enthusiasm

“The Finale,” Seinfeld

“Jerry Seinfeld Admits He ‘Sometimes’ Regrets the Seinfeld Finale,” Corinna Burford, Vulture

The recent wave of anti-Zionist Gaza solidarity protest encampments on college campuses has reignited a longstanding public debate over how to define “Zionist.” On May 8th, a week after the Columbia University encampment was dismantled by the NYPD, more than 500 Jewish students at the school who identify as Zionists published an open letter in which they laid out their perspective. “A large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism, and consequently does not understand the essence of the Jewish People,” they argued, positing that Zionism and Judaism are fundamentally intertwined. The claims echoed a common mainstream Jewish talking point, that the student movement’s stance against Zionism and its adherents is a de facto rejection of Jews—a discourse that plays out against the backdrop of a yearslong Israel advocacy effort to redefine Zionism not as a political ideology but as a protected ethnic identity under US civil rights law. Yet anti-Zionists, Jewish and otherwise, maintain that their position is simply a rejection of the political structure of Jewish supremacy that undergirds the State of Israel. 

On this episode, Jewish Currents staff members discuss how they describe their politics in relation to the term “Zionist” and why. They reflect on the comparative advantages and limits of using the labels “anti-Zionist,” “non-Zionist,” and “cultural Zionist” to articulate opposition to a state project of Jewish supremacy and support of Palestinian liberation and right of return, and consider how those identifications impact relationships within the Jewish community and with the broader solidarity movement. 

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

BOOKS AND ARTICLES MENTIONED AND FURTHER READING: 

Excerpt from “Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims,” Edward Said 

2021 Study of Jewish LA 

“How ‘Zionist’ became a slur on the US left,” Jonathan Guyer, The Guardian

“A plan to save Israel — by getting rid of Zionism,” Emily Tamkin, The Forward, on Shaul Magid’s new book exploring a “counter-Zionist” future

Haifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israel, Omri Boehm

Address by Max Nordau at the First Zionist Congress, 1897

“The Suppressed Lineage of American Jewish Dissent on Zionism,” Emma Saltzberg, Jewish Currents, on the historical evolution of the meaning of the term “Zionism”

Last fall, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco put out an open call for artists to apply for the California Jewish Open. Some of the artists that were accepted into the show identified themselves openly in the application as anti-Zionist, and submitted work that contained content that straightforwardly advocated for Palestinian liberation. 

But in April, seven of the artists withdrew from the show. A statement released by a group calling themselves California Artists for Palestine cited an “inability to meet artists’ demands, including transparency around funding and a commitment to BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions].” The artists demanded to be able to have final say on wall text about the works, and to be able to pull or alter their works at any time. They were also concerned about potential “curatorial both-sidesism,” referring to an email they received on March 22nd which asked artists to sign off on the fact that their work would be “presented in proximity to artwork(s) by other Jewish artists which may convey views and beliefs that conflict with [their] own.” The museum has decided to leave blank the wall space designated for this work, “to honor the perspective that would have been shared through these works, and to authentically reflect the struggle for dialogue that is illustrated by the artists’ decisions to withdraw.”

This week, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks to two anti-Zionist multidisciplinary artists who made divergent decisions about whether to stay in the group show: Amy Trachtenberg, who opted to remain, and Liat Berdugo, who has pulled out. The trio discuss the perils and possibility of Jewish institutional life—in the art world and beyond—at this moment, the applicability of BDS in this case, and the uses and limitations of “dialogue.”

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: 

“Jewish Anti-Zionist Artists Withdraw From Contemporary Jewish Museum Show,” Matt Stromberg, Hyperallergic

“Anti-Zionist Jewish artists pull out of CJM exhibit when demands are not met,” Andrew Esensten, J Weekly

“CJM visitors wonder: Does the Palestinian flag belong on the museum’s walls?,” Andrew Esensten, J Weekly

Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) guidelines

“Campus Politics Takes the Stage in The Ally,” On the Nose, Jewish Currents

Jewish Voice for Peace/IfNotNow Passover Campaign

“Biting the Hand,” The Editors, e-flux

“Seeing It for the Trees” by Liat Berdugo

LABA Bay Area and the New Jewish Culture Fellowship