On today’s two-part show, host Esty Dinur is joined by translator Luke Leafgren and publisher Judith Gurewich to discuss Nasser Abu Srour’s book, The Tale of a Wall. Abu Srour is a Palestinian imprisoned in Israel. His book covers decades of imprisonment and the effect it had on his mind, body, and soul. It’s also a book about the history of Israeli occupation and the struggle of the Palestinian people told with great feeling, lyrical prose, and magical realism. 

In the second-half of the show, historian and journalist Rick Perlstein talks about his recent essay, “The New Anti-Antisemitism.” Perlstein is the author of a four-volume series on the history of America’s political and cultural divisions, and the rise of conservatism, from the 1950s to the election of Ronald Reagan

In his article, Perlstein responds to the requests he gets to make historical parallels between current student encampments in protest of the war on Gaza and student protests in 1968. Perlstein says comparing the current encampments to 1968 takes the focus away from the issue at hand and distracts from recent trends in higher education, such as ongoing erosion of liberal institutions by conservatives. He says a closer comparison would be 1980s anti-apartheid protests.

Image courtesy of Penguin Random House/Other Press.

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