JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin wants to know what’s the bigger problem? Is it the global surge of antisemitism? Or is it the passivity of some Jews who recoil from active defense against their attackers or the willingness of others to actively collaborate with those who seek their destruction?

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Tablet magazine editor-at-large Liel Leibovitz who answered by speaking of his outrage at the reaction of American and European Jews to efforts to harm them. He was particularly incensed by the fact that when a deranged man entered a New York City synagogue and disrupted services and attacked a congregant, not a single person present attempted to restrain him or defend the person who was assaulted. Instead, they simply sat back and waited for security to rush in and save them.

He believes this is symptomatic of Diaspora Jewry’s inadequate response to their current dilemma. “If that's all you've got, then what you have isn't a congregation. What you have is a hospice.”

“If Zionism taught us anything, and indeed if Judaism taught us anything,” he continued. “It’s that our expectation should never ever be to be safe. Our expectation should always be to be free. Free people have the door wide open. Free people welcome everyone that wants to come in. Free people are armed and trained and ready to defend themselves against their haters. This is a very normal state of being, applicable everywhere, it seems, except for the mainstream American Jewish community, which still harps on about risk management. Well, you know, that way lies doom.”

Leibovitz discussed Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s advice to Jews that they should prioritize the interests of the Democratic Party over their own safety and even the existence of Israel by supporting an antisemite like the party’s U.S. Senate candidate, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. She was, he asserts, “speaking the quiet part out loud.” That is something, he says, that most of the leadership of American Jewry has failed to do.

According to Leibovitz, “the inconvenient truth is that by deed, if not by word, every single one of our so-called communal leaders practice the same exact thought process” as Nessel. He says that when it comes to “the most pressing issues that actually affect the well-being of Jews today”—such as supporting the Trump administration’s effort to root out DEI policies that enable antisemitism in academia, immigration and the threat from Islamists—they are acting like Nessel. They are prioritizing liberal partisan political stands, not the interests or even the defense of the community.

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The Oct. 27 Israeli election will be a referendum on the record of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But according to JNS contributing editor Ruthie Blum, the voters will also be registering their verdict on whether they believe the promises of his opponents. Blum joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin on this week’s episode of Think Twice to analyze the upcoming vote.

According to Blum, many Israelis may be tired of the prime minister, who has now served for 15 out of the last 17 years as his country’s premier and for 18 years in total. But the campaign will also test the appeal of the apparent new leader of the opposition bloc, former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. The general has mainstream appeal and has the sympathy of the nation after losing his son during the war in Gaza.

As Blum notes, Eisenkot is trying to sound as much like Netanyahu as possible when it comes to issues like the war against Iran and its terrorist proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah while still blaming the prime minister for Oct. 7. Yet the military establishment he embodies just as, if not more responsible for Israel being surprised by Hamas. More than that, his record as chief of staff shows that he is clearly on the left though not trying to sound like it. And contrary to the promises that have been made, the opposition may well hope to bring in the Muslim Brotherhood-connected United Arab List to help them form a government now that it has one Jewish member on its list of candidates.

Israelis are, she says, exhausted by the war and sick of the divisiveness that it engendered. But a key factor in determining the outcome will depend on which of the various smaller parties (38 different lists registered before the deadline) will be able to garner the necessary 3.5% of the vote in order to make it into the Knesset. If the right, left or Arab splinters and votes are “wasted” by being cast for parties that don’t qualify, that may make the difference in whether Netanyahu or Eisenkot will be able to form a government.

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Antisemitism in American education isn’t merely a matter of elite universities. It’s being tolerated and encouraged at colleges large and small across the country by woke administrators and faculty. But according to JNS Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Tobin, it’s also happening in K-12 schools, something that is being facilitated by teachers’ unions.

The global surge of antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks on Israel was no spontaneous outburst of hate. According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, it’s clear that it was not only the product of years of preparation by ideologues recycling Soviet-era propaganda aimed at delegitimizing Israel and Jewish rights. It was also the direct result of funding and planning carried out by Islamists in Qatar and other Middle sources as well as UN agencies, NGOs, non-profits, and charities who were behind this effort.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Canadian political consultant Warren Kinsella, author of the new book, The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda. Kinsella asserts that the best way to understand the insidious effort to rationalize and/or defend Hamas and demonize the Jewish state and its supporters is to think of it as the moral equivalent of a political campaign. He argues that this is a story that the mainstream media has ignored as it became the willing stenographer for antisemitic terrorists.

Kinsella points out that this plot to destroy Israel is a highly sophisticated plan that relies heavily on social media algorithms aimed especially at influencing young people. The author, who isn’t Jewish, believes it's imperative to recognize the threat Islamist hate poses to the West, not just Israel.

He worries that despite the fact that it has a great story to tell and has the truth on its side, the state of Israel is failing to get its message across to those being indoctrinated in the antisemitic narrative in the West. He believes it is imperative for Jerusalem to start taking this threat seriously. Just as important, he thinks all people of goodwill must push back against the blood libels being spread about Jews in the media. Kinsella believes what's at stake is not just Israel and the Jewish people, it's democracy and civilization itself.

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What should we be asking about what happened on Oct. 7, 2023, and its aftermath? According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, the key issue is not only learning and understanding the truth about the horrific crimes that occurred on that day. Rather, it is how so much of the world reacted to it by siding with the perpetrators and against the victims.

He’s joined on this week’s episode of “Think Twice” by documentary filmmaker Gloria Greenfield, the producer, director and writer of the new film, “A Collective Descent Into Evil: The Lethal Obsession with Jews and the Jewish State.” It gives voice to a broad array of scholars, writers and commentators on the subject, and isn’t only about the barbarism and atrocities that occurred during the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks on communities in southern Israel.

It is, she says, an exploration of the motivations, ideologies and strategies of those involved, as well as their apologists and enablers.

The problem is not just the terrorists and a population that supported and participated in the horrors of Oct. 7. Greenfield explains that her film seeks to broaden our understanding of the subject by pointing out that what happened was the product of decades of indoctrination into hatred for Israel, the Jews and the West. The same is true of the mobs on college campuses and in the streets of American cities who turned out in support of Oct. 7 and to defend its perpetrators.

The goal wasn’t, says Greenfield, merely “destroying the Jewish people and destroying Israel. It’s also about destroying the free world and destroying people that don’t subscribe to Islamist ideologies.”

Greenfield, a feminist publisher who grew disillusioned with the movement because of its tolerance for antisemitism, points out that the “epidemic” of tolerance for Jew-hatred is rooted in the success of Marxist and radical ideologies in their “long march” through American institutions.

The film is available for streaming via the Roku Channel and Doc Emet Productions, as well as by request for community screenings.

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Is it possible for America to defeat its Islamist enemies like the Iranian terror regime when they resort to asymmetrical warfare? And does President Donald Trump truly understand that diplomacy will  never convince Tehran and its terrorist proxies to give up their war on the West? Those are the questions posed by JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin about whether the United States will resume efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and spreading terror around the world.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Jonathan Schanzer, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. According to Schanzer, the “rules-based international order” created in the aftermath of World War II” appear to be “binding the hands of the United States” and preventing it from conclusively defeating enemies like Iran. The answer, he says, is that, “if our hands are tied, we're the stronger power and we have justice on our side, but yet cannot take the action that is necessary in order to win based on rules that we created,” that’s a problem. “It may be time to revise them,” he concludes.

He argues that the efforts of Trump envoys and advisers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, backed by Vice President JD Vance, to get Iran to agree to give up its nuclear program or to persuade Hamas and Hezbollah to lay down their arms in Gaza and Lebanon is “not feasible.” They can’t be won over by diplomacy, something that was proved by the failures of the Obama and Biden administrations. Instead, they can be defeated. What Trump needs, says Schanzer, is a “new strategy” that will offset the advantages Iran has gained because of the rise in the price of oil and the American shortage of munitions.

The stakes in this conflict, Schanzer asserts, are enormous. If Iran is defeated, it will help facilitate the creation of IMEC—an Indian-Middle East energy corridor—that will connect the subcontinent to Europe via moderate Arab nations and Israel that will transform the international situation for the better. The alternative would be the advance of the so-called STEP alliance of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan, that will be an Islamist obstacle to regional stability, American influence and normalization of relations between the Arab and Muslim world with Israel.

American Jews are facing an unprecedented crisis of antisemitism but according to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, that’s just part of the problem. What’s also wrong is that the majority of American Jews who identify as politically liberal, don’t seem to understand that continuing to support a party and a movement that spreads blood libels about them and defines them as “white” oppressors is, at best, self-sabotage and, at worst, suicidal.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon, author of the new book, The Jews and the Left. Ungar-Sargon argues that a principal reason why Jewish liberals were unprepared for the post-Oct. 7 surge of antisemitism and seemingly unwilling to draw conclusions about it is that they fundamentally misunderstand their place in America. From the beginning of the American republic, Jews have always been equal partners and not a tolerated and discriminated-against minority.

In her book, she makes the case that American exceptionalism is real and that the belief that Jews were, like racial minorities, among the oppressed, is wrong. Jews found themselves on the political left in the mid-20th century because Democrats supported the rights of labor, civil rights, and were associated with the war against the Nazis. But in the 21st century, the Democrats are no longer, she says, the party of the working class, but rather of the credentialed elites. What’s worse, the woke hijacking of the party has led to a situation where the reigning orthodoxy on the left puts Jews and Israel in the intersectional cross-hairs. That is why after the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, the American left which now dominates the Democrats took sides against Israel and was ready to tolerate and even encourage Jew-hatred.

Ungar-Sargon believes that the response to this crisis on the part of liberal Jewish organizations that make up the Jewish establishment is not merely inadequate; it’s wrongheaded since it counsels Jewish students to “shelter in place” and not resist the antisemitic mobs. She also believes the continuing refusal of Jewish liberals to join forces with the majority of Americans—largely on the right—who oppose the Jew-haters on both the left and the right. Jews must, she believes, “get off their knees and fight.”

Though overlooked because of the impact and fame of his charismatic successor, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn was one of the most impactful figures in 20th century Jewish history. And he’s the subject of a new biography, Undaunted by Rabbi David Eliezrie, who joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin for this week’s episode of Think Twice.

Eliezrie, the founder and leader of North County Chabad/Congregation Beth Meir HaCohen in Yorba Linda, California has written the first scholarly biography of Schneersohn and acknowledges that although he was considered a major figure during his lifetime, he has been eclipsed by the seventh Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn. But the transformation of Chabad from a small sect of Hasidic Jewry to its current status as one of the most important forces in modern Jewish life was only made possible by the sixth rebbe’s successful struggles to save Soviet Jews and reimagine American Judaism.

The story of this rebbe is, as Eliezrie notes, a saga that encompasses the key struggles of 20th century Jewish history. Displaced from its traditional home in the Russian town of Lubavitch by the First World War, Schneersohn and Chabad found themselves the center of resistance against Communism efforts (led by Jewish Bolsheviks) to eradicate Judaism. Eliezrie’s book tells the story of, despite ill health, threats, imprisonment and a death sentence against him handed down by Moscow, the rebbe stubbornly insisted on fighting to keep Jewish education and practice alive in the Soviet Union.

After a narrow escape from the Nazis at the start of the Second World War, the rebbe came to the United States. There, he first supported efforts for rescue of European Jewry, which was opposed by the American Jewish establishment that feared offending President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also chose, unlike other Orthodox movements who felt maintaining their own communities was the priority, to emphasize outreach and bringing Judaism and Jewish learning to all Jews, regardless of their affiliation and observance. In this way, Eliezrie says, he helped transform American Jewish life and set the stage for his successor’s subsequent successful revolutionary international outreach campaign.

Perhaps just as important was Schneersohn’s willingness to put aside past disagreements with Zionism after the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Though not formally Zionist and opposed to secular nationalism replacing Judaism, the rebbe took a stand that opposed the Haredi world’s efforts to remain separate from modern Israeli society. As a result, as Eliezrie says, “We want to be engaged with that society. The previous Rebbe told his followers everybody has to share in the defense of the country, that we have to go to the army.” The author notes that surveys of American Jewry show that the largest percentage of American Jews who identify as Zionists are actually those who affiliate with Chabad synagogues.

The question many supporters of Israel ask is one that Israelis struggle to explain, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. How can a leading Israeli institution like the Haaretz newspaper justify their role in spreading blood libels against the Jewish state which help to bolster the efforts of those who are working to eradicate it and kill Israelis? He is joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Israeli historian and writer Gadi Taub who has an explanation.

According to Taub who wrote about this dilemma in JNS, Israelis who think of themselves as “progressives,” as is the case with the staff of Haaretz, must turn on their own country in order to maintain their standing with other leftists. Their only strategy to not be included in the antisemitic boycotts of their country is to join it. It generally doesn’t work since those who hate the Jewish state and wish to isolate it, don’t grant exemptions to Israelis who validate their false accusations.

But as Taub explains, that doesn’t deter Israeli leftists. They don’t seem to connect the dots between their turn toward anti-Zionism and false accusations about Israel committing “genocide” in Gaza and the fact that the people they are aiding want to commit actual genocide against all Israeli Jews, including those who hate their own country. They justify it, Taub says, by imagining that the Palestinian Arabs are mirror images of Israelis and that their threats are either meaningless or by justifying them and embracing genocidal terrorism, such as what occurred on Oct.7, 2023, as justified “resistance” rather than mass, murder, rape and kidnapping.

For many years, Haaretz and the extreme left in Israel stuck to critiques of the “occupation” and the measures of self-defense undertaken by the country’s government and military. But in the weeks before Oct. 7, the publishers of the newspaper dropped the pretense that they were merely liberal Zionists and, instead, have embraced efforts to erase the country’s identity and purpose.

Taub believes the Haaretz approach to the conflict is linked to the effort to prevent reform of Israel’s out-of-control judiciary. They know that the project to essentially dismantle the Jewish state will never gain the approval of Israel’s voters. But 15 unelected judges of the Israeli Supreme Court, who have arrogated to themselves absolute power over the government, do have the ability to advance the demise of Zionism, he argues.

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Totalitarian regimes such as those led by Communists and Nazis have something in common with jihadist terrorist organizations and politically fashionable leftist movements. They all use propaganda, scare tactics, the law and social isolation and pressure to convince people to passively accept the unacceptable as not just normal but an inescapable imperative. That’s a key insight of radio host Buck Sexton’s new book, Manufacturing Delusion: How the Left Uses Brainwashing, Indoctrination and Propaganda Against You.

Sexton joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin on this week’s episode of “Think Twice”. He says he was motivated in part to write the book because of the way Americans were manipulated into accepting Covid-19 pandemic measures like masks, lockdowns and vaccines that authorities imposed upon them with lies and false reassurances. But the tactics that enabled that mass deception to happen also apply to other issues including climate change alarmism, gender ideology and acceptance of myths about racist killings of African-Americans that fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

The former CIA analyst and New York Police Department terrorism consultant argues that the Islamist extremism that he witnessed in Iraq and in Nigeria was enabled by some of the same methods pursued by the tyrants that ran the Soviet Union and Communist China. The effort to force people to abandon independent judgement and accept the lies imposed on them were discussed by George Orwell in his classic novel 1984, which sought to alert the world to the threat from Communism. But these tactics have also been used by cults as well as political movements.

He notes that it is no small irony that contemporary extremists who have spread antisemitism and blood libels as part of an effort to mainstream efforts to destroy Israel are using lies and slogans crafted for the same purpose by Soviet propagandists. The radicalization of those who join terrorist groups involves these methods. But it also applies to the way masses of people are convinced to believe conspiracy theories that use Jews and Israel as the scapegoats for the world’s problems. That has led to indoctrination of young people by leftist ideologues and also is part of the explanation for the Jew-hatred promoted by right-wing podcasters like Tucker Carlson.

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