November 17, 2023

Two Jewish Perspectives on American Jewish Political Discourse Before & Since October 7th, Antisemitism, & Israel/Palestine w/ Prof. Dov Waxman & JTA’s Ron Kampeas

1 hour 51 minutes

On this edition of Parallax Views, two Jewish American perspectives on the Jewish American community's response to 9/11, the issue of antisemitism, and Israel/Palestine. First up, Dov Waxman, director of UCLA’s Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Israel Studies, joins the show to discuss the American Jewish community's response to 9/11, defining antisemitism (and why he argues that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism; Waxman was part of the Nexus Task Force that sought to combat antisemitism while arguably having a less broad and potentially politicized definition of antisemitism than the IHRA), his book Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel, the idea of exiling anti-Zionist Jewish groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow and why disagrees with it, the debate over the value of the settler-colonial discourse, the different types of Zionism, his feelings on Palestinian anti-Zionist attitudes, and much, much more!

In the second segment of the show Ron Kampeas, longtime reporter of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, discuss a number of the topics discussed with Prof. Waxman, but also the March for Israel rally, right-wing antisemitism and criticism of John Hagee's participation in the rally, the involvement of a "peace bloc" at the rally, the Jonathan Pollard spy case, Ron's reporting on the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting, remaining objective in reporting on news that oftn hits close to home emotionally, Rashida Tlaib's use of the pro-Palestinian "from the rive to the sea", the murder of Chicago-based Jewish-American community leader Samantha Woll and the rush to assume it was a hate crime (since ruled out by police), differences between Jewish media outlets in both America and Israel, sentiments against Benjamin Netanyahu in the U.S. and Israel, and much, much, more!

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