In The Ally —a new play at the Public Theater by Itamar Moses—an Israeli American adjunct professor is forced to confront the limits of his solidarity when his decision to support a Black student seeking justice for the police murder of a cousin becomes entangled with questions of Israel and Palestine. Though set before October 7th, the play is undoubtedly “ripped from the headlines,” taking up questions of campus antisemitism and liberal Jewish discomfort with left politics, and giving every “s...
Mar 28, 2024•38 min•Ep 69•Transcript available on Metacast In the public sphere, the discursive battle over Israel and Palestine often comes down to language, with one’s willingness to use individual words and phrases like “apartheid” and “settler colonialism,” or “the right to exist” and “human shields,” usually offering a pretty reliable indication of their worldview. Since October 7th, mainstream and independent media alike have been faced with endless choices about how to represent the unfolding events: Which words are used to describe the Hamas att...
Mar 14, 2024•35 min•Ep 68•Transcript available on Metacast On January 22nd, India’s far-right prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram Mandir, a gargantuan new temple dedicated to the Hindu god Ram, in an event that marked the most consequential victory for the Hindu nationalist movement in its 100-year history. The temple has been erected in the exact spot where a centuries-old mosque, the Babri Masjid, stood until Hindutva supporters violently destroyed it in 1992. The attack on the Masjid catalyzed anti-Muslim mass violence across the country...
Feb 22, 2024•33 min•Ep 67•Transcript available on Metacast In recent years, religious Jewish communities around the world have turned increasingly toward the right. In Israel, the overwhelmingly right-wing ideology of Religious Zionism is on the rise, and it’s often seen as unusual to be both religious and left-wing. But there's also a growing movement of observant Jews offering an alternative vision for religious life that centers Jewish values of justice, compassion, and freedom. In this episode of On the Nose , Israel/Palestine fellow Maya Rose...
Feb 08, 2024•31 min•Ep 66•Transcript available on Metacast On January 26th, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an interim ruling on South Africa’s charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The ICJ found South Africa’s argument to be “plausible”—meaning it will allow the case to go forward and will fully examine the merits of South Africa’s case. While the court’s final ruling may take years, it ordered a series of immediate provisional measures, including that Israel must prevent violations of the Genocide Convention and punish inc...
Feb 01, 2024•39 min•Ep 65•Transcript available on Metacast The US labor movement has had an exciting few years. Labor unions are gaining popularity among the general public as workers organize at new shops from Amazon to Starbucks to Harvard. Perhaps most critically, legacy unions are experiencing a democratic upsurge, with both the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers (UAW) recently electing militant leaders. This revival has also been expanding labor’s purview, with unions increasingly taking on demands that exceed “bread-and-butter” concerns about w...
Jan 03, 2024•40 min•Ep 64•Transcript available on Metacast Many months ago, we solicited questions from you, our listeners, for our first-ever mailbag episode. The result was a wide-ranging conversation that wandered from the serious (Torah study) to the relatively frivolous (HBO’s Girls ). We planned to release the episode in early October, but shelved it in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel and amid Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. We’re sharing it now as a piece of bonus holiday content because many of your questions still feel relevant—even if w...
Dec 28, 2023•43 min•Ep 63•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart speaks with two political analysts from Gaza living abroad, Khalil Sayegh and Muhammad Shehada. Sayegh and Shehada discuss what it was like growing up under Hamas rule, how Hamas governs, the motivations behind the October 7th attack, and what’s next for Hamas in Palestinian politics. Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” Links and F...
Dec 21, 2023•34 min•Ep 62•Transcript available on Metacast In late October, we received a letter: “In almost every conversation I have with young Jews on the left, I find that we are all currently struggling with the same question: What do we do with our families? How do we relate to our parents and grandparents or relatives who are supportive of and complicit in pogroms and genocide? These conversations are feeling fruitless. I’m going home this weekend to visit my family and don’t know what I’ll do.” Around Thanksgiving, we asked listeners to ca...
Dec 08, 2023•50 min•Ep 61•Transcript available on Metacast In her new book, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World , leftist public intellectual Naomi Klein argues that the phenomenon of “doubling”—of the self or a collective, whether adopted or imposed—shapes the politics of our time. Klein’s frequent confusion with the feminist-writer-turned-Covid-conspiracy-theorist Naomi Wolf provides the jumping-off point for a journey through internet culture, vaccine conspiracism, the wellness world, eugenics, and contemporary dynamics around settler colonial...
Nov 16, 2023•52 min•Ep 60•Transcript available on Metacast Since October 7th, when Hamas attacked Israel and Israel began its ongoing bombardment of Gaza, almost every member of Congress has denounced the killings of Israelis and proclaimed support for Israel’s “right to defend itself.” Far fewer have expressed sorrow for the more than 10,500 Palestinians killed in the bombing, and only 23 have called for a ceasefire and an end to the collective punishment of civilians in Gaza. Among the few dissenting voices in Washington is Cori Bush, the representati...
Nov 09, 2023•26 min•Ep 59•Transcript available on Metacast In the weeks since October 7th , when Hamas attacked the south of Israel and Israel began bombing Gaza, American Jewish institutions that had previously expressed alienation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government have mostly united around a pro-Israel position. At the same time, however, record numbers of progressive American Jews have joined the anti-occupation organizations Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow in taking to the streets to call for a ceasefir...
Oct 31, 2023•42 min•Ep 58•Transcript available on Metacast Since Hamas’s October 7th attack, Israeli leftists have felt squeezed between a global left response that has sometimes justified or downplayed the deaths of Israeli civilians, and Israeli society itself, which is largely supportive of the state’s campaign of vengeance in Gaza and its crackdown on any expression of dissent. On this episode of On the Nose , editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Michael Sfard, an attorney specializing in international human rights law and the laws of war; Sall...
Oct 26, 2023•37 min•Ep 57•Transcript available on Metacast On Saturday, October 7th, Hamas launched a surprise attack across the Gaza border, killing more than 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and taking at least 150 Israeli hostages, most of whom are still captive in the Gaza Strip. Israel responded to the attack by declaring war and cutting off food, water, and electricity to Gaza. On Friday, October 13th, Israel ordered 1.1 million people in the northern part of Gaza to evacuate as it prepares for a ground invasion, and Israeli air strikes have alre...
Oct 19, 2023•52 min•Ep 56•Transcript available on Metacast Throughout September, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X—the social media platform formerly known as Twitter—has targeted the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in response to the group’s attempts, along with several other advocacy organizations, to encourage an advertiser boycott of X. The ADL’s proposed ad boycott was an effort to curb hate speech on the platform, which has grown since Musk’s purchase of the site. Many observers viewed Musk’s singling out of the ADL, which located the sourc...
Sep 28, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep 55•Transcript available on Metacast Earlier this year, the Trans Halakha Project—an initiative of SVARA, a queer and trans yeshiva—published a series of teshuvot, or answers to questions about halakha (Jewish religious law). These pieces speak to questions of Jewish life and practice for trans people, from who is obligated to undergo circumcision or to follow the prescriptions around menstruation, to whether it’s permissible to wear a chest binder when immersing in the mikveh (a ritual bath that traditionally requires nudity). Whi...
Sep 14, 2023•44 min•Ep 54•Transcript available on Metacast Two weeks ago, a trailer was released for the new Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro . Immediately, controversy surfaced about Bradley Cooper—the director of the film who also stars as Bernstein—wearing a prosthetic nose, intended to resemble Bernstein’s own formidable schnoz. Because Cooper is not Jewish, this also revived a conversation about so-called Jewface, a term that has, over the last several years, become a buzzword in conversations about non-Jews being cast as Jews in dramatic roles. In...
Aug 31, 2023•29 min•Ep 53•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Aug 17, 2023•47 min•Ep 52•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Aug 03, 2023•57 min•Ep 51•Transcript available on Metacast 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 addr...
Jul 20, 2023•30 min•Ep 50•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Mi...
Jul 06, 2023•35 min•Ep 49•Transcript available on Metacast 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 increasingl...
Jun 22, 2023•38 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Jun 08, 2023•27 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast 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: S...
May 25, 2023•47 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
May 11, 2023•25 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast 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 receiv...
Apr 27, 2023•39 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast 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 societ...
Apr 13, 2023•38 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed his defense minister for calling for a halt to government plans to gut the power of Israel’s judiciary, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets, participating in spontaneous mass protests and setting bonfires in the street. The next day, after a general strike brought the economy to a halt, Netanyahu backtracked, announcing the Knesset would not vote on the first part of his government’s judicial overhaul plan and that he wo...
Mar 30, 2023•46 min•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast On episode 8, season 27 of The Bachelor , contestant Ariel Frenkel, who hails from a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant family in New York, is seen leading all-American Bachelor Zach Shallcross around New York City, feeding him cow tongue sandwiches and gefilte fish from Sarge’s Deli and telling him her family’s story of fleeing the Soviet Union. Such overt references to Jewishness are unprecedented on the franchise; though the show has featured a few Jewish leads, it tends to downplay contestants’ refe...
Mar 23, 2023•33 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast In recent years, German state officials and media outlets have cracked down on Palestinian speech and activism. In 2019, the German parliament passed a nonbinding resolution declaring the global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement antisemitic, and comparing it to Nazi boycotts of Jewish businesses. Early last year, a state-funded news outlet fired seven Arab and Muslim journalists for “antisemitism” that mostly amounted to criticism of Israel. And last May, Berlin banned several protes...
Mar 09, 2023•41 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast 
