Emmy Award-winning actress Julianna Margulies recently partnered with the New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, to help create the Holocaust Educator School Partnership. To date, the partnership has trained two university fellows to teach the history of the Holocaust to 1,700 middle and high school students in New York City Public Schools. In a poignant interview, Margulies shares her motivations for expanding the program, personal experiences of how antisemitism has affected her family, and reflections on her first visit to Israel and Yad Vashem.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

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Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Julianna Margulies

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Show Notes:

Learn more about:

• The Museum of Jewish Heritage’s exhibit The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do

• The Holocaust Educator School Partnership

Vote:

• Vote for The Forgotten Exodus at The Webby Awards: AJC.org/Webby

Test your knowledge: 

• Test your knowledge of antisemitism in America:

Stopping antisemitism starts with understanding how dangerous it is. Take our quiz and learn how antisemitism impacts American Jewish life.

Read:

• Breaking Down and Fighting Holocaust Trivialization:

Holocaust trivialization is not always obvious; a casual observer might miss it without an understanding of the terms, symbols, and relevant history. Here is what you need to know.

Listen:

• Surviving the Unimaginable: A Child's Story of the Holocaust:

In this powerful episode, we sit down with Sam Harris, who is one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust. As a young child, Sam watched in horror as his family was taken to Treblinka and murdered, but he and his two older sisters were able to beat the odds. Listen as Sam recounts the unimaginable struggles he faced during one of the darkest periods in human history and how his experience motivated him to play a central role in the founding of the Illinois Holocaust Museum.

• What to Know About Israel's Judicial Reform Effort and Protests:

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed pause on a series of contentious judicial reforms that have triggered mass protests, condemnation from wide swaths of Israeli society, and expressions of concern from American leaders and Jewish organizations. Guest host Belle Yoeli, AJC's Chief Advocacy Officer, sits down with AJC’s Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer Jason Isaacson to discuss what this means for the future of the Middle East’s only democracy.

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us.

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Interview Transcript - Julianna Marguiles:

Manya Brachear Pashman:

Last year, Emmy Award winning actress Julianna Margulies hosted a Holocaust memorial special called “The Hate We Can't Forget", which featured the stories of four Holocaust survivors. In that documentary, Julianna sounded the alarm that Holocaust education across the country was severely lacking. After filming, Julianna partnered with the Museum of Jewish Heritage: a Living Memorial to the Holocaust here in New York, to help create the Holocaust Educator School Partnership, or HESP. Julianna is with us now to explain what that is and what she hopes it will accomplish. 

Julianna, welcome to People of the Pod. 

Julianna Margulies:

Thank you so much for having me. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:

So please tell our audience: what is the Holocaust Educator School Partnership or HESP?

Julianna Margulies:

HESP’s an easier way to say it, actually Jack Kliger, who is the CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, he calls he calls them the Hespians. So HESP is a program that I started with the Museum of Jewish Heritage after I hosted that CBS documentary on the Holocaust, when I realized how little education there was in our country. 

And with the rise of antisemitism and Holocaust deniers, I just felt, I felt despair, to be honest with you. I just thought it's ignorance, because people are not educated. And when you do not learn history, history repeats itself. And so after I hosted it I thought to myself, what can I do? I'm just one little person. I'm not a humongous star, but I have a bit of a platform. And I thought well, let me try and use my voice and the small platform that I have to make change. 

So luckily, I knew Jack Kliger. And I said, I hosted this Holocaust Remembrance documentary for CBS and MTV, and they paid me. I didn't even think I was gonna get paid to be honest with you, because it was, of course, a labor of love to do it. And I felt weird taking money for it. And so I took the hefty check that they gave me, and I said, let's figure out how to educate our children. Because these are seeds that you have to plant early. So that when these people become adults, this idea that conspiracy theories and the rest of it, they won't penetrate, because you already have that education and the knowledge inside of you to say, that's crazy, no. 

And also, it wasn't just about antisemitism. For me it was about–and this is how we're approaching it with HESP. It's about genocide. It's about racism. It's about homogenizing human beings. It is about putting people in a category who are different than you and saying you don't belong. So it really spans the spectrum of the entire world and all the people in it. 

For me, antisemitism is incredibly frightening because family members of mine were Holocaust survivors. I'm a Jew. I'm raising my son Jewish. And I just felt like I had a call to action after I hosted that documentary and watching the documentary, I learned a lot. But really, I think it's about hate. And as we like to say at HESP, never again.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

It's scary, right? Raising Jewish children is scary, as a mom, I mean, it's wonderful and rewarding and rich, but scary.

Julianna Margulies:

Well, it wasn't to me at all until I did this documentary and my girlfriend who lives right around the corner from me and her son goes to St. Ann's. She said, Well, how does your son get to school? I said, it takes the subway. We live downtown and he goes to school uptown. Her son goes to school in Brooklyn and she said, Oh, I won't let them on the subway. And I said, Why? And she said, Because he loves to wear his Star of David around his neck, and I'm afraid. 

And I just couldn't believe I was hearing those words. It's 2023. We live in New York City. And many people have asked me why I've started this program in New York City. Because isn’t New York City the center of the Jews. They talk about that. The fact of the matter is, we're in the second semester of this program that I started, and it is shocking how many seventh, eighth and high school students do not know anything about the Holocaust. 

In fact, two weeks ago, one of my interns was teaching the hour course on the Holocaust and the history of the Holocaust, and an eighth grade boy up in the Bronx asked if there were any Jews still alive, after 6 million were killed. So that's where we're at. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:

So it's an hour long course. But there's more to it than that. Can you kind of walk us through the components of this, this partnership?

Julianna Margulies:

Yes. So, we take college and graduate students who apply to the program in our first semester, it was just starting out, and we had to do, and it is a paid internship, where they take an eight-day crash course at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on teaching the Holocaust, through one of our professional Holocaust professors there, they then go to schools that we contact, and give, from seventh to eighth grade all the way through high school, one-hour classes, on what the Holocaust was, what it did to the Jewish race, and how it was part of what World War II is about? 

Manya Brachear Pashman:

Do they step into the classroom and take the place of a teacher for a period basically? 

Julianna Margulies:

So they come into the classroom, there, we talk to the principal first and the teachers and it's usually in a history period, it depends on the school's curriculum, and they step into the classroom. And they give this hour lesson and children get to ask questions. On occasion, although they are dying out now, we are able to bring in a Holocaust survivor. 

My idea now is, because the Holocaust survivors are dying out is, I would like to bring in the children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of Holocaust survivors to tell the stories of their ancestors so that the stories don't get lost, and they don't die out. Because as we're seeing antisemitism isn't dying out.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

So does it go beyond the classroom, or does it stop there?

Julianna Margulies:

It does. So because it's affiliated with the Museum of Jewish Heritage, we desperately feel that no child money should never be an issue when it comes to education. So we then after the class, a lot of scheduling is involved, but they're so on it at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. 

But then we supply buses and bring the children to the museum, which is beautiful, it's downtown and all the exhibits are quite something right now. It's this incredible, The Hate We Know. And it shows the very beginning of before World War II happened and then you get to see this journey that they took all the way after. After the Holocaust and after World War II is over. 

So they get to go and experience what we were teaching in their class and they get to ask questions. And it's been really heartening because we had an eighth grade class. I forget if it was the Bronx or in Brooklyn, they were so taken by the class that was taught. 

They chose, for their eighth grade project, an entire exhibition based on the Holocaust and what Jews went through and it was absolutely just gut-wrenchingly beautiful. They made me so proud. They sent me all the pictures of it, I was away working. So I couldn't go. But these kids were beaming. 

And they felt like they were doing something. I think the idea for me of what HESP is, and any kind of Holocaust education, I think because there's such darkness surrounding it. And I can understand why parents would be nervous to let a seventh and eighth grader learn about it, I understand the fear. But what I'm trying to implement into the program, is this idea of heroes. Who are these heroes that stood up in the face of evil, Jews and non Jews alike. 

And right now, in our country, I actually feel it's more important that the non Jews are standing up for the Jews, the way that I marched for Black Lives Matter, the way that we all marched for women, you know, this is a universal problem. And we all need to stand behind it. 

And if all the communities that are so oppressed joined together, power in numbers, and let's look at it more as shining a light on something that will make you feel heroic, to stand up to evil.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

How many kids has the program reached so far?

Julianna Margulies:

I'll tell you what's been really amazing to watch. So the first semester, we were small. And we had our two interns who did an incredible job, and they reached over 1700 children, and I always look at any kind of philanthropy, the way I look at acting, which is if I'm on stage, and I reach just one person in the audience, then I've done my job. And that's how I feel about this program. So knowing that they've reached 1700 children, maybe half of them didn't care or weren't listening or weren't moved. But there certainly were a handful that were. And what it also did was, when I went to the museum to congratulate our interns, when they graduated, we publicized it and took some pictures. And our next semester, we had 20 applicants. 

And in fact, I was just talking with —AJC's been really helpful. They're helping me expand it throughout the country. But it was Laura Shaw Frank, who said, What I love about this, and she's a holocaust historian, she said is that it's young people teaching young people, because they respond, kids respond to young teachers. And so to have these 20, 21, 22 year old interns walking into a classroom, full of, you know, 9th graders, 10th graders, 11th graders, and talking at their level, is actually incredibly helpful. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:

I learned something from the documentary. AJC has this wonderful resource called Translate Hate. It's a glossary that's online and it teaches people about antisemitic tropes and terms that have been around Yes, since the dawn of time. And new ones too. It's constantly updated. And I learned a new term in that documentary called Godwin's Law. And I hope that we add it to Translate Hate later this year. And Godwin's Law is: the longer an online conversation goes on, the likelihood of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler rises 100%. I thought that was so interesting.

And so social media does play such a significant role in school children's lives. TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat, probably a few have been invented that I don't know about yet. What role do you believe social media companies should be playing in reining in this antisemitic rhetoric, if any role at all?

Julianna Margulies: 

Well, I think that I think they need to be responsible for misinformation, and hate speech. I'm all for the First Amendment. But where do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line here? I mean, children are sponges. And you plant one little seed, and it can be a good seed or a bad seed. And it's also you know, social media is toxic. 

I know I'm not a big social media person. I had to join Instagram when I wrote my memoir, because Random House said, Wait, you're not on social media. So I joined the lesser of all evils, because I figured the only people following me on Instagram are people who like me, right? So I'm not gonna get a lot of hate mail there. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Think again, Julianna. 

Julianna Margulies:

I know, I know, I actually realized–don't read the comments. But I do believe that it is their job to filter out the hate and the misinformation, I really do. I do not think they should be allowed to. I'm going to peddle these incredibly damaging, and life threatening conspiracy theories. It's not helping anyone, it's making people more angry. I know how I feel just scrolling through Instagram.

You know, I as an adult, who is not into any of it, and who feels very secure in who I am. And in my position in life with my family, and who I am as a person to my friends, and my child and my husband, I start feeling insecure. So if I, a confident woman in her 50s is feeling insecure, scrolling through Instagram, I can't imagine what it's doing to children.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

I love the way that you put it in the film, that just a little bit of Holocaust knowledge can actually be dangerous, that it's because it's just enough for someone to invoke it for political reasons or to make a point, but not enough to take responsibility and to try to prevent it from ever happening again. 

Was it important that this partnership that you are funding, be robust, be in depth, be more than just an hour long course? 

Julianna Margulies:

Absolutely. I mean, obviously, it's very difficult to teach everything in an hour. So the idea is that those who hear about it and learn about it from that course, will further their interest in it, and that the schools will eventually realize this is something we need to teach. This should be a mandatory class in our history program, the same way we learn about how America was founded, you know, like this is just as important, especially because it's just not that long ago. You know, this, this is quite recent. 

If you look at the big scale of our world, and how many years it's existed. This is not that long ago. And I, I do believe that institutions, Holocaust museums, all over this country, are doing a tremendous job in showing what it was like, I mean, you know, we're, we're, we're doing an exhibition in October because it's the 80th anniversary of the Danish rescue. And at MGH they're doing an incredible job. I'm on the advisory board now. They're doing the Danish rescue, and it's for children and families. It's not, there's no age, it's age appropriate for everyone. And it's showing the heroes that saved 7200 Jews, and-

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

If you could tell our listeners a little bit about what that Danish rescue is, what you're referring to.

Julianna Margulies:

So the Danish rescue. You know, it's interesting. I just read this book that Richard Kluger wrote, it's coming out in August, called “Hamlet's Children,” and it's all about the Danish rescue. And very few people know about it. I didn't before I read the book. 

So Denmark was in a very tricky place in World War II. They had made a treaty with Germany and they were in a place where they were Nazi occupied, but they had made a deal with King Christian had made a deal that the Nazis could not harm their Jews because they were their Danish brothers and sisters, and they were not to be touched. Now, here's a country that is under Nazi occupation. And they hated it. And they sort of were grinning and bearing it. 

And then towards the end, when the Nazis realized they were losing the war, when America came in, and England came into the war, and they realized that this was going to be a losing battle. 

The Danes realized that their Danish Jewish brothers and sisters were in trouble. And boatload by boatload at midnight, they rescued 7200 Jews to Sweden, which was neutral. 

I think what's so important about that story, and I think for people who have gone to Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem, where I just was this past December, to see all these points of light, what would have been had 6 million Jews not been murdered? Where would the life, where would the tree have gone? How far would it have grown? 

And the 7,200 Jews that were saved, their families have lived on. And it's to show- it's about the tree of life, which was being chopped down before it could even begin. 

And it's such a heroic story of how they did it. We even have the actual boat that we've refurbished. That's actually in Mystic, Connecticut, because we couldn't get it to New York yet, but we will eventually. 

It is such a sort of miraculous story. And it wasn't just adults who saved these, these Jews. Everybody in Denmark rose to the occasion. And when you go to Yad Vashem, I mean, I, I had just finished reading the book and I walked down the path of the righteous at Yad Vashem, and I saw a plaque. 

So for those of you listening who don't know what the path of the righteous is, it's the path of all the heroes, the non Jews that stood up to the Nazis and protected the Jews from the Nazis. And there was this beautiful plaque to the Danish rescue, and I just, you can't help but weep. I mean, it's— where are those heroes? And so that's the light I want to shine on HESP and our Hespians is that these are heroes, let's be heroes. 

What's amazing to me, is in my business, you know, I'm an actress and all the big movies are about heroes. So why aren't we turning that into- Okay, so that's what makes money, right? Heroes. So let's make this about being a hero. Not about being an antisemite, or whatever labels they have for people who love the Jewish people, who are Jews. Let's turn this into a moment of heroism, and change the narrative so that our children grow up wanting to be heroes. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:

I want to hear more about this trip to Israel. I've encountered many Holocaust survivors who don't talk about their experience until they make a trip to Israel. And then they feel empowered, obligated to tell their horrific story. I'm curious what you witnessed, what you experienced in Israel, both at Yad Vashem, but also in the greater country at large. 

Julianna Margulies:

Yeah, it was a magical experience. And we really crammed a lot in 10 days, because we wanted to make sure and when are we going to be back here? Let's do it. Right. So we actually hired a professor to take us around for 10 days. And really, we went to Tel Aviv, we went to the Negev, we went to Jerusalem. We even actually took a day trip to Jordan and went to Petra, which was mind boggling. We went to Masada. I mean, we did it all. We met with political consultants to try and understand the politics. And we went everywhere and learned about so much. And first of all, I think the thing that struck me the most– my sister was born in Jerusalem. In 1960, my big sister, and she, they left when she was one and I had never been to Israel, because we moved here. My parents moved back to New York. But I always felt this Oh, my sister was born in Jerusalem, I have to go. 

And we actually had meant to go for my son's Bar Mitzvah. But COVID happened and there was lockdown. So that didn't happen. Then the next year, we were gonna go and it was, Omicron. And so this year, it actually I'm glad I waited till he was 15. Because I actually think he got a lot more out of it. But one of the things that hit me the hardest was how young the country is.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

75.

Julianna Margulies:

It is so young. Because I grew up in England for a great part of my life, and every time I'd come back home, I think how young our country is, like, God, it's so young here. You know, I love America. But some of the ideas, it's like, how can we move past this in, there's still this sort of, it's very young, we live in a young country, Israel is very young. But it's founded on such a strength of community and belonging. 

And I remember just landing in Tel Aviv, and I looked at my husband, we're walking through the airport. Now we are with our people, it's like, I've never felt like I belong more. Most people don't think I'm Jewish. Most people think I'm Greek or Italian because of my name. But I didn't grow up Jewish. You know, my mother, they're both 100% Jewish, but my mother's family tried to keep their Jewishness quiet. Because her grandmother, who had fled from Prussia, persecuted for being a Jew didn't want to cause any reason for someone to harm her. So they didn't celebrate Passover and Yom Kippur and Hanukkah. They just stayed very quiet. And they didn't talk about it. 

They spoke Yiddish and they had Jewish food but they didn't advertise their Jewishness, because that caused tremendous pain in their family. And so for me once I became an adult, I wasn't Bat Mitzvahed. And I married a Jewish man who said, I want to raise our son Jewish, and I want a Jewish wedding. And I said, Great, I'm in, let's do it. That's fine. Okay. But as I've sort of grown into the role of my life, as not just the actress and the independent woman, but also as part of a unit, part of a family. 

We do Shabbat on Fridays, even if it's just to light the candles, and to say goodbye to the workweek, and to say hello to our friends and family. Putting down phones. It's the tradition of Judaism. Because I'm not a religious person, I've always felt any kind of religion is a little bit sexist. 

And even though I played a Hasidic Jew in a movie years ago, called “The Price Above Rubies,” and I went to Boro Park and and I did some research on the women there because .. I guess I was confused as to why you would love this life, because to me, it felt suffocating, incredibly sexist, and demoralizing to be a Hasidic wife. 

And then to see their pride and joy in their work, and how they felt about themselves. Iit was quite eye opening. You know, I was judging, I was definitely judgy about it. And I learned a really good lesson, you know. But I have found tremendous joy in the traditions of our Jewish heritage. 

And our son knows, Friday nights, he can invite any friend over, but we're gonna, before the pizza comes, we're going to just do our blessings, light the candles, and kiss each other. There's something about tradition that is so lost in today's world, that gives a sense of meaning. And, and a route to the family. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:

This has been a fascinating conversation. 

Julianna Margulies:

Thank you. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:

I know that it could go on for hours longer. But thank you so much for joining us.

Julianna Margulies:

Thank you for doing this podcast. I really love it. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:

I really hope this program expands across the country.

Julianna Margulies:

Thank you so much for having me.

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This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed pause on a series of contentious judicial reforms that have triggered mass protests, condemnation from wide swaths of Israeli society, and expressions of concern from American leaders and Jewish organizations. Guest host Belle Yoeli, AJC's Chief Advocacy Officer, sits down with AJC’s Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer Jason Isaacson to discuss what this means for the future of the Middle East’s only democracy.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

___

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Jason Isaacson

____

Show Notes:

Join us in Israel June 11-14 for AJC’s Global Forum 2023: AJC.org/GlobalForum

Read:

• What to Know About Israel’s Judicial Reforms

• American Jewish Committee, Other Jewish Organizations Welcome Suspension of Israeli Judicial Overhaul Legislation

Listen:

• How Jewish Teens Take on Antisemitism in America

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us.

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Transcript of Interview with Jason Isaacson:

Manya Brachear Pashman:

This week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed pause on a series of contentious judicial reforms that have brought scores of Israelis to the streets in protest. My guest host, Belle Yoeli, AJC's Chief Advocacy Officer, sat down with Jason Isaacson, AJC’s Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer to discuss what this means for the only democracy in the Middle East. Belle, the mic is yours.

Belle Yoeli: 

Thank you Manya, and hello, People of the Pod listeners. It's great to be with you. 

Jason, thanks for joining us.

Jason Isaacson:  

Of course. Good to be with you, Belle.

Belle Yoeli: 

I think it's fair to say that it's been anything but a dull time when it comes to Israel. And I think that applies to the past year, the past few months, and especially the past few days. I'm sure our listeners have a lot of questions and very privileged that we're going to be joined by Jason to help us to understand and analyze recent events. And I'm going to jump right in. 

Jason, I want to begin by reviewing the sequence of events that led to the developments this week. The Israeli government has been pursuing legislation that would fundamentally change the way the judiciary operates, which has garnered a lot of attention. What has played out since Sunday that has led to the latest state of affairs?

Jason Isaacson:  

Well, you'd have to go back a few days before Sunday, to the meeting that took place last Thursday, I believe it was, between the defense minister Yoav Gallant, and the Prime Minister, before the Prime Minister left on his most recent European trip. And in the course of that meeting, it was widely understood that Gallant was going to present to the Prime Minister what he has found in talking to senior officers of the military, hearing about the concerns that reservists were planning not to show up or were not showing up for duty. And that there was just a severe security threat that was being posed by the protests that have been sweeping the country for the last 12 and a half, 13 weeks. And that something had to be done. And what that something was, was that we really had to slow the train and pause this process of judicial reform.

He presented that argument to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister discussed this with him. Apparently, won some kind of understanding that would not lead to Gallant leaving or making a speech that night. And  then the Prime Minister took off for London. After that, two days go by and on Saturday night, the defense minister makes a speech, basically the speech that we all expected him to make last Thursday, saying just what I said about the effect that the judicial reform process, the rush to judicial reform, is having within the ranks of the military and the reserve of the military. And because of that, he is calling on the Prime Minister to halt the process, to pause the process of judicial reform. 

Within 24 hours, the Prime Minister fires the defense minister, much to the shock of the entire Israeli military establishment and much of the political establishment. And there were then massive protests. So of course, we've seen in Israel for the last 13 weeks, hundreds of 1000s of Israelis out in the streets, people across the political spectrum, rising up and saying this judicial reform package does not serve the interests of Israeli democracy, it actually undermines Israeli democracy. It changes the whole process of checks and balances in Israel. But it was the firing of Gallant, who is widely popular, even though a figure with a deep, honorable military background, on the right in Israeli politics, but respected across the board, which I think one could say generally has been the tradition in Israel, for those who have served in high office in the military, regardless of their politics.

The fact that he was dismissed by the Prime Minister in what looked like a political act, a personal act rather than an act that would serve the interests of security and of the best interest of the country. That's the way it appeared to so many in Israel. 

That's why 10s of 1000s of people immediately were out in the streets. And that's what led to the following morning, a whole series of events–calling of a general strike by the Histadrut, the Labor Federation. Israeli embassies and consulates around the world honoring that strike because they worked for the federal government and they're also part of the Union, Ben Gurion airport, stopping outgoing flights. Hospitals apparently no longer scheduling non-emergency treatment. So a range of effects rippling across the Israeli economy and society. At that point, it was clear that chaos is raining. This is not possible to continue on this track. And the Prime Minister, then after a series of discussions in the course of a very long day on Monday, made an announcement that he was putting a halt temporarily, to the judicial reform process that was racing through the legislature, through the Knesset until after Passover, after the Memorial Day, and Independence Day celebrations of Israel. 

So we got about five weeks or so to see what can come next. There apparently is going to be a–not apparently, there is already a negotiating process that has just begun, under the auspices of President Herzog with a different political factions sitting around the table, at least trying to establish a framework in which to pursue negotiations to come up with a compromise formula on judicial reform. 

Belle Yoeli:  

Obviously, we don't have time right now to go into every different piece of reform that's being proposed there are resources on AJC's website explainers on just that if anyone's interested in more details, Obviously, they've been widely reported on. But I want to get to the heart of: what are the concerns when it comes to this legislation? Why are these so controversial? Because we've heard a lot in the reporting about these proposals that Israel's democracy is at risk, but at the same time that's being said, Israel's democracy is on full display. So break down for us with the key big picture issues here with what's being performed with changes to the judiciary.

Jason Isaacson:  

Look, I think what what's at the heart of the issue is concern that minority rights could be trampled, that the the majority, which has now, the governing coalition has 64 seats in the Knesset, but we all remember that when the election took place in early November, it was a fairly small margin of actual votes that put this majority, put this coalition into power. That a narrow majority could trample on the rights of the minority in court cases in which a newly reconfigured Supreme Court with more justices chosen by this narrow majority in the Knesset, or the current Supreme Court, overwritten by a narrow majority in the Knesset, which is also part of the proposal, part of the proposed package put forward by the government. All of that could reduce minority rights. And I think that that's really at the core of this.

In addition to of course, maybe in the context of, larger divisions within Israeli society. We all know that Israel is a very complicated society with a significant secular majority and a growing religious minority that now has greater representation than ever before in the governing coalition. And I think that there are many in the majority, who are uncomfortable with that. 

There are also differences of opinion, as you know, within Israeli society on what to do with the West Bank, with Palestinian rights, with the future of a possible Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which has been pushed farther and farther into the background, farther and farther into the future, if it ever happens that there was the creation of a Palestinian state. 

But these fundamental questions that had been kicked down the road for so long, the secular religious divide the questions of what to do with millions of Palestinians who are living in the West Bank, and a growing community of Israelis who are living in the West Bank, as well, these are these are issues that often find themselves in court. And where that court comes down, and how the legislature responds to where that court comes down, are major issues that don't have to get addressed every day. But when they are addressed, people want an assurance that minority rights are respected, that the independent judiciary will be preserved, which by the way, is of huge importance to protecting Israel from international legal action and protecting Israelis from international legal repercussions, being able to point to the independence of the Israeli judiciary. So for all of these reasons, people take very seriously what's going on and the judicial reform proposals put forward by the governing coalition. 

That's why hundreds of 1000s of Israelis have been out in the streets over these last weeks. And it's why it's so important that when you make such a huge change that has such impact on the future of Israel, and on the future of the Israeli people, that the process be slowed down, that a negotiation proceed to try to reach a compromise proposal. So that we can we can take this crisis, you know, off the front page, and move, frankly, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Israel, in an Israel that is united. And that has a common commitment, shared across the society, that it will protect minority rights, and that will protect the fundamental principles of democracy that we share with Israel in our country.

Belle Yoeli:  

Thank you, Jason. I want to ask you now about how this process and everything that's playing out is impacting Israel's relations with the United States, the US-Israel relationship, and also Israel's relations in the region, beginning with the United States. And, of course, the latest exchange between Prime Minister Netanyahu and statement by President Biden I've just seen now also vice president Harris joining concerns about the situation in Israel. What are we seeing in terms of the Israel-US relationship? Should we be concerned? What's your analysis on what's happening there?

Jason Isaacson:  

What we have seen, what we have heard from President Biden now from Vice President Harris, from Secretary of State Blinken, from others, of course, is concerning. But these statements expressing criticism of any efforts in Israel, to weaken the independence of the Israeli judiciary, to change the balance of power in a way that is rushed through the legislature and not arrived at through a deliberative, inclusive, careful process. These are the expressions of concern of a friend. 

President Biden is a longtime friend of Israel for 40 plus years in politics, he has always stood by Israel, his relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu goes back that long, and with previous prime ministers as well, and other officials, he's visited many times. He is pointing out the importance of maintaining the spirit that unites the United States and Israel in so many ways. It is not just, this is an unusual relationship, it's a special relationship. It's a relationship. It's not just built on strategic interests. It's built on a very deep emotional bond, frankly, between the people of the United States and the people of Israel. It has a religious connection, it has a historic connection. It has a love of freedom and democracy that has been the animating principles of both of our countries for decades, or in the case, United States centuries. There is something unique in that relationship.

And from the point of view of this president who has a love affair with Israel going back for decades, that shared spirit of democracy is being threatened by this rush to change the system. That balances the rights of the judiciary and the rights of the elected legislature. And he has spoken about that with concern–with love of Israel, but with concern. 

Now, of course, no sovereign state likes a lecture from another country, from a great power. And it's not surprising that you had a sharp reaction to the President's words from Prime Minister Netanyahu and his supporters. But I would, I would point you to the long record of support that the President has expressed, which is, by the way, the tradition of US presidents in this relationship that exists between the United States and Israel, and must always exist, and that AJC has played a role in maintaining. 

But his words should be taken seriously. I do expect that once we get through this current crisis that there will be a visit of course by the Prime Minister. These are normal events in the life of our two countries. But right now, clearly, President Biden wanted to send a message, wanted to send a sharp message and make sure that it was heard clearly in Jerusalem.

Belle Yoeli:  

And Jason, of course, we've spoken a lot. And we've been celebrating the Abraham Accords and thinking a lot here at AJC about what comes next and how we can expand upon that success. I would imagine that what's playing on Israel right now is potentially threatening to some of the relationships that have been built, and putting countries in the region and in sort of a precarious position in terms of their relationships with Israel. What are you hearing on that regard?

Jason Isaacson:  

Well, you know, I think it's less of an issue, how Israel balances or rebalances the relationship between the judiciary and the legislative branch. These are issues that are really not very much on the radar screen of Israel's neighbors. What is on their radar screen, is the degree to which the Prime Minister– a figure, whom they have come to know over the years and developed relationships with and trust in. The degree to which he is in control, in control of his government and control of his society. The degree to which frankly, the high tech powerhouse of Israel remains on the course that it has been on, that has been  such a beacon for the region and and a selling point of Israel in terms of the relationship that Israel's neighbors want to have with Israel, want to develop, want to nurture with Israel. 

And apart from that, apart from this appearance of control, or lack of control and appearance of what's going on in the Israeli economy and the high tech sector. And we all know that's all been rattled by what's been going on, is the actions and the statements of members of the governing coalition who are on the radical edge of Israeli politics and who have said some, some very sharp things about about Israel's Arab neighbors, Israel’s Palestinian neighbors, the role of Israel going forward in the territories in settlement construction, in walking back the disengagement agreement through which Israel left Gaza and some settlements in the northern part of the West Bank. 

Some very offensive statements that have been made, including by the finance minister, who said, there was no such thing as the Palestinian people. And he did make some other statements or appeared behind a map that seemed to express the belief that Israel and Jordan were all part of one contiguous territory. These are things that have rattled some of Israel's neighbors and have led to some denunciations of Israeli behavior. 

Now, I don't believe that the Abraham Accords are in jeopardy, I don't believe that anyone's going to walk back from the strategic decisions that were made in 2020. To establish or in the case of Morocco reestablished diplomatic relations with Israel. What I do worry about is a cooling of these relationships at a lower trajectory of these relationships, which were soaring until just weeks ago. And AJC as you know, Belle, has been playing a role for many years in trying to open up these relations and open up civil society dialogue, we continue to do, we have a presence in Abu Dhabi, we are active across the region, we'll get back on that track. 

And I believe that there are so many friends and potential friends that still exist in the Arab world for a closer relationship with Israel, a mutually beneficial relationship with Israel. But the news that's been coming from the street in Israel, and from all sorts of elements of Israeli society have upset Israel's neighbors. And we need to get past this, we need to come up with a compromise that will allow this to be driven off the front page. And frankly, the more extreme elements of the Israeli governing coalition need to be reined in. Whether it means walking around the Temple Mount, a very sensitive place for many of Israel's neighbors, or it means various statements that are made. 

The prime minister said that he had his hands on the steering wheel, he was in control. As that is further demonstrated to Israel's neighbors, I expect that the situation will calm down, and we'll get back on the very significant upward trajectory that we've seen over the last two and a half years in the Abraham Accords process.

Belle Yoeli:  

Jason, I'm encouraged by your optimism. And I just want to ask you one more question along the same lines. Obviously, this is a moment, this is a moment for the Israeli people. This is a moment for the Israeli government, and it's playing out and getting a lot of attention around the world. And of course, a lot of what I'll describe as Israel's enemies, or Israel's harshest critics, are in many cases monopolizing on this moment to say, everything that we've said about Israel is right, or this is the end of Israel's democracy. But as we've said, that's really not the case. 

What are your words of wisdom to really explain what's happening in this moment, when there is so much political polarization in Israel, there are competing visions for the state, but at the same time, we're celebrating 75 years of the wonder that is Israel and all the good that it brings to the world. 

How do we balance the hysteria and the concern of this moment, with optimism and what you were just talking about, that things will get back to normal, things will calm down, we will reach a compromise, we'll get there. What is the message that you really want to send about where things are going? And how we should be thinking about this going forward?

Jason Isaacson:  

Can you imagine any other country in the region, maybe not just in the region, in which a significant portion of the population would be out on the streets to defend a governmental system, a balance of power between branches of government, in opposition to what the current elected government has put forward? Hundreds of 1000s of citizens parading through the streets, carrying the Israeli flag, no violence, no destruction of property. When they have shut down major highways, when they have surrounded the Prime Minister's house. They're dispersed. No one gets shot, people aren't being put to jail. The spirit of engagement in the political process, of making your voice heard, of getting out on the street because you're a patriot, because you believe in the country you believe in the ethics of the country, the ethic of the country. 

And then, after weeks and weeks of this kind of citizen engagement, having a government that says, Okay, we hear you, we're going to take a pause, we're going to come up, we're going to see if we can find an acceptable compromise, even in that crazily diverse Israeli political system that we have. I think it's a remarkable piece of evidence, remarkable testament to the democratic spirit in Israel, the respect, the mutual respect that even people on different sides of the political spectrum have for each other and for the country, and for the processes that had built this country and kept it strong. Against all odds, against multiple challenges for 75 years. 

I have great confidence that this democratic spirit will prevail. I believe that a compromise is within reach, could be found. It is not unreasonable that there be a reexamination of the judicial-legislative balance, I think that they'll be able to find that. And by the way, if they cannot find it, Israel is a democracy. It has elections. It has had five elections in four years, it could have a sixth election. 

I have no doubt that the Israeli political spirit, which is a spirit of democracy, and a protection of human rights and protection of minority rights, will prevail, will get through this, and will go on for another 75, many more than another 75 years of this great miracle that is the state of Israel.

Belle Yoeli: 

Jason, thank you so much for that. And thank you for sharing all of your thoughts and analysis with us. 

I just want to make a plug to our listeners, that I think this conversation has shown you why more than ever before, it's important to show up and to engage on these issues. And I want to encourage all of you who have not yet registered to join us in Israel in June for AJC's Global Forum 2023 in Tel Aviv, June 11 through 14th, you can sign up by going to AJC.org/GlobalForum.

We hope to see you there, and to be with us as we engage in this very interesting time in Israel. Jason, thank you. 

Jason Isaacson:

Thank you, Belle. 

Jewish teenagers in middle and high schools throughout the United States are experiencing antisemitism in various forms, including in their school premises, in the classroom, and on social media. Abi Streger, a Jewish student from suburban Atlanta, is one of the many teenagers who have faced such hatred.

Joining the conversation is Aaron Bregman, Director of High School Affairs for AJC's Alexander Young Leadership Department, who speaks about how AJC empowers students and their families to stand up to antisemitism.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

____

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Aaron Bregman, Abi Streger

_____

Show Notes:

Test your knowledge: 

• Test your knowledge of antisemitism in America:

Stopping antisemitism starts with understanding how dangerous it is. Take our quiz and learn how antisemitism impacts American Jewish life.

Read:

• In Washington, D.C., Jewish High School Students from AJC’s Leaders for Tomorrow Gain Valuable Advocacy Skills:

More than 130 of American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) Leaders for Tomorrow (LFT) students – Jewish high school students from across the U.S. – gathered in Washington, D.C. this week to speak up for Israel and the Jewish people during the Susan and Bart Lewis Family Leaders for Tomorrow Advocacy Day.

Listen:

• How Rising Antisemitism Impacts Jews on College Campuses:

Unpack the findings from AJC's State of Antisemitism in America 2022 report on young U.S. Jews, including those on college campuses, with the Senior Director of AJC’s Alexander Young Leadership Department, Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman. We also hear from Northwestern University student Lily Cohen.

• A White House Meeting with Antisemitism Envoys from Around the World:

Two weeks ago at the White House, a group of antisemitism envoys from around the world attended an AJC-convened gathering as part of the efforts of an interagency group created by President Biden to build a national strategy to combat antisemitism. Two of those envoys join us to discuss that meeting.

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us.

Two weeks ago at the White House, a group of antisemitism envoys from around the world attended an AJC-convened gathering as part of the efforts of an interagency group created by President Biden to build a national strategy to combat antisemitism.

This week, two of those envoys, senior European antisemitism officials from the EU and Germany join us to discuss that meeting and share how their governments have addressed rising antisemitism.

Katharina von Schnurbein, European Commission Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life, and Felix Klein, Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight Against Antisemitism, also discuss their experiences fighting Jew-hatred in Europe and their impressions of the state of antisemitism in the United States. Klein is also an alumnus of Project Interchange, an AJC institute that brings global decision-makers to Israel to learn about its reality and complexity for themselves.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

____

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Katharina von Schnurbein, Felix Klein

_____

Show Notes:

Read:

• International Antisemitism Envoys Join AJC-Convened Meeting at White House-

American Jewish Committee (AJC) convened a meeting at the White House of antisemitism envoys from around the world as part of the efforts of an interagency group created by President Biden to build a national strategy to combat antisemitism.

• American Jews Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Be Jewish-

In this Newsweek column, AJC CEO Ted Deutch writes that urgently creating and implementing the first-ever national action plan to effectively combat antisemitism in the U.S. is essential. The safety of Jews and the health of our society are at stake.

• Be Part of the Society-Wide Effort-

AJC’s Call to Action Against Antisemitism in America is a dynamic tool to mobilize and unite all Americans in the fight against antisemitism. Read the Call to Action.  

Watch: 

• How Can Governments Win the Fight Against Antisemitism?-

At AJC Global Forum 2022, Katharina von Schnurbein joined U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt to share how American and European governments are responding to the frightening resurgence of antisemitism.

Listen:

• 87 Ways to Fight Antisemitism: Inside the EU’s New Plan to Combat Hate-

When the EU unveiled its first Strategy on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life, a multi-faceted plan that incorporated many recommendations from AJC, Katharina von Schnurbein shared how that strategy is being implemented and what it means for European Jews and the entire Jewish diaspora.

• Women’s History Month: Meet Felice Gaer, Human Rights Champion-

She’s one of the world’s most effective champions of women’s rights, human rights, and democratic values. For Women’s History Month, we speak with Felice Gaer, director of American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights.

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us.

She’s one of the world’s most effective champions of women’s rights, human rights, and democratic values. For Women’s History Month, we speak with Felice Gaer, director of American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. Gaer, who fights for religious freedom, the rights of women, and against antisemitism, highlights the importance of women's voices in an often-male dominated field. She has been appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, serving five terms (three as chair and two as vice chair), and was the first American elected to serve on the UN's Committee Against Torture. 

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.

_____

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Felice Gaer

_____

Show Notes:

Read:

• JBI Appeal on the One-Year Anniversary of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Listen:

• 10 Trailblazing Jewish Women on AJC’s People of the Pod

• Dr. Ahmed Shaheed on first UN human rights report wholly dedicated to antisemitism 

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us.

_____

Transcript of Interview with Felice Gaer

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Felice Gaer has served as the director of AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of human rights, affectionately known here as JBI since 1993. During that time, she has specifically focused on the rights of religious freedom, the rights of women, the prohibition of torture and the struggle against antisemitism globally. She has been appointed a public member of at least nine US delegations to United Nations Human Rights negotiations, including the Vienna World Conference on human rights in 1993. And the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995. She was the first American elected to serve on the UN's Committee Against Torture. In fact, she served five terms, and she was appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, where she served as chair and advised the President and Congress on US human rights policy. 

And even though she's not a lawyer or a court justice, on March 30, she receives the Honorary Member award of the American Society of International Law, the preeminent international society in this field, as we mark International Women's Day this week and women's history this month, Felice is with us now to discuss today's human rights challenges and the challenges she has faced as a woman in the Human Rights world. 

Felice, welcome to People of the Pod. 

Felice Gaer:  

Thank you, Manya.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So let’s start with the beginning. Can you share with our listeners a little about your upbringing, and how Jewish values shaped what you do today?

Felice Gaer:  

Well, I had a fairly ordinary upbringing in a suburb of New York City that had a fairly high percentage of Jews living in it–Teaneck, New Jersey. I was shaped by all the usual things in a Jewish home. First of all, the holidays. Secondly, the values, Jewish values, and awareness, a profound awareness of Jewish history, the history of annihilation, expulsion, discrimination, violence. But also the Jewish values of universality, respect for all human life, equality before the law, sense of realism, sense that you can change your life by what you do, and the choices that you make. These are all core Jewish values. And I guess I always have found the three part expression by Rabbi Hillel to sum up the approach I've always taken to human rights and most other things in life. He said, If I'm not for myself, who will be, and if I'm only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? So that's a sense of Jewish particularism, Jewish universalism, and realism, as well.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

You went to Wellesley, class of 1968, it's an all-women's college. Was there a strong Jewish presence on campus there at a time? And did that part of your identity even play a role in your college experience? 

Felice Gaer : 

Well, I left, as I said, a town that had a fairly sizable Jewish population. And I went to Wellesley and I felt like I was in another world. And so even as long ago as 1964-65, that era, I actually reached out to Hillel and participated in very minor activities that took place, usually a Friday night dinner, or something like that. But it really didn't play a role except by making me recognize that I was a member of a very small minority.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Here on this podcast, we've talked a lot about the movement to free Soviet Jewry. As you pursued graduate work at Columbia, and also during your undergrad days at Wellesley, were you involved in that movement at all?

Felice Gaer:  

Well, I had great interest in Russian studies, and in my years at Wellesley, the Soviet Union movement was at a very nascent stage. And I remember arguments with the Soviet Ambassador coming to the campus and our specialist on Russian history, arguing about whether this concern about the treatment of Soviet Jews was a valid concern. 

The professor, who happened to have been Jewish, by the way, argued that Jews in the Soviet Union were treated badly, but so was everybody else in the Soviet Union. And it really wasn't something that one needed to focus on especially. As I left Wellesley and went to Columbia, where I studied political science and was at the Russian Institute, now the Harriman Institute, I found that the treatment of Soviet Jews was different in many ways, and the capacity to do something about it was serious. 

We knew people who had relatives, we knew people who wanted to leave. The whole Soviet Union movement was focused around the desire to leave the country–not to change it–that was an explicit decision of Jewish leaders around the world, and in the Soviet Union itself. And so the desire to leave was something you could realize, document the cases, bring the names forward, and engage American officials in a way that the Jewish community had never done before with cases and examples demanding that every place you went, every negotiation that took place, was accompanied by lists of names and cases, whose plight will be brought to the attention of the authorities. And that really mobilized people, including people like me. 

I also worked to focus on the agenda of internal change in the Soviet Union. And that meant also looking at other human rights issues. Why and how freedom of religion or belief was suppressed in this militantly atheist state, why and how freedom of expression, freedom of association, and just about every other right, was really severely limited. And what the international standards were at that time. After I left Columbia, that was around the time that the famous manifesto from Andrei Sakharov, the world famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, was made public. It was around the time that other kinds of dissident materials were becoming better known about life inside the Soviet Union post-Khrushchev.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So you left Colombia with a master's degree, the Cold War ends, and you take a job at the Ford Foundation that has you traveling all around Eastern Europe, looking to end human rights abuses, assessing the challenges that face that region. I want to ask you about the treatment of women, and what you witnessed about the mistreatment of women in these regions. And does that tend to be a common denominator around the world when you assess human rights abuses?

Felice Gaer:  

Well, there's no question that the treatment of women is different than the treatment of men. And it's true all over the world. But when I traveled in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the height of those years, height of the Cold War, and so forth, the issues of women's rights actually weren't one of the top issues on the agenda because the Soviet Union and East European countries appeared to be doing more for women than the Western countries. 

They had them in governance. They had them in the parliament. They purported to support equality for women. It took some years for Soviet feminists, dissidents, to find a voice and to begin to point out all the ways in which they were treated in the same condescending, patriarchal style as elsewhere. But in those years, that was not a big issue in the air. 

It was unusual for me, a 20-something year old woman from the United States to be traveling around Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, meeting with high officials and others, and on behalf of the Ford Foundation, trying to develop programming that would involve people to people contacts, that would involve developing programs where there was common expertise, like management training, and things of that sort. And I was really an odd, odd duck in that situation, and I felt it.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

I mentioned in my introduction, the Beijing World Conference on Women, can you reflect a little on what had a lasting impact there?

Felice Gaer:  

Well, the Beijing World Conference on Women was the largest, and remains the largest conference that the United Nations has ever organized. There were over 35,000 women there, about 17,000 at the intergovernmental conference. I was on the US delegation there. 

The simple statement that women's rights are human rights may seem hackneyed today. But when that was affirmed in the 1995 Beijing Outcome Document, it was a major political and conceptual breakthrough. It was largely focused on getting the UN to accept that the rights of women were actually international human rights and that they weren't something different. They weren't private, or outside the reach of investigators and human rights bodies. It was an inclusive statement, and it was a mind altering statement in the women's rights movement. 

It not only reaffirmed that women's rights are human rights, but it went further in addressing the problems facing women in the language of human rights. 

The earlier world conferences on women talked about equality, but they didn't identify violations of those rights. They didn't demand accountability of those rights. And they said absolutely nothing about creating mechanisms by which you could monitor, review, and hold people accountable, which is the rights paradigm. Beijing changed all that. It was a violations approach that was quite different from anything that existed before that.

Manya Brachear Pashman : 

Did anything get forgotten? We talked about what had a lasting impact, but what seems to have been forgotten or have fallen to the wayside?

Felice Gaer:  

Oh, I think it's just the opposite. I think the things that were in the Beijing conference have become Fuller and addressed in greater detail and are more commonly part of what goes on in the international discourse on women's rights and the status of women in public life. And certainly at the international level that's the case. 

I'll give you just one example, the Convention Against Torture. I mean, when I became a member of the committee, the 10 person committee, I was the only woman. The committee really had, in 11 years, it had maybe said, four or five things about the treatment of women. And the way that torture, ill treatment, inhuman, degrading treatment may affect women. 

It looked at the world through the eyes of male prisoners in detention. And it didn't look at the world through the eyes of women who suffer private violence, gender based violence, that is that the state looks away from and ignores and therefore sanctions, and to a certain extent endorses. 

And it didn't identify the kinds of things that affect women, including women who are imprisoned, and why and where in many parts of the world. What one does in terms of education or dress or behavior may lead you into a situation where you're being abused, either in a prison or outside of prison. These are issues that are now part of the regular review, for example, at the Committee Against Torture, issues of of trafficking, issues of gender based violence, the Sharia law, the hudud punishments of whipping and stoning, are part of the concern of the committee, which they weren't before.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

In other words, having that woman's perspective, having your perspective on that committee was really important and really changed and broadened the discussion.

Felice Gaer:  

Absolutely. When I first joined the committee, the first session I was at, we had a review of China. And so I very politely asked a question about the violence and coercion associated with the population policy in China, as you know, forced abortions and things of that sort. This was a question that had come up before the women's convention, the CEDAW, and I thought it was only appropriate that it also come up in the Committee Against Torture. 

In our discussion afterwards, the very stern chairman of the committee, a former constable, said to me, ‘You know, this might be of interest to you, Ms. Gaer, but this has nothing to do with the mandate of this committee.’

I explained to him why it did, in some detail. And when I finished pointing out all of those elements–including the fact that the people carried out these practices on the basis of state policy–when I finished, there was a silence. 

And the most senior person in the room, who had been involved in these issues for decades, said, ‘I'm quite certain we can accommodate Ms. Gaer’s concerns in the conclusions,’ and they did. 

That's the kind of thing that happens when you look at issues from a different perspective and raise them.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

You talked about being an odd duck in your 20s, as a woman traveling around Eastern Europe, trying to address these challenges. I'm curious if that woman in her 20s would have been able to stand up to this committee like that, and give that thorough an explanation? Or did it take some years of experience, of witnessing these issues, perhaps being ignored? 

Felice Gaer: 

Well, I think as we go through life, you learn new things. And I learned new things along the way. I learned about the universal norms, I learned about how to apply them, how they had been applied, and how they hadn't been applied. And in that process, developed what I would say is a sharper way of looking at these issues. 

But the Bosnian conflict in particular, made the issue of gender based violence against women, especially in war, but not only in war, into a mainstream issue, and helped propel these issues, both inside the United Nations and outside, the awareness changed. 

I remember asking the International Red Cross representatives in Croatia, just across the border from Bosnia, if they had encountered any victims of gender based violence or rape, and they said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Did you ask them about these concerns?’ And they sort of looked down and looked embarrassed, looked at each other and looked back at me and said, ‘Oh.’ There were no words. There were no understandings of looking at the world this way.

And that has changed. That has changed dramatically today. I mean, if you look at the situation in Ukraine, the amount of gender based violence that has been documented is horrifying, just horrifying, but it's been documented.

Manya Brachear Pashman  

So is the world of human rights advocacy male-dominated, female-dominated, is it fairly balanced these days? And has that balance made the difference in what you're talking about?

Felice Gaer:  

You know, I wrote an article in 1988, the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, about why women's rights weren't being addressed. And one of the points I drew attention to was the fact that the heads of almost all the major organizations at the time were all male. And that it wasn't seen as a concern. A lot of that has changed. There's really a real variety of perspectives now that are brought to bear.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So we've talked a lot about the importance of [a] woman's perspective. Does a Jewish perspective matter as well?

Felice Gaer:  

Oh, on every issue on every issue and, you know, I worked a great deal on freedom of religion and belief, as an issue. That's a core issue of AJC, and it's a fundamental rights issue. And it struck me as surprising that with all the attention to freedom of religion, the concern about antisemitic acts was not being documented by mainstream human rights organizations. And it wasn't being documented by the UN experts on freedom of religion or belief either.

I drew this to the attention of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, who was recently ending his term as Special Rapporteur on Freedom of religion or belief. And he was really very struck by this. And he went, and he did a little bit of research. And he found out that since computerized records had been prepared at the United Nations, that there had been no attention, no attention at all, to cases of alleged antisemitic incidents. And he began a project to record the kinds of problems that existed and to identify what could be done about it. We helped him in the sense that we organized a couple of colloquia, we brought people from all over the world together to talk about the dimensions of the problem and the documentation that they did, and the proposals that they had for addressing it. And he, as you may recall, wrote a brilliant report in 2019, setting out the problems of global antisemitism. And he followed that up in 2022, before leaving his position with what he called an action plan for combating antisemitism, which has concrete specific suggestions for all countries around the world as to what they can do to help combat antisemitism and antisemitic acts, including and to some extent, starting with adopting the working definition on antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but also activities in in the area of education, training, training of law enforcement officials, documentation and public action. It’s a real contribution to the international discourse and to understanding that freedom of religion or belief belongs to everyone.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

And do you believe that Dr. Shaheed’s report is being absorbed, comprehended by those that need to hear it that need to understand it?

Felice Gaer  

I've been delighted to see the way that the European Union has engaged with Dr. Shaheed and his report has developed standards and expectations for all 27 member states, and that other countries and other parts of the world have done the same. So yeah, I do think they're engaging with it. I hope there'll be a lot more because the problem has only grown.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

On the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, JBI issued a report that sounded the alarm on the widespread violations committed against Ukrainians, you mentioned the amount of gender based violence Since that has taken place, and the other just catastrophic consequences of this war. Felice, you've been on the front row of Eastern European affairs and human rights advocacy in that region. From your perspective, and I know this is a big question: How did this war happen?

Felice Gaer:  

I'll just start by saying: it didn't start in 2022. And if you have to look at what happened, the events of 2014, to understand the events of 2022. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, or even during the breakup, there was a period where the 15th constituent Union republics of the Soviet Union developed a greater national awareness, really, and some of them had been independent as some of them hadn't been, but they developed a much greater awareness. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the 15 countries, including Russia, as one of the 15, became independent entities. And aside from having more members in the United Nations and the Council of Europe and places like that, it led to much more robust activity, in terms of respecting human rights and other areas of endeavor in each of those countries. 

The situation in Russia, with a head of state who has been there, with one exception, a couple of years, for 20 years, has seen an angry desire to reestablish an empire. That's the only thing you can say really about it. 

If they can't dominate by having a pro-Russian group in charge in the country, then there have been invasions, there have been Russian forces, Russia-aligned forces sent to the different countries. So whether it's Georgia, or Moldova, or Ukraine, we've seen this pattern. 

And unfortunately, what happened in 2022, is the most egregious and I would say, blatant such example. In 2014, the Russians argued that it was local Russian speaking, little green men who were conducting hostilities in these places, or it was local people who wanted to realign with Russia, who were demanding changes, and so forth. But in the 2022 events, Russia's forces invaded, wearing Russian insignia and making it quite clear that this was a matter of state policy that they were pursuing, and that they weren't going to give up. 

And it's led to the tragic developments that we've all seen inside the country, and the horrific violence, the terrible, widespread human rights violations. And in war, we know that human rights violations are usually the worst. 

And so the one good spot on the horizon: the degree to which these abuses have been documented, it's unprecedented to have so much documentation so early in a conflict like this, which someday may lead to redress and accountability for those who perpetrated it. But right now, in the middle of these events, it's just a horror.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

What other human rights situations do we need to be taking more seriously now? And where has there been significant progress?

Felice Gaer:  

Well, I'll talk about the problem spots if I may for a minute. Everyone points to North Korea as the situation without parallel, that's what a UN Commission of Inquiry said, without parallel in the world. The situation in Iran? Well, you just need to watch what's happened to the protesters, the women and others who have protested over 500 people in the streets have died because of this. 15,000 people imprisoned, and Iran's prisons are known for ill treatment and torture. 

The situation in Afghanistan is atrocious. The activities of the Taliban, which they were known for in the 1990s are being brought back. They are normalizing discrimination, they are engaged in probably the most hardline gender discrimination we've seen anywhere where women can't work outside the home, girls can't be educated, political participation is denied. The constitution has been thrown out. All kinds of things. The latest is women can't go to parks, they can't go to university, and they can't work for NGOs. This continues. It's a major crisis. 

Well, there are other countries, from Belarus, to Sudan to Uzbekistan, and China, that we could also talk about at great length, lots of problems in the world, and not enough effort to expose them, address them and try to ameliorate them.

Manya Brachear Pashman  

So what do we do about that? What can our listeners do about that, when we hear this kind of grim report?

Felice Gaer:  

Work harder. Pay attention when you hear about rights issues. Support rights organizations. Take up cases. Seek redress. Be concerned about the victims. All these things need to be done.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

I don't know how you maintain your composure and your cool, Felice, because you have faced so much in terms of challenges and push back. So thank you so much for all you have done for women, for the Jewish people, and for the world at large. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Felice Gaer:  

Thank you, Manya.

Rabbi Sandra Lawson, Reconstructing Judaism’s first director of racial diversity, equity and inclusion, joins us to talk about how you can support Jews of color. The social media influencer uses her platform both online and off as a queer Jew of color to drive hard conversations around racism, homophobia, and antisemitism. Rabbi Lawson, who feels a deep responsibility to serve American Jews, is full of Jewish pride amid a rise in anti-Jewish hate.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.

____

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Rabbi Sandra Lawson

____

Show Notes:

Check out:

• AJC’s State of Antisemtism in America Report 2022

• Take this quiz to test your knowledge of how antisemitism impacts America and its Jewish population

• The Power of Joy: Reflections on the Jewish Month of Adar by Rabbi Sandra Lawson 

Listen: 

• Our most recent podcast episode: The Jewish Experience in Ukraine Amidst Russia’s Invasion

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us.

One year after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, Vladislav Davidzon, European culture correspondent for Tablet Magazine, shares what he’s witnessed as a war correspondent on the frontlines, and predicts the future for his beloved country and the Jewish community he's proud to call home. 

We last spoke to Davidzon hours before the Russia-Ukraine war began, when he was on the ground in Kyiv – listen now to his dispatch a year on, as he joins us live from our New York studio.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.

___

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Vladislav Davidzon

____

Show Notes:

Read:

• What You Need to Know About the Wagner Group’s Role in Russia’s War Against Ukraine

• Preorder: Jewish-Ukrainian Relations and the Birth of a Political Nation 

Watch:

• Kiyv Jewish Forum:

• Ted Deutch, AJC CEO, Addresses Kyiv Jewish Forum 2023

• Panel: Ukraine as the Israel of Europe with Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, Managing Director of AJC Europe, Bernard Henry Levi, philosopher, and Josef Joffe, Stanford University

Listen: 

• Podcast episode with Vladislav Davidzon, recorded February 23, 2022:  Live from Kyiv: The Future of Ukraine and its Large Jewish Community

• Our most recent podcast episode: How Rising Antisemitism Impacts Jews on College Campuses

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us.

______

Transcript of Interview with Vladislav Davidzon:

Manya:

On February 24th, 2022, just hours before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Vladislav Davidzon, founding editor of The Odessa Review and contributor to Tablet Magazine, joined us live from Kiyv to share the mood on the ground as Russian forces were closing in. Now, one year later, Vladislav joins us again, this time in person, in our studio to share what he has seen, heard, and experienced this past year since the Russian invasion of his home.

Vladislav, it is so good to see you alive and well and in person.

Vladislav:

Thank you so much. This is so surreal. I'm so grateful, first of all, for your interest, for your affection, for your graciousness, for your respect. But I'm grateful to be here exactly one year later. It was the last thing that I did in the workday before the war began, before the old world ended. And I went off to dinner with my friend, now of blessed memory, Dan Rappaport, who was an American Latvian born Jewish financier. It was also the last time I saw him.

He died under very suspicious circumstances. He died falling out of a window in Washington, DC, or of a roof, on the seventh floor, three months later. I just have extremely intense emotions about that six hour period because…I was talking to my wife, my wife's French Ukrainian, she was back in Paris.

I said, if anything happens tonight, I'll call you in the morning. Things are gonna go down tonight. And then I did this podcast with you. And so, it's really amazing to be back with you a year later.

Manya:

Yes. I mean, I  am so grateful to see you because I really was very worried. I worried that that was going to be our last conversation, and that I would not get a chance to meet you in person after that.

And in addition to everything, you've been working on a book, The Birth of a Political Nation, which we'll talk a little bit more about shortly. But, first tell me, tell our listeners how you have managed to survive and tell the stories that need to be told.

Vladislav:

It's not pretty. I mean, it's just, it's not elegant.

I'm a Ukrainian Russian Jew, so I kind of went into primordial, bestial mode, like Russian Ukrainian, Jewish survival mode, like my grandfathers and great-grandfathers during World War II. I just, you know, something clicked and your your training and your skillset and your deep cultural characteristics click in and you just go full on Hemingway, Lord Byron, and then you just go to war. Like a lot of other people, I went to war. I burned out after about six months and I needed some months off.

I was just rnning around like a madman, reporting, getting my own relatives out, helping whatever way I could, helping my family close down their businesses, helping run guns, going on t radio, you know, just collecting money, going to the front, just, going off on an adrenaline rush. And it's admixture of rage, testosterone.

Adrenaline, survival, rage,  all the cocktail of horrific, let's say toxic masculine character [laughs]. I know you can't, I I know. I'm ironic about that. I live in Eastern Europe, so you can, you can still make fun of all that stuff in Eastern Europe. I don't know if you can here, but, you know, jokes aside. I just went into this deeply primordial state of Ukrainian Russian civilizational structures of brutal survival and fighting.

And that went on for about six months, at which point I just crashed and collapsed and needed some off time.

Manya:

How much of your journalistic instincts also fueled your push on, your forging ahead and surviving just to tell the story, or was it more a familial connection?

Vladislav:

I have skin in the game. I'm from there. I mean, my ancestors are from there, two of my grandparents were born there. My family lived there for hundreds of years. I'm married to a Ukrainian Jewish girl. I have family there. My friends are, these are my people. I'm deeply tribal.

Obviously you take the opportunity as a journalist reporting on a country for 10 years and almost no one cares about it. And you're an expert on it. You know all the politicians and you know all the, all the stories and you know all the storylines. And you, you have contacts everywhere.

You know, of a country like the back of your hand. And suddenly it becomes the focal point of the world's attention and it becomes the greatest story in the entire world. And of course, you're prepared in a way that all, all these other people who paratroop in are not prepared, and you have to make the best of it.

And you have to tell stories from people who wouldn't otherwise have access to the media. And you have to explain, there's so much bad stuff in terms of quality of reporting coming out of Ukraine because so many amateurs went in. In any given situation, there are lots of people who come to a war zone.

You know, in wars, people, they make their bones, they become rich, they become famous, they get good looking lovers. Everyone gets paid in the currency that they want. Right? But this is my country. I've been at this for 10, 12 years. I don't begrudge anyone coming to want to tell the story.

Some people are opportunists in life and some people are extraordinarily generous and gracious. And it almost doesn't matter what people's motivations are. I don't care about why you came here. I care about the quality of the work. And a lot of the work was pretty bad because people didn't have local political context, didn't have language skills.

And a lot of that reporting was so-so. I made the most of it, being an area expert. And also being a local, I did what I had to do. I wish I'd done more. I wish I went 500% as opposed to 250%. But everyone has their limits.

Manya:

What got lost? With the poor reporting, what do you think with the stories that you captured, or what do you wish you had captured, giving that additional 250%?

Vladislav:

Yeah. It's a great question. I wish that I had known now what I know a year ago, but that's life in general. About where the battles would be and what kinds of people and what kinds of frontline pounds would have particular problems getting out to particular places.

For example, I know now a lot more about the evacuation of certain ethnic communities. The Gagauz, the Greeks. Ukraine is full of different kinds of people. It's a mosaic. I know now a lot about the way that things happened in March and April. Particular communities went in to help their own people.

Which is great. It's fine. a lot of very interesting characters wound up in different places. Much of Ukrainian intelligentsia, they wound up outside the country. A lot stayed, but a lot did wind up in different places like Berlin and the Baltics. Uh, amazing stories from, uh, the volunteers like the Chechens and the Georgians and the Lithuanians and the Belarus who came to fight for Ukraine.

Just, you know, I wish I'd kept up with the guys that I was drinking with the night before. I was drinking with like six officers the night before, and two of 'em are alive. Mm or three alive now. I was with the head of a Georgian Legion two nights before the war. Hang out with some American CIA guys and people from the guys from the American, actually a couple of girls, also hardcore American girls from the US Army who were operatives and people at our embassy in Kyiv who didn't get pulled out. These are our hardcore people who after the embassy left, told whoever wanted to stay on the ground to stay. I met some very interesting people. I wish I'd kept up with them. I don't, I don't know what happened with them or what, what their war experiences were like. So, you know. Yeah. Life is full of regrets.

Manya:

You talked a little bit about the ethnic communities coming in to save people and to get them out. How did the Jewish communities efforts to save Ukrainian Jews compare to those efforts? Did you keep tabs on that? Movement as well.

Vladislav:

Oh, yeah. Oh, in fact, I worked on that actually,  to certainly to a smaller extent than other people or whatever. I certainly helped whatever I could. It was such a mad scramble and it was so chaotic in the beginning of a war.

The first two weeks I would be getting calls from all over the world. They would call me and they would say this and this and this person, I know this person needs to get out. There were signal groups of volunteers, exfiltration organizations, special services people, my people in the Ukrainian Jewish community who were all doing different things to get Jews out.

Tens of thousands of people were on these lists. And I would figure out to the extent possible with about 50 people, 40 to 50 people,  what their risk level was. And I would give 'em advice. I have a gay friend, one of my wife's business partners, who was the head of a major television station.

And he would, he would've been on the Kill list because he was in part of intelligentsia and he was gay. I gave him particular advice on where to go.  I said, go to this village–and men aren't allowed of the country, and he wasn't the kind of guy who was gonna fight.

I said, go to a particular place. I told him, go to this village and sit here and don't go anywhere for two months. And he did this.

Other people needed to be gotten out. Holocaust survivors, especially. We have horrific incidents of people who survived Stalin's war and Hitler's war and who died of heart attacks under their beds, hiding from Russian missiles.

There were many stories of Holocaust survivors. Typically, it's old women by this point. It's not it's not gentleman. Women do live longer. Older women in their nineties expiring in a bunker, in an underground metro station or under their bed hiding from missiles, you know. Horrific stories. but people who survived Auschwitz did get killed by the missiles. We have stories like that.

And so to continue, there were many people working on getting elderly Jews out. Getting Jewish women out. Jewish kids out. There were, in fact, there were people working on getting all sorts of people out.

And that's still going on. And I met a Jewish member of the Ukrainian parliament last night who did this for two months. Uh, I saw, I saw my acquaintance who I hadn't seen in two years. Yeah. There are a lot of people I haven't seen in a year, obviously, for the obvious reasons. I saw an acquaintance who's an Israeli educated Ukrainian member of parliament. He spent the first three months just evacuating Jews, driving convoys of special forces guys, former Mossad guys, special operatives into cities like Mariupol, Chernigev to get Jews out.

Literally driving through minefields at a certain point with buses full of elderly Jews. And he told me last night that they got 26,000 Jews out. Just in his organization, which was Special Forces guys, Ukrainian police volunteers, Ukrainian Jewish guys who came back from Israel with IDF training, a motley collection of people. But they set up an organization and they went in, and they got people out.

Manya:

That's amazing. So I know before, when we spoke before you were splitting your time between Ukraine  and France, because your wife is of French descent as well.

For your most recent piece for Tablet, the most recent one that I've read, you were in Tel Aviv doing an interview. So where have you spent most of your time, in this past year?

Vladislav:

In my head.

Manya:

Yeah. Understandable.

Vladislav:

I’ve spent, if I had to count up the dates of my passport, 40 to 50% of my time in Ukraine, over the last, less than the last three months for various family reasons and, you know, working on my book

But half the time in Ukraine, in and out. I've been all over, spent a lot of time on the front. That was intense. That was really intense.

Manya:

You mean as a war correspondent on the front lines?

Vladislav:

Yeah,I was in Sievierodonetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Lysychansk, Mykolaiv. I was all over the front. I was with the commanding general of the Southern front in a car, driving back from the battle of  Kherson, and we got stripped by a Russian sniper three times and they hit our car. They just missed by like a couple of centimeters, side of a thing. And the guy actually usually drove around in an armored Hummer. But the armored Hummer was actually in the shop getting repaired that day and was the one day he had an unarmored Hummer.

And we were just in an unarmed car, in an unarmed command car, black Mercedes, leaving the war zone a couple of kilometers out, just a Russian reconnaissance sniper advanced group just, you know, ambushed us. They were waiting for us to, maybe they were just taking pot shots at a command car, but they were waiting for us as we were leaving.

Took three shots at us and the car behind us with our bodyguards radioed, they're shooting, they're shooting. I heard three whooshes and three pings behind it. Ping, ping, ping. And we all thought in the car that it was just rocks popping off the the wheels. But actually it was a sniper.

So, you know, there, there was a lot of that. It was very intense.

Manya:

Did you wear flak jackets?

Vladislav:

Yeah, well, we took 'em off in the car. When, when you're on the front line, you wear everything, but when you get out of the front line, and you're just driving back, you don't wanna drive around with it, so you just take it off in the car. And that's exactly when they started shooting us. Yeah. They would've gotten us, if they'd been a little bit luckier.

Manya:

Well, you moderated a panel at the Kiev Jewish Forum last week. Our CEO, Ted Deutch and AJC Europe Director Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, were also there.

Your panel focused on the new Ukraine. What does that mean, the new Ukraine? What does that look like?

Vladislav:

Thank you for asking about that. Let me start with talking a little bit about that conference. Along with Mr. Boris Lozhkin, the head of Ukrainian Jewish Confederation. I put together with Tablet where I'm the European culture correspondent, wonderful, wonderful conference. It is the fourth annual Kiyv Jewish Forum.

It took place in Kiyv for the last three years, but today, obviously this year, it won't be for the obvious reason and we put together a conference so that people understand the issues at stake, understand the position of Ukrainian Jewish community, understand the myriad issues involved with this war.

Just a wonderful, wonderful conference that I really enjoyed working on with remarkable speakers. Running the gamut from Leon Panetta, Boris Johnson. Your own Mr. Deutch. Just wonderful, wonderful speakers. And, six really great panels, and 20 wonderful one-on-one interviews with really interesting people.

So please go to the website of the Kiev Jewish Forum or Tablet Magazine and/or YouTube, and you'll find some really interesting content, some really interesting conversations, dialogues about the state of war, the state of Ukrainian Jewry, the state of Ukrainian political identity and the new Ukraine.

Manya:

I should tell our listeners, we'll put a link to the Kiyv Jewish Forum in our show notes so that they can easily access it. But yeah, if you don't mind just kinda elaborating a little bit about what, what does the new Ukraine look like?

Vladislav:

Well, we're gonna see what the new Ukraine will look like after the Russians are driven out of the country. It's gonna look completely different. The demographic changes, the political changes, the cultural changes will play out for decades and maybe a hundred years. These are historical events, which will have created traumatic changes to the country and to Eastern Europe, not just to Ukraine, but all of eastern Europe. From along the entire crescent, from Baltics to Poland, down to Hungary, through Moldova, Belarus. Everything will be changed by this war. This is a world historical situation that will have radically, radically changed everything.

And so Ukraine as a political nation has changed dramatically over the last seven years since the Maidan revolution. And it's obviously changed a lot since the start of the war a year ago. It's a completely different country in many ways.

Now, the seeds of that change were put into place by the political process of the last couple of years, by civil society, by a deep desire of the resilient Ukrainian political nation to change, to become better, to transform the country. But for the most part, the war is the thing that will change everything. And that means creating a new political nation. What that will look like at the end of this, that's hard to say.

A lot of these values are deeply embedded. I know it's unfashionably essentialist to talk about national character traits, but you know, again, I'm an Eastern European, so I can get away with a lot of things that people can't here. And there are such things as national character traits.

A nation is a collection of people who live together in a particular way and have particular ways of life and particular values. Different countries live in different ways and different nations, different people have different traits. Just like every person has a different trait and some are good and some are bad, and some are good in certain situations, bad in other situations.

And everyone has positive traits and negative traits. And you know, Ukraine like everyone else, every other nation has positive traits. Those traits of: loving freedom, being resilient, wanting to survive, coming together in the times of war are incredibly generative in the middle of this conflict.

One of the interesting things about this conflict that is shown, the way that all the different minorities in the country, and it's a country full of all kinds of people, all sorts of minorities. Not just Jews, but Greeks and Crimean Tatars, Muslims, Gagauz, Turkish speaking Christians in my own Odessa region, Poles on the Polish border, Lithuanian Belarus speakers on the Belarusian border.

People who are of German descent, though there are a lot fewer of them since World War II. All sorts of different people live in Ukraine and they've come together as a political nation in order to fight together, in a liberal and democratic way. Whereas Russia's also an empire of many different kinds of people, And it's also been brought together through autocratic violence and authoritarian, centralized control.

This is a war of minorities in many ways, and so a lot of the men dying from the Russian side are taken from the minority regions like Dagestan, Borodyanka, Chechnya. Disproportionate number of the men dying from the Russian side are also minorities, disproportionate to their share of the Russian Federation's population.

In some circles it's a well known fact, one of the military hospitals on the Russian side, at a certain point, the most popular name amongst wounded soldiers, was Mohammed. They were Muslim minorities, from Dagestan, other places. There are a lot of Muslims in Russia.

Manya:

That is truly a heartbreaking detail.

Vladislav:

And they're the ones that are the poorest and they're the ones who are being mobilized to fight Ukrainians.

Manya:

So you’re saying that literally the face of Ukraine, and the personality, the priorities of the nation have been changed by this war. Ukrainians have become, what, more patriotic, more militant? Militant sounds … I’m afraid that has a bad connotation.

Vladislav:

No, militant's great. You know, Marshall virtues. . . that's good. Militant is, you know, that's an aggressive word.

Marshall virtues is a good word. Surviving virtues. It's amazing the way Ukrainian flags have encapsulated a kind of patriotism in the western world, which was in many ways unthinkable for large swaths of the advanced population. I mean, you see people who would never in a million years wave an American or British or French flag in Paris, London, and New York and Washington, wave around Ukrainian flags.

Patriotism, nationalism have very bad connotations now in our decadent post-industrial West, and, Ukrainians have somehow threaded that needle of standing up for remarkable values, for our civilization, for our security alliances after the war, for the democratic world order that we, that we as Americans and Western Europeans have brought large swaths of the world, while also not becoming really unpleasantly, jingoistic. While not going into,  racism for the most part, while not going into, for the most part into unnecessary prejudices.

They fight and they have the best of traditional conservative values, but they're also quite liberal in a way that no one else in eastern Europe is. It's very attractive.

Manya:

They really are unified for one cause. 

You mentioned being shot at on the front lines of this war. This war has not only changed the nation, it has changed you. You’ve become a war correspondent in addition to the arts and culture correspondent you've been for so many years. And you’ve continued to report on the arts throughout this horrific year. 

How has this war shaped Ukrainian artists, its literary community, its performing arts, sports?  

Vladislav:

First of all, unlike in the west, in, in Eastern Europe. I mean, these are broad statements, but for the most part, in advanced western democracies, the ruling classes have developed different lifestyles and value systems from much of the population.

We're not gonna get into why that is the case, but I, as a insider-outsider, I see that. It’s not the case in Eastern Europe yet, and certainly not in Ukraine. The people who rule the country and are its elites, they are the same culturally, identity wise as the people that they rule over.

So the entire, let's say ruling elite and intelligentsia, artistic class. They have kids or sons or husbands or nephews at war. If we went to war now in America, much of the urban population would not have a relative who died. If a hundred thousand Americans died right now would not be, you would probably not know 10 people who died, or 15 people who died.

Manya:

It's not the same class system.

Vladislav:

Correct. America and the western world, let's say western European world from Canada down to the old, let's say Soviet borders or Polish borders, they have developed a class system, a caste system that we don't have.

You could be a billionaire, and still hang out with your best friend from high school who was a worker or a bus driver. That doesn't happen here so often, for various reasons. And so a larger proportion of the intelligentsia and the artistic classes went to fight than you would expect.

I know so many writers and artists and painters, filmmakers who have gone off to fight. A lot, in fact, I'd say swabs of the artist elite went off to fight. And that's very different from here. And this will shape the arts when they come back. Already you have some really remarkable, interesting things happening in, in painting. Not cinema because cinema's expensive and they're not really making movies in the middle of a war. Certain minor exceptions.

There's going to be a lot, a lot of influence on the arts for a very long time. A lot of very interesting art will come out of it and the intelligentsia will be strengthened in some ways, but the country's losing some of its best people. Some of its very, very, very best people across the professions are being killed.

You know, dozens of athletes who would've been competing next year in the ‘24 Olympics in Paris are dead on the front lines. Every week I open up my Twitter on my Facebook or my social media and I see another athlete, you know, pro skater or a skier or  Cross Country runner or someone who is this brilliant 19, 20 year old athlete who's supposed to compete next year, has just been killed outside of Bakhmut or just been killed outside of Kherson or just been killed outside of Sloviansk or something like this.

You read continuously and there's a picture of this beautiful, lovely, young person. who will never compete next year for a gold medal at the Olympics. You see continuously people with economics degrees, people who went to art school being killed at the front. So just as the army, as the Ukrainian army has lost a lot of its best men, a lot of its most experienced soldiers have been killed recently in Bakhmut and in other places, the intelligentsia is taking a wide scale hit.

Imagine like 20-30% of America's writers, artists, people who went to art school getting killed at the front or something like that. I don't have statistics, but 10 to 15, 20%.

Can you imagine that? What would that do to the society over the long term, If some of its best writers, people who won Pulitzer prizes, people who won national book awards wound up going to the army and getting killed?

Manya:

When this war ends…

Vladislav:

When we win, when we win.

Manya:

When you win, will there be a Ukrainian Jewish community like there was before? What do you see as the future of the Ukrainian Jewish community and how do you think the trauma of this conflict will impact that community?

Vladislav:

There will be a Jewish Ukrainian community, whether there will be a Russian Jewish community remains to be seen. There will be survivors of the community. A lot of people will go back, we'll rebuild. We will get our demographics back. A lot of people in Ukraine will have already stayed where they're going.

There are already a lot of people who have left and after a year their kids got into a school somewhere in the Czech Republic or France or Germany. They're not coming back. There will be a lot of people who will have roots somewhere else.

Within the community, certain cities, Jewish life will die out.

What was left of the Lugansk, Donetsk Jewish communities is gone now. What was left of Donetsk Jewry is gone. There were a lot of Jews in Mariupol, thousands of Jews. Many of them who survived World War II. Certainly the Mariupol Jewish community has no future. None. Absolutely none. For the obvious reasons. The demographics of the Jewish communities have all changed and we're gonna see over time how all this plays out and sorts itself out.

A lot of Jews from Odessa went into Moldova and they will come back. A lot of Jews from Dnipro have been displaced, although the city has not been touched. And they had the biggest Jewish community of like 65-70,000 Jews in Dnipro, and the wealthiest Jewish community and the best financed, the most synagogues.

I actually went, before the battle of Sievierodonetsk, I went and I asked the rabbi of Dnipro for his blessing, cause I knew it was going to be a bloodbath. I didn't really want to die, so, you know, I'll try anything once. and it worked. Proofs in the pudding. I'm still here. He’s done tremendous work in order to help Jewish communities there.

One of the interesting parts of this is that little Jewish communities that had been ethnically cleansed by the Holocaust, which were on their way to dying, which did not have enough Jews in order to reproduce on a long timeline in Western Ukraine. Now because of the influx of Jews from other parts of the country, from the south especially and from the east, now have enough Jews in order for them to continue on.

I don't know if anyone knows the numbers and it's too early to say. Places like Lviv had a couple of hundred Jews. They now have several thousand. There are at least three or four minor towns that I can think of in Western Ukraine, which were historically Jewish towns. which did not after the Holocaust, after, Soviet and Post-soviet immigration have enough of a Jewish population in order to have a robust community a hundred years from now, they now do.

Now that is a mixed blessing. But the demographics of Jews inside Ukraine have changed tremendously. Just that the demographics of everything in Ukraine has changed tremendously when 40% of a population have moved from one place to another. 8 million refugees, something like 25- 40% of the country are IDPs.

Lots of Jews from my part of Ukraine, from the South, have moved to West Ukraine. And those communities, now they're temporary, but nothing is permanent as a temporary solution, as the saying goes. I think Chernowitz, which never had the opportunity, I really love their Jewish community and they're great. And the rabbi and the head of community is a wonderful man.

It did not seem to me, the three or four times that I'd visited before the war, Chernowitz, where my family's from, that this is a city that has enough Jews or Jewish institutional life to continue in 50 years. It does now. Is that a good thing, I don't know. That's a different question, but it's certainly changed some things, for those cities.

Manya:

Vladislav, thank you. Thank you for your moving reports and for joining us here in the studio. It has been such a privilege to speak with you. Please stay safe.

Vladislav:

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. It's really great to check in with you again one year after the last time we spoke. 

Unpack the findings from AJC's State of Antisemitism in America 2022 report on young U.S. Jews, including those on college campuses, with the Senior Director of AJC’s Alexander Young Leadership Department, Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman. We also hear from Northwestern University student Lily Cohen, whose efforts to encourage constructive dialogue following a disturbing antisemitic encounter on her college campus has sparked hostility, friendship, and above all, a renewed sense of Jewish pride.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.

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Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman and Lily Cohen

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Show Notes:

Read:

• AJC’s State of Antisemtism in America Report 2022

• Take this quiz to test your knowledge of how antisemitism impacts America and its Jewish population

• Cohen: I am more proud of my Jewish identity than anyone can ever hate me for it

Listen: 

• Our most recent podcast episode: Breaking Down the Headlines from Israel: From Secretary Blinken’s Visit, to Terror Attacks, Protests, and More

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us.

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Transcript of Interview with Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman and Lily Cohen

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

This week, AJC released its State of Antisemitism in America 2022 report, its fourth annual look at the perceptions of antisemitism among American Jews and the American public. So much has happened since AJC launched the annual survey in 2019, one year after the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and so much has been learned, given the rise of antisemitism and anti-Zionism on college campuses. This year survey included new questions directed toward current and recent college students and their parents. Here to discuss the findings of those questions and more is an occasional guest host of this podcast, Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman. AJC 's Senior Director of the Alexander Young Leadership department. Meggie, thank you for bringing your expertise to that side of the mic.

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

Thanks for having me. Manya.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

And with Meggie to share her own personal experience with antisemitism on campus. This school here is Lily Cohen, a junior at Northwestern University, whose efforts to encourage constructive dialogue on her college campus has sparked both hostility and friendship. Lily, welcome to People of the Pod.

Lily Cohen: 

Thanks, Manya. Happy to be here.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So, Meggie, I want to start with you. If you could please share with our listeners why this annual report is important, and what some of the more significant findings were?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

Thanks, Manya. So part of what makes our survey really unique is we're both looking at how antisemitism affects the lives, of the actions of American Jews, but we also compare that to how the American general public perceives that threat. And over the last year, it really feels like we're experiencing a surge in antisemitism that's particularly affecting young Jews within the campus space. But to actually gain a better understanding, we specifically surveyed those who are current students, or recent graduates, or parents of current students. And what we found supports those feelings, it really provides data, and in certain areas, unfortunately, a more dire picture.

Some of our topline findings are: more than a third of current or recent Jewish college students encountered challenges on campus related to their Jewish identity. And what we found is that growing antisemitism is affecting the behaviors and decisions of young Jews today, both in person and online. One out of every five Jewish college students reported feeling unsafe on their university campus because of their Jewish identity. A staggering 85% of U.S. Jews between the ages of 18 to 29 have seen or were themselves targets of antisemitism online.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

85%, wow, that is staggering. How much of that had to do with students' support for the existence of Israel? Or was that a separate finding?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

I would say this is intrinsically linked to what we will hear from Lily, is that there's pushback students experienced when publicly supporting Israel, 14% say they have felt or have been excluded from a campus event or group because of assumed or actual connection to Israel. So these findings really speak to that level of fear and intimidation that we can't allow to become normalized on the college campus.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Of course, AJC has been doing this report for four years, the questions for college students, about the college experience were new this year. But what are some of the constants that keep emerging each year that AJC does the report?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

The constant, which is an unfortunate one, to be frank, is that antisemitism remains a real problem in American society. We found that 41% of American Jews reported the status of Jews being less secure than a year ago. That's 10 percentage points higher than 2021. That's a big number, a big jump. One in five feel unsafe when attending Jewish institutions with which they're affiliated. You mentioned what changed. And I think a reality is that the growing rate and feelings of antisemitism are creating a broader awareness within the American ecosystem. So over nine in 10 U.S. adults say that antisemitism is a problem for everyone and affects society as a whole. Fewer adults this year have discussed never hearing or knowing the term antisemitism, that went down from 16% in 2021, to nine this year.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Meggie, in January of last year, someone entered a synagogue and Colleyville, Texas, and there was a hostage situation. Many people heard about this in the news, how did that affect people's anxieties when responding to this survey?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

Yeah, so that's something we asked about specifically. And the reality there is that it both increased concern around antisemitism within the Jewish community, while simultaneously raising awareness in broader society. And for those who might not remember all the details of that really harrowing experience, someone came into Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, a group was doing Shabbat services like so many of us do. He then took Rabbi Cytron-Walker and other Jewish worshipers hostage for 11 hours. And that motive, which is a really important part for us to understand here, was the release of someone named Aafia Siddiqui, herself in prison on terror charges, because he thought that due to antisemitic beliefs in Jewish control, that Jews would be able to make her release possible. And that false notion that Jews control media, banks, governments, that antisemitic conspiracy theory showcases how theories like that move into tangible threat. And of course, the heroism of Rabbi Cytron-Walker ultimately allowed for his escape and the escape of his fellow Jews inside.

But that was a harrowing experience for Jews in this country and something where it felt like it could have been any of us. And our data shows that. So for American Jews who had heard of Colleyville, were aware of it, the majority said it made them feel less safe today. One in five American Jewish respondents feel unsafe attending Jewish institutions that they are affiliated with, because of fears of antisemitism. I personally think about that when I drop my daughter off at Jewish daycare. And I know I'm not alone in that. So the reality of the attack and growing attacks, just like in Colleyville, is that it's both adding very real fears to American Jewry, while simultaneously leading to increased awareness of antisemitism within the broader American public.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

As counterintuitive as it might seem, the finding that more people, more adults have heard the term and know the definition of antisemitism. That's actually a good thing when you can't take a stand against something or avoid it if you don't know what it is. And I think part of that awareness was because of Colleyville. But also because of the many other issues that were in the headlines. Kanye West's very high profile, antisemitic tirades, Kyrie Irving's endorsement of an antisemitic film, the FBI warning that was issued to New Jersey synagogues, including my own back in the fall. And in fact, this survey research was done during that time period, correct?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

Yes, exactly. And I think Manya, that kind of reality or that predicament, however you want to look at it is exactly right. So both of those incidents, like you mentioned, both with Kanye and with Kyrie Irving happened while our survey was in the field. So, you know, my presumption is that they really did raise awareness on these issues. And that's reflected in our data.

We also saw that after, we saw that with celebrities speaking out, we saw it with the NBA's response to Kyrie. What also can't be overlooked with Kanye specifically and I'll also say particularly before he had his kind of like broader cultural downfall, there today or something like 15 million Jews here across the world. Kanye, before his Twitter was banned had 30 million followers. His reach can't be stated enough, especially when we have cultural figures, who are peddling deeply antisemitic tropes. And I think our data shows that. Our data shows that that bleeds over into the broader American public.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

I want to talk a little bit about the statistics, the findings, about how young people seemed especially affected by these fears by these anxieties, and actually experienced more of the hate out there, than adults our age, older than 30, that is, right?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

So that was a feeling that many of us had going into the survey, but it was just that: a feeling. And one of the profound things about this year's survey is that we were able to understand empirically, not just anecdotally, that American Jews are experiencing antisemitism differently than other generations, often at a higher rate. So among young Jews 18 to 29, who experienced antisemitism online, one in four said that that online encounter made them feel physically threatened. That's compared to only 14% in the over 30 set. We found that 85% of American Jews are experienced antisemitism online or on social media, as compared to only 64% of Jews who are in that over 30 set.

And I think what's also really important here is that these anxieties are leading to behavioral changes within Jewish college students. And these are often changes that they feel forced to make. So one in five current or recent students avoided wearing items that could identify them as Jewish. 18% felt uncomfortable or unsafe at a campus event because they were Jewish. And I think students feel singled out for who they are and what they believe in. That's not okay.

More colleges and universities need to acknowledge and ensure that Jewish students feel safe and are protected. And also, our data shows that young students are noticing they feel unseen, almost six and 10 of Jewish young adults think antisemitism is taken less seriously than other forms of hate. And I hope that's a number that people hold on to because if we're creating and have a generation who feel unseen, clearly more work needs to be done by broader society.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Lily, this is probably a good time to bring you in since we're talking about your peers. You are a junior at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, my old stomping ground. You started attending there nearly three years ago, what have you witnessed since you arrived?

Lily Cohen: 

Something that I have noticed frequently over the past about two and a half years was this sense on campus, similar to what Meggie was talking about, of Jewish students feeling a little bit concerned sometimes about sharing all of the parts of their Jewish identity specifically when it came to talking about Israel. And the other side of this was seeing a lot of sort of activist students on campus, very active and vocally anti-Israel, and sort of creating a climate that made it uncomfortable for Jewish students to be loudly and proudly in support of Israel. And the result of that, that I noticed among a lot of my friends, was sort of shying away from maybe posting when they were traveling to Israel, or posting in support of Israel.

And a lot of this was on social media. But as things have moved back in person on campus, as we've come out of the pandemic, I think a lot of both the anti-Israel activism and the fears about displaying our pride in our Judaism and in supporting the State of Israel, have also sort of turned more in person. And so in a lot of senses, this has looked like anti-Israel students on campus, adorning walls and different areas of campus with phrases like 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,' calling Israel an apartheid state, calling it a genocidal state, and equating Zionists of all forms- American Zionists, and Israelis in the IDF and the Israeli government- sort of as one. And so I think that has likely contributed to a lot of the statistics that Meggie was mentioning, just because all of this combined is making, at least in my case of what I've noticed here, it's making at least my college campus feel like a more hostile environment for Jewish students.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So when you first arrived, almost three years ago, were you expecting that level of hostility? And did you feel compelled to speak up, or not so much?

Lily Cohen: 

Quite honestly, coming in, I didn't expect this as much because I'd spoken to a lot of Jewish students before getting to campus. And I had asked them what their experiences had been like. And if they had seen or witnessed or experienced antisemitism on campus, and very few of them really had anything to share. Some of them mentioned that sometimes Israel comes up in conversation, and some people agree with you, and some people don't. But it didn't really seem to be as pressing of an issue. But then early on my freshman year, in the fall, before I was even on campus, since we were at home, online, for COVID reasons, there was some action going on on campus. It ended up becoming this complicated thing. But the organization that had organized this action, which originally had nothing to do with Israel, with antisemitism, with anti-Zionism, but this organization came out sort of against all forms of hate. And in that list of types of hatred, included both antisemitism and Zionism, and sort of saying that both of those were very problematic and hateful ideologies. And this was kind of before I had a Northwestern community at all, I was still in my childhood bedroom in New Jersey, kind of watching this unfold on social media, and especially seeing this happen for the first time before I had a community and while I was not even on campus, I very much shied away from speaking up.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So what changed this year to break your silence?

Lily Cohen: 

I think it was sort of just by nature of this is my third year here, my second year now fully in person. So I feel pretty established in my communities, the organizations I'm a part of, especially the ones sort of outside of Hillel and the Jewish spaces, which were the ones that I was originally more hesitant to be publicly pro-Israel in. I'm a little bit less worried about the backlash, because I know that I have foundations in a lot of great communities on campus that know me, for me, know and like who I am. And that won't necessarily jump to judgments about me once I started talking about these things that are important to me.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

I want to talk about a very specific incident that happened to you in the fall. But before we do, Meggie, I want to ask you, if that's typical, what Lily is describing?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

Well, I don't know if I can necessarily divide it based on where you are within your undergraduate career. But I do think the one part that is very true, and I think similar is that it takes a lot of courage to speak up. And I think often we forget that we think exactly like you outlined, like you see something antisemitic, of course, you would speak up. But you know what, when you are in that instance, right, especially if you don't have people around you to provide that community and support. That's a really lonely place to be, right? And it takes a lot of courage to say, I'm going to raise my hand, I'm going to call this out, whether it comes with social kind of isolation in certain places, whether it comes with professional conflict, which you know, of course, we would hope does not, but you cited certain student groups, that's been the experience of some. And I think, I always say that all not in any way to discourage I hope I'm encouraging people to follow your bravery. But just to zoom out for a moment and say, our student leaders on campus who speak up for what's right, deserve a whole lot of credit, and really are showcasing a lot of courage.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So kudos to you, Lily, because you have been very outspoken this year at Northwestern, especially after a particular incident last fall, can you tell listeners about the rock, what it symbolizes on Northwestern campus, kind of what the customs are in terms of of respecting free speech and different messaging, and what happened.

Lily Cohen: 

So, that messaging that I'd mentioned earlier, that students have frequently been adorning around campus, such as ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ I saw coming up a lot more this past fall, the fall of 2022. We have a rock on campus that is sort of a symbol of free speech. So the idea is that student groups can paint the rock with whatever message it is they want to share. So whether that is to advertise an event or to spread awareness about an issue. And there are some unwritten rules and traditions about the rock, specifically that student groups, in order to paint the rock, have to camp out and guard the rock for 24 hours beforehand. In the fall, I had been part of a group of students that a couple of days before the midterm elections, we painted the rock, encouraging passers-by to vote with gun safety and reproductive rights in mind.

I believe it was five or six hours later, we saw that another group was painting over our message on the rock. And the language that our rock painting was being covered with was indeed this, 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,' and a lot of those other similar phrases. And that I think, was part of what really motivated me to write the piece that I wrote, just the fact that it was this time covering up something that I had worked to create, really hit me in a different way and motivated my decision to ultimately publish something very publicly talking about my Jewish identity and my connection to Israel and how that specific phrase that is around campus a lot is hurtful to me as a Jewish student.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

You did write a column for The Daily Northwestern, which is the campus newspaper there, and we'll put a link to that column in our show notes for listeners to read. And in that column. I thought it was quite lovely, the way that you framed it. It really talked about, it really comes across as a love letter to your Jewish traditions, your Jewish values, your Jewish upbringing, your Jewish pride that you hold quite dear. And you also did call on the university to condemn the slogan 'From the river to the sea' as an antisemitic slogan, and you explained why. I'm curious, Meggie do other activists and college students frame the response, or frame their explanations, their fight against antisemitism in a similar way to how Lily did it?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

Well, I think, you know, the responses to antisemitism certainly vary, first of all, for anyone who has not read it yet, Lily's piece is beautiful. And I think Manya, you put it just right, where it is really a love letter to what the beauty of Judaism on campus can be. The reason why I think that is so important. And it is an equation within antisemitism that we have to think about is, you know, at the start of our conversation, we were talking about a lot of statistics, a lot of things that can feel, that are indeed actually quite concerning for Jewish students today. What happened to Lily, which we'll get to after that, too, is quite concerning. But part of also, Jewish peoplehood, is that, yes, we need to acknowledge the real challenges that exists, if not, our silence is normalizing it.

But it's actually the most Jewish of ways to say there are challenges. But also we're going to talk about vibrancy, we're going to talk about the power of our community. We're going to talk about the beauty that Judaism is and we're not going to let other people, including people actually, who not only want to limit our voices, but actually want to be detrimental to the Jewish experience, we're not going to let them do that. And I think, Lily, in particular in what you wrote, you capture just that, of acknowledging that campus life for most Jews is indeed really vibrant and thriving. Again, we're not glossing over the real challenges that you know, doing that enters a space for normalization, normalizing antisemitism, which none of us are in any way giving any legitimacy to. But we do need to remember that there's so much joy and positivity within Jewish life on campus.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So yes, as Meggie alluded to, this is not the end of the story. I would love to say that framing it in that context kind of kept the opposing voices and the naysayers from lashing out. But it didn't. Let's tell listeners what happened, Lily.

Lily Cohen:

So pretty immediately after I published my op-ed, as I had sort of expected, there was this first wave of social media backlash. In these tweets, I was called a terrorist, a colonizer, I was called violent, I was called a white supremacist, I was called an array of expletives. And this immediate backlash was really just students who don't know me, jumping to assumptions about me, making judgments about my character, and taking attacks at my character, solely for this one part of my piece, which was that I found this phrase 'from the river to the sea,' to be problematic, and to be sort of at odds with my Jewish identity and my comfort as a Jewish student on campus. And while I had hoped that sort of cushioning this within this piece, really about how much I love being Jewish, and how much I love being able to share that on campus, unfortunately, that still wasn't enough to avoid all of the negative response.

After the social media had started dying down a little bit, and the weekend was coming. And I was feeling like by Monday, most people would have forgotten about this, especially those who had a problem with it, and we would move on. Unfortunately, that was not the case. And early Monday morning, I received a call from one of my friends that there had been a banner put up on the main street of our campus in front of the library that was made up of about 40 copies of my article, and painted over all of those copies was the phrase 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,' in red paint. It wasn't just a banner sort of in response to my op-ed, but it was directly targeted at me and my words, because they put it on top of my name and my words.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Not everyone who disagreed handled it this way, right. The daily Northwestern also published a column by a senior by the name of Hamza Mahmood, who disagreed with always condemning that slogan from the river to the sea. Can you talk a little bit about your interaction with him and how it went beyond the counter column?

Lily Cohen: 

Part of what I was trying to do with publishing my piece was find the people willing to have conversations on campus. And because while there is sort of this echo chamber of the very vocally anti-Israel voices, especially on Twitter and putting up these messages around campus, I know that there are students here that are willing to engage, but I just haven't been able to find them. And it really was a very respectful piece. The place where it sort of diverged a little bit, not from respect, but just from what I had written, was that he had a different understanding of the phrase 'from the river to the sea' and had a different opinion about what activists were intending when they were putting it up around campus.

And I read his piece and wanted to reach out, we grabbed coffee a couple of days later, and we very quickly bonded. Before we even got to talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, about activism on campus, about literally anything related, we just got to know each other as people. He's a Muslim student, I'm obviously a Jewish student, one of the first conversations we had was about how we both don't eat pork. And we bonded over that. And when we did get to the topic of conversation that had brought us together in the first place, and we started talking about our different understandings of what that phrase means, though I didn't agree with him, and though he didn't agree with me, we asked each other questions, we really tried to understand each other's perspectives. And so I walked away from that coffee, not feeling frustrated that I hadn't changed his mind, but feeling grateful that I had had a conversation with someone that was both willing to listen, and willing to share.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

I'm curious, did he have thoughts on that banner? Did he have thoughts on the response, including that banner?

Lily Cohen: 

He did think that it was completely wrong. He thought it was bullying. He thought it was absolutely terrible that anyone would do that. But he wasn't completely convinced that it was an act of antisemitism, more than just an act of bullying and disrespect.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So Meggie, I'm curious, in terms of allies on campus, do college students share similar stories of having difficulty finding the allies on campus? And what advice do you have for students who are searching for those people who aren't necessarily going to agree, but are at least willing to listen?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

First of all, what a beautiful story, and Lily, I think, Manya to your question, it's, I think, indicative by the way of campus culture today, but I also think of our broader society, right? Where dialogue I mean, let's go back to campus. Campus is supposed to be the bastion of free exchange of ideas, right? That is often where most people come and experience people who are from different walks of life. But for that to work, you need to have an environment where that dialogue, where open exchange is accepted.

And I think what we're seeing on campus, and within the broader society, you mentioned, Twitter. Twitter's probably the most extreme of this, of that, even if the number of people are small, the loud voices dominate. And often those voices they want silo, right? They don't want to sit down, they don't want to actually have that exchange. And I think kind of the power in the calling for all of us, Jewish students included, on campus, and in broader society, is to find those allies, those friends, those partners, who do want to sit down and have actual conversation, even if-and this is a part I think we all need to get behind-even if you know they're not the ones who are on the quads screaming the loudest, making the biggest show, you know, finding people who will actually talk and build those bridges with you is really important.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Finally, Lily, I want to ask you about your winter break, during which you went to Israel, with other college students from across the country. And you felt a little differently about sharing pictures and posts from your trip than they did as a result of this incident, if I'm not mistaken. Can you share a little bit about that?

Lily Cohen: 

I think one of the best things, I guess, to come out of this situation is sort of the sense of relief that I'm not hiding this part of myself anymore. And so when I went on Birthright over winter break, I had no hesitations about sharing pictures on social media showing that I was in Israel, because I had kind of already ripped the band aid off on that one. I had already sort of announced to everyone at least at Northwestern that I support Israel's existence. Whereas both speaking with other students on my trip and with Northwestern students in years past, there has been a different sense of comfort with sharing that information about going to and spending time in Israel. For example, over the summer, there were a lot of Northwestern students in Israel on a variety of different programs or just traveling there with friends. And going back to Twitter, there were tweets about people making lists of all of the Northwestern students that were partying in Israel.

I was on a trip with students from several different schools, and so I found that many of my friends on the trip who go to different schools, were very hesitant to share with peers from their school, that they were in Israel, and that they were on Birthright, because they were worried about how it would be received and how they would be treated sort of in response to that. Whereas I think one thing that the whole experience I went through in the fall sort of helped with was, I didn't have to worry about that anymore. I just didn't feel like I needed to hide anymore, that I would spend time in Israel, that I was there, and that I was having a great time there.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Meggie, does that reflect what the survey found as well, when it comes to college students and young adults on social media? Are they also hesitant to post?

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

Yeah, well, what we found certainly within the campus space is that over one in 10, college students feel like they have been penalized, for doing just that for talking about their ties with Israel. I would say, Lily, I keep singing your praises, but they're deserved. I hope that more and more students can get to the place that you're at now, where no one should have to hide part of their identity. And again, acknowledging that in certain environments, it can be daunting, but there are kind of two lenses.

One just in principle, we shouldn't be in a position in 2023, where any Jewish student should feel like they have to hide who they are, because of repercussions. The second part is, I'm not denying that that happens in certain corners. But I think what's so important, and your story speaks to this, both through Hillel, both through the friendships you've made with some people because of it, find your community. Find your community so that you're not standing alone. And I think that's a really important step.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

And not just on social media. Don't just find the community on Twitter or on Facebook, find it on the ground.

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

In-person community. Exactly. Thanks, Manya.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Well, Meggie, Lily, thank you both for joining us to talk about the data for putting a voice to it. These are not just numbers and statistics. Lily, they are you and your peers and our people, our peers. So thank you both so much for having this conversation.

Meggie Wyschogrod Fredman: 

Thanks, Manya. It was a pleasure.

Lily Cohen: 

Thanks for having me.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Think you know the state of antisemitism in America? Take AJC's quiz and test your knowledge of how antisemitism impacts America and its Jewish population. Find it at ajc.org/antisemitismreport2022. We'll include a link in our show notes. And if you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with AJC Paris director Anne-Sophie Sebban-Bécache, about France's most recent upgrades to its plan for fighting antisemitism.

France just released its latest national plan for combating antisemitism. AJC Paris Director Anne-Sophie Sebban-Bécache joins us to break down this new initiative, share how French Jews are impacted by rising antisemitism, and give us a behind-the-scenes look at the role AJC played in helping craft the plan. In April 2015, AJC praised the French government for launching its first comprehensive plan to fight antisemitism and racism, and a year earlier for establishing the position of Inter-ministerial Delegate to Fight Racism and Antisemitism, reporting directly to the prime minister. 

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.

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Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Anne-Sophie Sebban-Bécache

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Show Notes:

Read:

• AJC Paris Welcomes Updated National Action Plan to Combat Racism, Antisemitism, and Discrimination in France

Listen: 

• Our most recent podcast episode: Breaking Down the Headlines from Israel: From Secretary Blinken’s Visit, to Terror Attacks, Protests, and More

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