On the Nose

A new Netflix-produced romcom by Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris tells the story of Ezra, a white Jew, and Amira, a Black Muslim, whose love affair is challenged by the patronizing, casual racism of Ezra’s progressive mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and the antisemitism and militant separatism of Amira’s Farrakhan-loving father (Eddie Murphy). Jewish commentators across the political spectrum have responded overwhelmingly negatively, accusing the film of everything from perpetuating harmful stereotypes of Jewish women, to trafficking in conspiracy theories, to inciting violence against Jews. Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, JC contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, critic and essayist Jasmine Sanders, and writer and Know Your Enemy co-host Sam Adler-Bell discuss these over-the-top critiques and explore why similarly cringe and stereotypical depictions of the Black family did not raise alarms among Black or Jewish critics.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” ARTICLES, BOOKS, AND FILMS MENTIONED:You People on Netflix“In Jonah Hill’s offensive new movie, a Black-Jewish love story comes with a side of conspiracy theories,” Mira Fox, The Forward“Netflix Hit 'You People' Branded 'Horribly Damaging' to Jewish People,” Ryan Smith, Newsweek“‘You People’ Normalizes Farrakhan’s Views On Jews,” Allison Josephs, Jew in the City“'You People' and the Tediousness of the Interracial Romcom,” Zeba Blay, JezebelWe Charge Genocide“Precious Angel,” Bob DylanSlave Play by Jeremy O. Harris

Last month saw the release of two autobiographical films, now both Oscar nominees, about young artists growing up in complicated, 20th-century American Jewish families. In The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg follows a precocious child filmmaker, Sammy Fabelman, as he turns his camera on his fracturing family. In Armageddon Time, James Gray meditates on Queens in 1980, where the intersections of school, family, and the police destroy a friendship between two boys, one Black and one Jewish. Do these movies have something new to say about the drama of upwardly mobile Jewish family life, or are they simply retreading familiar territory? Jewish Currents contributing writer Rebecca Pierce joined editors Arielle Angel, Ari Brostoff, and Mari Cohen on this week’s On the Nose to discuss the latest in Jewish film. MOVIES AND TV EPISODES MENTIONED:8 ½, dir. Federico FelliniPain and Glory, dir. Pedro AlmodóvarCinema Paradiso, dir. Giuseppe TornatoreLincoln, dir. Steven SpielbergStar Wars, dir. George LucasJaws, dir. Steven Spielberg“Miami Mama-Mia/Pigeon on the Roof,” AnimaniacsThanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Chevruta is a new column named for the traditional method of Jewish study, in which a pair of students analyzes a religious text together. In each installment, Jewish Currents will match leftist thinkers and organizers with a rabbi or Torah scholar. The activists will bring an urgent question that arises in their own work; the Torah scholar will lead them in exploring their question through Jewish text. By routing contemporary political questions through traditional religious sources, we aim to address the most urgent ethical and spiritual problems confronting the left. Each column will be accompanied by a podcast and a study guide (linked below).In our debut Chevruta podcast, rabbinical student Allen Lipson explores debt’s moral implications with Sparky Abraham and Eleni Schirmer—organizers from the Debt Collective, the nation’s first debtors’ union. Lipson chose a rabbinic responsum from 14th-century Spain by Rabbi Isaac bar Sheshet Perfet, generally known as the Rivash, on the question of whether a debtor can be seized and imprisoned according to Torah law. By tracing the Rivash’s ambivalence about debt enforcement, Lipson, Abraham, and Schirmer consider questions about state force and economic consent raised by the text that still resonate today.You can find the column based on this conversation and a study guide here. The full Hebrew text of the letter and Lipson’s translation are available here.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Tom Stoppard, perhaps the most famous living British playwright, learned only in his fifties that his mother’s family was Jewish and that nearly all her relatives were killed in the Holocaust—a fate his own immediate family narrowly escaped. Now in his eighties, Stoppard has turned these revelations into the material of his play Leopoldstadt, which tells the story of a bourgeois Viennese Jewish clan inspired by his own Czech family, and an assimilated British grandson’s discovery of their fate at the hands of the Nazis. The play, now a Broadway hit, has drawn accolades, but left several of us at and around Jewish Currents distinctly underwhelmed. Why is theater still treating the Holocaust as an object of dramatic irony? What are audiences looking for in stories of this kind? Where does Leopoldstadt fit in the long history of anti-Nazi theater, and what are its politics around Zionism? Alisa Solomon, who reviewed the play for Jewish Currents, and dramaturg Gabrielle Hoyt joined JC editors Arielle Angel and Ari Brostoff to discuss. Articles and Reports Mentioned:“Review: In Stoppard’s ‘Leopoldstadt,’ a Memorial to a Lost World,” Jesse Green, The New York Times“Attention Must Be Paid,” Alisa Solomon, Jewish Currents“Monuments to the Unthinkable,” Clint Smith in The Atlantic “Culture Under the Nazis,” Brooks Atkinson, The New York TimesThanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

In the last two years, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have begun using the word “apartheid” to describe Israeli rule over Palestinians, marking a significant shift within the human rights establishment. But Palestinian intellectuals have been critiquing Israeli apartheid for decades—albeit in a different fashion. As scholars of international law Noura Erakat and John Reynolds wrote in an essay published in the summer issue of Jewish Currents, a rich archive of Palestinian writing from the 1960s and ’70s frames apartheid as “an inevitable outcome of Israeli settler colonialism,” and a key “vehicle for its continuance.” Erakat and Reynolds argue that if we understand apartheid as a tool of settler colonialism, it appears to “require the same remedies as other manifestations of colonial rule and foreign occupation: collective liberation and land restitution.” By contrast, the human rights organizations have advanced a more legalistic understanding of apartheid, and suggested accordingly that the solution  is to institute formal legal equality in Israel/Palestine—in other words, to extend equal rights to all who live in the land. Alex Kane discusses this and more with Erakat, Reynolds, and Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch.Articles and Reports Mentioned:“Understanding Apartheid,” Noura Erakat and John Reynolds, Jewish Currents“A Threshold Crossed,” Human Rights Watch“Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity,” Amnesty International“The Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid,” Michael Sfard, Yesh Din“A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid,” B’Tselem “Decolonization is not a metaphor,” Eve Tuck and K. Wayne YangThanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Dave Chappelle’s controversial monologue on the November 12th episode of Saturday Night Live, which found much to laugh at in Kanye West’s and Kyrie Irving’s recent antisemitic remarks, set off a new round of discourse about blackness, Jewishness, power, and the entertainment industry. Chappelle’s monologue, which some viewers accused of propagating antisemitic tropes itself, also revealed that part of what is at stake in the current contretemps is comedy—specifically, the nexus of Black and Jewish comedy, where an American idiom of humor about insiders and outsiders, envy and identification, privilege and suffering was born. What makes us keep returning to this well of humor, and what happens when the laughter stops? Jewish Currents senior editor Ari Brostoff, JC contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, critic and essayist Jasmine Sanders, and writer and Know Your Enemy co-host Sam Adler-Bell discuss.  Articles, Books, Films, Tweets, and Clips Mentioned:Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America, dir. Ronald Dalton Jr.Dave Chappelle’s Saturday Night Live monologueJonathan Greeblatt tweet about Dave ChappelleKanye West performs on Chappelle’s ShowDonald Trump on using tax loopholesOreo by Fran RossThanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” 

In last Tuesday’s Knesset elections, the Israeli electorate delivered a big win to Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition in the fifth Israeli election since 2019. The right-wing bloc won 64 Knesset seats, which will likely give Netanayhu and allied parties enough votes to form a stable and ideologically coherent coalition government. Netanyahu’s probable return to power is thanks to the strength of the Religious Zionism coalition, consisting of three of the most extreme parties in Israeli politics. The coalition won 14 seats, the most it has ever gotten. Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane spoke to editor-at-large Peter Beinart, contributing editor Joshua Leifer, and contributing writer Elisheva Goldberg about the rise of the Religious Zionism coalition, the commonalities between that coalition and the Israeli center-left, and how these elections might affect the US-Israel relationship. Articles Mentioned:“Kahanism’s Raucous Return,” Joshua Leifer, Jewish Currents“Israel’s Ascendant Far Right Can’t Be Understood by Analogy,” Peter Beinart, Jewish Currents“U.S. unlikely to work with Jewish supremacist expected to be made Israeli minister,” Barak Ravid, AxiosThanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

In the last week and a half, Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, has appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, been photographed with far-right provocateur Candace Owens wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt, and tweeted that he was going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” (which landed him in social media jail). Redacted footage from the Fox interview revealed that Ye made a number of antisemitic comments there too, referring to Hannukah as a vehicle for “financial engineering” and casting Black people as the real Jews, with non-Black Jews as imposters. In the wake of these comments, Jewish organizations have raised the alarm about worsening antisemitism; meanwhile, tensions have been rising online between some Black and Jewish people, playing out familiar grievances about acknowledgement and allyship. What, if anything, can we learn from this instance of high-profile antisemitism and this latest round of Black–Jewish discourse? And is there any path to solidarity between those targeted by Ye’s anti-Black and antisemitic ideas? Jewish Currents contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer, and Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel discussed Ye’s antisemitism.Note: This episode was taped on Friday, October 14th, before it was announced that Ye plans to buy the right-wing social media platform Parler. Stay tuned at the end of the episode for a postscript from Pierce and Angel on this new development.Articles and Tweets Mentioned:“Watch the Disturbing Kanye Interview Clips That Tucker Carlson Didn’t Put on Air,” Anna Merlan, Vice “Musk and West, Inc.,” John Ganz’s Substack“What Kanye Can Teach Us About Anti-Semitism,” Yair Rosenberg, The AtlanticKimberly Nicole Foster’s tweets about antisemitism“Black Antisemitism Is Not Inherently ‘Left Wing,’” Rebecca Pierce, Jewish Currents“Beyond Grievance,” Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents Sarah Silverman’s Jewish grievance tweet“Kanye West to acquire conservative social media platform Parler,” Brian Fung, CNN Business“An Antisemitic Judge, a White Supremacist System,” Rebecca Pierce, Jewish Currents Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

The podcast discusses the devastating impact of Israel's blockade on Gaza, including the lack of electricity and personal stories of loss. It explores the role of Gisha, a human rights organization in Israel, in advocating for Palestinians in Gaza. The chapter also talks about the challenges faced in obtaining permits and the growth of Palestinian resistance against Israel's crackdown. It emphasizes the empowerment and unity of Palestinians in their ongoing fight for freedom.

In the wake of the recent extensive New York Times investigation into Hasidic yeshivas, a fierce and often acrimonious debate has emerged about the ethics of covering the Hasidic world from the outside, how private institutions that receive government funds are accountable to the broader public, and religious minority communities’ right to insist on their way of life, even when it brings them into conflict with the state. On this episode, Jewish Currents Contributing Editor Joshua Leifer hosts a conversation between Naftuli Moster, executive director of Young Advocates for Fair Education (YAFFED), and Frieda Vizel, a writer and tour guide of Hasidic Brooklyn. Moster and Vizel—who both grew up in, and later left, Hasidic communities—draw on their own educational experiences to offer very different perspectives on the Times article and reactions to it, on the best way to advocate for change in the Hasidic world, and on what’s at stake in the fight over secular education.Articles and Podcast Episodes Mentioned:“In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money,” Eliza Shaprio and Brian M. Rosenthal, The New York Times“Thoughts on the NYT exposé on Hasidic education,” Frieda Vizel“Progressives Have Abandoned Haredi Children,” Naftuli Moster, Jewish Currents“The Great Yeshiva Slander,” Commentary podcast“Private Religious Schools Have Public Responsibilities Too,” Nomi M.Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, The AtlanticThanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”