Is Fighting Antisemitism a Waste of Time?
Jonathan Kay speaks with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who encourages Jews to focus on bolstering their community instead of lecturing bigots who can’t be reasoned with.
This week, our podcast is brought to you courtesy of HonestReporting Canada, a Toronto-based organisation that promotes fairness and accuracy in Canadian media coverage of the Middle East and the Jewish community; and which regularly calls out what it regards as anti-Israeli bias among journalists and other public figures.
Last month, I was invited to host an HonestReporting webinar on the subject of antisemitism featuring New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, a strong supporter of Israel, and this week’s Quillette podcast is adapted from that presentation, which HonestReporting has kindly allowed us to broadcast.
Bret’s views on antisemitism have been in the news this year, because of remarks he delivered on the subject back in February, when he was the featured speaker for the annual State of World Jewry talk at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.
In that speech, Bret urged Jews to stop playing victim, and said that educational initiatives and outreach efforts aren’t really that useful for fighting antisemitism, because most antisemites, as well as strident anti-Zionists, don’t really lack for information, and aren’t really interested in listening to their opponents.
In our conversation, we talked about how modern forms of progressive social justice ideology now overlap with hatred of the Jewish state, And I asked whether the war in Iran had encouraged thinkers, such as John Mearsheimer, who see Israel and its supporters as puppet masters leading the West—the United States, in particular—toward ruin.
Please enjoy my interview with New York Times columnist and editor-in-chief of the journal Sapir, Bret Stephens.
