Think Twice with Jonathan Tobin

Who were the real winners and losers of the Israeli election? On the day after the voting, JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin was joined on this week’s episode of Think Twice by JNS Senior contributing editor Ruthie Blum to break down the results and discuss the implications.

According to Blum, the fact that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition partners nor that of the “anyone-but-Bibi” alliance of parties led by former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, retired Gen. Gadi Eisenkot gained a majority, creating an impasse. But the biggest winners on Oct. 27 were clearly the Arab parties, which appeared to have won a record number of Knesset seats.

Both Tobin and Blum said the pressure from the left and many in the international community for Eisenkot to join forces with the Arab parties in one way or another in order to topple Netanyahu. But allowing parties that are not merely anti-Zionist but which identify with Israel’s enemies which seek its destruction into the cabinet is not merely shocking; it’s a threat to the Jewish state’s security at a time of ongoing war.

Blum said Eisenkot’s call for the IDF and the security services to thwart any efforts of the current caretaker government that is led by Netanyahu to continue the war against Iran and its terror auxiliaries is outrageous. It will also set up a possible conflict with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has made it clear he wants Israel’s government to help him “finish the job” of ending the nuclear threat from Tehran.

While neither Netanyahu or Eisenkot had a clear path to a government, they agreed that the prime minister was in a stronger position and not just because his faction won more seats. All of Eisenkot’s options for breaking the stalemate, whether by deals with the Arabs, a unity government with Netanyahu or one with the haredi parties will damage him politically in the long run. Netanyahu can stand his ground and be ready to try again in new elections early next year if no government is formed and may do better the next time.

The prime minister’s advantage, Blum says, stems from the fact that although it is vilified in the liberal press in Israel and the United States, the Likud Party remains the largest because its positions on security and other issues are more in touch with the center of Israeli public opinion.

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American Jews have been among the most ardent and loyal supporters of the Democratic Party for over a century. But as, JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin notes, as the party’s intersectional left wing base embraced hatred for Israel and even antisemitism in recent years, the argument for a shift in political loyalties is now being made by some who were closely identified with the Democrats.

One such person is famed legal analyst and retired Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, who joins Tobin on this week’s episode of Think Twice. A prolific author, Dershowitz has written a new book titled, Why I Quit the Dems And So Should You! The confessions of a reluctant Republican. In it, the 63rd book he has published in his career, Dershowitz, 88, documents the reasons why he left the Democrats after 70 years as an ardent and involved supporter of the party and many of its candidates.

Dershowitz asserts that his beliefs are unchanged. But the Democratic Party has, he acknowledged, been gradually becoming more illiberal and woke. It is “a systemic problem.”

“I am a liberal, but I'm no longer a liberal Democrat, because I think that's an oxymoron,” Dershowitz says.

“I don't think Democrats are liberals. The reason I basically made the switch was not because [New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani got elected or because [Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Abdul] El-Syed was nominated, it's because [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer supported them. It's because the mainstream of the Democratic Party, which is testicularly challenged, wouldn't stand up against the anti-Semites in the Democratic Party. Whereas President Trump did stand up against some of the extremists in the Republican Party. So, for me,” he continued. “The issue is not the extremes; it's how the center deals with the extremes.”

When asked about criticism from Democrats that prioritizing Israel and the battle against antisemitism makes Jews “single issue voters,” Dershowitz had a ready reply.

“We should become more single-issue voters. If I were living in Germany in 1932 and I were an environmentalist or a vegetarian or somebody who wanted full employment for Germany, I wouldn't care about those issues. I would care about Adolf Hitler. Seven thousand German Jews voted for Adolf Hitler,” Dershowitz declared. “I think the time has come for single issue voting. Anti Semitism is the most serious danger in the world today of bigotry.”

Dershowitz admitted that he was a “reluctant Republican” because he still agreed with the Democrats on many issues. He also held out the possibility that the Democrats could reject their antisemites as well as noting that the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, led by Vice President JD Vance, whom he says is “not pro-Israel” yet also “not antisemitic” worries him.

The legal authority also said that he had recently reconnected with his friend Larry David after the “Seinfeld” producer and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star publicly broke with him because Dershowitz had represented President Donald Trump. Now that David has denounced the Democratic Socialists who have hijacked the Democratic Party, the two have, he said, reconciled.

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What if all the clever ideas about dealing with antisemitism, including focusing on Holocaust education, are failing? That’s the question posed by JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin with respect to the unprecedented surge in Jew-hatred. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Dara Horn, author of the seminal 2021 collection of essays, People Love Dead Jews: Reports From a Haunted Present and the new The Solution to the Jewish Problem: A Love Story for the Living. Horn says that since the publication of her People Love Dead Jews, she’s become a magnet for Jews who want to share their stories of how they’ve been impacted by the surge of antisemitism. Because of this, she’s been dubbed by family members as the “Antisemitism Lorax,” a reference to the Dr. Seuss book. Because of this, she’s spent the past few years researching efforts to combat Jew-hatred and come to some firm conclusions. One is that Holocaust education, while important in and of itself, is not curing the world of antisemitism or achieving the goal of many involved with it to teach non-Jews to be nicer to people. To the contrary, since it doesn’t teach about Jewish civilization or about Jew-hatred per se, it does little or nothing to deal with the problem. She also believes that American Jews are wrong to believe that the so-called “golden age” of American Jewry after the Second World War was the result of non-Jews deciding not to be antisemitic because of the Holocaust. Instead, it was created by American Jewish activism which asserted the rights of Jews to be treated as equal partners. The problem was that the implicit deal that Jews sought to make with the non-Jewish world created more trouble in the long run. The “Gentleman’s Agreement,” which was the name of a famous novel and Oscar-winning 1947 film about antisemitism—hinged on the idea that Jews are like everyone else rather than a group whose civilization was always based on their being different. Antisemitism thrives, Horn says, because it is not so much a virus as “lie” that tells people that the Jews are to blame for whatever it is they fear most. That applies to every variety of Jew-hater, including those at Harvard University, where she served on the ill-fated Antisemitism Advisory Group. The only effective answer to it—the “final solution” that she references in the title to her book—is for Jews to stop trying to make others like them and instead concentrate on educating themselves and others about their own heritage. The answer today, she says, is the same that has sustained Jews throughout their history. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.

A half century ago, the Soviet Union and its Third World allies passed the infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution at the United Nations. Today, the same propaganda is regurgitated by academics, liberal media and pop culture figures who think they’re enlightened supporters of human rights. According to historian Gil Troy, who joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin on this week’s episode of Think Twice, the reason is the spread of “anti-racist” ideology that spreads antisemitic blood libels about Israel.

Troy, who wrote the definitive study of the struggle against the “Zionism is racism” resolution, sees the spread of toxic left-wing ideas has undermined both Israel’s international standing and that of American Jews. This was evident in what he calls the “triple double cross” of liberals and feminists who betrayed Israel after Oct. 7 by taking the side of the Palestinians who murdered, raped and kidnapped Israelis. What happened should have brought moral clarity about jihadi foes to American views of the conflict but instead it created division between the United States and Israel.

While Troy is worried about the way far-left Israeli-haters are taking over the Democratic Party, he believes figures like Michigan Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a greater threat to his party than he is to the Jews. The reason is that the shift to the far left is likely to damage Democrats in 2028 if not in 2026.

Nevertheless, Troy says it was far more important for Israel to win on the battlefield after Oct. 7 than to win public relations or diplomatic battles.

Analyzing the upcoming Israeli election, Troy says the divide among citizens of the Jewish state is primarily tribal and causing the two main camps that are supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the one hand, and his chief opponent, former Gen. Gadi Eisenkot on the other, to create what may well be a stalemate in the vote. He says it’s unfortunate because there is a broad Zionist consensus on the issues of security and even on the drafting of Haredim. Though many Israelis would like the two main blocs to come together, it’s not clear that either leader can escape the necessity of allying themselves with allies on the right or the left.

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At a time when most Americans have lost the ability to listen to people with opposing views on political issues, how can a fractious Jewish community that is also split on denominational lines to pull together. That’s the question posed by JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. He believes that Jewish disunity has been exacerbated by the capture of the political left—which is still supported by the majority of Jews—by anti-Israel and antisemitic “progressives.” This puts even more pressure on Jewish liberals to conform to fashionable opinion on the left that poses a threat to their community’s interests and safety.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by DePaul University Law Professor Roberta Kwall, author of the new book, Polarized: Why American Jews Are Divided And What To Do About It. She believes that a vital Jewish center can be reconstituted if people realize that the things that unite them are still greater than those that seek to tear them apart.

Part of the problem is that Israel, which was once thought to be a unifying factor is now the greatest source of division with many unaffiliated or liberal Jews no longer supportive of it with a small but well-publicized minority actively opposed to Zionism.

At the core of her effort is a statement of largely anodyne principles that she believes the overwhelming majority of Jews agree on. Among them is support for the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state as well as the legitimacy of criticizing its government.

But for Kwall, just as important is the need to re-emphasize education and the importance of tradition to reinforce Jewish identity. In such a context, it will be easier for Jews who disagree on politics or aspects of Israeli policy to listen to each other and find common ground.

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The secret to the success of the Israel Defense Forces involves many factors but according to JNS Israel military correspondent Yaakov Lappin, it involves creating a culture as much as the courage of its soldiers, air crews and sailors and their effective use of cutting-edge technology. Lappin, who has written about this in his recently published book, Blue Team Dynamics: Three Proven Leadership Principles Inspired by IDF Sources for Business and Life, joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin on this week’s episode of Think Twice to discuss how this works.

The book is based on years of research and interviews dating back to 2018. According to Lappin, the three principles that are the foundation of IDF culture involve the importance of after-action review of everything they do, cultivating the ability to switch from the routine to an emergency mode and encouraging the need to recognize how to manage long-term change inside an organization. As he notes, the same ideas can help individuals or non-military organizations and businesses also succeed.

Lappin concedes that many of these lessons were forgotten by Israel’s military and intelligence establishment as well as their political masters prior to the catastrophe of Oct. 7, 2023, which occurred almost exactly 50 years after the IDF suffered another disaster that was also rooted in organizational failure. With respect to Oct. 7, Lappin says the mistake came from a basic human failing in which, “the human mind adopts and falls in love with a narrative” that is very difficult to break out of. This overrode the culture that should have prevented the complacency that led to the Hamas and Palestinian terrorists being able to carry out the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

Prioritizing after-action detailed post-training and combat analysis started inside the Israeli Air Force but it has spread to the other branches of the military now too. That involves creating a culture where admitting mistakes of any kind is not only permitted but lauded as necessary, especially where it concerns commanders.

The necessity of knowing when to switch to emergency mode was actually highlighted by the way many in the IDF responded to Oct. 7. Those efforts ensured that the grievous damage inflicted by Hamas was limited and then allowed the Israelis to defeat the terrorists. Nevertheless, it’s still true that the IDF failed to anticipate this “black swan” event and that the procedures which should have prevented that mistake which involve looking for “black feathers,” rather than the swan itself, didn’t happen.

According to Lappin, the “Blue Team” approach, which refers to the creation of two groups dedicated to both planning IDF actions and those that seek to examine and defeat those plans as an enemy would, must also be credited for the amazing triumphs Israel achieved after Oct. 7 in Lebanon and against Iran. And as he notes, the very same ideas have also been applied by IDF veterans in their post-military careers in business and technology.

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JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin wants to know what’s the bigger problem? Is it the global surge of antisemitism? Or is it the passivity of some Jews who recoil from active defense against their attackers or the willingness of others to actively collaborate with those who seek their destruction?

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Tablet magazine editor-at-large Liel Leibovitz who answered by speaking of his outrage at the reaction of American and European Jews to efforts to harm them. He was particularly incensed by the fact that when a deranged man entered a New York City synagogue and disrupted services and attacked a congregant, not a single person present attempted to restrain him or defend the person who was assaulted. Instead, they simply sat back and waited for security to rush in and save them.

He believes this is symptomatic of Diaspora Jewry’s inadequate response to their current dilemma. “If that's all you've got, then what you have isn't a congregation. What you have is a hospice.”

“If Zionism taught us anything, and indeed if Judaism taught us anything,” he continued. “It’s that our expectation should never ever be to be safe. Our expectation should always be to be free. Free people have the door wide open. Free people welcome everyone that wants to come in. Free people are armed and trained and ready to defend themselves against their haters. This is a very normal state of being, applicable everywhere, it seems, except for the mainstream American Jewish community, which still harps on about risk management. Well, you know, that way lies doom.”

Leibovitz discussed Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s advice to Jews that they should prioritize the interests of the Democratic Party over their own safety and even the existence of Israel by supporting an antisemite like the party’s U.S. Senate candidate, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. She was, he asserts, “speaking the quiet part out loud.” That is something, he says, that most of the leadership of American Jewry has failed to do.

According to Leibovitz, “the inconvenient truth is that by deed, if not by word, every single one of our so-called communal leaders practice the same exact thought process” as Nessel. He says that when it comes to “the most pressing issues that actually affect the well-being of Jews today”—such as supporting the Trump administration’s effort to root out DEI policies that enable antisemitism in academia, immigration and the threat from Islamists—they are acting like Nessel. They are prioritizing liberal partisan political stands, not the interests or even the defense of the community.

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The Oct. 27 Israeli election will be a referendum on the record of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But according to JNS contributing editor Ruthie Blum, the voters will also be registering their verdict on whether they believe the promises of his opponents. Blum joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin on this week’s episode of Think Twice to analyze the upcoming vote.

According to Blum, many Israelis may be tired of the prime minister, who has now served for 15 out of the last 17 years as his country’s premier and for 18 years in total. But the campaign will also test the appeal of the apparent new leader of the opposition bloc, former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. The general has mainstream appeal and has the sympathy of the nation after losing his son during the war in Gaza.

As Blum notes, Eisenkot is trying to sound as much like Netanyahu as possible when it comes to issues like the war against Iran and its terrorist proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah while still blaming the prime minister for Oct. 7. Yet the military establishment he embodies just as, if not more responsible for Israel being surprised by Hamas. More than that, his record as chief of staff shows that he is clearly on the left though not trying to sound like it. And contrary to the promises that have been made, the opposition may well hope to bring in the Muslim Brotherhood-connected United Arab List to help them form a government now that it has one Jewish member on its list of candidates.

Israelis are, she says, exhausted by the war and sick of the divisiveness that it engendered. But a key factor in determining the outcome will depend on which of the various smaller parties (38 different lists registered before the deadline) will be able to garner the necessary 3.5% of the vote in order to make it into the Knesset. If the right, left or Arab splinters and votes are “wasted” by being cast for parties that don’t qualify, that may make the difference in whether Netanyahu or Eisenkot will be able to form a government.

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Antisemitism in American education isn’t merely a matter of elite universities. It’s being tolerated and encouraged at colleges large and small across the country by woke administrators and faculty. But according to JNS Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Tobin, it’s also happening in K-12 schools, something that is being facilitated by teachers’ unions. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Deborah Project Legal Director Lori Lowenthal Marcus, whose cases involve suing school districts and institutions of higher learning where Jews are being targeted and suffering discrimination. Marcus recently won a significant victory by forcing Haverford College, where administrators and faculty were tolerating anti-Zionist and antisemitic behavior, to adopt new standards that will, if enforced, force them to fundamentally change their approach to Israel and the treatment of Jewish students. What made the difference in the Haverford case was the fact that investigations by Congress and the federal government pressured the school into conceding to the demands of Jewish students. Without that pressure, Marcus says, the school would have stood its ground. The Deborah Project has also been defending students in Philadelphia whose families were forced to move to enable them to go to school without suffering antisemitic targeting. The incident involved a public high school that established a “prayer room” that was a de facto mosque, where Jewish students were falsely accused of assaulting other students. According to Marcus, part of the problem in fighting back against antisemitism in education is the way the entire profession of teaching, at both the K-12 and college levels, has been captured by people indoctrinated in toxic theories. They don’t consider antisemitism to be a problem because Jews don’t qualify as victims in the intersectional mindset, in which only racial minorities deserve help. The other problem is that many Jews are either too intimidated to take action in defense of themselves or their children. Many are also partisans and so prejudiced against President Donald Trump and the Republicans that they oppose their efforts to combat antisemitism even when it is to their benefit.

The global surge of antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks on Israel was no spontaneous outburst of hate. According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, it’s clear that it was not only the product of years of preparation by ideologues recycling Soviet-era propaganda aimed at delegitimizing Israel and Jewish rights. It was also the direct result of funding and planning carried out by Islamists in Qatar and other Middle sources as well as UN agencies, NGOs, non-profits, and charities who were behind this effort.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Canadian political consultant Warren Kinsella, author of the new book, The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda. Kinsella asserts that the best way to understand the insidious effort to rationalize and/or defend Hamas and demonize the Jewish state and its supporters is to think of it as the moral equivalent of a political campaign. He argues that this is a story that the mainstream media has ignored as it became the willing stenographer for antisemitic terrorists.

Kinsella points out that this plot to destroy Israel is a highly sophisticated plan that relies heavily on social media algorithms aimed especially at influencing young people. The author, who isn’t Jewish, believes it's imperative to recognize the threat Islamist hate poses to the West, not just Israel.

He worries that despite the fact that it has a great story to tell and has the truth on its side, the state of Israel is failing to get its message across to those being indoctrinated in the antisemitic narrative in the West. He believes it is imperative for Jerusalem to start taking this threat seriously. Just as important, he thinks all people of goodwill must push back against the blood libels being spread about Jews in the media. Kinsella believes what's at stake is not just Israel and the Jewish people, it's democracy and civilization itself.

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What should we be asking about what happened on Oct. 7, 2023, and its aftermath? According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, the key issue is not only learning and understanding the truth about the horrific crimes that occurred on that day. Rather, it is how so much of the world reacted to it by siding with the perpetrators and against the victims.

He’s joined on this week’s episode of “Think Twice” by documentary filmmaker Gloria Greenfield, the producer, director and writer of the new film, “A Collective Descent Into Evil: The Lethal Obsession with Jews and the Jewish State.” It gives voice to a broad array of scholars, writers and commentators on the subject, and isn’t only about the barbarism and atrocities that occurred during the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks on communities in southern Israel.

It is, she says, an exploration of the motivations, ideologies and strategies of those involved, as well as their apologists and enablers.

The problem is not just the terrorists and a population that supported and participated in the horrors of Oct. 7. Greenfield explains that her film seeks to broaden our understanding of the subject by pointing out that what happened was the product of decades of indoctrination into hatred for Israel, the Jews and the West. The same is true of the mobs on college campuses and in the streets of American cities who turned out in support of Oct. 7 and to defend its perpetrators.

The goal wasn’t, says Greenfield, merely “destroying the Jewish people and destroying Israel. It’s also about destroying the free world and destroying people that don’t subscribe to Islamist ideologies.”

Greenfield, a feminist publisher who grew disillusioned with the movement because of its tolerance for antisemitism, points out that the “epidemic” of tolerance for Jew-hatred is rooted in the success of Marxist and radical ideologies in their “long march” through American institutions.

The film is available for streaming via the Roku Channel and Doc Emet Productions, as well as by request for community screenings.

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Is it possible for America to defeat its Islamist enemies like the Iranian terror regime when they resort to asymmetrical warfare? And does President Donald Trump truly understand that diplomacy will never convince Tehran and its terrorist proxies to give up their war on the West? Those are the questions posed by JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin about whether the United States will resume efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and spreading terror around the world.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Jonathan Schanzer, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. According to Schanzer, the “rules-based international order” created in the aftermath of World War II” appear to be “binding the hands of the United States” and preventing it from conclusively defeating enemies like Iran. The answer, he says, is that, “if our hands are tied, we're the stronger power and we have justice on our side, but yet cannot take the action that is necessary in order to win based on rules that we created,” that’s a problem. “It may be time to revise them,” he concludes.

He argues that the efforts of Trump envoys and advisers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, backed by Vice President JD Vance, to get Iran to agree to give up its nuclear program or to persuade Hamas and Hezbollah to lay down their arms in Gaza and Lebanon is “not feasible.” They can’t be won over by diplomacy, something that was proved by the failures of the Obama and Biden administrations. Instead, they can be defeated. What Trump needs, says Schanzer, is a “new strategy” that will offset the advantages Iran has gained because of the rise in the price of oil and the American shortage of munitions.

The stakes in this conflict, Schanzer asserts, are enormous. If Iran is defeated, it will help facilitate the creation of IMEC—an Indian-Middle East energy corridor—that will connect the subcontinent to Europe via moderate Arab nations and Israel that will transform the international situation for the better. The alternative would be the advance of the so-called STEP alliance of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan, that will be an Islamist obstacle to regional stability, American influence and normalization of relations between the Arab and Muslim world with Israel.

American Jews are facing an unprecedented crisis of antisemitism but according to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, that’s just part of the problem. What’s also wrong is that the majority of American Jews who identify as politically liberal, don’t seem to understand that continuing to support a party and a movement that spreads blood libels about them and defines them as “white” oppressors is, at best, self-sabotage and, at worst, suicidal.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon, author of the new book, The Jews and the Left. Ungar-Sargon argues that a principal reason why Jewish liberals were unprepared for the post-Oct. 7 surge of antisemitism and seemingly unwilling to draw conclusions about it is that they fundamentally misunderstand their place in America. From the beginning of the American republic, Jews have always been equal partners and not a tolerated and discriminated-against minority.

In her book, she makes the case that American exceptionalism is real and that the belief that Jews were, like racial minorities, among the oppressed, is wrong. Jews found themselves on the political left in the mid-20th century because Democrats supported the rights of labor, civil rights, and were associated with the war against the Nazis. But in the 21st century, the Democrats are no longer, she says, the party of the working class, but rather of the credentialed elites. What’s worse, the woke hijacking of the party has led to a situation where the reigning orthodoxy on the left puts Jews and Israel in the intersectional cross-hairs. That is why after the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, the American left which now dominates the Democrats took sides against Israel and was ready to tolerate and even encourage Jew-hatred.

Ungar-Sargon believes that the response to this crisis on the part of liberal Jewish organizations that make up the Jewish establishment is not merely inadequate; it’s wrongheaded since it counsels Jewish students to “shelter in place” and not resist the antisemitic mobs. She also believes the continuing refusal of Jewish liberals to join forces with the majority of Americans—largely on the right—who oppose the Jew-haters on both the left and the right. Jews must, she believes, “get off their knees and fight.”

Though overlooked because of the impact and fame of his charismatic successor, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn was one of the most impactful figures in 20th century Jewish history. And he’s the subject of a new biography, Undaunted by Rabbi David Eliezrie, who joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin for this week’s episode of Think Twice.

Eliezrie, the founder and leader of North County Chabad/Congregation Beth Meir HaCohen in Yorba Linda, California has written the first scholarly biography of Schneersohn and acknowledges that although he was considered a major figure during his lifetime, he has been eclipsed by the seventh Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn. But the transformation of Chabad from a small sect of Hasidic Jewry to its current status as one of the most important forces in modern Jewish life was only made possible by the sixth rebbe’s successful struggles to save Soviet Jews and reimagine American Judaism.

The story of this rebbe is, as Eliezrie notes, a saga that encompasses the key struggles of 20th century Jewish history. Displaced from its traditional home in the Russian town of Lubavitch by the First World War, Schneersohn and Chabad found themselves the center of resistance against Communism efforts (led by Jewish Bolsheviks) to eradicate Judaism. Eliezrie’s book tells the story of, despite ill health, threats, imprisonment and a death sentence against him handed down by Moscow, the rebbe stubbornly insisted on fighting to keep Jewish education and practice alive in the Soviet Union.

After a narrow escape from the Nazis at the start of the Second World War, the rebbe came to the United States. There, he first supported efforts for rescue of European Jewry, which was opposed by the American Jewish establishment that feared offending President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also chose, unlike other Orthodox movements who felt maintaining their own communities was the priority, to emphasize outreach and bringing Judaism and Jewish learning to all Jews, regardless of their affiliation and observance. In this way, Eliezrie says, he helped transform American Jewish life and set the stage for his successor’s subsequent successful revolutionary international outreach campaign.

Perhaps just as important was Schneersohn’s willingness to put aside past disagreements with Zionism after the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Though not formally Zionist and opposed to secular nationalism replacing Judaism, the rebbe took a stand that opposed the Haredi world’s efforts to remain separate from modern Israeli society. As a result, as Eliezrie says, “We want to be engaged with that society. The previous Rebbe told his followers everybody has to share in the defense of the country, that we have to go to the army.” The author notes that surveys of American Jewry show that the largest percentage of American Jews who identify as Zionists are actually those who affiliate with Chabad synagogues.

The question many supporters of Israel ask is one that Israelis struggle to explain, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. How can a leading Israeli institution like the Haaretz newspaper justify their role in spreading blood libels against the Jewish state which help to bolster the efforts of those who are working to eradicate it and kill Israelis? He is joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Israeli historian and writer Gadi Taub who has an explanation.

According to Taub who wrote about this dilemma in JNS, Israelis who think of themselves as “progressives,” as is the case with the staff of Haaretz, must turn on their own country in order to maintain their standing with other leftists. Their only strategy to not be included in the antisemitic boycotts of their country is to join it. It generally doesn’t work since those who hate the Jewish state and wish to isolate it, don’t grant exemptions to Israelis who validate their false accusations.

But as Taub explains, that doesn’t deter Israeli leftists. They don’t seem to connect the dots between their turn toward anti-Zionism and false accusations about Israel committing “genocide” in Gaza and the fact that the people they are aiding want to commit actual genocide against all Israeli Jews, including those who hate their own country. They justify it, Taub says, by imagining that the Palestinian Arabs are mirror images of Israelis and that their threats are either meaningless or by justifying them and embracing genocidal terrorism, such as what occurred on Oct.7, 2023, as justified “resistance” rather than mass, murder, rape and kidnapping.

For many years, Haaretz and the extreme left in Israel stuck to critiques of the “occupation” and the measures of self-defense undertaken by the country’s government and military. But in the weeks before Oct. 7, the publishers of the newspaper dropped the pretense that they were merely liberal Zionists and, instead, have embraced efforts to erase the country’s identity and purpose.

Taub believes the Haaretz approach to the conflict is linked to the effort to prevent reform of Israel’s out-of-control judiciary. They know that the project to essentially dismantle the Jewish state will never gain the approval of Israel’s voters. But 15 unelected judges of the Israeli Supreme Court, who have arrogated to themselves absolute power over the government, do have the ability to advance the demise of Zionism, he argues.

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Totalitarian regimes such as those led by Communists and Nazis have something in common with jihadist terrorist organizations and politically fashionable leftist movements. They all use propaganda, scare tactics, the law and social isolation and pressure to convince people to passively accept the unacceptable as not just normal but an inescapable imperative. That’s a key insight of radio host Buck Sexton’s new book, Manufacturing Delusion: How the Left Uses Brainwashing, Indoctrination and Propaganda Against You.

Sexton joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin on this week’s episode of “Think Twice”. He says he was motivated in part to write the book because of the way Americans were manipulated into accepting Covid-19 pandemic measures like masks, lockdowns and vaccines that authorities imposed upon them with lies and false reassurances. But the tactics that enabled that mass deception to happen also apply to other issues including climate change alarmism, gender ideology and acceptance of myths about racist killings of African-Americans that fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

The former CIA analyst and New York Police Department terrorism consultant argues that the Islamist extremism that he witnessed in Iraq and in Nigeria was enabled by some of the same methods pursued by the tyrants that ran the Soviet Union and Communist China. The effort to force people to abandon independent judgement and accept the lies imposed on them were discussed by George Orwell in his classic novel 1984, which sought to alert the world to the threat from Communism. But these tactics have also been used by cults as well as political movements.

He notes that it is no small irony that contemporary extremists who have spread antisemitism and blood libels as part of an effort to mainstream efforts to destroy Israel are using lies and slogans crafted for the same purpose by Soviet propagandists. The radicalization of those who join terrorist groups involves these methods. But it also applies to the way masses of people are convinced to believe conspiracy theories that use Jews and Israel as the scapegoats for the world’s problems. That has led to indoctrination of young people by leftist ideologues and also is part of the explanation for the Jew-hatred promoted by right-wing podcasters like Tucker Carlson.

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The United States and Israel achieved unprecedented military success in their campaign against that started earlier this year on Feb. 28. But, according to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, the American decision to stop the war due to the economic pressure Iran was able to exert via its menacing of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz revealed a bitter truth about the West’s ability to defend itself.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by military expert Col. Richard Kemp, a veteran of several wars in which the United Kingdom took part and an on-the-scene analyst of the conflict Israel has been fighting against Iran and its terrorist proxies. Kemp says the reason why the United States pulled the plug on the war was due to President Donald Trump’s unwillingness to risk even a small number of casualties in order to ensure freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf.

“Very clearly, the United States was not, and probably would never be prepared to commit to boots on the ground in that situation,” says Kemp.

While Israelis are willing to do what is necessary to defend their country as well as their homes and families, the political leadership of the United States as well as Western Europe, lacks the will to commit to such a fight. Kemp also believes that the refusal of Britain and other NATO allies to fight alongside the United States against a nation like Iran that is as much of a threat to them as America, also played a role in Trump’s decision.

That is a political decision by London. According to Kemp, that has embarrassed the British military, since they would have been willing to defend British sovereign territory, like their bases in Cyprus, which were attacked by Iran, but their political leaders lack the will to do so.

Kemp also described the enormous difference between the image of Israel, which he visits frequently, and the way it is depicted in the Western media. “We shouldn't forget that this is not a misunderstanding or a lack of knowledge,” says Kemp. It is a deliberate campaign to delegitimize Israel, which began in the Soviet Union in the 1960s.”

In particular, he drew a strong contrast between the way Israel empowers and takes care of all of its citizens, including those who are disabled, with the way Palestinian Arabs treat their people. Israel is, he says, the only country that allows its disabled to serve their country while the Palestinians sacrifice their disabled children as human shields in the fighting in Gaza.

When asked about the future of British Jews, Kemp says the problem isn’t only the plague of antisemitism that has been tolerated by both the British Labour and Conservative parties. It’s that the rights of all British citizens, what he refers to as the “indigenous” people of Britain, are being undone by a willingness to tolerate law-breaking and Islamicization of society by immigrants from the Arab and Muslim world.

Kemp says the prospects for a political sea change that will enable any conceivable British government to protect the rights of all British citizens, including Jews, are not good. He believes it is more likely than not that future British prime ministers, like the last few, will be too afraid of violence from Muslims and the far left, to do anything about the problem. If that is the case, he predicts that it will result in a kind of civil war, comparable to the strife that prevailed in Northern Ireland for decades, where government forces strove in vain to counter violence from competing factions. In this case, that will mean Muslim terror will become a normal part of British life alongside counter-terror from “indigenous” Britons.

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With Israelis set to go to the polls in a few months, an issue that has been on the backburner since Oct. 7 will probably again be provoking public debate in the Jewish state. An effort to reform Israel’s Supreme Court and judicial system enraged the opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in 2023 and is likely to be on the agenda again. Joining JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin in this week’s episode of Think Twice is Israel-American lawyer Yonatan Green, author of the new book, Rogue Justice: The Rise of Judicial Supremacy In Israel.

Green says that there is no court in the world in a democratic country that has the kind of power that Israel’s Supreme Court has seized for itself. And contrary to the claims of the opponents of judicial reform, “the biggest threat to Israeli democracy and the rule of law is the Israeli Supreme Court itself and its allies and its proxies.”

By abolishing the very notions of standing and justiciability, two cornerstones of English and American law, Israel’s courts have arrogated to themselves the ability to overrule the elected government on virtually any issue or action in ways unheard of in other democracies. This has created a system of judicial supremacy that is antithetical to democracy. And when you add in the fact that members of the court have the power to name or at least veto potential fellow judges, what Israel has created is a judicial oligarchy.

Nevertheless, judicial reform opponents call any effort to rein in this undemocratic system and re-establish a balance between the judiciary and the elected members of the Knesset and government a threat to democracy. Green believes that many Israelis believe this to be true because when it comes to the judiciary, citizens of the Jewish state are essentially isolated from other democratic nations and have no idea what is considered normative elsewhere.

As a result, they actually believe that democracy is not a matter of majority rule limited by independent courts that are restrained from overstepping their responsibilities. Rather, they actually are under the impression, reinforced by liberal dominance of their education system, that the rule of elites who have the right and duty to ignore the will of the voters is democracy. Moreover, they seem unfamiliar with the basic concept underlying the American system which holds that the rights of citizens are derived from God rather than a gift from a government that can be limited or taken away at will.

Green believes the danger from this undemocratic and coercive system that pretends to be democratic but is not, goes beyond the impact of an out-of-control judiciary. It has also increased polarization and made it harder for Israelis to get along with each other.

The solution to this problem, he says, is a much-needed change in Israeli education to promote knowledge about how democracy works and the election of a constitutional convention that, like the one that wrote America’s constitution in 1787, can come up with a more equitable system.

The forces behind the mainstreaming of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories have gained a foothold in both major political parties. And according to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, there’s no sign of them being driven back to the fever swamps of the far left and the far right where they belong. Or at least not for the foreseeable future. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by columnist and author David Harsanyi who argues that no one would ever think about being racist and conspiratorial in the way they are about Jewish people when speaking about black Americans or anyone else. And, he says, expressions of anti-Zionism gives them the cover to get away with it.

While such people claim their beliefs are about their revulsion for Israel, Harsanyi argues that their use of tropes about Jews controlling the media, money, and being able to displace or get rid of politicians they don't like aligns with the sort of hatred that's always existed. It exists, he says, among progressives but also among the isolationist types and the paleocons. Such alleged right-wingers are very close to being progressives. “Tucker Carlson is far closer to Hassan Piker than people probably want to admit. In fact, I'd say they're relatively indistinguishable except maybe for some cultural issues.” Harsanyi says.

What’s more, there's no real price to pay anymore for being antisemitic in society, Harsanyi points out. “If you're a racist, there's still a price to pay. If you're an antisemite, there is virtually no price to pay. You see comedians do it. You see podcasters do it, and you see mainstream media types do it as well.

While most Republican officeholders are pushing back against the antisemites, with, Harsanyi says, the conspicuous exception of Vice President JD Vance, most Democrats are giving in to their antisemites. The acceptance of people like Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, despite his Nazi tattoo and sex scandals, as well as his vicious anti-Israel rhetoric is, like the rise of the left-wing congressional “Squad,” evidence of the progressive capture of the Democratic Party.

Nevertheless, Harsanyi thinks Democrats are making a mistake by investing so heavily in anti-Israel rhetoric. Most Americans, even those who are not predisposed to support Israel, are just not that interested in the issue and the left’s commitment to smearing the Jewish state and targeting Jews is not an election-winning issue.

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What can American Jews do to successfully respond to the surge of antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023? The answer, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, may be to channel the spirit of activism that characterized the movement to free Soviet Jewry in the 1970s and 80s. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by scholar and author Izabella Taborovsky, the author of Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide.

Taborovsky points out that the script for those engaging in what she calls “conspiratorial anti-Zionism was written by Soviet propagandists more than a half century ago. She says the Soviet Union didn’t merely engage in state-sponsored antisemitism but also in a similar effort to promote anti-Zionism in order to suppress Jewish dissent at home and to attack the United States and Israel.

What we’re facing today, she says, is, “the same language, the same ideas, the same conceptual universe and the same explanatory logic” employed by the Soviets against Jews then. The “refuseniks”—the Jews who wouldn’t go along with this assault on Jewish identity and demanded the right to emigrate—”refused this idea that in order to be accepted, we have to give up every aspect of our Jewish ideas and identity.” Moreover, she argues, they knew they weren’t accepted anyway by a society that was drenched in Jew-hatred.

The lessons she draws from this struggle, can, she asserts, be applied to the Jewish dilemmas of today. The six principles laid out in her book are to: Reclaim your Zionism and its centrality in Jewish identity; Educate yourself rather than remain Jewishly illiterate; Find comrades in arms and embrace allies, which exist in America among pro-Israel Christians; Do the unexpected and refuse to play by the rules laid down by the antisemites; Reject victimhood and embrace pride in Jewish success; and to Lead with Jewish life as a pathway to success.

Taborovsky also points out that efforts to bring up the history of the Jewish Socialist Bund as an alternative to Zionism is ahistorical. The Bund was just as nationalist as Zionism; it just wanted to practice it in Eastern Europe. To revive this doomed notion is to forget that it died in the ashes of the Holocaust and the Soviet gulags. To the contrary, she believes Jews should take heart from Israel’s successes and to realize that Zionism is the future of the Jewish people. It is those who reject it or wish to destroy it that are, as in the past, on the wrong side of history.

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