Ben Lorber

That Cenk ad is gutter populism & a good case study of what messaging to avoid. Yes, we should connect US aid to Israel to everyday economic pain-- that's the basic divest/invest framework. But the problem isn't that some other group of people is getting universal healthcare;

Let's build a world where, if anything, American rabbis worry about their employability if they're not speaking out.

‘Antisemitism isn’t systemic’ is the Left’s version of ‘the world’s oldest hatred’. An easy slogan that is in fact a sign of impoverished thought, a stubborn unwillingness to think critically & rigorously. One hyperbolizes, the other minimizes;

Today the crisis of Palestine & the rise of the global Right is catalyzing volatile forms of antisemitism. Israel’s genocide is obviously part of the fuel, but only part. Jews have more power than many apologists insist, yes, but far less than many critics imagine. The refusal by

‘Antisemitism isn’t systemic’ is the Left’s version of ‘the world’s oldest hatred’. An easy slogan that is in fact a sign of impoverished thought, a stubborn unwillingness to think critically & rigorously. One hyperbolizes, the other minimizes;

from the past, floating above politics, history & society? This is no way for the Left to think. We can do better! What you really mean is ‘Jews don’t face meaningful oppression as Jews in their daily lives’. That is probably true for some Jews, in some places,

‘Antisemitism isn’t systemic’ is the Left’s version of ‘the world’s oldest hatred’. An easy slogan that is in fact a sign of impoverished thought, a stubborn unwillingness to think critically & rigorously. One hyperbolizes, the other minimizes;

crisis & collapse, when the old is dying & the new has yet to be born, when millions are suffering, desperate & grasping to make sense of a broken world. Its rise tracks alongside systemic crises in capitalism & the world system. Fascism surged after the Great Depression;

‘Antisemitism isn’t systemic’ is the Left’s version of ‘the world’s oldest hatred’. An easy slogan that is in fact a sign of impoverished thought, a stubborn unwillingness to think critically & rigorously. One hyperbolizes, the other minimizes;

One says ‘it’s everywhere’, the other, ‘it’s nowhere’. Neither offer a materialist analysis. Obviously antisemitism doesn’t currently manifest as straightforward economic or racial oppression. Jewish Americans earn on average relatively higher incomes, like Hindu Americans, &

It's funny that one loud camp is (predictably) saying that Mamdani’s antisemitism plan is not Zionist enough, while another is claiming it's (somehow) too Zionist. What both overlook, because neither really care, is the project of fighting antisemitism in NYC on its own terms

My latest on Substack- Specters of Balfour "Those who dismiss Piker’s warning as victim-blaming are thinking moralistically, not politically...the point is not to assign blame for antisemitism but to understand the conditions of its emergence"

By joining the pile-on against Hasan Piker, Democrats & liberals are running the Right's disinformation playbook for them-- the same playbook the Right uses before every election. This time around the moral panic was created by a far-right pro-Israel account named Max Nordau/

During the Trump 1.0 midterms in 2018, MAGA faced an image crisis. Unite the Right exposed their extremism for all to see. Pointing the finger at Women's March helped them change the narrative. Now antisemitism was an equal threat on 'both sides'. Dems played right along. Same thing happening now

By joining the pile-on against Hasan Piker, Democrats & liberals are running the Right's disinformation playbook for them-- the same playbook the Right uses before every election. This time around the moral panic was created by a far-right pro-Israel account named Max Nordau/

We have seen the same bad-faith disinfo attacks for a decade now against so many progressive leaders of color, from AOC, Ilhan Omar & the Women's March in 2018 to AES, Piker & many others today. Many of the people who joined the pile-on this time around claim to know better.

By joining the pile-on against Hasan Piker, Democrats & liberals are running the Right's disinformation playbook for them-- the same playbook the Right uses before every election. This time around the moral panic was created by a far-right pro-Israel account named Max Nordau/

Hasan Piker's statement about the relation between American Jewish support for Israel and antisemitism shouldn't be so controversial. Here's Hannah Arendt making the same point in her 1944 essay 'Zionism Reconsidered'

The irony of course is that Zionism was conceived as an answer to antisemitism, and most Jewish supporters still see it that way. But when you yoke the fortunes of a small, hyper-visible global minority to the actions of a belligerent pariah state, it can cause dangerous blowback

Hasan Piker's statement about the relation between American Jewish support for Israel and antisemitism shouldn't be so controversial. Here's Hannah Arendt making the same point in her 1944 essay 'Zionism Reconsidered'

Deborah Lipstadt, noted Holocaust historian & antisemitism czar under Biden, just shared a hardline transphobe who compared gender-affirming surgery to genital mutilation & slammed 'gender ideology' For many self-styled 'liberals', Israel advocacy is a gateway drug to the Right

The latest issue of @jewishcurrents.bsky.social carried a bad review of my good friend @blbalthaser.bsky.social’s excellent new book on the American Jewish Left and anti-Zionism. I wanted to explain what’s wrong with the review, and why it matters

I usually keep my pettiness in check. But I do wonder if the boys at @mostmoralpod.bsky.social are having second thoughts after recording a whole episode the other month, slamming me & others for naming Susan’s antisemitism. These 3 posts are just from the last few days—

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Mamdani’s pro-Israel critics are correct today— that when the mayor of NYC used his large platform to call Netanyahu a war criminal and urge his arrest, it helped inspire a mentally ill person to stab a Jew on the streets of Manhattan /

The difference, of course, is that this anti-China rhetoric was unhinged, conspiratorial & designed for scapegoating. By contrast, Netanyahu is actually a war criminal & Mamdani’s powerful video was politically clear-eyed & morally unassailable. If yesterday’s video & today’s

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Mamdani’s pro-Israel critics are correct today— that when the mayor of NYC used his large platform to call Netanyahu a war criminal and urge his arrest, it helped inspire a mentally ill person to stab a Jew on the streets of Manhattan /