Letters from Our Readers

On “Hasan Piker’s Politics of Appeal”

In a recent episode of On The Nose, Arielle Angel and Hasan Piker dismissed congressional candidate Scott Wiener’s decision to start calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. “Nobody believes him,” they both concur. I’ll tell you who does believe him: the Jewish establishment. Wiener’s switch in language is causing them more heartburn than similar comments from people farther to... more

Sonja Trauss
Berkeley, CA

On “Portrait of a Campus in Crisis”

I appreciated Will Alden’s well-researched exposé on UCLA’s excessive militarization in response to the student-led Palestine solidarity movement, which brought much-needed attention to the scale of the university’s violence. However, I believe this piece would have been strengthened by fore­grounding the agency and dynamism of grassroots student organizing. What might we gain if, instead of focusing on the inner workings... more

Alona Weimer
Los Angeles, CA

On “Joe Kent’s Resignation Was Brave. His Analysis Is Faulty.”

In his March 24th article “Joe Kent’s Resignation Was Brave. His Analysis was Faulty,” Peter Beinart conflates speculative statements concerning Israel’s actions with antisemitic claims about “Jewish conspiracy” that have been historically mobilized to justify the displacement, disenfranchisement, and mass murder of Jews. Near the end of the article, Beinart writes: “Joe Kent’s claims about Israel’s role in the Iraq... more

Lisa Cerami
Rochester, NY

On “The Gavel and the Gun”

Darryl Li argues in favor of the “centrality of the armed struggle” to further the Palestinian cause. His main justification is that violent actions have been the “bloodstained lever moving the question of Palestine onto the international legal agenda.” His approach to Palestinian violence is instrumentalist: He argues that it should be endorsed because it works. He fails, however, to... more

Nathaniel Berman
New York, NY

Darryl Li argues that Palestinians have won gains in international courts as a result of Hamas’s October 7th attacks. Though Li concedes that such “unprecedented moves in international law,” like the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank constitutes apartheid or its investigation of Israel’s clampdown on the United Nations Relief and Works... more

Raphael Magarik
Chicago, IL

On “We Need New Jewish Institutions”

As the founder of the Bushwick/Ridgewood Shul—a budding Jewish community currently based out of my apartment—I appreciated the suggestion in Arielle Angel’s recent responsa that we simply define ourselves as Jews, rather than constantly flagging our anti-Zionism. We are Jewish, too, and anyone who comes to our space is welcome to leave if they find our politics distasteful. In the... more

Esti L.
Brooklyn, NY

Arielle Angel’s terrific article manages to be radical and practical at a time when we need both qualities, and need them simultaneously. I would like, however, to offer two points of contention: First, I’m not sure Angel is right that “our small minyanim and chavurot cannot provide . . . lifecycle support.” My own chavurah, Havurat Shalom in Somerville, Massachusetts... more

Lawrence Rosenwald
Maynard, MA

In her recent piece, Arielle Angel writes, “It is the Zionists who have been the primary actors over much of the last century of Jewish history, who have strangled our diasporic languages and disinvested from our cultural and spiritual life.” This claim, however, bears an uneasy relationship to history. Zionists and their institutions have been the fomenters and supporters of... more

Zackary Sholem Berger
Baltimore, MD

I wholeheartedly agree with Arielle Angel’s recent responsa on the need for new Jewish institutions. But Angel nearly lost me in the opening sentences, when she writes, “Nearly every organization charged with stewarding” the enterprise of Judaism “is infected with a voracious rot. Over the past 20 months, there is no sacred Jewish ritual that has not been performed by... more

D.D. Guttenplan
Brooklyn, NY

Angel does an excellent job diagnosing the problem that modern, justice-minded Jews are feeling in this singularly troubling moment in history. However, I take some issue with Angel’s prescription for “new spaces, new containers for the exploration of antifascist Jewish life.” There are, in fact, organizations that have been fighting this good fight for generations, though we are often marginalized... more

Ross Helford
Los Angeles, CA

I agree with Arielle Angel that we urgently need new Jewish institutions, a necessity that has only become more acute since October 7th. Angel correctly diagnoses the poisoned chalice of our current institutions being built on inherently anti-democratic foundations, and we should keep this assessment in mind as we build new institutions within this burgeoning ecosystem. Unfortunately, a private Jewish... more

David Mantell
Brooklyn, NY

I enthusiastically agree that we need an entirely new Jewish organizational infrastructure. But it is important to remember that the need for new institutions is not unique to the Jewish community: All of the core institutions of our society—from health care to education to the “justice system”—are facing utter collapse. We must build mutual aid and community self-defense networks not... more

Shane Burley
Portland, OR

On “Rhetoric Without Reckoning”

I subscribed to Jewish Currents recently in order to support a respected Jewish publication that repudiated the war on Gaza and stood for solidarity with its people. I was repelled by Simone Zimmerman’s article “Rhetoric Without Reckoning.” Instead of welcoming liberal Zionists’ break in support of Israel’s war, Zimmerman puts up roadblocks: Liberal Zionists must rend their garments, admit their... more

Elizabeth Rapaport
Brooklyn, NY

The most effective Israel/Palestine activists I know prioritize principled action over ideological purity. After a decade organizing in Jewish anti-occupation movements in the US and doing protective presence work in Israel/Palestine, I’ve seen that the American Jews willing to sacrifice the most to defend Palestinian rights care the least about applying litmus tests around Zionism, BDS, and the like. Discussions... more

Zak Witus
Brooklyn, NY

On “Zionism: A People Reborn”

While I agree wholeheartedly with the underlying sentiment in Eli Valley’s cartoon “Zionism: A People Reborn”—that the accusations of antisemitism against Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani are false, malicious, Islamophobic, and racist—I found the representation of the Zionist accusers unsettling. The decision to depict them as mentally ill, stuffed in a straitjacket, sweating and drooling, implies that Mamdani’s critics are... more

Ben Faulding
New York, NY

On “The Tangled Knot of Anti-Zionist Violence”

You are not likely to read a more thoughtful or historically sensitive reflection on how to respond morally and politically to the recent incidents of anti-Zionist violence than Daniel May’s latest essay, “The Tangled Knot of Anti-Zionist Violence.” May teaches us that Zionism catalyzed a transvaluation of Jewishness that makes prying the two apart a more burdensome ordeal than the... more

Judah Isseroff
St. Louis, MO

I was disappointed to read Daniel May's recent piece, which in the face of targeted violence against Jews, only lectures us once again on the importance of distinguishing between Judaism and Zionism. In doing so, he suggests it’s a lesser crime to murder Jews if accompanied by the phrase “free Palestine!” At one point, May notes that the two low-level... more

Noah Baron
Washington, DC

On “Against Zionist Realism”

For Jon Danforth-Appell, Jewish anti-Zionist organizing wrongly reinforces the bond between Judaism and Zionism, obscuring the more central role played by the United States in supporting Israel’s actions. But in arguing against “Zionist realism,” the author reifies nationalist realism—the idea that the only real polities out there are nation-states. This obscures a long tradition of Jewish thinkers and movements who... more

Simon Jacobs
Berkeley, CA

There was a time in recent history when “Jewish” was an identity category utterly unaffiliated with state power, imperialism, and genocidal violence. The slogan “Not In Our Name” hearkens back to this time. There was, however, never a point in time when the identity category “American” was not affiliated with an empire that was, and remains, “the greatest purveyor of... more

Leora Fridman
New York, NY

It’s important for Jews working toward Palestinian liberation to ask ourselves whether our tactics and formations are more self-soothing than strategic, and to question the value of organizing as Jews at all. It’s true, as Jon Danforth-Appell says, that “the American empire’s support for Israel is rooted in geopolitics and the global capital of the arms trade, not a love... more

Joe Dobkin
New York, NY

I appreciated Jon Danforth-Appell’s pragmatic analysis of who is providing the most significant material support for genocide and occupation. However, I take issue with the claim (which was also repeated on the On the Nose episode discussing the article) that Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is one of the leading groups organizing direct action in solidarity with Palestine. As a... more

Hannah C.
New York, NY

We at Halachic Left, a grassroots organization of halachically-observant Jews working against the occupation, don’t disagree with Jon Danforth-Appell’s claim that a main axis of our complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza is our Americanness, not our Judaism. But we believe that deep cultural shifts are crucial for creating long-term change and that this work is most impactful when... more

Eliana Padwa
Jerusalem

In his recent piece, Jon Danforth-Appell writes that “the Jewish left as a whole has yet to articulate a project that is not just the negation of Zionism.” But in searching for the positive content of anti-Zionist Judaism, might we consider . . . Judaism? Our traditions of dialectic argumentation and empathy for the vulnerable, to give just two... more

Isaac Congedo
Silver Spring, MD

As Jon Danforth-Appell rightly notes, anti-Zionism, perhaps counterintuitively, still centers Israel. As if to dramatize the “realism” Danforth-Appell describes, in my view, even the article itself (and the podcast discussing it) reproduce terms and concepts common to both Zionism and anti-Zionism, which feel so embedded that it's hard to imagine it any other way.For example, Danforth-Appell writes: “The mobilization... more

Devin Naar
Seattle, WA

On the 2024 Winter Gift

I recently received a divinely-timed gift to hang on my wall in my cell at the Maury Correctional Institution: a print by Liora Ostroff drawn from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 1971 essay “Dissent.” I have recently begun identifying as Jewish and studying Judaism on a daily basis, but Jewish resources are limited here and I am presently indigent. I wanted... more

John Marston
Maury, NC

I am writing to register my disapproval at the 2024 Winter Gift. While I understand that there is a Jewish tradition of secularizing religious art, the shiviti amulet print fails on multiple fronts. A shiviti is an extremely sacred object, filled with holy names and psalms. As someone engaged in a Hasidic movement, the explicit replacement of the divine name... more

Atira Chaya Wiechmann
Brooklyn, NY

I’m writing to complain about the art you curated for this year’s winter gift: a secularized and sanitized spin on a shiviti amulet. In replacing liturgical verse and the names of Hashem with (frankly, boring) English text by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Liora Ostroff has de-Judaized the art form. I appreciate that Jewish Currents is a historically secular magazine with... more

Misha Holleb
Brooklyn, NY

A response from the artist: Shiviti amulets have a short and controversial history, just like the Sabbatean—not Hasidic—movement from which they arose. Religious authorities originally considered them profane and idolatrous, which speaks to the way questions of authenticity, blasphemy, and holiness are already inherent in the form. Even if these amulets have now been enshrined in sacred tradition, the letter... more

Liora Ostroff
Baltimore, MD

On “What Happened to IfNotNow?”

Two articles in the Spring 2021 issue—the editors’ responsa on antisemitism and Aaron Freedman’s examination of IfNotNow—have triggered my concern about how the Jewish left is being implicitly defined by Jewish Currents through omission. The antisemitism responsa outlined a set of problems in the Jewish left’s approach to antisemitism, centered around organizations and coalitions that take April Rosenblum’s The Past... more

Rebecca Vilkomerson
Brooklyn, NY

On “The Perils of Universities’ Unscholarly Antisemitism Reports”

As a Jewish professor who studies antisemitic tropes, I am just the kind of faculty member whom Peter Beinart argues should have been included in my university’s recent antisemitism task force, but whose expertise was sidelined. I welcome Beinart’s analysis of this issue, but I am dismayed by his framing of the problem. We need to interrogate not only the... more

Anonymous
New York

On “On the ‘Victims of the Victims’”

In Ussama Makdisi’s recent reconsideration of Edward Said’s description of Palestinians as “victims of victims,” he asks in what sense Israeli Jews can meaningfully be deemed victims, given the ongoing displacement, dehumanization, and violence they have directed toward Palestinians since 1948. I believe that Said’s formula still offers a relevant explanatory model—though it is necessary to stress that it should... more

David N. Myers
Los Angeles, CA

On “Florida Is Everywhere”

As I read Arielle Angel’s letter from the editor in Jewish Currents’s Florida issue, I thought about how Florida may be best understood simply as one of the northernmost parts of the Global South. Situating the state in this context, we can see it for what it is: a space that has all the trappings of modernity—gleaming skyscrapers, sprawling suburbs... more

William Shoki
Cape Town, South Africa

On “Bodies of Water”

I wanted to express my appreciation for “Bodies of Water,” a conversation between the artist Sasha Wortzel and the photographer Shoog McDaniel in the recent Florida issue of Jewish Currents. It is so rare to see fat voices and fat bodies represented positively, or even neutrally. In leftist media, depictions of fatness are often used as shorthand to signal overconsumption... more

Phoebe Wahl
Bellingham, WA

On “The Hösses’ Colonial Paradise”

Like Jonathan Shamir, I long for a disruption to the monotony of Holocaust films that “prioritize pathos, catharsis, and blunt moral force over historical precision.” Most cultural production “about the Holocaust” actually shields us from having to look too directly at that genocide. Before I watched The Zone of Interest, I had hoped that a film positioning itself at the... more

Helen Betya Rubinstein
Brooklyn, NY

On “Kamala’s Convention”

It seems that you published Eli Valley’s disgusting attack on Kamala Harris because the magazine disagrees with her policy position on Israel and the Gaza Strip. This kind of absolutism in politics never wins elections. Jewish Currents should take a lesson from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is mature enough to understand the need for flexibility in order to serve greater... more

David Gurin
Copake Falls, NY

I’m disgusted by Eli Valley’s cartoon of Kamala Harris. I understand that his style is meant to mimic the antisemitic illustrations published in places like Der Stürmer in the the 1930s, but the effect when applied to a Black woman is undeniably racist. In the future, Valley should keep these drawings in his mental basement.

Jeremy Fassler
Washington, D.C.

Kamala Harris serves in a presidency currently breaking US and international law to commit crimes against humanity. My art appeared the day after Harris’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, in which she fervently vowed to continue supplying Israel with the arms it uses to target and massacre civilians. During the convention, despite the pleas of prominent Israeli hostage family... more

Eli Valley

On “Religion, Secularism, and the Jewish Left”

The recent On the Nose episode about religion and secularism reflected an entrenched Ashkenormative approach to Jewishness—that is, the assumption of Ashkenazi culture, history, and religious practice as the “default” in Jewish life as a function of internalized Eurocentrism, and even white supremacy, within Jewish society. I was disappointed that the podcast’s participants showed little awareness or interest in the... more

Devin Naar
Seattle, WA

As a scholar of religion trained primarily within (implicitly or explicitly Christian) religious studies departments, I found myself wishing to challenge the terms of the discussion in the recent podcast episode on secularism and religion. Secularism in the US has its roots in Protestant Christianity and tends to define “religion” as primarily a matter of private belief—a definition to which... more

Max Thornton
Jersey City, NJ

Throughout the recent podcast episode on secularism and religion, I wished I could tell the secular participants in the conversation that there is absolutely no slippery slope leading from religious learning to religious fundamentalism. In our work reviving the International Jewish Labor Bund, we have, for example, many queer and trans members who are interested in the Talmud’s diverse understanding... more

Anna Tarkov
Chicago, IL

The recent episode of On the Nose was fascinating and also a striking illustration of Ashkenormativity: In the discussion, Jewish secularism was depicted as a purely Ashkenazi phenomenon, and all the examples the conversation participants provided of secular Jewish culture were forms of Yiddishkeit and their Americanized incarnations. Sephardic experiences in irreligion can provide an important alternate outlook on this... more

Nesi Altaras
Stanford, CA

I am very grateful for Jewish Currents’s new parshah commentary series, as well as for the recent podcast conversation about it. The critique raised by Mitch Abidor and Judee Rosenbaum in the On the Nose episode helped me articulate some of my own hesitancies about my impulse to deepen my relationship with Jewish text. One particular moment in the podcast... more

Ruby Beenhouwer
Queens, NY

The latest On the Nose episode about religion and secularism on the Jewish left reminded me of something the poet Jorie Graham said in a 1996 interview about lineages of poetry. When asked if she saw any trends in the next generation of poets, Graham said that they “seem to be yearning for permission to break past their own remarkably... more

David Naimon
Portland, OR

On “A Textbook Case of Genocide”

For more than three weeks, Israel has waged a ferocious war against Hamas in response to the horrific terrorist attack the group conducted in southern Israel on October 7th. As of this writing, more than 8,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have already been killed by Israel, and more than a million people have been displaced. Conditions inside the crowded... more

Dov Waxman
Los Angeles, CA

On “Iron Dome Is Not a Defensive System”

In the May 25th Jewish Currents newsletter, Dylan Saba argues against supporting Iron Dome because by saving Israeli lives, it enables Israel to destroy Palestinian lives at little cost. Had Saba simply argued that all aid to Israel ought to end given its systematic violation of Palestinians’ human rights, I would have had no quarrel with him. Instead, he is... more

Mitchell Silver
Jamaica Plain, MA

On “The Strange Logic of Germany’s Antisemitism Bureaucrats”

I would like to add to Peter Kuras’s excellent reporting on Germany’s anti-antisemitism bureaucracy by sharing a telling interaction I had with antisemitism commissioner Felix Klein’s office a few weeks ago. This summer in Berlin, I saw an exhibition at the Pilecki Institute, an institution dedicated to the 20th-century Polish experience of totalitarianism and supported by the Polish government’s Ministry... more

Diane L. Wolf
Berkeley, CA

On “Bad Memory”

Too bad. With only a little research the authors would have known that much of contemporary German memory culture was painfully fought for by Jews who stayed in Germany after the war, and who kept disturbing the peace of a country all too eager to forget the crimes of its past. Figures like Ignatz Bubis or Paul Spiegel, higher-ups in... more

Joel Kohen
Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Belgium

The Spring issue responsa and reported feature on Germany are valuable contributions to the growing body of work on the country’s repression of Palestine solidarity activism in the name of “curbing” antisemitism. That said, Germany’s clear interest in using Holocaust penance to prevent a reckoning with its colonial history remains a neglected aspect of this dynamic, one that the responsa... more

Jonathan Matz
Los Angeles, CA

The Spring issue of Jewish Currents devotes 37 pages across three separate pieces to the discussion of how Germany’s displaced Holocaust guilt deleteriously affects the country’s Muslim and Arab minority populations. But not one word in the editorial staff’s responsa, Peter Kuras’s feature on the country’s antisemitism bureaucracy, or Sanders Isaac Bernstein’s assessment of Max Czollek’s book acknowledges that most... more

Kathleen Peratis
New York, NY

On “The Hindu Nationalists Using the Pro-Israel Playbook”

I wish to thank Aparna Gopalan for writing this very timely piece on the Hindu right’s use and abuse of the term “Hinduphobia.” I’m a practicing Hindu of the non-Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] sort, and I’m writing this letter anonymously because of safety concerns. (Like many members of the diaspora, my family and I frequently travel back to India, and retribution... more

Anonymous
Columbus, OH

On “Recent Polls of US Jews Reflect Polarized Community”

Caroline Morganti’s June 29th piece on polling of American Jews reported on the polarization of the community as a whole, depicting a population deeply divided in its opinions on Israel/Palestine. This polarization is also present on a local level in Portland, Oregon, according to a recently completed study of the community conducted for the local Jewish Federation by Brandeis University’s... more

Joel Beinin
Portland, OR