A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - The Antisemitism Panic (with Matt Lieb)

00:00:00.000 You should not start making Miss Rachel your target, because if you make people in America

00:00:07.120 choose between abandoning Miss Rachel and supporting Hamas, everyone is going to choose

00:00:14.420 Hamas. 0.64

00:00:15.960 Hello, hello, and welcome back to A Bit Fruity. 0.96

00:00:20.420 I'm Matt Bernstein.

00:00:21.700 This is a big one.

00:00:22.900 This has been a long time coming.

00:00:24.900 Strap in.

00:00:25.540 This is one that we have wanted to make, that we have needed to make, and we are making

00:00:29.540 it. 0.99

00:00:30.000 There has been a lot of crazy shit happening in this country in the name of Jewish safety. 0.99

00:00:36.480 The Trump administration has terminated nearly $3 billion in federal research grants for 0.98

00:00:41.740 Harvard and is trying to prevent the school from enrolling any international students,

00:00:46.380 in large part because of the school's, quote, failure to address anti-Semitism on campus.

00:00:52.060 Trump has waged a similar war against other universities like Columbia, which, unlike

00:00:57.440 Harvard, completely capitulated to Trump and oversaw Immigration and Customs Enforcement,

00:01:02.960 or ICE, enter its campus and kidnap students who had participated in free Palestine protests.

00:01:08.200 A group called Stop Anti-Semitism is calling on the U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi

00:01:13.600 to investigate children's YouTuber Miss Rachel, who they accuse of being funded by Hamas because

00:01:21.800 she makes videos with Palestinian child amputees. More on that later. The same Stop

00:01:27.360 anti-Semitism group lobbied Delta Airlines to fire a flight attendant who wore a Palestinian

00:01:33.320 flag pin, which Delta agreed to investigate. People are being deported and having their

00:01:39.840 green cards revoked over accusations of anti-Semitism by an administration that

00:01:45.100 somehow also employs a guy who did a Hitler salute and another who thinks COVID was a

00:01:50.400 bioweapon designed to spare Jews. Democratic principles like free speech and the right

00:01:55.120 to a fair trial are being trampled, apparently because all of the people in charge are just 0.95

00:02:00.280 really concerned with Jewish safety. And as a Jew, I'm confused. Every time I see these posts

00:02:08.680 that are like, check on your Jewish friends, they're not okay right now. I'm like, genuinely,

00:02:14.960 what are you talking about? I mean, I'm not okay. I, to be clear, I'm not okay. But that is between

00:02:21.460 my psychiatrist and I, and it is unrelated to a flight attendant with a Palestinian flag pin,

00:02:26.880 I promise. When these people in the Trump administration and on CNN and the conservative

00:02:32.940 networks and the liberal networks talk about rampant anti-Semitism on campus, I honestly

00:02:39.860 don't really know what they're referring to. And I'm very fucking uncomfortable with what's being 0.87

00:02:44.660 done in this country, supposedly in the name of my safety. I think bad faith interpretations of 0.93

00:02:50.840 anti-semitism are actually about an agenda that has nothing to do with jewish safety at all and

00:02:56.680 i think our identities are being weaponized to achieve something much darker that a lot of people

00:03:02.540 seem to be missing so that's kind of what we're going to talk about today and i know it's heavy

00:03:08.080 a lot of things we talk about on this podcast are heavy but we're going to find ways to bring

00:03:11.840 levity we're going to make this entertaining i promise if it's the last thing i do we will talk

00:03:16.440 about influencers. To help me do this podcast today, I have enlisted two of my very favorite

00:03:23.340 Jews. Most of the podcast will be done alongside my fellow Jewish podcast Matt, Matt Lieb, who is

00:03:30.600 a comedian and the host of the Bad Hasfara podcast. And a little later on, we will hear

00:03:35.920 from another friend of mine who asked that they remain anonymous, which I totally understand.

00:03:41.500 And this kind of stuff can be really hard to litigate, especially publicly, when there is so much harassment for anyone, especially any Jewish person who chooses to speak out about it.

00:03:53.400 They have such unbelievable wisdom and knowledge about the subject at hand.

00:03:58.180 So we're going to hear from them a little later in the show.

00:04:01.800 Matt and ****, welcome to the show.

00:04:04.260 With regard to this topic, how are you guys feeling right now?

00:04:06.680 I love this topic.

00:04:08.020 It is all I it's all I've been talking about for the last 18 months, something I used to only talk about in much smaller, more niche circles.

00:04:17.540 And it's nice to have more and more people interested in this.

00:04:21.840 So I'm I'm feeling good about it.

00:04:23.700 I would say that I've been doing work against anti-Semitism for a long time, and starting

00:04:30.900 around 2015, 2016, started to recognize the ways in which the distortion of anti-Semitism

00:04:38.500 and Jewish fear was being weaponized, and it has been increasing, and at this moment

00:04:45.860 it's on such hyperdrive that it's gone from this very niche topic to the front page of

00:04:53.140 you know, any publication. But yeah, like you were saying, Matt, it's also that it's so rampant

00:04:59.160 that it's being exposed. And that is actually really helpful for people being able to counter

00:05:05.240 it. So the way that we're going to break up this episode is we are going to hear chiefly from Matt

00:05:12.400 and Matt, the two Matts, in the first half as we go through some of the shadowy internet figures

00:05:18.820 who have been really pushing this distortion of anti-Semitism for incredibly fascist means.

00:05:25.220 And then in the second half, we are going to have *** explained to us kind of what's going on

00:05:31.400 beneath the surface here as it pertains to the Trump administration and how they are weaponizing

00:05:37.440 Jewish fear. Matt, I want to start with a video that we are going to watch together. And this

00:05:45.320 video is from a one Lizzie Savetsky. And if you don't know who Lizzie Savetsky is, you will in a

00:05:51.980 minute. But first, let's just watch the video. I want to check in with everyone. It has been a

00:05:56.140 really rough couple of days because the tragic murder of Sarah and your own brings up so much

00:06:01.580 trauma that we have been holding for the past 19 months. Sure. But I don't know, thousands of years.

00:06:09.380 Anti-Semitism has existed since the Jewish people existed. We know this. To feel unsafe

00:06:14.720 in our own country is a new feeling for our generation of Jews. The concept of Jews who

00:06:20.000 have never even thought about an assault weapon, buying guns because we can't rely on anyone else

00:06:26.260 to protect our community. You know how many members of my synagogue, how many Jewish people

00:06:30.680 that I know who you would never think have a gun have a gun because we need to protect our own

00:06:35.680 community? You know something? Fear is not an emotion that I have very often. I'm always way

00:06:40.000 more angry and passionate than I am afraid. But today I was scared for the first time and I can't

00:06:45.540 even tell you how long. I was in a taxi and the driver was listening to this loud and angry

00:06:52.340 sermon and they kept yelling, Aloha Akbar! And I was scared. I normally don't care. I am loud and

00:07:00.180 proud. Come and get me. But I was scared today. We should not have to feel afraid to walk down

00:07:06.480 the street because of our identity because we were born as jews that's the reality that every

00:07:11.980 single jew i know is feeling right now in this country okay all right what a harrowing story 0.97

00:07:19.680 she felt fear for the first time in her life and decided to buy a gun because she had a muslim

00:07:26.860 uber driver who was listening to a sermon yeah she was in a cab and uh she heard someone say 0.95

00:07:34.300 alahu akbar and for the first time in her entire adult life she felt fear it's ridiculous i don't

00:07:44.120 know what to do with somebody uh like that it is not justified for you to feel fear of someone who

00:07:52.520 is listening to a sermon in a cab like that's it's a strange thing to be like well certainly

00:07:59.840 the world should cater to my own personal fear you know a hundred percent and we're gonna get

00:08:05.220 into a lot of people who are doing this wild distortion of anti-semitism and a lot of them 0.52

00:08:10.000 and a lot of the most powerful ones doing it aren't jewish but there are some people like this

00:08:15.620 who will do this refrain of like every jewish person i know is terrified and i'm like who do

00:08:23.460 you know and look yeah i'm not trying to be like a pick me and i want to say right up front i'm not

00:08:28.920 saying that like anti-semitism like doesn't exist i i talk about anti-semitism all the time

00:08:32.780 but this is just i mean this is great and it's so racist yes because she did not experience

00:08:38.880 anti-semitism in that cab what she experienced was her own islamophobia and she's saying it out

00:08:44.600 loud as if it's anti-semitism and and she's also you know she's speaking about the fear of two

00:08:52.100 Israeli diplomats being killed in DC, which is a fear I can understand if you are going to present

00:09:00.380 any other scenario in which you might feel fear. People can feel fear in a synagogue because

00:09:07.400 they're afraid of something happening. You are in someone else's cab and just listening to

00:09:14.320 something they're playing. It's like saying, I was walking through the hood and I heard some

00:09:20.780 rap music and i felt fear and it's like okay well that's embarrassing for you i don't know what to

00:09:26.860 tell you like it actually it reminds me of like there's a lot of ways that fear of your own safety

00:09:33.700 can be distorted to the point where you use it to hurt other people and it almost reminds me i mean

00:09:38.580 it reminds me of like like emmett till like a white woman feared for her safety because a black

00:09:45.580 child was walking past her and it's like that's not actual fear but the fact that you perceived

00:09:51.300 it as such and then took up the mantle of that to hurt someone else is horrible and it's racist

00:09:57.000 and so is this there's no uh self-reflection in it too it's like she she's not doing it because

00:10:03.320 she wants to process the emotions of fear like what why did i feel fear in this moment you know

00:10:08.540 the alleged shooter of the Israeli diplomats was not an Arab Muslim. So why would I feel this fear?

00:10:18.000 Instead of trying to process it, it's a call to arms and a call to fear for everyone else. You

00:10:23.640 should be afraid. It's fear mongering. And that's all it is. So who is this woman? Well, I would

00:10:31.160 love to give you some background, even though Matt, I know you know who she is, because we have

00:10:35.280 talked about her and her shenanigans but for the average listener who is not spending their days

00:10:43.020 focused on these wild zionist mouthpieces on instagram let me explain lizzie savetsky is a

00:10:51.040 39 year old jewish american influencer and self-identified zionist activist originally

00:10:57.440 from texas now living in new york she has over 400 000 followers on instagram where she posts

00:11:03.880 videos of her speaking direct to camera in her multi-million dollar Upper East Side apartment 0.57

00:11:09.080 talking about how scary it is to be a Jew right now. She constantly thanks President Trump for

00:11:15.740 standing up for Jewish safety. She does photo shoots of her designer dresses made of Israeli

00:11:21.320 flags, lots of image carousels of her frequent luxury resort vacations to Israel, tons and tons

00:11:29.640 and tons and tons of content of her kids oftentimes portraying them in fear of the

00:11:36.420 Palestinian cause like one video where she brought her young like 10-ish year old daughter to a

00:11:42.680 pro-Palestinian protest in New York and then filmed her daughter crying because she was

00:11:47.200 obviously startled by like the noise of a protest that's it's just like stuff like that is that's 0.70

00:11:54.920 pathological it's weird it's one thing to try to fear monger and try to scare every jew in the

00:12:04.080 world it's another thing to do it directly to your daughter and then tape it and then send it out to 0.85

00:12:12.020 everybody a lot of her content combines the worst aspects of like mommy blogging with the worst

00:12:19.320 aspects of israeli instagram propaganda in a way that's just like this is actually the worst video

00:12:25.640 you've ever seen in in a i don't know in a a period of my life where i've seen some of the

00:12:34.460 most horrifying videos that i i couldn't even imagine seeing you know two years ago it's weird

00:12:41.140 how traumatizing her mommy blog videos are regarding this subject matter because they

00:12:48.100 they do seem to be just abusing her own child for the sake of uh support for israel which is um i

00:12:58.800 mean there's many ways to show your love for the nation that's one of the weirdest let me give you

00:13:06.120 a little bit of lizzie savetsky background because the lore is thick here so in 2009 a then 24 i'm

00:13:15.780 going to say, year old Lizzie Blum married Ira Svetsky. The two became a powerhouse, Israel-loving

00:13:23.820 couple. Ira became a well-to-do plastic surgeon in New York, while Lizzie grew an online presence

00:13:30.040 as a fashion blogger. In 2022, Lizzie was cast on The Real Housewives of New York, Roni, if you will.

00:13:39.020 but before the show ever aired withdrew from the cast over what she called a torrent of anti-semitism 0.62

00:13:48.060 as a result of her casting she posted a big long statement that was like the anti-semitism was

00:13:52.500 horrible and i had to withdraw from the cast now the other story here the other side of this

00:13:57.680 crony casting drama which has basically since been admitted to on all sides of this situation but 0.98

00:14:04.020 But Lizzie had been doing at the time like a matchmaking series on Instagram where she paired people up.

00:14:11.480 And when a rony castmate of hers named Bryn Whitfield, who is biracial, asked Lizzie to set her up with someone, Lizzie told Bryn that she only works with Jews due to her, quote, anxieties about the continuity of her people.

00:14:26.800 a spat ensued between the women and the show producers and lizzie was ultimately terminated

00:14:33.400 from the show after her husband ira used the n-word while describing the argument on set

00:14:39.700 which left show staff feeling uncomfortable couldn't imagine why oh my god it's such a crazy

00:14:47.520 origin story because it is uh you know directly after all this happened she you know claimed

00:14:54.080 anti-semitism was the reason you know she left the show and that is cover for her having this

00:15:01.360 incredibly racist incident between her and another you know a cast member or whatever

00:15:06.880 you call it when it's reality tv cast member cast member matt matt is like the third i believe the

00:15:12.920 third straight guy on the a bit fruity podcast so we have to yes it's cast member even on reality

00:15:17.860 tv still cast member listen all no disrespect to cast members of reality tv i just didn't know

00:15:24.000 if they wanted to be called contestants or not. But she's used smears of anti-Semitism in order 1.00

00:15:29.260 to launder her own personal racism. And this is something that she has carried on. This tradition

00:15:36.360 has been ever since this moment, she has used anti-Semitism to launder blatant racism. It's 0.99

00:15:43.580 like her villain origin story. It's like she fell in a vat of radioactive racism disguised as

00:15:52.500 you know righteousness yeah exactly and i mean like you said i mean this is something

00:15:56.840 the continuity of this theme throughout her entire body of work on instagram today is so strong and

00:16:04.620 i think it's just something that like this topic as a whole the reason we're making this episode

00:16:09.020 today it's i feel so strongly about this as a jewish person and i can't be like as a jew without

00:16:16.260 a bunch of like zionists online calling me a pick me and a self-hating jew and whatever i don't

00:16:20.660 really care what they say but it drives me crazy when i see people like this using anti-semitism

00:16:27.520 as a catch-all to excuse horrible racist behavior and it makes me feel like i have to do a sanity

00:16:34.760 check as a jew yeah i mean and it also is something that's not good for anti-semitism

00:16:41.660 it's it is crying wolf and that is uh not a good thing to do especially considering the fact that

00:16:49.620 If you claim to care about anti-Semitism, you certainly wouldn't want to water down the alleged instances of it because we're coming to the point where now people just do not believe that there is anti-Semitism, which makes it very like that's actually kind of scary.

00:17:10.160 You know, so to me, it's like looking at anti-Semitism in this like very particular lens of I feel personal fear among certain issues.

00:17:20.940 I feel discomfort hearing other people who are not Jewish talk about Palestine or talk about Israel and saying that's the same kind of anti-Semitism that was experienced in, you know, the Pale of Settlement, you know, with like Jews experiencing pogroms.

00:17:39.160 It's like, this is not the same thing. This is to compare them is to water down what people actually went through, you know, 100%. So since October 7, Lizzie has flown off the rails online and posted some of, as I've said, the craziest pro-Israel content I've ever seen.

00:17:59.980 We will watch a little more of it together in depth.

00:18:03.240 But, you know, she just, she does this.

00:18:05.600 She celebrated Mahmoud Khalil's potential deportation as a win for Jewish safety.

00:18:11.840 Shalom, Mahmoud. 0.80

00:18:12.980 That's right.

00:18:13.880 A judge has ruled that Mahmoud Khalil can now be deported over his involvement with anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University. 0.76

00:18:20.500 I can't express how big of a win this is.

00:18:22.900 in in a direct-to-camera video where she's walking around a resort in palm beach

00:18:28.560 this is the worst part about her is that she's doing these i'm scared videos with like just

00:18:40.360 bags of clothes like designer clothes she has just purchased and i'm like at some point it's

00:18:47.800 Like, is this a bit?

00:18:48.920 She doesn't even have, like, the acting commitment to, like, take off the makeup and, like, sit on the kitchen floor and film herself talking about how she feels unsafe.

00:18:57.260 Like, she is fully, like, I am unsafe at my, like, luxury five-star hotel in Palm Beach.

00:19:05.000 And the paradoxical absurdity, right, of being so racist, so antagonistic towards anyone who is even sympathetic to Palestinians, while simultaneously claiming constant fear and victimhood as an American Jew, you know, living on the Upper East Side with a plastic surgeon husband, like, it's crazy making.

00:19:26.440 Yes, yes. And it contributes to this feeling of collective gaslighting that I think we've all been going through for almost two years now, where we're constantly questioning our own sanity.

00:19:42.400 you but you don't look scared like you know after october 7th there was a huge boom in this like

00:19:52.120 zionist influencer content that was coming out and and there was a lot of different um angles

00:19:58.940 that were being tested by either individual influencers or actually like israeli pr firms

00:20:07.640 and the israeli government itself and one of them was the the hashtag would you hide me would you

00:20:13.680 hide me that's the same question my grandparents who are holocaust survivors asked their non-jewish

00:20:19.380 friends colleagues co-workers before they were taken away to the concentration camps

00:20:23.560 which is just one of the just one of the most ridiculous sentiments that was happening because

00:20:31.440 the people who were filming would you hide me videos were in luxury apartments or they were in

00:20:37.620 you know like you said like upper east side new yorkers asking would you hide me cheryl sandberg

00:20:45.980 literal billionaires saying would you hide me and and the craziest thing about it was

00:20:54.800 nobody knew what they were talking about because they were they were trying to draw comparisons

00:20:59.840 to themselves and Anne Frank, which is just offensive on its face. But also, most people

00:21:08.620 aren't going to be from, they know who Anne Frank is, but they don't know what this reference is.

00:21:13.400 And they don't know why you personally would be scared. A lot of the times in the video,

00:21:18.540 they would have to say that they're Jewish in order for it to make sense. And I'm sorry,

00:21:23.900 But, you know, when it comes to the way in which anti-Semitism does happen in the United States, the fact is, is that these are a lot of them white women who, in order to claim that they are scared, they first need to give the proper context that they are Jewish.

00:21:41.580 and it's like okay but this is many steps at this point what you're you're telling me is that you as

00:21:47.880 a white woman are scared because of the fact that something that hamas which does not exist in the

00:21:56.480 united states like they're going to dig a tunnel through the through the center of the earth and 0.94

00:22:04.080 land in you know soho it just to me it was so it was so ridiculous and so offensive uh to compare

00:22:17.740 themselves san frank and and i think to most people they were watching it going why is everyone

00:22:22.520 what is what is this what's happening here yes and because there is no evidence of these people

00:22:31.020 who make this content like being harmed they just have to invent it and so i want to watch a couple

00:22:37.280 more lizzie savetsky videos i promise we'll move on from her i promise we will but she's such a

00:22:42.680 rich text and she's almost like a caricature of this issue and you don't have to move on for my

00:22:47.080 sake because i love this this is my favorite this one i will also i'll play it on the screen for

00:22:54.100 those on youtube but for the audio version maybe you could just describe what you're looking at

00:22:59.500 as we watch all right so it's a group of people uh it's like a family surrounding a laptop

00:23:04.880 anti-semitism on campus has narrowed down the uh college options it says as in a caption we wish

00:23:12.720 all college campuses were safe for jews and it looks like one of those videos where you're

00:23:18.300 waiting to see whether you got into a college so the premise of this video is like it's like

00:23:24.260 where are my young children gonna go to college and she's like placed her children around the

00:23:29.280 laptop and told them to pretend to cry and they're all like covering their eyes being like

00:23:34.980 we can't even go to college anymore because there's so much anti-semitism at all of them

00:23:39.220 right we can't go to harvard lizzie is in the back like pretend hyperventilating it's the

00:23:45.940 this is actually one of the craziest things i've ever seen and yet it gets worse i also just see

00:23:51.760 these videos and it's like you are feigning fear of not being able to send your students to college

00:23:59.660 anywhere because there is so much alleged anti-semitism that they won't be safe and it's

00:24:04.940 like you know what the last university in gaza has been bombed to pieces right like what are we doing

00:24:12.840 here really yeah there are no schools for palestinians anymore and that's like you know 0.87

00:24:19.820 i think underlying this whole thing that really you know gross feeling of watching this kind of

00:24:26.920 content is somehow you have made yourself uh and your family and every jewish person you know

00:24:37.600 um the victim in a situation in which what you are actually doing is advocating for

00:24:43.820 the government of israel which is currently mass murdering women and children and men uh locking

00:24:52.260 them up in droves uh you know torturing them in prisons uh bombing every hospital every school

00:25:00.500 uh every home flattening it and people are looking at this and it is quite a contrast to go through 0.98

00:25:10.260 your like timeline on social media and see the destruction that israel's wrought upon the people 0.92

00:25:16.040 of gaza and then lizzie savetsky being like i heard a i heard a muslim say in allahu akbar 0.93

00:25:24.880 in a cab i'm gonna go get a gun like to most to most normal people we look at that and you go like 0.92

00:25:32.500 it sounds like what you want to do is start shooting muslims it doesn't sound like you're 0.98

00:25:38.220 scared it sounds like you are ready to do your own pogrom and uh you know this is it's it's been 0.97

00:25:45.880 so strange to watch for anyone who's not a zionist well you have teed me up perfectly for 0.88

00:25:53.440 yet another lizzie savetsky video beautiful here we go if you're weak you're dead but if you're

00:26:00.740 strong they listen to you i don't expect them to love me i'm not the kind of dude who walks around

00:26:06.800 begging people to love me. Do you know when they love us? After every Holocaust, after the murder

00:26:12.880 of innocent Jews, that's when they love us. That's when they give us plaques and monuments.

00:26:17.820 Well, I'm tired of Kaddish, and I'm tired of Yardzites, and I'm tired of vigils. I'm tired

00:26:23.180 of Shiva. I am tired of plaques, and I am tired of monuments. I don't want love. I want respect.

00:26:29.680 And the visual of this video, again, if you're just listening, is Lizzie in a shooting range

00:26:36.120 with a gun in her hands and the caption for this one is quote it's open hunting season on jews 0.80

00:26:44.080 nobody is coming to save us wake up arm up responsibly

00:26:49.800 i love it responsibly this is not about being cool or tough it's about survival i love amidst

00:26:57.780 this like crazy screed about like you need a gun right now she's like and and if you choose to you

00:27:03.380 choose to get a gun arm up responsibly it's it's quite as if any of this is responsible

00:27:08.740 yeah this is the most irresponsible video you've pretty you know you've made today uh and i love

00:27:15.560 the adding the be responsible about it you know don't be don't be weird about uh trying to get

00:27:20.560 every jew you know to own a gun and screaming screaming it's open season on jews or whatever

00:27:27.920 like none of this is responsible you've made your entire social media identity your brand is 0.79

00:27:36.000 the most irresponsible it could possibly be and also i you know i'm like i look at this

00:27:42.000 and lizzie specifically is such um you know just a rebranded maga person like everything you're

00:27:49.980 seeing is just MAGA. It's MAGA, but with Zionism attached to it as a way in order to be the victim

00:27:58.940 of the situation. Because she can't go around, like, if she were not Jewish, she would just be 0.88

00:28:03.480 like, white people are under attack. We need to arm up. That's what she would do. But she has 0.95

00:28:08.980 the luxury of being able to claim an actual, like, historic trauma as the reason why she's afraid, 0.67

00:28:17.540 As opposed to, you know, most non-Jewish white people who get to just be like they don't base their fake trauma on anything other than they just feel bad. 0.62

00:28:27.440 They feel afraid. They feel uncomfortable. They don't like being around people of color.

00:28:32.160 They're afraid of them. And we all in liberal society look at that and go like, you guys are weird. 0.67

00:28:37.160 You guys are weird, racist Klan members. 0.92

00:28:39.980 And in this case, she gets to avoid those accusations because she's attaching all of her bigotry and paranoia to Zionism and to the history of anti-Semitism among the Jews of the world. 0.98

00:28:58.000 And so it's it's like it's even more gross because it's just like you're just doing MAGA stuff. Just admit that you're doing MAGA stuff. This is all a ruse. And you don't mind putting every Jew at risk in order to brand yourself as, you know, a MAGA gun lady, but Jewish, you know, I have one more. I have one more. This is the shortest one, I promise.

00:29:18.060 but literally as i was drafting this outline for this episode she posted a video yesterday and

00:29:24.440 what this video is is lizzie savetsky in the streets of new york with an enormous shopping

00:29:31.540 bag over her shoulder which i just found to be hysterical detail and she sees a car drive past

00:29:38.240 with a palestinian flag on the license plate and starts shouting at it so here's the video

00:29:44.240 the caption to that video is probably shouldn't behave like this without security

00:29:57.980 but i can't help it and it's like to me this is like this distills everything that she is she is

00:30:04.320 literally antagonizing a random palestinian person in the street and then being like i

00:30:11.300 shouldn't be doing this without security i'm in so much danger doing this and i'm like you're the 0.93

00:30:16.040 aggressor right you are the danger here you are a an armed white woman in new york and you are 0.58

00:30:24.000 yelling at a random person because they have a a sticker you don't like on their car or they have a 0.88

00:30:32.020 scarf that they're wearing the reason why everyone is denying your claims of anti-semitism and your

00:30:40.040 claims of fear is because you are not doing anything that would indicate you're afraid of

00:30:45.280 anything that's what i'm saying like do a proper youtuber no makeup sitting down filming in the

00:30:51.260 kitchen on the floor like then maybe to be clear i'm kidding i'm being sarcastic well no but i think

00:30:58.000 i think it's it's fair to say that if you're going to lie at least do it convincingly this is why

00:31:04.880 people feel like they're they've lost touch with reality everyone keeps questioning their

00:31:10.840 own sanity because they're like they're not even trying to lie well like the they are they're doing

00:31:17.720 this in a way that's making me feel strange because i i don't know what anyone else is seeing

00:31:23.600 but all i see is a rich white girl new york yelling at a random brown person and a person

00:31:31.500 who's minding their own business am i crazy and the answer is no you're not crazy lizzie just 0.92

00:31:38.100 doesn't care she lives in her own world she lives in her own reality where every power dynamic is 0.99

00:31:45.580 inverted where she can be the aggressor and claim victimhood this is the entire like zionist 0.55

00:31:52.720 framework yes in microcosm yes it's a microcosm of of israel and palestine yes yes it is this 0.53

00:31:59.860 constant like you know center my fear as i'm doing acts of aggression against innocent people 0.80

00:32:07.060 you know it's and you know this is israel's constantly painting itself as the victim 0.88

00:32:12.880 of anything that they are actually doing to the palestinian people it's like you know you are 0.81

00:32:18.860 making me kill your children you know this is literally a quote from uh golda meir former

00:32:25.780 prime minister of israel who said what it was something along the lines of we can forgive the 0.99

00:32:31.500 uh arabs or palestinians or whatever she said for um you know killing us but we will never forgive 0.99

00:32:37.760 them for making us kill their children fucking crazy and and the only person that that sounds 1.00

00:32:44.300 like based to is someone who is already steeped in this zionist narrative and zionist outlook on 1.00

00:32:52.680 life in which you are perpetually the victim of everything everyone else is like did you just

00:32:59.520 justify killing children so this content has done really well for her she was recently awarded by

00:33:07.560 eric adams like award for combating anti-semitism and it's interesting that you mentioned that this

00:33:14.740 is just maga because lizzie is a one of a number of these types of public figures who during the

00:33:21.580 2024 election was like, I am a lifelong liberal, but Trump is what we need to protect Jews in this

00:33:29.560 moment. And when I talk about the conversion of a certain type of Jew towards Trump and to MAGA 0.51

00:33:36.140 and to conservatism in America, I always want to remind general listeners who don't look at like

00:33:41.740 exit polls and everything that Jewish people are still overwhelmingly among the most liberal

00:33:47.240 cohorts in the United States still. But there has been a real shift in a very certain portion of

00:33:54.560 like the new Jewish right in the U.S. that has bought into this like we need Trump because he 0.61

00:34:00.700 will save Jews. And this has happened to people I grew up with. You know, I grew up around a Jewish

00:34:06.980 social community and going to synagogue. And I've seen people like, oh, you're liking all of Trump's

00:34:11.920 Post now. When did that happen? And I guess it makes sense to me. And this is my take. I'm

00:34:17.100 curious yours. But it's like Zionism is a right wing movement built on white supremacy. And it

00:34:22.860 would make sense then that if you buy into that as your primary issue in American politics, you will

00:34:28.260 become a Republican. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that for a lot of them, it is just Zionism

00:34:36.040 is uh yeah it's a right-wing movement they like it's not that they like racism but they think that 0.61

00:34:42.020 uh it's not racism they think it is like justified security concerns and you ask any like white

00:34:48.380 racist why they are you know scared of immigrants in this country why they're scared of black people

00:34:55.360 in this country why they're scared of whatever they you know and they'll they'll justify it the

00:34:59.480 same way it's not about i don't hate anybody but uh you know i just i i walk down the street and i

00:35:05.060 see you know somebody who looks like i don't know a thug and i gotta like worry for myself they

00:35:10.240 always it's always like couched in this like security concern even though it is like very

00:35:13.980 clearly your own personal projection so there's that aspect to it i also think that i mean nothing

00:35:20.280 says you're becoming white or you are white more than identifying more with the you know conservative

00:35:27.320 or right-wing you know things and and i think that is something that a lot of jewish people

00:35:32.400 in the United States who are white have slowly sort of been making their way over to this like

00:35:38.800 completely, you know, comfortable position of just being a white person. The only thing I think that 0.51

00:35:44.460 has kept most Jews, you know, still voting for Democrats and not MAGA is they have a history

00:35:51.920 to draw on of support for things like the civil rights movement and, you know, support for

00:35:57.180 other groups outside of their own. And it's a proud history in the United States of

00:36:02.800 Jewish and black solidarity, Jewish and immigrant solidarity, that I think people are not so

00:36:11.240 ready to toss aside. That being said, Israel is one of those issues that does get people to start

00:36:20.600 dropping any pretense of being a supporter of liberal values, quote unquote, you know,

00:36:27.020 like they can take the narrative and say, oh, well, if you don't support Israel, then why should

00:36:33.480 I support you? Black Lives Matter. A direct quote from Amy Schumer's Instagram story.

00:36:39.220 Yes, yes, yes. And it's so insane to say that out loud and deeply embarrassing for every other Jew

00:36:48.700 in the united states i feel like i i i have to apologize for amy schumer yes a lot of the times

00:36:55.200 where i'm just like no we're not we're not all like that but it's embarrassing to present israel

00:37:03.580 and the cause of zionism as like being the issue that you're going to need everyone else to support

00:37:10.580 or else you are going to uh withdraw any support you have of their stuff and it's like okay well

00:37:16.280 so then that wasn't a moral choice it was a it was like a strategical calculation you make us

00:37:23.000 sound bad yes it's awful i would like to take a quick break from the show to give a huge thanks

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00:38:50.160 That is incogni.com slash fruity with the code fruity. Now let's get back to the show.

00:38:58.540 So I want to shift gears ever so slightly here because for a lot of people who observe American 1.00

00:39:05.480 politics, Lizzie Sevecki's behavior could fall into, like we've said, a well-worn category of 1.00

00:39:11.400 outspoken, powerful conservatives parading around their delusional persecution complexes in an 1.00

00:39:17.660 effort to trick the public into giving them more support socially, politically, monetarily,

00:39:23.240 what have you. But the premise of the anti-Semitism panic has been accepted across the American

00:39:30.280 political spectrum. And it's being perpetuated by a lot of liberals, too. So I'm going to play

00:39:37.600 a little clip right here of CNN anchor Dana Bash suggesting that the slogan Free Palestine is

00:39:45.540 anti-Semitic. You just heard the alleged killer saying Free Palestine. We hear that on the streets,

00:39:53.180 we hear that on college campuses. And there are a lot of people who feel, who have been worried

00:39:59.560 that that has been turned into a call to arms and a call to action and violence.

00:40:05.480 Yes.

00:40:06.400 Others claim that it's not.

00:40:08.460 What do you think now that we have seen this?

00:40:10.660 I think there's no question.

00:40:11.960 Whatever its initial intent and whatever people were saying initially or meant it,

00:40:16.160 it has become a call for violence and not violence against Israelis, which is wrong, 0.92

00:40:21.940 but violence against Jews.

00:40:24.320 Could it be said that free Palestine is an anti-Semitic slogan?

00:40:28.420 A lot of people are saying this and then she has the one guest who is saying this.

00:40:32.100 Right. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody is saying this one thing. What do you think? Guess who I brought on

00:40:36.720 to say this one thing? Yeah. I mean, liberal Zionism, I think, is fascinating because it's

00:40:42.860 something that can go one of two ways. It's either a mid-stage between going from liberal Zionist

00:40:51.580 to non-Zionist to anti-Zionist which was my personal trajectory or it's the classic case of

00:40:59.900 scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. Liberal Zionism is the sort of it's a softer more friendly 0.71

00:41:08.340 version of Zionism. It's one in which it takes like the victim narrative you know that is so 0.92

00:41:14.540 prominent in regular zionism but also uh adds a little bit of like empathy towards the palestinian 0.96

00:41:22.140 people but offers no concrete solutions and is essentially just a plea to the status quo 0.54

00:41:29.260 and the status quo is as we know um genocide and ethnic cleansing and so especially in this time

00:41:36.380 being a liberal zionist is just allowing for this to happen but being like committed to doing a land

00:41:44.220 acknowledgement in gaza 10 years from now that's that's essentially what it is and i see the way

00:41:51.780 in which liberal zionists their main like tool is to tone police the way in which people do pro

00:42:00.280 palestinian activism this is like you know of course i believe that netanyahu is bad he's doing

00:42:07.860 all these like terrible things uh that being said when you hold up this sign or you say this phrase

00:42:13.620 here's a litany of reasons why that is actually as bad, if not worse than what's happening in

00:42:19.900 Gaza. And here's why we need to all stop talking about this for a little bit, maybe come back in

00:42:26.540 a year or two and refocus our language. And then we can deal with the whole Palestine problem. Oh, 0.79

00:42:33.960 you're saying Palestine's already been ethnically cleansed? Dang, that's too bad.

00:42:37.940 It's Kamala Harris's repeated 2024 campaign soundbite of, I believe Palestinians have

00:42:43.760 the right to self-determination and another $4 billion to Israel.

00:42:48.880 Right, exactly.

00:42:50.440 I wanted to mention liberal Zionism and use that clip from Dana Bash on CNN because I

00:42:55.500 feel like these people like Dana Bash, like Jake Tapper, they have done a great job of 0.91

00:43:01.180 presenting zionism otherwise unfettered brutal racist violent you know full of death genocide

00:43:09.120 to this like american liberal audience and they end up doing like dana bash here is when she's

00:43:16.700 like i guess saying free palestine is anti-semitic like she's doing what lizzie savetsky is doing it's

00:43:22.400 the same thing right yes she's doing the legwork for the right-wing criminalization of pro-palestine 0.99

00:43:30.820 activists like she is going to allow for more uh state retribution against students uh activists 0.97

00:43:40.160 arabs who are just living their lives you know immigrants all while i'm sure she thinks she's

00:43:48.740 doing something good where she's presenting it as well i'm protecting the jewish people i'm

00:43:54.460 protecting you know the the nation of the jewish people i'm protecting you know the right to

00:43:59.320 self-determination for jews and it's like it's just it's disgusting because you literally have

00:44:05.320 a responsibility when you are a journalist uh or you know at least you play one on tv yeah you you

00:44:13.700 watch uh the way that she's been engaged in this issue and it has been nothing but attacks on some

00:44:22.100 of the most vulnerable communities that we have here in the united states we're talking i mean

00:44:26.620 college students are kids and they are very vulnerable and uh obviously immigrants uh people

00:44:34.200 who are here on a visa people who are here you know undocumented this is these are all things

00:44:40.800 that she would never claim is like part of her worldview but she allows it to be she lets it in 0.81

00:44:47.000 through zionism what they're doing on cnn to me i think is more insidious because rather than it 0.75

00:44:52.620 being like you know the liberal scientists i know who are just lying to themselves so that they don't 0.55

00:44:57.120 have to feel what they're doing at cnn is hezbar they are doing propaganda there and they are

00:45:02.560 criminalizing you know speech just free palestine means free palestine from the river to the sea

00:45:08.700 palestine will be free it's not anti-semitic it is literally a cry for human rights and equality

00:45:16.200 in this land, and it is an apartheid state. So at what point are you just saying anything you can

00:45:24.280 is, you know, this is all anti-Semitism, just so that you can stop human rights from happening?

00:45:29.920 The last instance of this sort of anti-Semitism distortion that I want to highlight before

00:45:37.160 explaining some of the more administrative policy-based things that are happening

00:45:42.060 underneath all of this is the sort of current war on miss rachel which by the way i am enlisting in

00:45:51.680 on the side of miss rachel same same we love miss rachel so miss rachel if you are not a new parent

00:46:00.660 or heavily invested in online culture wars is a supremely popular children's educational youtuber

00:46:09.080 slash songwriter she is known for her series songs for littles which are basically just like

00:46:15.280 songs that she makes and sings and it's like hi i'm miss rachel like that is not pejorative she's

00:46:21.420 literally a queen i love her and they're like focused on early age development and like parents

00:46:26.520 love it because it's essentially like free youtube-based material for their kids to listen

00:46:30.880 to i'm a miss rachel stan i will be i hope miss rachel's songs start charting on spotify as a

00:46:39.080 She gets, you know, hundreds of millions of views.

00:46:41.400 And last year, Miss Rachel set up a Cameo account where she would donate all of her Cameo earnings to the Save the Children Emergency Fund.

00:46:51.280 And she specifically highlighted the plight of children in Gaza.

00:46:55.380 This led to so much harassment and claims of anti-Semitism because she would donate money to bombed Palestinian children that she had to turn off comments on her YouTube channel, which are still off today.

00:47:11.160 And more recently, this shadowy right wing group, which a lot of people don't realize is a right wing group because it's just called Stop Anti-Semitism and they accept that at face value.

00:47:23.120 this group which has come for me on various social media platforms multiple times me a jew

00:47:29.280 stop anti-semitism called on attorney general pam bondy to investigate miss rachel to see if

00:47:38.000 quote she is being funded by a foreign party to push anti-israel propaganda to skew public opinion

00:47:45.980 so and oh and they posted a picture of her where over it they wrote from nursery rhymes

00:47:52.620 to hamas lines which isn't even good like that's it's not even a good rhyme from nursery rhymes

00:48:01.720 to hamas lines whatever they could have worked up that a bit 100 i bring this up i mean this is

00:48:07.700 so ridiculous but we've gone from from the river to the sea is anti-semitic to free palestine is 0.87

00:48:14.520 anti-Semitic to showing empathy for Palestinian child amputees is anti-Semitic. And I want to 0.97

00:48:23.640 include one more quote about this whole situation here because the New York Times published a

00:48:28.300 write-up about the war on Miss Rachel. And this is from a woman named Stacey Hackner. Quote,

00:48:33.320 Miss Rachel seems to be someone who is really, really good-hearted. But in the context of

00:48:38.500 everything that's going on, she says, I care about all children. But really, she's talking

00:48:43.880 about the children of Gaza, that has left a lot of Jewish parents feeling quite isolated.

00:48:50.040 I mean, just as someone who is a parent and loves Miss Rachel, it is, it's just even more horrifying

00:48:58.780 because Miss Rachel is literally just saying she loves kids. She's literally advocating for

00:49:04.880 the rights of children. At some point when you are saying that it is anti-Semitic to support

00:49:12.320 the rights of children not to be mass murdered, at some point you are just saying that it is a 0.98

00:49:20.620 Jewish value to kill children. That's what people are hearing. If you are saying it's anti-Semitic 0.95

00:49:29.160 to support the rights of children not to be murdered and made amputees, you are saying, 0.94

00:49:36.040 oh, well, this is somehow anti-Jewish, you are equating Judaism and Jewishness with these

00:49:42.380 crimes. This is not stopping anti-Semitism. I'll say that much. It is most likely spreading it. 0.64

00:49:51.240 And the worst part about it is Miss Rachel's so beloved that if you ask any parent about Miss

00:49:58.740 Rachel, they'll say she's like crack for children. And she doesn't just stop them from

00:50:05.720 like while in out, she also teaches them things. She teaches them songs. She teaches them sign

00:50:10.600 language. It's it is videos for infants. A lot of them. My daughter loves Miss Rachel. She learned

00:50:17.180 how to say more with her hands. You know, she learned all these other things. And if you you

00:50:23.940 should not start making Miss Rachel your target, because if you make people in America choose

00:50:31.740 between abandoning Ms. Rachel and supporting Hamas, everyone is going to choose Hamas.

00:50:39.740 Yeah, that's right. That's right. That is not a game you want to play. I have nothing but respect 0.82

00:50:47.020 for Ms. Rachel speaking out against this. She said on an interview in Zeteo that she thinks

00:50:53.740 it should be controversial to not speak out about this. And I agree with her 100%. She is a hero and

00:50:59.700 an icon. I love her. I think you just described so perfectly why I can't stop looking at people

00:51:07.640 like Lizzie Sivetsky. Because like you said, it's like she turns genocide into a Jewish value by 0.88

00:51:15.240 saying that if you're against it, you're against Jews. And that is, again, I don't mean to sound

00:51:21.520 like a broken record repeating you, but like that stokes anti-Semitism. I have heard people who

00:51:28.340 don't think a lot about Jewish people who don't think a lot about anti-Semitism because they

00:51:32.100 aren't Jewish, say things when protesting Israel that I actually do think sometimes borders on

00:51:40.160 anti-Semitism because they forget to make the distinction between Israel and Jews. And that

00:51:47.640 is something to be clear that is on them to know how to make that distinction. But it really doesn't

00:51:53.320 help when you have people like this who are saying no no no we are one in the same when you have

00:51:59.200 people like noah tishby who's another one of these influencers who is constantly saying who wrote a

00:52:03.100 book about anti-zionism is anti-semitism like it really doesn't help people become less anti-semitic

00:52:10.060 when you constantly tell them that there is no separation between these things when there

00:52:13.940 absolutely is yeah 100 i want to take a quick break from the show to thank rocket money for

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00:53:55.100 head over to rocketmoney.com slash fruity. That is rocketmoney.com slash fruity. Now let's get

00:54:03.220 back to talking about these freaks and so with all of these examples happening on the internet

00:54:11.580 happening in pop culture happening in the media in mind i want to now tap welcome back wake up

00:54:19.820 thank you glad to be back because you really are the expert here in something called project ester

00:54:29.180 And I feel like Project Esther is at the heart of this perversion of anti-Semitism that we've been talking about and more broadly at the heart of the unraveling of democratic principles in America.

00:54:43.040 And nobody knows what it is. And I didn't know what it was. So can you tell us a little bit about Project Esther?

00:54:50.360 Project Esther comes out of the Heritage Foundation, the same group who brought us Project 2025. And it's a so-called plan to combat anti-Semitism that I have to mention misuses Jewish terminology and text tradition and maligns the Jewish community throughout.

00:55:12.760 This plan insults American Jews for not aligning with the Heritage Foundation's definition of anti-Semitism.

00:55:21.820 It calls us complacent and our position's inexplicable. 0.96

00:55:26.760 Crazy.

00:55:27.980 One of these leaders said in an interview that if Jewish organizations, quote, were doing their job, we wouldn't have the problem we have. 0.99

00:55:34.840 So basically blaming anti-Semitism on Jews.

00:55:38.020 The task force's stated goal in Project Esther is to completely dismantle any domestic groups supporting Palestinian rights or humanity by labeling them as part of a made-up group, the Hamas Support Network, totally made up. 0.57

00:55:55.220 HSN.

00:55:56.140 Wait, isn't HSN, hold on, H, the Home Shopping Network.

00:56:02.900 The Home Shopping Network.

00:56:04.260 It's also the Home Shopping Network, yeah.

00:56:05.820 It's accusing all pro-Palestinian protesters of being part of the Home Shopping Network.

00:56:10.560 The Home Shopping Network.

00:56:12.480 God, the plot really thickens.

00:56:15.420 Yeah, yes. 0.74

00:56:17.300 They all love Hamas and they love buying, you know, a katana on home shopping networks. 0.98

00:56:25.600 The Hamas Home Shopping Network. 0.98

00:56:28.620 It's good because I think this is why I appreciate this conversation. 1.00

00:56:32.300 Like, we have to laugh or we would cry our eyes out, you know.

00:56:35.080 And if you call right now, you'll get two intifadas for the price of one.

00:56:44.800 They're going to yell at me.

00:56:46.460 So this is part of an effort to basically completely conflate support for Palestinian rights, Palestinian humanity with support for Hamas.

00:56:55.240 But the Project Esther scope actually extends well beyond these groups to target a wide spectrum of liberal donors, foundations, organizations that also do not in any way support Hamas.

00:57:08.140 The plan names anti-capitalist groups, claiming that they aligned with America's overseas enemies. 0.54

00:57:14.240 And so all of this just sets the stage for guilt by association and really exposes the true intent of Project Esther, which is dismantling civil society institutions like universities and nonprofit organizations as a way to get rid of any domestic opposition to the administration and all doing it under the pretext of protecting Jews.

00:57:37.200 When was Project Esther published? And also, could you explain the connection between Project Esther and the Trump administration? Because I think a lot of people, and this happened with Project 2025, it's written by this group called the Heritage Foundation, which is like a well-funded, well-oiled conservative think tank.

00:57:55.220 but then how exactly does it get its claws in the Trump administration? And because it's not

00:58:00.060 technically the Trump administration writing the plan, in theory, the Trump administration,

00:58:05.960 and they did this with Project 2025, have plausible deniability as to whether or not

00:58:10.580 they're carrying it out. Exactly. So unfortunately for all of us, the Trump administration is doing

00:58:16.020 an excellent job of carrying out Project Ester. Project Ester is actually, there have been many,

00:58:22.240 many versions of this plan in prior years from the Heritage Foundation. But all of them were

00:58:27.980 written and also Project Esther written in case there is a willing administration, basically.

00:58:34.940 And so Trump is their guy. This has been in the works for a while. I mean, we can go back to the

00:58:41.080 beginning of the new Christian right in the 1970s and the 1980s. But the Heritage Foundation,

00:58:47.480 their task force that oversaw Project Esther. Most of them are Christian. They are far-right

00:58:54.120 evangelicals. Some of them are leading figures in the new Apostolic Reformation, or NAR,

00:59:01.540 this influential and growing Christian nationalist movement that seeks to conquer all walks of life,

00:59:07.280 and which has friends and fellow travelers in the highest levels of U.S. government.

00:59:12.040 These are the profiles of the people that have made this plan to confront anti-Semitism.

00:59:17.480 And they have in them definitely a willing administration with Trump.

00:59:22.700 Within the first weeks of this administration, Trump issued an executive order calling for the deportation of foreign-born students found guilty of anti-Semitism using this definition that includes criticism of Israel.

00:59:36.080 And expelling immigrants on ideological grounds is explicitly named in Project Esther.

00:59:41.700 And we've seen it happening all over the country.

00:59:43.960 Mahmoud Khalil in New York, Ramesha Ozturk in Somerville, Massachusetts, Badar Khansuri in Georgetown, and countless names that haven't made the news.

00:59:52.960 All international students detained by ICE agents and shipped to ICE facilities in Louisiana for the crime of supporting Palestinian rights.

01:00:01.560 So this is Project Esther at play. These are strategies that the Heritage Foundation has long tried to pursue to start to dismantle civil society and civil liberties. And now they are able to do it under the Trump administration.

01:00:18.340 You mentioned that this is being spearheaded by evangelical Christians. And that was actually a question that I had here on my outline. I wrote, how many Jews were involved with the creation of Project Esther? And, you know, notably, I was reading last night, the second sentence of Project Esther's Wikipedia page is, the effort has received support from several evangelical Christian organizations, but no major Jewish ones.

01:00:45.400 So why do evangelical Christians want to suppress pro-Palestinian speech?

01:00:50.500 Like, what is their stake in this? 1.00

01:00:53.060 Yeah, so I think this is a really good time to talk about Christian Zionism. 1.00

01:00:57.720 If we go back to the 1970s and the start of the new Christian right, it was from the start 0.97

01:01:04.320 both anti-Semitic and pro-Israel.

01:01:06.980 Both of these things are, for the most part, rooted in this end times theology that many

01:01:12.700 evangelicals subscribe to. 0.71

01:01:14.160 So in short, it's the belief that the second coming of Jesus can only happen when all Jews in the world are back in the biblical land of Israel, at which point the majority of those Jews will die, except for a select few who convert. 0.91

01:01:31.800 What? 0.93

01:01:33.020 Yeah.

01:01:33.540 Yeah, it's wild.

01:01:35.080 Yes.

01:01:35.660 What?

01:01:37.000 Yes.

01:01:37.960 This sounds extremely anti-Semitic.

01:01:40.280 Yeah, it's super anti-Semitic.

01:01:42.720 Yes. 0.98

01:01:43.240 Yes, it like, by definition, it's going for mass Jewish death. 1.00

01:01:50.440 Or conversion, you know, you have a chance to save yourself. 1.00

01:01:54.980 Or conversion, right. 1.00

01:01:56.480 Either way, no more Jews. 0.97

01:01:58.420 This evangelical imperative that we see the source of the American Christian rights diehard support for Israel and for the Israeli government's policies, 1.00

01:02:09.880 above all those that involve Israel settling and keeping hold of the occupied territories.

01:02:17.300 And this is really what we're talking about when we're talking about contemporary American Christian Zionism.

01:02:23.800 And I will say that the Israeli government has been incredibly receptive to U.S. evangelical support over the decades.

01:02:31.360 You know, it picked up when a right wing government started in Israel around the same time that a right wing government was starting here in the U.S. 0.93

01:02:38.580 and taking power and that these shared values of Islamophobia and ensuring that Israel keeps

01:02:46.120 hold of all the territories under its control, including the military occupied territories

01:02:50.600 and bringing as many Jews as possible to live in Israel for the second coming of Christ. 0.77

01:02:55.440 Despite the pure anti-Semitism involved in the Christian Zionist belief about the ultimate

01:03:00.660 fate of Jews and their end time vision, this support for Israel has been fully embraced

01:03:05.400 by the Israeli government over decades and also by some members of the institutional

01:03:10.120 American Jewish community. So all the way back in 1982, we have this quote from Nathan Perlmutter,

01:03:16.680 who was then the head of the ADL, talking about this alliance with Christian Zionists,

01:03:22.280 saying, quote, if the Messiah comes on that day, we'll consider our options. Meanwhile,

01:03:28.340 let's praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. What the fuck? Yeah, it's such an interesting 1.00

01:03:34.260 bedfellow too because like essentially the israeli position on this is like look you can

01:03:40.980 believe in whatever weird hocus pocus you want as long as the you know end goal here is you bringing

01:03:48.600 the jews of the world to uh israel and supporting us in our you know continuing war against the 0.88

01:03:57.460 palestinians and against our arab neighbors uh then whatever yeah sure like it's it's so funny 0.70

01:04:03.340 because it's like the perfect secular answer to someone who's a kooky end times anti-Semite.

01:04:12.620 It's just like, yeah, whatever, dude, believe whatever you want.

01:04:15.200 Yeah, oh no, Jesus is going to come back. 0.99

01:04:17.340 Like Jews are not, we're not worried about that because Jews don't believe in Jesus. 0.93

01:04:22.540 It's crazy to see this team of anti-Semite and the Jewish state.

01:04:29.040 And people, you know, they believe that they should be natural enemies, but not in this case.

01:04:34.920 So with regard to Project Esther and the Trump administration and the way that the Trump administration has been revoking green cards, student visas, deporting people for pro-Palestinian speech, and saying all of that is because they're deeply invested in Jewish safety.

01:04:50.680 but it's actually, would you say, because they're following a plan written by deeply

01:04:56.800 anti-Semitic evangelical Christians? Yes. So this is where the administration

01:05:02.480 is actually able to carry out actions that they wanted to do anyway, executing policies that they

01:05:09.940 wanted to, but they're doing so in the name of fighting anti-Semitism. So this is actually

01:05:15.360 Project 2025 and Project Esther in action, these are authoritarian policies. These are preordained

01:05:23.120 attacks on higher education and civil rights, but they are now carried out under the false premise 0.63

01:05:28.680 of protecting Jews. So we've seen the deportations or detainments of international students and

01:05:36.480 threatened deportations. We've seen those arrests happening intertwined with the Trump administration

01:05:41.720 cutting or threatening to cut billions of dollars in federal funding to dozens of universities

01:05:46.680 over allegations that they failed to adequately address anti-Semitism on campus. And all of that

01:05:53.500 is being done supposedly for Jewish safety when we know that it doesn't actually create any more

01:05:59.840 safety for Jews. That the way that Jews have had the kind of safety that we've had in this country

01:06:05.420 is through constitutional rights and protections for minorities. So any effort that is being done

01:06:11.840 to undermine those constitutional rights or to undermine protections for any minority groups

01:06:18.480 are ultimately creating less safety for Jews. So it's not just that these kinds of actions

01:06:25.560 are being done under this false premise, but it's also that they are creating less safety

01:06:33.920 for Jews in the process. This is at the heart of what I was saying at the top of the episode,

01:06:38.540 which is that like, I feel like my safety, quote unquote, as a Jewish person is being weaponized

01:06:44.800 for way darker means, which is that the Trump administration is essentially trying to,

01:06:50.940 like you said, diminish the autonomy of higher education to squash free speech as a principle. 0.53

01:06:58.880 And it feels it's like it's like crazy making to have that being done and like then have these press conferences from, you know, the MAGA administration be like, and it's for Jews. It's just not true. 0.75

01:07:10.260 It's incredibly Orwellian, you know, I mean, it's done for Jewish safety. You know, that's their claim. And it is making us unsafe. It's too ridiculous to to expect adults to believe this. 1.00

01:07:23.820 And this is where I think it's that, you know, American Jews who can see through this so blatantly, we absolutely have to expose these tactics for what they are. We have to say this is a far right assault on democratic norms disguised as protection for Jews. 0.95

01:07:39.180 We have to say that we know that Jewish safety in the U.S. depends on constitutional rights and minority protections. And that also we know that, you know, deporting international students doesn't combat antisemitism. Public firings don't combat antisemitism. Withholding funds from research institutions doesn't combat antisemitism. Arresting activists doesn't combat antisemitism. We're not going to terrorize or incarcerate or deport or fire or infiltrate our way out of antisemitism. That's not how it works.

01:08:08.600 So this is a place where it is so important for the American Jews who can totally see through this, see through what the Trump administration is doing, to be visible and vocal about this so that it's not crazy making, so that we can find each other and see reality in each other's eyes when we are saying this.

01:08:28.420 So that we can also say to the non-Jews around us, you know, you're not crazy. We don't think this is good either. We also see this as very threatening. And to another point is that, you know, when people see, when people are losing their jobs or are, you know, being denied medical research on supposedly on behalf of the Jews, that actually creates anti-Semitism.

01:08:53.600 People are seeing us as the face of this. And so there's one way in which, you know, people are talking about this. And I talk about it, too, as this is the distortion of anti-Semitism. But in this other way, this is just anti-Semitism in its like pure form, where it's making Jews the face of power, making Jews the face of authoritarianism, saying that it is because of Jews that X, Y, Z.

01:09:16.960 And so in that case, it's not even a strange distortion. It's actually just the modern day version of Jews being seen as the face of the hand of power against them and their rights and their civil liberties and their pocketbooks and all of those things. So there's so many reasons that we have to fight against it. And also, yeah, just to find that reality together.

01:09:41.140 And the irony being that whether you're, you know, a professor who's being threatened with

01:09:45.220 their job or a student being deported or anyone watching these things happen, it's not happening 0.94

01:09:50.060 as a result of Jews in power. It's like happening as a result of Christian Zionists. 0.95

01:09:55.000 That's right. That's right. That's right. This is a longstanding Christian Zionist agenda 1.00

01:10:00.100 that is now being played out under the pretext of supporting Jews. That's why we can see all 0.97

01:10:05.820 of these pieces of project 2025 of project ester of christian nationalist documents um that have

01:10:12.920 these plan around dismantling civil society so as to create a christian society in its place that is

01:10:18.740 also the the next step of all this is the dismantlement of these secular elements of

01:10:24.640 society make a vacuum in which to have a christian power take hold in so many different places and

01:10:32.120 institutions. So this is a longtime Christian Zionist goal. And they have found a way that 0.97

01:10:40.340 can appeal to not just the right, but the center and even some parts of the center left. Some parts

01:10:45.860 of the center left are saying, well, we want to protect Jews. We want Jews to be safe. And so it

01:10:50.840 is a very politically savvy method in, which is why anyone who can see through it needs to

01:10:58.260 be part of that exposing. I have a question for you, which is I have spent as a lot of us,

01:11:05.720 you know, Jews with moral clarity have over the last couple of years, spent a lot of time with

01:11:12.500 my family and with different generations of my family who have a harder time understanding and

01:11:18.540 accepting some of this stuff. And it is an arduous process trying to, you know, get them to the other

01:11:24.560 side, if you will. My question for you is, for people who are Jewish and people who aren't

01:11:31.600 Jewish, but who have a well-intentioned investment in protecting Jews from anti-Semitism,

01:11:38.900 in fighting anti-Semitism, what would you say to begin to untangle them from this web of lies?

01:11:47.240 And for essentially, when I'm reading about Project Esther, I'm like, you guys are basically

01:11:51.140 falling for this you might identify as a liberal you might identify as a democrat you might love

01:11:56.120 gay people and trans people you might whatever you might believe in you know liberal society

01:12:01.080 but you are playing right into an authoritarian agenda that is about the erosion of free speech

01:12:08.420 that is about the erosion of free and fair trials what would you say to to to disentangle them from

01:12:14.680 this web of lies that they've bought into? Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, I think that

01:12:22.100 it would be really good to point to what Trump and the Trump administration and just members of the

01:12:29.280 Trump gang have been doing and saying as a way to demonstrate that Jewish safety is certainly not

01:12:36.920 one of their top priorities. I mean, we have Elon Musk, who I know you've covered in detail on your

01:12:44.360 It wouldn't be in a BitFruity episode if Elon was not named, unfortunately for me and my sanity. But like I said, psychiatry bills are paying themselves. Thanks to the sponsor of this episode.

01:12:55.360 Yeah, I mean, he's, you know, he is dismantling parts of the US government while he is repopularizing the Nazi salute and telling German parties that they should stop feeling so bad about the Holocaust and allow the far right Nazi rooted parties back into government.

01:13:18.840 I mean, they are surrounding themselves with people who are actually threatening the livelihood of Jews. So that's one piece. Another piece is actually having conversations about how to truly address antisemitism. So the best way to create safety for Jews and stop the impacts of antisemitism is to include the work of dismantling antisemitism as part of our work to fight discrimination and oppression in all of their forms and create equity and justice for all people.

01:13:46.900 There's not going to be a safety for Jews that makes other people less safe.

01:13:51.700 That's not how it works.

01:13:54.300 So I think anything that pits Jewish safety against the safety of any other people is suspect right away.

01:14:00.760 And so this means things like increasing democracy.

01:14:04.060 Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories paint Jews as this secret power responsible for their suffering.

01:14:09.960 And in this time, when people are disenfranchised, when they're truly alienated from the people

01:14:14.660 making decisions that dramatically impact their lives, these conspiracy theories can

01:14:18.740 make sense.

01:14:19.820 But if people have a robust democracy and if they can clearly see who's making decisions

01:14:25.440 that impact them at the local and state and federal level and what they can do to change

01:14:30.100 those decisions, they don't need conspiracy theories anymore.

01:14:33.000 They actually have democracy and we can increase economic equality.

01:14:37.740 So anti-Semitism tells the story that Jews are hoarding the world's financial resources.

01:14:43.120 And again, if people can't provide for their families on one or even two jobs, then they're going to be vulnerable to believing this story about the Jews, that someone's taking their money.

01:14:54.100 But if people have economic security, they don't need stories about Jews.

01:14:57.820 They have what they need in their lives.

01:14:59.880 So the ways in which Jews are safer in society is when everyone is safer in society.

01:15:04.960 I always like to look to one of my teachers, Aurora Levins Morales, to say that, okay, I'm not going to get her quote right. But it's basically like, if the safety of two people is pitted against each other, then we just aren't thinking large enough. We aren't thinking creatively enough. We aren't thinking boldly enough, because that actually can't be true. So this is where it's suspect. And, you know, there's no place in the, I would say there's no place in the world where Jews can be safe, and other people are less safe because of that.

01:15:31.040 I think that we, you know, we see this that Israelis are not safe. Israelis will say over and over again that they are not safe. And that is all that is true, because we cannot have the safety of one people against the safety of another.

01:15:46.040 So I think this is where we can really connect with people and say, we also want the safety of Jews. As Jews and as non-Jews, we want Jewish people to be safe. And we are not going to get there through the dismantlement of any democracies, the dismantlement of any protections, the dismantlement of any civil rights and civil liberties. That's not going to lead to true safety for our community.

01:16:08.540 Goddamn. 1.00

01:16:09.960 Yeah, goddamn. 1.00

01:16:11.280 That was fucking fire. 1.00

01:16:12.960 Matt, why did you let me talk most of the episode? 0.99

01:16:16.040 Because you were the influencer guy.

01:16:19.920 I'm terrible.

01:16:21.320 That was incredible. 1.00

01:16:23.440 Thank you so much for joining me for, I suppose, the inaugural Jewish episode of A Bit Fruity. 1.00

01:16:27.980 I guess they're all Jewish in a sense. 1.00

01:16:29.580 I mean, I'm here, but, you know.

01:16:31.080 Well, you're there.

01:16:31.900 Yeah, exactly.

01:16:33.340 Even though Christian Zionists on Twitter are telling me that I'm not really Jewish. 0.99

01:16:38.060 Right. 0.98

01:16:38.960 Yes, yes.

01:16:40.860 Oh, yeah.

01:16:41.940 It's a whole other episode. 0.96

01:16:43.020 Yeah, a whole other episode of just non-Jews feeling really comfortable just telling everyone who's Jewish and who's not. 0.99

01:16:50.360 It's a whole other episode for, you guessed it, my psychiatrist. 0.83

01:16:58.160 I hope they're Jewish. 1.00

01:17:00.000 I just want to say thank you for having me on, but also thank you for doing this podcast and everything you've been doing for the last 18 months.

01:17:08.880 Just real quick, after October 7th, when every person that I know, both in my community and, you know, not just Jewish community, but also just like comedy community and stuff like that, everyone was being very quiet. 0.58

01:17:23.260 Um, you were one of the first voices I saw out there, uh, loudly, um, condemning, uh, the actions of Israel and, um, speaking, you know, no holds barred, uh, against Zionism and against, uh, you know, the racism of, uh, of Zionism.

01:17:42.680 and so i just want to say that that is uh very cool of you and i've always appreciated the work

01:17:49.920 wow i might have to edit that i don't know if i'll edit that out or not because is it like

01:17:53.900 gauche to like leave your own praise in your own podcast maybe i don't know we'll find out but

01:17:59.360 thank you so much for saying listen um i just want to let you know that thanks thanks uh thanks

01:18:04.880 matty boy it's uh it's nice to be in community with fellow anti-dianus mats yeah love us

01:18:11.540 mats in community yeah where can people find more of both of your excellent work um i was gonna say

01:18:19.780 nowhere

01:18:21.140 my best work will never be seen

01:18:29.280 All right.

01:18:31.120 That's so esoteric. 1.00

01:18:33.200 You're one of them behind the scenes Jews. 1.00

01:18:35.620 I got you. 0.99

01:18:36.380 Yeah, I was going to say, it's not a secret cabal.

01:18:39.500 It really isn't.

01:18:43.100 Most of my work happens in conversation, I will say.

01:18:46.300 Thank you so much for having me on here.

01:18:48.260 Thank you for bringing this conversation to light to be part of exposing what's happening.

01:18:53.300 It's so important.

01:18:54.820 And I'm just really grateful for your platform and your voice and your humor.

01:18:58.900 and thanks for tackling this uh well i do a podcast called uh bad hasbara the world's most

01:19:05.280 moral podcast it is a uh comedy podcast about israeli propaganda it's two uh anti-zionist

01:19:13.600 jews talking shit about israel and it's a lot of fun in this really not fun time uh trying to 0.89

01:19:21.220 process all of the horrific things that are being done to palestinians and done in our name so yeah 1.00

01:19:28.880 check that out and if you have made it this far thank you so much for listening to this episode

01:19:34.260 i know i say that every episode but like i really really mean it this has been a while in the making

01:19:40.980 this is the thing that i have spent the last two years thinking about more than any other single

01:19:46.920 topic it is what i believe to be one of the most important things to understand about what is

01:19:52.560 currently happening in this country and so i hope that we could help you make a little bit more sense

01:19:57.960 of it while laughing at some ridiculous influencers as is tradition on this podcast

01:20:02.400 i love you so much and until next time stay fruity

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - May 30, 2025

The Antisemitism Panic (with Matt Lieb)

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Transcript