The Origins of the Rise of Antisemitism on American Campuses with Guest Dr. Rachel Fish

October 1, 2024

How did a shift in educational philosophy in the 1960s pave the way not only for contemporary social justice movements but for today’s neo-antisemitism? Host Gil Troy and Dr. Rachel Fish discuss the identity of Jews as an ethnoreligious minority group, the confusion surrounding the recent and ongoing campus antisemitism, the centrality of critical thinking skills in early and continuing education, and the crisis of meaning and transcendence in today’s society, and finally, how to take steps towards positive change.

Dr. Rachel Fish is Special Advisor to The Brandeis University Presidential Initiative to Counter Antisemitism in Higher Education, a Visiting Assistant Professor at The George Washington University, and co-founder of the non-profit Boundless.

Rachel Fish

The way in which contemporary manifestations of antisemitism present tends to be with an intersection around Israel and Jew hatred, Zionism and Jew hatred. Many university administrators know nothing about Israel, know nothing about Israelis, do not know the complex history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When they hear discourse on campus around this subject, they assume it is political and what they don’t understand is that when Jewish students hear “globalize the intifada”, when they hear “from the river to the sea”, when they hear that Israel has no right to exist. These are clearly forms of Jew hatred.

Introduction & Letters (00:55)

Gil Troy

I’m Gil Troy, and welcome to the Human Side of History podcast, where we discuss how history helps us understand our current moment. In this initial series, we’re going to use history and historical documents from the Shapell Manuscript collection to explore some of the most compelling questions raised at this difficult moment, especially since Hamas’s horrific invasion of Israel on October 7th.

Today, we’re going to speak to an expert on both Jew hatred and on Zionism, Dr Rachel Fish. And we’re going to explore both the interaction between the history of antisemitism and the rise of the state of Israel, but also try to understand how Zionism and Israel transcended that.

We’ll also, unfortunately, have to talk about the scourge of antisemitism that’s spreading on college campuses today. Where does it come from? What does it mean? How is it a challenge not only to core American values, but to what the university is all about? 

 To root the story, we want to look at two letters from the Shapell Manuscript Collection. First, let’s go to 1934. Hayim Nahman Bialik is already the poet laureate of the Jewish people. In 1903, he became world famous when he went to Kishinev, the site of that horrific pogrom that shocked the world. It’ll shock us today to discover that in Kishinev in 1903, 43 Jews were killed. The instinct to say only 43, given the 6 million Jews who died, given the 1200 Jews and non-Jews who were killed on October 7th has to be resisted, because 43 is also an unacceptable number. And hundreds were raped and thousands of homes were destroyed. And so many people were traumatized. And the world said, this is unacceptable. And Hayim Nahman Bialik, as a poet, goes to Kishinev. And he writes one of the extraordinary poems of the 20th century, “The City of Slaughter”,

Arise and go now to the city of slaughter. 

Into its courtyard wind thy way. 

– He writes it in Hebrew and kind of in biblical language. –

There, with thine own hand touch, and with the eyes of thine head. 

Behold, on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay, 

the spattered blood and dried brains of the dead.

Words from 1903 that unfortunately resonate in 2023.

In 1934, he’s living in Israel. He’s already been living in Tel Aviv for ten years. And he writes a telegram to the Zionist Federation of South Africa in Johannesburg, as antisemitism, as Jew hatred, is once again rearing its ugly head. 

To our brethren, the builders of Zion in South Africa.

The latest persecutions that have hit our people in the diaspora like a flood, have proven again clearly to the eyes of the world, the justice of our national undertaking and its historical necessity. Once again, the hand of thousands of refugees from death and destruction knock on our doors. The cry of the hour now is the opening of the gates to the land widely, and the broadening of our strength to absorb them. Our national decision to prepare our lives home in the land will not be rescinded because of any adversary or obstacle. With an iron will, we will overcome them all. Your amazing and encouraging participation in the expansion of our rebuilding is renewed evidence of this desire of yours. 

With blessings of revival and rebuilding,

Hayim Nahman Bialik

 He writes this in May 1934, and a few months later he died suddenly at the age of 61. What did he discover by 1934 that he didn’t have in 1903? Hope. He discovers that you can’t be frozen in the horrors of Kishinev, frozen in the horrors of hatred against Jews or any other group. You have to build and rebuild. And that’s the power of this telegram. 

Let’s jump ahead almost 22 years to January 8th, 1956. Israel is eight years old, almost eight years old. Established in 1948. There’s a prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. One of the things that Ben-Gurion in 1956 is still stuck on, is that in 1937, the Peel Commission, a British pushed commission, said, let’s partition Palestine, let’s divide Palestine. And the partition plan didn’t work. Of course, ten years later, in 1947, after the loss of 6 million Jews, the world voted in a partition plan not exactly the same, but close. And so Ben-Gurion writes to his friend, a Talmud scholar named Hanoch Albeck, who was a public intellectual.

I received your letter. All this would be correct if the state had been established, not in 1948, but in 1937. And if millions of Jews in Europe had not been annihilated. The situation of the State of Israel would have been entirely different. What [after all] are 11 years in the history of our people which stretches back thousands of years? But so short a time difference is of great and serious significance to our people and the future of Israel. 

With great respect, 

David Ben-Gurion

Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

What’s so extraordinary about those few words, that telegram in the Shapell Collection, is that at once Ben-Gurion realizes how arbitrary history is, how much loss the Jewish people have endured in 11 years, how things could have been different. He’s a politician. He’s a leader. He knows you make split second decisions that can have far reaching implications. But at the same time, despite that loss, he doesn’t despair. And he knows that no matter what losses the Jewish people have sustained, no matter what losses others have sustained because of bigotry, the Jewish people will endure. Because we’re a people have hope, we’re a people have aspiration. 

And to understand that complicated navigation, let’s turn to Dr. Rachel Fish, who can give us both some historical perspective on the origins of Israel, on the enduring curse and perhaps opportunity of antisemitism, but also give us a sense of the contemporary challenges on the campus right now.

Rachel Fish co-founded the nonprofit Boundless, a think action tank partnering with community leaders across North America to revitalize Israel education and take bold, collective action to combat Jew hatred. Dr. Fish also serves as special advisor to the Brandeis University Presidential Initiative to Counter Antisemitism in Higher Education. She’s been very busy these days. She’s also an associate research professor at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies. In addition, Dr. Fish teaches Israeli history and society at the George Washington University as visiting Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership in the Graduate School of Education and Human Development.

Interview (11:14)

Gil Troy

Welcome, Rachel. Thanks for joining us.

Rachel Fish

Thank you for having me, Gil.

Gil Troy

I feel like I have to apologize because it’s such a depressing topic. But one of the things we see from the Hayim Nahman Bialik letter, and I think through Israeli history and through your vision, is that rooted in the conversation about antisemitism today is not just powerlessness, is not just loss, but also inspiration, hope, victory and an opportunity not just to defend Jews, but to defend democracy, the United States of America and Western values. So let’s start as a historian, how do you explain to your students this ongoing scourge of Jew hatred?

Rachel Fish

So I think actually, as historians, it is useful in that we know that what is happening today Gil, isn’t so new. Meaning these events didn’t occur just on October 7th and after. And what we are seeing on college campuses is not new. There has been a groundwork that has been laid for decades that has led us to this moment. And we also know that in Jewish history, there are moments in time in which the pressures of Jew hatred of antisemitism reach an apex. And there are other moments in time in which it’s underneath the surface, particularly in the context of American Jewish history. So we can look at history to try to help us make sense of the moment we are in and recognize that we have an understanding of what is at play. And when Jews are caught in the middle between the hard right ideological perspectives and the hard left ideological perspectives, it is a challenging moment for Jews that we have to recognize.

Gil Troy

So it’s interesting. Rather than getting caught in the woe is me, they’ve always hated us. You’re saying, well, the fact that it’s been this enduring phenomenon can help us put it in context, put it a little bit in perspective, and not just get so hysterical. I know that the many people just love to get hysterical, especially these days, but you’re trying to push beyond that.

Rachel Fish

Exactly. That’s exactly right. I don’t think it helps us to feel like our head has to be down and our hands constantly clenched. I think we have to recognize that Jews historically have been in these moments. And how we now deal with them is what matters. And what makes this moment different is that now there is a state of Israel that is very established and it is secure, despite some of the insecurities and vulnerabilities it may face. 

Gil Troy

You throw out the phrase American antisemitism, and especially today, 2024, are you more struck by how similar American antisemitism is to the rest of the world, or still how unique, how different it is?

Rachel Fish

So I think what’s interesting to me, and when I think about just the way in which American Jews have lived in America, is that there was really, truly a sense of exceptionalism. And in some ways, that exceptionalism remains, meaning America is unique in that it is a mosaic of identities. It is not built around one religious group or one ethnic community. It truly is supposed to be, a different type of tapestry than we see in many other nation states around the world. That being said, it doesn’t mean that it is a void of some serious discrimination, prejudice, bias, and hate. And it shouldn’t surprise any of us that that hate also will target Jews. And we know, and if you had Professor Jonathan Sarna on this call, you would hear about the ways in which antisemitism manifested throughout American history. There are some additional exceptions, in that rarely was it top down coming from within an institutionalized system of government. There are, again, exceptions to that, but it was not the same as what you saw in Europe. But I think what’s interesting in that there are many American Jews who became extremely comfortable and thought antisemitism could not rear its ugly head in America because of this exceptionalism. And this is a moment in time in which, for those individuals, there’s a reckoning almost to recognize actually it can. And what’s also very interesting is that the antisemitism that most Americans, let alone American Jews, can most easily identify and label is the antisemitism that comes from what we saw in Europe. White supremacy, nationalism melded with religion, this idea of Aryan ideology. What is much harder for American Jews to identify and even Americans, is the antisemitism that comes from the ideological left. What we know that existed within the Soviet Union. And that now means there’s a real opportunity for education in order to be able to help those individuals understand that this, too, is a form of Jew hatred.

Gil Troy

So I call this right wing antisemitism, good old fashioned antisemitism, because it’s something that that Jews recognize easily and been fighting for centuries. And and especially after World War II and the the Holocaust became sort of unacceptable in polite, respectable circles. And I think one of the particularly painful things about the new antisemitism that we’re seeing in America is that it’s precisely in the areas where Americans worshiped. It’s in the university that you and I love. It’s in the media. It’s in the progressive circles that Jews have always wanted to be a part of. How do you explain that? How could liberal Jews, who were so important in the history of civil rights movement, in the history of the expansion of LGBTQ rights, in the expansion of feminism, are now being betrayed by their ideological colleagues? What what happened here?

Rachel Fish

So when we look at how this happened, once again, I would go back to the reality that it didn’t happen this year. What we are seeing playing out on college campuses, in the ivory towers, what we see in social justice movements, what we see in some of our political elected leaders. It didn’t start this year, and it didn’t even start necessarily in the 21st century. It has its roots in the 1960s. But some of these intellectual ideas, most people thought were ideas that academics, that you and I engage with, that people wrote books about but didn’t have any real world implications. But actually those ideas cultivated a very fertile ground for an anti-Jewish politic. And that’s really important for our listeners to understand. And most of these ideas are ideas that, you know, and terms that you might hear about from a lecture, but you don’t actually know what it means. So you’ll hear thrown around ideas of Orientalism, Marxism, postmodernism, post nationalism. These kinds of ideas that, on the surface, sound extremely academic. They sound intellectual and suggest that we’re in a moment in time where we can move beyond some of the ways in which humans identified and organized themselves, a post tribal world. But what we have to understand is that these intellectual ideas are brought upon new ideas that then created ways in which people then were instructed to think. And critical thinking actually wasn’t a part of that equation. There was a position that suggested you should accept what these academics are suggesting and not challenge that discourse. And that’s precisely part of the problem, because a herd mentality was established. The critical thinking skills of asking and hitting the pause button to say, but wait a minute, how does this make sense? Wasn’t being utilized. And then these ideas get subsumed into the larger culture in which we live. 

There’s also and you know this as someone who grew up and spent time in America and taught here, that America has an obsession and a real obsession with the pigmentation of skin color, and that pigmentation of skin color then becomes the primary issue that refracts every other issue in society. And so the way that then impacts the conversation about Jews is that Jews are perceived as being white. They therefore are perceived as being part of the majority, and therefore they are perceived as having power and privilege. That’s the discourse that exists. Along with that, then Zionism is perceived as being a form of white supremacy that is also part of the discourse. And what that then suggests is that if Jews hold power, therefore they use that power. By extension, Israel uses that power in order to suppress or oppress a darker skinned population, i.e. Palestinians who are perceived to be the authentic indigenous native peoples of the region in this territory. And it’s a very, very simplistic, superficial framing, but one that hasn’t been challenged and one that has been elevated around this post colonialist, orientalist, postmodernist discourse, where facts are sublimated and narratives are elevated at the expense of actual truth.

Gil Troy

You use this really problematic phrase called critical thinking. And I think it’s really important that we go back to that because it’s, you know, the older I get, the more I learned that most bad ideas are good ideas that just went all accelerator, no brakes. And when you use the brakes of critical thinking, you can say, oh, look, I’m not against a critique of colonialism. I’m not against a critique of what was Orientalism or imperialism. And I’m certainly not against social justice or against civil rights or intersectionality even, because intersectionality starts with the insight that people who’ve endured trauma have something in common to talk about. But when Jews are blocked at the intersection, or when any one of these ideas becomes weaponized, that’s when we’re in trouble. And maybe tell us a little bit about how, at Brandeis, you’ve been trying to navigate this. Because it’s very easy to just sort of fall into, oh, they’re all crazy or they’re all evil or they’re all antis-Semitic. And I think you’ve brought a certain kind of subtlety to the task. And certainly on a modern campus today, you can’t just be in the no category. You can’t just say, I don’t accept any liberal idea. I don’t accept any one of these academic analyzes, many of which are valid. So how have you navigated that? How have you tempered that?

Rachel Fish

I think that what you’re raising is really important. Because I just want to add, before I delve into the conversation about how we do this, is that teachers at a much younger age with their students have to be able to hit that pause button and help students ask the questions so that they can examine ideas, materials, readings, concepts that are then introduced to them. Even parents. So I’ll give you an example. I’ll be riding with my kids in the car, going to some activity, and we’ll have a story on, you know, usually about Israel, something having to do with Hamas. And my kids will say to me, do we believe that person? Is that fair? Is this true? And it’s an age appropriate question for a 9, 10 year old to ask. And my job is to help them say, well, what are they saying? How are they saying it? What information might they not be including in that conversation? And I know that seems like so basic, Gil. But our kids actually don’t know how to do this if we don’t model for them how to do it. So that’s the first step. And I would really like to see more parents own that educational sort of philosophy and approach, and also feel a sense of responsibility rather than just assume they’re getting these skills from their teachers, because that’s not a good assumption anymore. So that’s piece one of this. 

Piece two is that people like to use terms because they hear them in the ether. But it’s really important when someone uses a term to say, I heard you say the term post-colonialism. Could you tell me what that means? How are you defining that term? And just not to be confrontational, not to play gotcha, but to truly understand when a term is being used, how is it being used? And the reason I do this all the time is because from research that we did at Boundless and even prior to Boundless, we saw that the majority of Americans ages 13 to 35 years of age didn’t know what the term antisemitism meant, truly didn’t know. Most of them said when you said, what is antisemitism? Idk, I don’t know. So you actually need to ask people what the terms they are using mean to see if you have the same entry point for that definition. 

The third kind of piece of your question I would answer in the following way. I don’t believe that these things begin when people walk onto the campus quad. I firmly believe that these ideas have been within the zeitgeist of American life for decades now, and only now do we have some language and some ability to recognize and label what we are seeing and how it plays out. But it means that these ideas are part of a much earlier process of education. So the folks who are now administrators in universities, and it doesn’t matter if they are in the diversity, equity, inclusion and now the term and belonging offices are. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the realm of communications or if it’s in the dean of student life or residential life, or even the president. There is a working assumption around two pieces right now. First, Jews are viewed as a religious community and not an ethno-religious community. And we have an opportunity to help people understand what it means for Jews to be an ethno-religious community, rather than merely a confessional identity. That’s one piece of this puzzle. 

The second piece of this puzzle is that the way in which contemporary manifestations of antisemitism present tends to be with an intersection around Israel and Jew hatred, Zionism and Jew hatred. Many university administrators know nothing about Israel, know nothing about Israelis, do not know the complex history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Let alone Israel and Hamas, let alone Israel and Hezbollah, let alone Iran’s influence. That’s not their expertise, and it’s not necessary that it should become their expertise. But if they have no baseline knowledge, when they hear discourse on campus around this subject, they assume it is political. And what they don’t understand is that when Jewish students hear globalize the intifada, when they hear from the river to the sea, when they hear that Israel has no right to exist. These are clearly forms of Jew hatred. And it has been hidden from them in a way to suggest that no, no, no, that’s acceptable political conversation. And so part of my job is to help people understand that these chants and rhymes and theoretical intellectual frameworks actually need to be understood in the real world. And what’s being called for in the real world is the demise of half of the world’s large, you know, Jewish population and the Jewish state. And what would they like to do with the Israelis who remain in that state? And when you actually make it concrete and practical, they then begin to understand that they have a challenge on their hands that is not merely about political positions.

Gil Troy

It’s interesting that you’re focusing on college administrators and college leadership, which is very much a part of the problem. But we’re also seeing that the rot runs much deeper. It starts earlier. certainly in high school. Who becomes a high school teacher? Many of these people who are truly ideological, and they and the penetration of these ideas is quite sobering. But I want to shift now to the the question of Israel and Zionism. And before we get to Zionism and Israel as a response to antisemitism, let let’s put on our historian’s hat and go to this remarkable letter of Bialik, where, unlike in 1903, after the Kishinev pogrom, when he writes his famous poem City of Slaughter, he’s so deep in despair, in 1934 he’s actually dancing between the despair of this ongoing curse of antisemitism, which we were talking about earlier, and the hope. The hope that we’re building a new country. How has Zionism handled antisemitism. Is Zionism only anti-antisemitism? Is it only reactive? Or is there a proactive, positive response as well here?

Rachel Fish

You know this for sure as a historian. And you know this about me. I truly am both a lover of political Zionism for its practicality, but also a lover of cultural spiritual Zionism, for its aspirations. And what that means is that Zionism was for sure a Jewish response to the persecution that Jews were facing in Europe, no doubt. And it was a concrete response. And at the same time, you had individuals like Martin Buber and Ehad Ha’am, and Judah Magnus and others, many of whom actually will then influence the building and the framing of Hebrew University, where they said we need this place to actually solve for the Jewish soul. To be able to inspire the Jewish soul in our own language that is Aboriginal, that is original to us in Hebrew. And this place actually has to have serious, substantive Jewish content, and we need to be Jewishly literate. And that, to me, is deeply inspiring because it demonstrates that it wasn’t only about persecution, but it was also an answer to how do you ensure that you are creating Jews who are knowledgeable, who are deeply infused with Jewishness within the context of their own land and with the ability to control their own destiny? And it’s that combination.

Gil Troy

And when you speak to students, high school students, college students, what part of the Zionist story resonates with them? What are they looking for and what does Zionism give them?

Rachel Fish

So this is actually one of my favorite subjects to teach to middle school, high school, college age students. Because you can show the nuance and the multiplicities of Zionisms. Zionism was never a singular, monolithic idea. And for most students at any of those ages, what excites them is that A) they don’t realize that there were all these different flavors of Zionism that existed because that’s not what they were taught. When they start to see and explore those different Zionisms they start to see within themselves what actually resonates, what feels relevant. They also see an entry point to thinking about where do I fit into this story. They also see that the conversation around Zionism isn’t static. It’s not complete. There’s a role for them, even in the 21st century, to continue to refine, tune and imagine new ideas around Zionism. And so for any students I have ever taught, even adult learners, they are very excited by what was both real, what was practical, what was imagined, and what was aspirational. And students of all ages want to see themselves in that story. And they also see that they have a role in that story.

Gil Troy

One of the key words that emerges in Bialik’s short telegram is this notion of building, building and rebuilding. And I think for an American population, a Western population, which is increasingly passive, increasingly despairing, increasingly in a role of feeling both very lonely and, and, and, and very alienated that that word can be a kind of key catalyst, can be a key inspiration.

Rachel Fish

I fully agree with you. I think that for Americans in general, American Jews in particular, because that’s these are the groups I know best. There is a sense of forgetting how powerful it is to be part of a collective, to be part of something bigger than oneself, and to be part of a cause that is bigger than oneself. And where there is an opportunity to stoke those flames in the best possible way, I think that we should leverage it in order to be able to empower, particularly young Jews, to see that they have a role in this place that is very particular, but holds universal values as well.

Gil Troy

When we read the Ben-Gurion letter, there are two parts that are mind blowing. One is simply the arbitrariness of history. That, you know, 11 years difference between 1937 and 1948 you you lose within those 11 years, within a six year period, 6 million Jews. What would have happened the if of history, which we’re never supposed to ask as historians. So you get the sense of how, in the flick of a moment, things can change dramatically. On the other hand, you also get that sense of, wow, this isn’t just a story of 1930, 1940. This isn’t just a story of October 7th, 2023. We’re thinking bigger. We don’t just count in decades. We don’t just count in centuries. We just don’t just count in millennia. Is that a way forward for students these days who feel so lost, so crushed? Or does that become overwhelming in its own way in the age of TikTok and instant media?

Rachel Fish

My gut tells me for many, it will become overwhelming because they don’t have the ability to see the long form of history. And unfortunately, their attention spans are now in two second snippets. And so even just deep thinking is hard to be accomplished at this moment. That being said, it is very useful, I think, for those of us who are historians, for those of us who are teachers, for those of us who are parents, to be able to remind ourselves that this is a moment. It’s a very serious moment. And there’s a still a very long trajectory and many, many points of intervention and active agency that we can take in order to change the course of that trajectory. And I think feeling that sense of ability is extremely valuable, especially for young people, let alone for those who are concerned about what do we do right here, right now? And you will see an American Jewish media right now the conversation for some is, is it time for American Jews to make Aliyah? And this it should be put again in a historical context, not to say whether yes or no, because, as you know, it’s a deeply personal decision with a lot of factors that contribute to it. But there is a historical conversation that one also needs to have as part of that context.

Gil Troy

One of the extraordinary things about living at the intersection of American history and Israeli history and Jewish history, as we do, is that you get to think in these different terms, right? You get to think what’s what’s the story of America 248 years ago and still counting, what’s the story of America and it’s Jews with every one of us having a story of when our parents came over. What’s the story of Israel, 76 years old and counting? And what’s the story of the Jewish people, 3500 years old and counting? And and I think that that juggling act, it’s something that we feel in the Ben-Gurion letter, but we also feel when when you speak that you’re, you’re you’re swimming in all these different modes, which on the one hand overlap and reinforce one another, but also can be different portals, different openings for people who are looking for meaning, who are looking for impact, who are looking for a sense of there has to be something more significant than last week’s most popular YouTube video of a cat rolling around.

Rachel Fish

That’s exactly right. I also think when it comes to this conversation, that whether it’s history for America, whether it’s history for Jews, we just want an easy story, an easy narrative. We wrap it in a bow and we can say it’s delivered. And that’s not how history works. You and I know that individuals make decisions. These decisions have deep impact that resonate well beyond their own individual lives. And what makes history fascinating is when you can hold the complexity of these ideas and positions in relationship with one another. Right. So it’s why you see there’s and some in some places not enough. In America, you can have the reading of the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July, along with reading Frederick Douglass Letters of what does the 4th of July mean to me? And what does it mean as a black man in this country, in a time in which slavery still persists in some regard? So holding those complexities doesn’t mean you throw America away and its ideals away, but you strive for a better America. And what I’d like to start seeing more and more in the work that we do is helping people get to a point of complexity where they can read the Declaration of Independence, written with true aspiration for Israel, and also say, where has Israel accomplished incredible successes and where are there serious shortcomings? And how do we solve for those shortcomings? And that doesn’t mean you dissolve Israel, but it means you figure out how to make Israel stronger, better, more equitable in order to create a more just and sustainable society. That’s fascinating. That’s interesting.

Gil Troy

It’s so painful to keep on hearing that word aspirational, because it’s funny that it seems that the aspirational democracies and I would call Israel an aspirational democracy, and the United States an aspirational democracy, are the ones who get most attacked when they fall short of their ideals. And all those other countries, especially autocracies. But even the democracies that aren’t so ambitious are sort of it’s okay. But there’s a particular glee that both certain citizens within Israel and certain citizens of the United States take and certainly outsiders take in holding up the high ideals and not saying, as you’re saying so eloquently, okay, they haven’t yet been fulfilled, but they can be inspirations. They can get us going. But to say, oh, those ideals failed. And I think that’s what happened with the 1619 project, which said, oh, America is stuck. It’s stuck in slavery. It’s stuck in that moment in 1619 when the slave ships first came, as opposed to no, it’s about 1776, which is this catalyst of constant change and this engine, fueled by idealism and fueled by hope.

Rachel Fish

That’s exactly right. I think that for young people, they need to be reminded of what true liberal values and idealism actually mean. Again, these are just terms for most people. They don’t understand. And I think that for many, it’s much easier to knock down than to actually build. And I fall squarely on the side of preferring to build. And we need to figure out how to like, inculcate and cultivate within a younger generation that desire to build rather than just to destroy.

Gil Troy

We’ve been dancing on this tension between complexity and reality and critical thought and ideals. But to go back to what we started with, there’s also this deeper issue of look life can be really ugly. Bigotry is horrific. The the, the crimes of October 7th, the crimes of slavery, the crimes of Holocaust, all of which we’ve mentioned are overwhelming in their evil. And yet humans have no choice but to transcend them. And that weird dance, and I think in Israel we’re seeing that today, this weird dance between living with death and living with ugliness and living with pain and living with betrayal in a certain way, sometimes highlights the beauty and the power of life. And I think that’s ultimately the Zionist message. And I think that’s holding the American message. And that seems to be the kind of message that you’ve been spreading to students.

Rachel Fish

I’m trying. I’m trying very hard. I would say that we have to be able, as humans, to both hold right deep, deep joy and deep, deep grief simultaneously. And we understand what we’ve lost. And we also understand that we can’t stand in what we have lost because we will sink. And we have to continue to find ways not only to embrace the joy and recognize that joy, but also to be resilient. And that resiliency doesn’t mean an ignorance or a lack of understanding of what happened, but an ability to hold again that grief while continuing to move forward and identifying what were the weaknesses and how do we overcome them and how do we do better? And for many of us, I think here in America, who have our life here but live with so much of our attention towards the East, we try to find ways to constantly bring what is happening in Israel into our lives while recognizing that we aren’t in Israel, and yet we have a responsibility to it. And so it is always that tension. And it’s a healthy tension. And I would think that for many of our communal leaders articulating to American Jews in particular, that they need to be in that tension is actually part of the responsibility and the job right now.

Gil Troy

This past Friday night, my family and I were honored to host here in Jerusalem, a group of 22 African-American and Latino liberal Democrats who were on a solidarity slash exploration mission to Israel. And we’ve hosted groups like them before, and they often talk about the power of being baptized in the Sea of Galilee and walking in Jesus’s steps, but what was so interesting was the first person who spoke, and it became the theme of the evening, talked about resilience, and talked about coming to a country which they expected to be traumatized, war torn, and they could see some of those signs, but they were so struck and so surprised by exactly what you’re talking about – the joy on the streets, the sense of hope, the sense of a real commitment to affirm life. And I think that’s one of the things we hear in Bialik. I think that’s one of the things we hear in Ben Gurion. And that’s certainly one of the things we hear in your important teaching and writing. So I want to thank you, Doctor Rachel Fish, not only for your important words today, which give us hope without denying complexity and pain, but also for the amazing work you’ve been doing with middle school students, with high school students, with college students, and perhaps most important, with their parents, too. So thank you very much.

Rachel Fish

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Truly a pleasure.

Summary (42:58)

Gil Troy

The great French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said the anti-Semite makes the Jew. Zionists, Rachel Fish, Kai Bialik, David Ben-Gurion say the Jew makes the Jew, the American makes the American. None of us let the haters define us. And I think that’s a very important, eternal lesson. Thank you, Dr. Rachel Fish, for taking on this extraordinary intellectual journey, for helping us understand some of the enduring challenges, some of the ways we refuse to be cowed and a path forward for us as Jews, as Zionists, as Israelis, for our students, but most important, for Americans these days, who all too often fall into the despair, are shocked by the hatred and don’t know what to do.

As an extra bonus for today, we’ve listed Dr. Rachel Fish’s five favorite books in the show notes. And if you want to know more about the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, just go on their amazing website and explore. There are so many manuscripts you can find at www.shapell.org that’s one P two L’s. Also feel free to visit the show notes for more about the manuscripts, the events we’ve described, and some of the issues we talked about today. And don’t forget to subscribe to rate and review our podcast. History can’t determine our future, but it can help us understand the present and make a better future. This is Gil Troy, betting on better days.

Check out Rachel Fish’s 5 favorite books:

My Life by Golda Meir

Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luth King, Jr. 

The Zionist Idea by Arthur Hertzberg

Shira by S.Y. Agnon

Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

Stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and by signing up for our newsletter at shapell.org/contact. For more information about this podcast, visit The Human Side of History.

Production by docyourstory

Music by Adam Weingrod