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Co-Hosts Avinoam Patt and Lila Corwin Berman discover the stories and scholars to help make sense of antisemitism today. They start with a theory: the answer to understanding (and perhaps fighting) antisemitism is only as good as the questions one asks. And then they search far and wide for the best questions and the people who can ask and answer them. And spoiler: Avi, Lila, and their guests don’t always agree. In fact, that’s the plot, or at least part of it. How scholars and other people can passionately disagree while remaining curious about one another and the world, one question at a time.
Avi: We are two historians trying
to understand antisemitism,
one question at a time.
I'm your co-host, Avi Patt, with Lila
Berman, and our plan is to discover
the stories and scholars to help
make sense of antisemitism today.
Lila: We start with a theory that
the answer to understanding and maybe
fighting antisemitism, is only as
good as the questions that one asks.
Avi: And then we search far and wide
for the best questions and the best
people who can ask and answer them.
Spoiler: the two of us and
our guests don't always agree.
Lila: In fact, that's more of the plot,
or at least part of it: how scholars and
other people can passionately disagree
while remaining curious about one another
and the world, one question at a time.
Avi: Thank you for joining us for
this episode of the Jewish Question.
Well, When we had our inaugural
conference of the NYU Center for the
Study of Antisemitism, it was right
before Passover in April of 2024, and
we organized the conference itself
on the theme of four questions.
Sort of the idea of like four questions
coming from the Passover Haggadah, and
it got us to thinking that, if we're
going to think about antisemitism and
a topic as complex and as thorny and
as difficult to unpack as antisemitism,
that we often find ourselves having
more questions than we do answers.
But that maybe what we really should
be doing instead of just providing
answers to people is really asking
difficult questions, and from those
difficult questions where we bring
together people who we think are better
equipped than we are to answer those.
Maybe we'll be able to find our way
towards the answers that we really want.
So, Lila, I'm really happy that you agreed
to join me in doing this podcast together.
But I have to ask you like,
why do you wanna do this?
Lila: Here's why.
So there's a professor, actually, she's
an NYU professor named Carol Gilligan,
she's just sort of really brilliant.
And she has this idea that often
we don't ask real questions.
We ask leading questions, we are asking a
question with an ulterior motive, and that
when we ask real questions, we can enter
into better relationships with people
we can find better answers actually.
And so I think the reason I said
yes to doing this is because, I've
known you Avi for a long time.
In fact, you came to my wedding,
and if there's one thing I know
about you, it's that even if we may
disagree on some interpretations or
some answers, you are always willing
to try to get to the real question.
What Gilligan says is the real question
can take many, many iterations.
You can ask it over and over until you
figure out like what is the heart of it.
I'm driven by the idea of questions,
and I like that framing of this topic,
a topic that people pontificate on more
than really ask real questions about.
Avi: Yeah.
I do remember your wedding, back in
the day, and I even remember, uh,
the location, which was in Western
Massachusetts, if I'm not mistaken.
Outside, and it was a nice day.
We are two historians who are
sometimes coming at history
from very different perspectives
and very different backgrounds.
You do American Jewish history.
I mainly do modern European
Jewish history and specifically
focus on Holocaust studies.
And I think some of that work does
inform the way in which I understand
this moment in which we're living.
It informs some of the questions
that I have about contemporary
antisemitism and how it relates to
other forms of, anti-Jewish hate
that we've seen throughout history,
but also how it might be different
from other forms of anti-Jewish hate
that we've seen throughout history.
I think sort of my personal experiences
of being somebody who is, you know,
a child of Israelis who grew up in
Houston, Texas and sort of has this
experience of looking at the society
that I'm living in, thinking of it
like kind of an outsider perspective.
But also asking all
these questions, right?
So we come at it from these different
perspectives, but I feel like as you're
suggesting, the best way that you can get
to something resembling some kind of a
truth is through this type of dialogue and
interaction and asking good questions and
going back and forth and debating things.
And that's why I'm excited to engage
in this process with you and hopefully
get closer to an answer about what
is happening in our world today.
Lila: Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, and I think it's interesting that
you frame your investment in this topic
both in terms of your scholarly background
and also your personal background.
So I am, as you said, a scholar
of American Jewish history.
I'm very interested in, American
politics and political theory.
I think I tend to be pretty open
and interested to sort of different
theoretical models to understand
both the past and the present.
I, am not an Astros fan, which
I suppose you probably are.
Um, I grew up in relatively
small town north of New York City
called Poughkeepsie, New York.
My mom was a public school special
education teacher, my dad was a
psychologist, I'm one of four.
And, all we seemed to do was argue and
debate constantly, not always to get to a
real answer, but often to get to the win.
But I think another piece of my
background that's probably important
actually, you mentioned my wedding was
in Western Massachusetts and both my
parents grew up in the Springfield area.
And my father in particular
used to tell this story about
when he was like 12 or so.
Going up to Exeter, to Phillips Andover
in Exeter the very posh boarding school,
being interviewed by the headmaster.
And his parents wanted to send
him to the best boarding school.
His father was a doctor, very successful.
And, they went up for
this interview at Exeter.
And after my dad left the room,
the headmaster basically told my
father that, they were wasting
their time because the last thing
they needed was another short Jew.
Now to, not defame my father, I
wanna be clear that he at 12 was
maybe short, but he became five nine.
And I, and he would tell you
that's just slightly above average.
It's not that he became obsessed with
height because of this experience.
He in fact did.
But that was like a, a story that was
told when I was a kid and I knew about
it and it didn't make me feel like I
was living in some kind of antisemitic.
time or place.
In fact, it made me feel like that was a
sort of holdover of this gente and social
antisemitism that was very different
from the kinds of discrimination and
bigotry that seemed important in my own
life as a kid growing up where I saw a
lot of anti-black racism, where I saw
a lot of, discrimination on economic
reasons that, seemed much more important.
I think that the sort of sense
of, knowing that my father had had
this experience and hearing this as
part of a family story, then being
trained in American Jewish history,
a field that really did not take very
seriously the history of antisemitism.
That in fact, it's sort of axiom of
American Jewish history, was that
antisemitism was an old world thing and
in so far as it existed in this country,
it was the genteel Exeter sort of variety.
I realized at some point that there were
a lot more questions to ask about that.
why was it that a school.
in the 1950s felt very comfortable
saying that directly to somebody and
what, you know, what did that indicate
about how power worked in our country?
So, you know, I think that kind of
personal experience has informed the
way that I also think about this topic.
Avi: I think it's interesting
that you share that story and
I want to come back to that.
You did mention that I am an Astros fan
and I do have to sort of self disclose
that I am indeed an Astros fan living
in New York, which gives me sort of
the real feeling of being an outsider.
Yeah.
Like I can totally experience that
idea of being a persecuted minority.
I will not wear my Astros gear here
in New York 'cause it's dangerous.
Lila: Yeah, you have to really hide it.
Yeah.
Avi: But, but to your point, right?
you know, hearing that story, there
are two ways to respond to it, right?
There is sort of this idea of like,
how do we interpret this story about
either what might have been referred to
as like social antisemitism or polite
antisemitism in American society.
Do we think of like, oh,
look how far we've come?
Jews have been successful,
we've left that in the past.
The idea of a belief in progress
and sort of this golden age
thesis of American Jewish history.
Or do we take it like, see there's
a warning to not get too comfortable
to realize that that sort of form of
discrimination is, is always there.
And I know Lila, I've shared this joke
with you that I always go back to.
I do happen to teach a Jewish humor
class, which might be a part of a coping
strategy with being somebody who teaches
about the Holocaust all the time.
So I use this joke all the time thinking
about like how we interpret Jewish
history, which goes something like this.
What's the difference between a Jewish
pessimist and a Jewish optimist?
The Jewish pessimist says things can't
possibly get any worse than this.
And the Jewish optimist
says, oh yes they can!
I think about that 'cause I'm thinking
about like how we are trained in
the different ways in which we
interpret this history, right?
Do you see it as sort of evidence of
leaving behind discrimination and like,
oh, look at the progress that we've had
in American society, or do we see it as
like no matter how far Jews think that
they've come, that sort of otherness,
that outsider, that form of discrimination
is always going to be there?
Are we optimistic?
Are we pessimistic?
The truth is somewhere in between.
Lila: Right.
If I were really good at making up jokes
on the spot, I would try to tell a joke
that had some kind of punchline that the
answer is really, that you can't just
look at it through a Jewish framework.
Right?
I don't know what the joke would be like,
feed that into AI and get me a joke.
I see that joke as a sort of binary and
then I see all these other possibilities,
too, which is like what was happening
to other groups of people who might have
wanted to go to Exeter when my dad wanted
to go to Exeter, or wouldn't have even
had the economic privilege to have their
doctor father, like drive them up there.
And there were Jews who
went to Exeter at that time.
What was their experience and what
was the experience of other groups
of people like, it's not just the
question that, is it good for the
Jews or is it bad for the Jews?
This is sort of my big worldview when
it comes to like the history of Jews.
Anything that's happening to Jews
is entangled with other people's.
So the questions always have
to approach that entanglement.
And I'm sure that has a lot to do with
my own upbringing as well, which was
always in the context of, being Jewish,
but being Jewish in spaces where there
were not necessarily lots of Jews
and not tending toward those kinds of
experiences as much as towards experiences
that were more entangled, I suppose.
Avi: Yeah, It's funny to think about
sort of how our upbringing influences
like our worldviews and then whether we
incorporate that or push against that.
I grew up in Houston, Texas, child
of Israeli doctors who had come
to Houston for two years and then
As a classic Israelis in American story,
two years became 50 years, but also
that family history of grandparents
who had either come from Vienna and
fled Austria after the Nazi annexation.
Or grandparents had come from Poland
and left, Poland in the 1920s or
thirties and gone to Palestine.
and
That understanding of, making decisions
to immigrate to a place where Jews would
be safe and to create a Jewish state.
But then also like that worldview
that informs this idea of like, do
Jews trust the promises of democracy?
Do we trust the promises of
the societies in which we live?
Are we optimistic about those.
offers of emancipation and enlightenment
Zionism as I would argue, is fundamentally
pessimistic about that Jewish encounter
with the outside world, and it
always has that degree of mistrust
of like, is this really possible?
How possible is the liberal offer?
Or do we always have to
be slightly distrusting?
I mean, I think a lot of this informs the
questions that we're asking about so many
things that are gonna inform the types of
questions that we're gonna ask our guests.
Lila: Well, I could keep talking to you
about this, forever and we will, I hope.
But also I'm excited that we're
going to bring in others to.
Avi: Yeah,
Lila: Join us in this conversation
and hopefully some listeners who will
be excited to be part of it as well.
Avi: I'm excited too.
Thanks for tuning in.
This was a production of the NYU
Center for the Study of Antisemitism.
Your presenters were Avi Noam Patt
Lila: and Lila Berman.
Your producers were William
Pimlott and Caitlyn Madara,
Avi: and production provided
by Bivins Brothers Creative.