On the Nose
Jewish Currents
Recent Episodes
“Real life conspiracies pose a certain challenge for political analysis,” wrote Jewish Currents contributors Noah Kulwin and Ari Brostoff in their 2019 piece on Jeffrey Epstein, the child sex trafficker, financier, and international rainmaker. As recently reported in a series of articles at Drop Site News, Epstein had close ties to the Israeli intelligence community, and frequently brokered meetings for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, including meetings that resulted in the establishment of security ties with Mongolia and the sale of mass surveillance infrastructure to Cote d’Ivoire’s authoritarian government. What do these revelations tell us about the flows of power and money across the billionaire class? And what do we do with the extent to which Epstein’s story reads like an antisemitic conspiracy come to life? To explore these questions, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel spoke with Kulwin, a co-host of Blowback, a podcast about US empire and interventionism, and Ryan Grim, co-founder of Drop Site News and the co-author of multiple recent reports about Epstein.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Articles and Media Mentioned and Further Reading
Drop Site reporting on “Epstein and Israel” by Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussein
“The Right Kind of Continuity,” Ari Brostoff and Noah Kulwin, Jewish Currents
“The worst thing about Davos? The Masters of the Universe think they are do-gooders,” Hamilton Nolan, The Guardian
Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence by James Bamford
The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills
Doppleganger by Naomi Klein
The art of Marc Lombardi
“Jeffrey Epstein Claimed to Have Meddled in Israel’s Elections,” Branko Marcetic, Jacobin
“JPMorgan Alerted U.S. to Epstein Transfers Involving Wall St. Figures,” Matthew Goldstein, David Enrich, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, and Steve Eder, The New York Times
“The Book of Epstein,” Chapo Trap House
Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers by Gus Russo
Transcript forthcoming.
On November 11th, Israeli soldiers who had admitted to raping a Palestinian detainee at the now infamous detention camp Sde Teiman were met with applause and a standing ovation as they entered an Israeli courtroom. The scene ricocheted around the world, the latest portrait of the depravity that has gripped Israeli society. Accounts of the torture taking place at Sde Teiman were among the first things to emerge from testimonies collected from soldiers by the Israeli group Breaking the Silence in the aftermath of October 7th. The 21-year-old group has long encouraged soldiers to speak candidly about what they have perpetrated during their service; for this, they have been vilified and discredited within Israeli society, which largely prefers to celebrate the soldiers as heroes—a narrative that can only be maintained through their silence.
On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Breaking the Silence executive director Nadav Weiman about the testimonies they have collected over the last two years of the Israeli army’s annihilatory campaign in Gaza. Breaking the Silence’s testimonies have uncovered clear evidence that contrary to official reports, many of the war crimes we have seen are not the result of rogue soldiers, but protocols that come straight from command. In this episode, Weiman details the dehumanizingly named “mosquito protocol,” in which soldiers used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza—a chilling echo of the Israeli government’s oft-repeated accusation about Hamas. Weiman paints a picture of the mindset of the average Israeli soldier, ensconced in a “bubble” of support. He also fields questions about what accountability might look like for those who have perpetrated the genocide in Gaza—not just for top brass but for foot soldiers—and what the deradicalization of Israeli society could entail.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Articles and Media Mentioned and Further Reading
“Abuse in Israeli jails caused deaths of more than 90 Palestinians,” Simon Speakman Cordall, Al Jazeera
“Mosquito Protocol: Ex-Israeli Soldier on Army’s Systematic Use of Palestinians as Human Shields,” Democracy Now!
“Some Israeli soldiers traveling abroad face action for alleged war crimes in Gaza,” Molly Quell, PBS
Transcript forthcoming.
Last week, the Holocaust-denying, white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes sat down with former Fox News host turned podcaster Tucker Carlson on The Tucker Carlson Show, where the two discussed Fuentes’s trajectory, the evolution of his “America First” ideology, and the ways his rejection of the neoconservative common sense on Israel put him at odds with parts of the right-wing establishment. For many, Carlson’s seeming embrace of Fuentes on his popular show signaled a shift, a recognition that what was once taboo on the right has arrived in the mainstream. Cementing the sense of a sea change, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank that has crafted many of Donald Trump’s most destructive policies, refused to disavow or scold Carlson, saying in a video that criticism of Israel is not antisemitism. He asserted that Americans should support Israel as long as Israel’s action are in American interests—and that there is no obligation to support Israel if they are not. (Since this taping, he has had to walk back this statement, particularly the use of the phrase “venomous coalition” to describe those trying to “cancel” Carlson over the interview with Fuentes.)
That same week, far-right talk show host Candace Owens, dismissed from her Daily Wire post over antisemitism, sat down with left-wing former academic and Palestine advocate Norman Finkelstein. In a conversation laced with Owens’s many antisemitic conspiracy theories, they attempted to find common ground.
In this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and publisher Daniel May are joined by Ben Lorber, researcher of antisemitism and white nationalism, and Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker writer who profiled Carlson last year. They discussed the uncomfortable resonances between right and left anti-Zionism in this moment, and the even more disturbing antisemitic, white and Christian nationalist divergences.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Articles and Media Mentioned and Further Reading
JD Vance is asked about American support for Israel at a Turning Point USA event
“The Tucker Carlson Road Show,” Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker
“Nick Fuentes Has Officially Breached the MAGA Gates,” Ben Lorber, The Nation
Transcript forthcoming.
Last week, a group calling itself The Jewish Majority published a “Rabbinic Call to Action” aimed at New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the last weeks of the campaign. “We cannot remain silent in the face of rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization throughout our nation,” the letter reads. Signed by over 1,100 rabbis, the letter quotes New York rabbis Ammiel Hirsch and Elliot Cosgrove, who had each issued their own anti-Zohran sermons and videos, insisting that Mamdani poses a danger to the safety of the city’s Jews and that Zionism is an inextricable part of Jewish identity.
On this episode of On the Nose, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, editor-at-large Peter Beinart, senior reporter Alex Kane, and advisory board member Simone Zimmerman discuss this rabbinic campaign, what it means for the sizable Jewish minority who supports Mamdani, and what it says about the priorities of institutional Judaism at a moment of profound political instability.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Articles and Media Mentioned and Further Reading
Rabbi Cosgrove’s sermon on Mamdani
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch on Mamdani
“Why Mamdani Frightens Jews Like Me,” Bret Stephens, The New York Times
The Jewish Majority, “A Rabbinic Call to Action”
“Brad Lander’s Campaign of Solidarity,” On the Nose
“Tax the Rich” post on X by Maria Danzilo
Halachic Left High Holidays reader
“Zohran Mamdani is not antisemitic, Satmar’s Brooklyn leadership says,” Jerusalem Post
“Jewish New York’s reckoning with Zohran Mamdani,” Noa Yachot, The Guardian
“Many American Jews sharply critical on Gaza, Post poll finds,” Naftali Bendavid, Scott Clement, and Emily Guskin, The Washington Post
“‘The Issue is Not the Issue’ – The Free Speech Movement 1964 - The Anti-Mamdani Craze,” Shaul Magid on Substack
Mamdani’s video “My Message to Muslim New Yorkers—and Everyone Who Calls This City Home”
“The racism and Islamophobia behind many of the attacks on Zohran Mamdani,” Richard Luscombe, The Guardian
“Religion, Secularism, and the Jewish Left,” On the Nose
“The Anti-Soros Strategy at the Heart of Trump’s War on Progressive Nonprofits,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents
“Trump’s war on the left: Inside the plan to investigate liberal groups,” Nandita Bose, Jana Winter, Jeff Mason, Tim Reid, and Ted Hesson, Reuters
Beyond Israelism with Simone Zimmerman on Zeteo
Transcript forthcoming.
For the second year in a row, Rabbis for Ceasefire held a Yizkor service on the streets of Brooklyn, using the traditional Yom Kippur memorial service as a means to mourn the dead in Gaza, to atone for American and Jewish communal participation in the genocide, and to refuse further complicity. After the Yizkor service—attended by 1,500 people and watched online by ten times that number—rabbis and others blocked the Brooklyn Bridge while performing the Ne’ilah service that closes the holy day; dozens were arrested. In this episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Rabbis for Ceasefire organizers Alissa Wise and Elliot Kukla about their experience planning and carrying out this ritual action, and what it revealed about the nature of the tradition itself. They also discuss the power of collective grief, and the difference and interrelation between Palestine solidarity work and the work of building a Judaism beyond Zionism.
This episode is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Arthur Waskow.
Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”
Articles Mentioned and Further Reading
Rabbis for Ceasefire Yizkor service on Instagram
“Jewish activist and leader Rabbi Arthur Waskow dies at 92,” Deena Prichep, NPR
“‘Chronic traumatic stress disorder’: the Palestinian psychiatrist challenging western definitions of trauma,” Bethan McKernan, The Guardian
“Can the Palestinian Mourn?,” Abdeljawad Omar, Rusted Radishes
“‘They Destroyed What Was Inside Us’: Children with Disabilities Amid Israel’s Attacks on Gaza,” Human Rights Watch Report
“The Right to Grieve,” Erik Baker, Jewish Currents
“Synagogue Struggles,” On the Nose
“We Need New Jewish institutions,” Arielle Angel, Jewish Currents
Transcript forthcoming.